A wicked web he weaves

A hard-bitten, troubled, semi-alcoholic cop who thinks little of bending the rules to his benefit? So far, so cliched - but then Ian Rankin is arguably the best in the business, Rebus is a cut above your average ethically compromised copper and 2002's Resurrection Men is ample illustration of both.

For starters, take the intricate plotting. The dots seem innumerable, and how to connect them to form any kind of pattern appears impossible, until Rankin stealthily dripfeeds new information and Rebus' well-oiled cogs start to click into gear. And then there's the dialogue - snappy, razor sharp, zinging back and forth between close confidants and mutually wary adversaries alike.

In Rebus' world, there are no goodies and baddies, no us and them, no black and white; on the contrary, there's just an expansive grey area in which the events play out. It's a world characterised by subterfuge, power dynamics, tangled loyalties and the significance of earning and betraying trust - and all within the police force, let alone outside it. It's a man's world, too - a toxic environment in which women are unable to show any signs of weakness and have to behave badly to get ahead.

Ultimately, Resurrection Men underlines that old adage that knowledge is power. What you know can be a more dangerous weapon than a gun or a knife, and knowing whether or not to reveal it (and when) is critical.

This being a Rankin novel, he can't help but sprinkle/shoehorn in a few music references, though the jokes about Mogwai and Cocteau Twins are good enough to justify their inclusion.

I finished the book wondering whether anyone has been foolhardy enough to try a drinking game in which you match Rebus tipple for tipple - and if so, whether they've lived to tell the tale.

"I feel like I'm contributing"

Sleaford Mods frontman Jason Williamson may not be appearing on the next series of Strictly - contrary to what I was led to believe yesterday, as an April Fools' Day prank. But he has been performing in public on a different type of stage to the ones he's used to - as a volunteer at a drop-in homeless centre in West Bridgford, where he now lives.

Credit to Williamson for acknowledging that sounding off on record - however forcefully - isn't enough, and deciding to roll his sleeves up and get his hands dirty in his local community. It is, he suggests, a way of making a positive contribution and banishing feelings of impotence in the face of overwhelming difficulties and injustices - and, as a self-confessed former drug addict, he can relate to those he's helping.

Given that Williamson's role is in the kitchen, I'd be interested to know if his alter ego Baking Daddy has put in an appearance yet...

Power trip

If Deafheaven's Infinite Granite seemed to signify a bold step in a new direction, then its successor Lonely People With Power - released last Friday - is an ambitious attempt to represent and encapsulate all facets of their previous work in a single album.

Buzz review here.

Irregular John

John Reis' new album, released under the name Swami John Reis, is called Time To Let You Down - the irony being that, over a music career that has spanned approaching 40 years, he's never come close to letting anyone down.

Speaking about that career to the Guardian's Stevie Chick, he describes Rocket From The Crypt - his rock-'n'-roll-influenced punk outfit, complete with brass section - as "the most fun band ever. When we were playing, that was the place on planet Earth you had to be that night." I can very much vouch for that, having first caught them at Reading '96 and then witnessing their stupendously thrilling showmanship at the Riverside in Newcastle about a month later - ridiculously, my first ever proper gig.

Our paths crossed again at Glastonbury '98 (where they thrilled before the torrential rain really set in) and in Nottingham, but for some reason it wasn't until about 15 years ago that I discovered Hot Snakes, Reis' third project with his long-time buddy the late Rick Froberg, not long before seeing them play on the Les Savy Fav-curated day at ATP. Live album Thunder Down Under is exceptional, the songs outshining their studio versions in the same way that tracks recorded for KEXP sessions almost invariably do.

"We are all disaster survivors now"

There's something jarring about people talking about COVID-19 in the past tense. "COVID times" are actually ongoing - not only because variants of the virus are still doing the rounds and the debilitating effects of long COVID are endured by many, but also because the wider social, economic, political and psychological impacts of the pandemic will be felt for decades.

Those impacts are perhaps most concerning with respect to children, as this recent Guardian article underlines. For some people, lockdown may have been about bingeing boxsets and baking banana bread - but for the young, it has caused enormous damage, the scale of which is only likely to become truly apparent in years to come.

