liammenzies

When it comes to debut albums, “brevity” isn’t a word I find myself using very often. I’m not gonna paint all musicians with the same brush but it’s not often I come across an act’s first LP where it lasts less than 30 minutes, the editing process not being quite refined so early on in their career.

That isn’t the case with Jeromes Dream. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief when I first read that run-time, assuming I was in a hazy state from just waking up - ... read more

I hate every single one of you.

Okay, well not actually but you all should have bullied me better than you did to get me to listen to Rain Dogs. Granted I should blame myself first and foremost, always putting off Tom Waits and telling myself that I’ll get around to it, like a child saying he’ll finish his chores every five-minute interval. One the opening seconds to Singapore blessed my ears, however, I had a grin stretching from ear to ear, as if something had been slipped into ... read more

It’s great looking back at the year you were born to get a taste for the musical landscape at the time - to know the kind of songs and albums that would herald your arrival. Vain? Perhaps but to me it’s like music astrology, using seemingly superfluous things like dates to add some exciting context.

1996, the year yours truly came onto the scene and the albums that came out around the time feel deathly on brand; fellow Scots Belle & Sebastian dropped their magnum opus If ... read more

When it came to this MWE, one of my main aims was to fill in my music blanks across all decades. Whether that was listening to some essential records from the ’70s that I hadn’t scratched the surface of or genre-defining albums like Relationship of Command, I think I’ve done a good job of looking way back.

I kept my finger on the pulse when it comes to the 2010s, but there have always been some interesting albums that a challenge of this nature gave me an excuse to finally ... read more