A genuinely wild an insane ride, this does indeed recall Tom Waits in a way, although the dated 80s synth presets and all the heavily orchestral influences do make it eccentric in another way. Less balladeering here, more so just pure chaos being unleashed. Tom Waits would've serenaded you at one point, Foetus apparently just wants to destroy you.

Highlights for me were in particular The Throne Of Agony, Descent Into The Inferno and Enter The Exterminator. Especially the run from Descent ... read more

Paul Carrack has proven himself as a musician and singer especially a lot over the years. Why this solo record from 1987 therefore decided to give him a lot of overproduced 'fashionable' synthpop is beyond me. You don't get to let him use one of his key strengths as an artist here, an absolutely terrible shame.

It's not to say that One Good Reason doesn't have good songs, but there's indeed only a handful of good reasons why you should give this record a listen. ... read more

JB Meijers is a Dutch rock musician with a very respected status. I've known about him and some of his work for a while, but after a matinee show today checked out his most recent record, released just 3 weeks back. Absolute banger album if i may say so at that. Great guitar work, cool harmonies, very nice hard rock edge to it. The main two highlights for me are Where Time Dissolves and Crescendo's Wake, but there's far more cool stuff to find, such as Forgotten By Rock 'N ... read more

The last Cherry Ghost album (to date) is another beautifully orchestrated and gentle affair. Simon Aldred once again threw out some really good lyrics and singing here and his songwriting is peak too. It does for me personally lack something that Beneath This Burning Shoreline had a lot of appeal from, which is the more dark atmosphere. I loved that a lot and over here it's largely melancholy, which tbf works as well. Just not to the same extent it appears. Still though, Herd Runners is a ... read more

A pretty solid new wave album, Squeeze clearly seemed to like making Tempted because the soul influences stay. Essentially sophisti-pop before that name became really a thing throughout the decade can be found here and there. Sometimes, the band's style reminds me a little of Split Enz and/or Terry Hall's first solo album. That's very positive comparisons though if you ask me, as i like both a lot. My personal favourites here were Point Of View, Stranger Than The Stranger On The ... read more

Although Metro Music started off really good with Echo Beach, Paint By Number Heart and Saigon, it turned out that those for me were also the top 3 tracks on the record. You do get two other rather good song with Hide And Seek and Sinking Land, but overall, this is sort of where it ends for the album. The rest is okay, but best off as background music.

Not sure if there was any crack put into this album directly, but i didn't expect to like a punk record this much. It's not always my type of thing musically, but the overall energy and vibe of this just really clicked with me for some reason here. It's a thoroughly fun listen, especially for highlights like From The Heart, Kleenex, Day By Day and The Invisible Man. Shoutout to the chaotic outro of Youth Youth Youth as well, that was really cool.

Ruefrex were a Northern Irish band that began as punk, disbanded and then reformed in the 80s. They released just one album (hint: it is this one!), which wasn't as punk in sound anymore, but still a very nice post-punk/new wave record. It features some absolute highlights such as The Wild Colonial Boy, In The Traps, Correct Your Fireside Manner/The Sources And The Energies (essentially one whole track on the album, so only appropriate to name them as one) and Paid In Kind. If you're ... read more

Medium Medium's only album is an intriguing record, branding post-punk with a lot of funk influences. At times, such as during That Haiku, they also just straight up decide to go for a clusterfuck of a jam with an unnerving experimental atmosphere. It makes for an intriguing listen, but not necessarily one of my favourites. I must praise Hungry So Angry and Mice Or Monsters though, great songs if you ask me.

An ambitious and long album saw The Damned move away a bit more from punk. Sure, it's still there, look at Lively Arts and Sick Of This And That for example. However, their more goth and post-punk sound also begins to emerge, on songs like Wait For The Blackout, History Of The World and the epic closer Curtain Call. It's a transition album, but what an album it is.

Lene Lovich arrives here like a sort of goth Kate Bush and somehow, that clicks with me more than pretty much all Kate Bush i've heard in my life. The weird off beat vibe this album has at times is absolutely fascinating especially. A good example is closing track The Freeze or You Can't Kill Me, both absolute highlights. Others include Bird Song and Egghead.

For a covers album, the band manage to still do something neat with it. Their own twist on some of these songs does really elevate them and sees the band make them their own. As you probably should, when attempting something like this. Highlights for me include This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us and Hall Of Mirrors mostly

Laughter, Tears And Rage is the only album by the duo of Act, which consisted of Thomas Leer and Claudia Brücken (from Propagamda). This album won't make you feel laughter, tears nor rage (okay, maybe some rage given a few of the songs do have dated sounding synths), but despite that, it is a very good and fun listen still. Of course the absolute highlight is Snobbery & Decay, an amazing synthpop track with some very cool and more surprising elements to it. Other highlights for me ... read more

The Doll By Doll self-titled album would be one of their last in fact, as the 5th album never got released. Thanks Spotify bio for teasing me about lost media. Anyway, this album is a nice mix of new wave with some seemingly more psychedelic rock influences and it's a very nice and pleasant vibe. Jackie Leven's got a voice that really fits the music and the only thing preventing me from rating it higher are a few songs i'm not that fond of. Still though, Caritas, The Perfect ... read more

Juju the other day replaced Hyaena as my favourite Siouxsie And The Banshees album after i relistened it. The absolute total manic onslaught that eventually sets in for the largely second half of the album is an absolute joy to experience. Of course, it kinda starts with Spellbound already (amazing track), but when later you also get Halloween, Monitor and Head Cut as other highlights, it's impossible for me to not admire the total atmosphere of the beast itself.

The Art Of Noise's debut is a possibly groundbreeaking release for the 80s, with a lot of creative use of sampling and synths. In that sense, i do truly admire this album: Trevor Horn and co managed to truly push some boundaries here at the time and it'clear it resonated with people and was an influential release. For me however, it remains nothing but a fun experiment i won't really be returning to. It's a fascinating concept and sound, but also not enough really happens to ... read more

Any Trouble's debut is a nice new wave record, very reminiscent of the styles of Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson. It's not a b-tier rip off of those though, just far more inconistent than the best work by either of the aforementioned solo artists. Maybe it's just the spell wearing off a little, but the first half is very good and then the second one has only like half of the amount of true highlights.

But again, that's not to say this is a bad album in the slightest. 2nd ... read more

Although it's not his best or most consistent listen, Young Americans is still one of the best Bowie albums you could turn to when wanting to hear one of his best in general. The soul and funk influences sound here is a surprisingly good fit and Fame an Young Americans as title track are amazing. And while he's at it, he also does some neat covers, such as Across The Universe.

Zee was a one-off thing between Dave Harris from Fasion and Richard Wright from Pink Floyd. They made a rather fun synth record together, that at times is a little boring, a little dated, but almost consistently very charming. Especially nice are Private Person and Seems We Were Dreaming.

Volume One is an absolute scam of a title, because as it turns one, there never was gonna be a Volume Two. The Honeydrippers is the one-off collaboration of Robert Plant with Jeff Beck and former bandmate Jimmy Page, to create a very 50s and 60s retro sound EP in the 80s. The result is at times a bit boring, especially with Rockin' At Midnight overdoing it a bit by having such a long outro and being 6 minutes long. I'm all for long songs, but it has just little variation to offer. ... read more