Missed developmental milestones, plummeting school attendances, increased screen time and device dependence, a surge in support for populist politics, "a 'tsunami' of mental health problems" - all of which are exacerbating existing inequalities while being themselves being exacerbated by the economic consequences of the pandemic.

It's incredibly hard to know where to start in tackling these issues - but I'd suggest that we might begin by actually acknowledging them (and the collective trauma that COVID has caused) and accepting that substantial targeted effort and investment is needed, rather than dismissively blundering on in the belief that a return to business as usual is best.

Long division

Some photographers wield their cameras as weapons against injustice. For Ernest Cole, showing the world what life was really like in apartheid-era South Africa came at a significant personal cost: permanent exile from the country of his birth.

Raoul Peck's superb documentary Ernest Cole: Lost And Found traces the trajectory of his career and showcases his work in a way that ought to help bring him the credit he was denied in life.

Buzz review here.

Flying solo

When legendary (in the right circles) US-based post-punk/post-rock guitarist David Grubbs is visiting Cardiff for the first time to play a set a mere ten-minute walk from your front door, it'd be rude not to go along - especially given the inclusion of two other acts/talking points on the bill, all for the cost of your average pint. Hats off to Chapter for making it happen.

Buzz review here.

New Noise

As a comparison of the two albums' covers might suggest, Benefits' debut Nails was very much black and white - or black and grey, at least - whereas on its follow-up Constant Noise, released on Friday, they've introduced some colour to their palette. The rage is still there, bubbling away, but is mediated and modulated rather than given such ferocious expression.

Buzz review here.

Bluming marvellous

Few musicians can have had as unlikely career trajectories as Daniel Blumberg: from member of indie also-rans Cajun Dance Party and Yuck while still in his teens, to Oscar winner in his mid-30s.

Guardian journalist (and family friend) Simon Hattenstone has spoken to the man who "has spent his career walking away from mainstream success" only to land the Academy Award for Best Original Score (for The Brutalist) - an incongruity underlined by the photo of Blumberg and his Oscar sat at a table in his miniscule Hackney flat.

While I can't comment on the soundtrack to The Brutalist, I can say that hopefully its victory will fire wider interest in his solo albums, among which On&On is a gem.

Turtle delight

When Alan Sparhawk played in Cardiff last November, I particularly sang the praises of some of the "as-yet-unrecorded material". As it turns out, the songs I singled out as special - Princess Road Surgery, Screaming Song and Don't Take Your Light - had already been recorded, a year earlier with Minnesotan folkies Trampled By Turtles. That trio (and more) will be on the album With Trampled By Turtles, out at the end of May.

As good - and as necessary - as White Roses, My God was, it's a relief to learn that Sparhawk hasn't totally abandoned or lost faith in the strength of his own unfiltered voice.

Pay to play

There are many reasons to love Los Campesinos!, and one of them is their refreshing transparency about the realities of being in a band. Take this blog post, for example, in which Gareth offers a candid insight into the economics of their recent gig in Dublin - their first show outside the UK, the US and Canada since 2014.

For anyone inclined to grumble at the steadily rising cost of gig tickets and bemoan artists' reluctance to tour extensively, it's an eye-opening read. The alarming reality is that a band of their stature can sell out a 520-capacity venue in around two hours, at 25 euros a ticket, and yet still end up making a loss of over £1,700.

Perhaps most staggering is the fact that the venue, the Button Factory, charged £2,500 (up from the standard £1,000) because LC! insisted on the gig being 14+, to compensate for the (presumed) lack of bar takings. It would be interesting to know how many under 18s were in attendance - but massive credit to the band for sticking by their principles, even at considerable personal cost. Ultimately, as Gareth argues, "[i]f we want kids to be excited about live music, why would we want to exclude them at an age where they're developing these interests?" In a climate of declining attendances and closing venues, this is very much an attitude to be commended.

The breakdown of earnings and costs is also revealing in terms of the value of merch sales and the financial and administrative burden of the red tape imposed after Brexit.

Gareth acknowledges that LC! are seven strong, with three crew members, and that there are certain things that they won't scrimp on - but the fact that they have no manager on the payroll and marketing costs were zero and yet they still ended up in the red really underlines quite how tough the current climate is.

