ALBUM REVIEWS
The Vaccines – Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations Review by Hannah Roberts
For a record about feelings of loss, Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations is a pretty fun and upbeat LP. This comes as no surprise, however, given the Vaccines’ reputation for creating catchy pop rock tunes with gripping guitar riffs. The album kickstarts with the euphoric-sounding Sometimes. One of the standout tracks is Sunkissed, a classic Vaccines song about love and being “tangled in the bedsheets”. This is one of the happiest tunes on the album, but some of the others, such as Primitive Man, speak to feelings of loneliness and loss, while also remaining jubilant with explosive hooks and melodies that make you want to dance. It makes sense that the band has been called “euphoric and melancholic in equal measure” by new lead guitarist Timothy Lanham.
Sprints – Letter to Self Review by Matthew George
Dublin garage punks Sprints hit the ground running in 2024 with their debut album. One of the best live bands to emerge in the past few years, the four-piece channel their onstage energy and excitement with the 11 tracks clocking in at less than 40 minutes. Opener Ticking starts with ominous drums, urgent trebly guitar kicks in and singer Karla Chubb asks “maybe I should do it better” as the track accelerates into full-on rush. Shaking Their Heads is quieter, the lyrics reflecting the tedium of a hated job. Letter to Self’s references include PJ Harvey and Bauhaus as well as indie punk and garage. The lyrics often concern anxiety and trauma but on the final and title track Chubb moves from spoken word to a scream, ending on a positive note – “Any habit can be broken, any night can become day.”
Marika Hackman – Big Sigh Review by Tom White
Hackman bares her soul as never before on this fourth studio album – with love lost, found and made competing for attention with the demons haunting the ascent into her 30s. Opener The Ground sets the mood before No Caffeine kicks a tense, moody album into gear, unflinchingly laying out Hackman’s recourse for dealing with anxiety attacks. The title track builds to a crashing swell of emotion and there is little let-up thereafter, save for the gorgeous piano interlude of The Lonely House. The stand-out Hanging is an appropriately suffocating send-off to a former lover who “said I’m a disease, and how you’d like to kill me in your dreams”. There is still room, though, for a throwback piece of filth in the form of Slime (“Show me round your garden of slime/ And I’ll show you mine”).
Bill Ryder-Jones – Iechyd Da Review by Duncan Seaman
Bill Ryder-Jones has made an early contender for album of the year with this, his fifth solo record since leaving The Coral in 2008. A brilliantly varied collection of songs that in places have shades of Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Mercury Rev, Spiritualized, Elliott Smith, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and even his former Wirral collective, Iechyd Da is an album that dares to dream in colours – even, during We Don’t Need Them, throwing a children’s choir into the mix, while in ...And The Sea… Mick Head, of Merseyside legends the Pale Fountains and Shack, reads an extract from James Joyce’s Ulysees. This Can’t Go On is powered by a stirring string arrangement and references Echo and the Bunnymen, Nothing to Be Done pairs a resigned lyric to a beautiful tune, and Thankfully For Anthony is an elegant come-down.