Game on

For anyone wondering how Geoff Barrow was going to keep himself busy after quitting Beak>, here's your answer: by following in Warp's footsteps and launching a film division of his record label. (No doubt he's bristling at being described as "Portishead co-founder" - sorry, Geoff...)

Invada Films' debut offering will be Game, which is "set against the backdrop of the 1990s rave culture where two men - one a thief and one a poacher - must use their wits to survive". It sounds like the perfect project for Sleaford Mods' Jason Williamson, who co-stars with Marc Bessant.

"A way of seeing"

Martin Parr is a polarising figure - but love him or loathe him, I don't think you can deny that our highest-profile documentary photographer is a worthy subject for a film. Director Lee Shulman may be an avowed fan, but thankfully he remains savvy enough to prevent I Am Martin Parr from becoming merely a fawning tribute.

Buzz review here.

Shorts and sweet

The righteous force of nature that is Andrew Falkous of Mclusky and Future Of The Left is of the opinion that no band should have more than one member wearing shorts on stage at any one time. A sentiment I'd wholeheartedly endorse - but when it comes to the Norwegian joy bomb that is Pom Poko (three-quarters of whom were be-shorted at their gig at Clwb on Friday night), I think allowances have to be made.

Buzz review here.

In memoriam

Very welcome news from Northumberland: Mik Critchlow's work is to be held at the Woodhorn Museum. Over the course of more than four decades, the photographer documented life in the coalfield community that he and his family called home, chronicling in particular the changes brought about (and devastation wreaked) by pit closures. The long-running project culminated in the wonderful Coal Town exhibition at the Museum in 2021, two years before his death. I can't wait to visit the new permanent exhibition, which opens in May.

On a related note, hats off to Sam Fender for giving the pictures of another North Eastern photographer greater exposure. His latest record People Watching features images taken by Tish Murtha, who he described as an "absolute legend": "It's an honour to be able to use her art to help tell the story of the album." As ever, though, it's bittersweet - Murtha having not lived long enough to witness her work finding its rightful acclaim.

Growing pains

For publishers, explicitly drawing parallels with a runaway bestseller in the blurb for your latest novel is a calculated risk. On the one hand, it can act as a helpful signpost, attracting the attention of a much larger readership than it might otherwise have had; on the other, it can have the whiff of desperate bandwagon jumping, and set the book up for a fall if (as is likely) the comparison proves to be more of an unflattering contrast.

I can’t comment on whether Cold Grace is indeed “for readers of Where The Crawdads Sing”, having not read Delia Owens’ book – but I can appraise Meredith Miller’s fourth novel (and second for Welsh imprint Honno) on its own terms. And indeed I have, for Buzz, here.

Bear: necessity?

There's no doubting - for me, at least - the quality of Panda Bear's new album Sinister Grift. What remains a concern, however, is whether it will translate successfully live, at Green Man - or whether the performance will be an awful echo of the horrible shambles that was Animal Collective at Glastonbury 2009...

Buzz review here.

Dark matter

Crude and uncharitable though it may be to say it, but, as was the case with their previous outings, The Murder Capital's latest album Blindness would sound markedly better if Fontaines DC didn't already exist. Not a record to deliberately avoid, by any means, but one that only really impresses when it offers deviation from the norm.

Buzz review here.

For research purposes

You've heard of Pablo Escobar's cocaine hippos (or at least you should have) - but what about "Timothy Leary's psychedelic guinea pigs"?

The fact that the guinea pigs in question were Al Jourgensen of Ministry and Gibby Haynes of Butthole Surfers explains a lot. Their residence with Leary was short lived - especially for Haynes, following an unfortunate drunken micturation incident...

Selling points

Simon & Schuster's decision to no longer require authors to get blurbs for their books has stimulated quite a bit of debate, and I must admit to being somewhat on the fence.

On the one hand, I appreciate that this takes some of the pressure off authors - especially those being published for the first time, who feel the need to prove their worth - and that the current practice can seem emblematic of (in the words of Simon & Schuster's Sean Manning) "an incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem that often rewards connections over talent".

On the other, as a reader, I'm much more likely to pick up a book that has been enthusiastically endorsed by a writer whose own work I love than if the only promotional copy has been penned by a member of the publisher's in-house marketing team. I dread to think how much I might have missed out on if I hadn't been tipped off by someone whose opinion I respect. Algorithms be damned; personal recommendations remain the best way of discovering new art, books or otherwise.

"I've listened back to that and wondered what we were thinking"

End Of The Middle is a special album, no doubt - but it's far from the first time that Rich(ard) Dawson has released a dazzling record. Here he talks to JR Moores for Bandcamp about its predecessors, from 2011 debut-of-sorts The Magic Bridge, to 2022's The Ruby Cord and its 41-minute-long beast of an opener, The Hermit.

The good food guide

Jay Rayner decided to dedicate his final Observer Food Monthly column to the key points of the previous 180 - and it's hard to disagree with any of them, whether that's that the practice of tipping should be abolished, that "[w]aiters should always write down orders" or that "food should always, always be served on plates".

"Gravy stains down your shirt are not a source of embarrassment; they are a badge of honour." Amen!

"The kitchen knives in holiday rentals are always terrible; take your own." My mum's not the only person nodding in agreement.

"Most dishes can be improved with the addition of bacon"? Objection, your honour! I can only assume that by "most" he means "all".

The art of the review

What makes for a good album review?

One that, when you listen to the record in question, has you excitedly and repeatedly exclaiming of the reviewer "Yes, they absolutely nailed it!"?

Undoubtedly, yes.

One that helps you to understand a set of songs that, until that point, seem to have made no sense at all, and enables a newfound appreciation of what you're listening to?

Absolutely (and I'm thankful to this sort of review on a regular basis).

Or one that is so compelling that you feel the urge to listen to the album the moment you've finished reading, or indeed before you've finished, regardless of whether you have any prior knowledge of the artist?

Rarer, perhaps, but no less precious.

Emma Garland's Quietus review of Ethel Cain's new LP Perverts falls into the latter camp. It more than piqued my interest; it made me want to stop what I was doing that instant and experience for myself what she was writing about.

The reality is that, in spite of high hopes, I took an almost immediate and visceral disliking to Perverts as pretentious, directionless nonsense.

But this isn't to bemoan Garland's review - not least because she pre-empts just such a reaction to the record, making no bones about the fact that it's "a boundary-pushing work that, depending on the listener, could be considered either powerfully engrossing or deeply alienating".

On the contrary, it's to say that such pieces make the case for music writing being considered an art form in its own right. Personally, at least, I don't feel cheated at the album having been oversold, just as I wasn't overly upset to discover that some (or indeed many) of the records described so enthusiastically and engagingly in books such as Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up And Start Again and Harry Sword's Monolithic Undertow fail to live up to their billing. Garland's review and Reynolds and Sword's books are all testament to the capacity that music has to stir the intellect and the emotions - and the power that the written word can have, in the right hands.

Much ado about nothing

Admittedly, a Clwb triple bill headlined by noiserock supergroup The None and also featuring locals Obey Cobra and Beauty Parlour didn't make for a conventionally romantic Valentine's Day evening - but love was in the air all the same. 

Buzz review here.

Nouveau Rich

As a reviewer required to digest, rate and file copy on albums weeks and sometimes months in advance, it can be slightly daunting to have to nail your colours to the mast. Will your appraisal turn out to be wildly wide of the mark, or out of step with the consensus? (The Manics' Critical Thinking, for instance, seems to have been rather better received than I'd anticipated - not that that has changed my view on it much.)

With Richard Dawson's latest, there was no such anxiety; on the contrary, I was confident that I'd be just one of a chorus of writers singing its praises - and so it's proved.

While The Ruby Cord began with the remarkable 41-minute-long track 'The Hermit', End Of The Middle does the opposite trick: gradually gathering momentum until the last few tracks leave you breathless. It's further (entirely superfluous) proof that Dawson is a genuine one of a kind.

Buzz review here.

Honesty: the best policy?

Sadly, life being what it is, gone are the days of being able to binge watch major boxsets (I genuinely don't know how we found the time, or how any of my peers still do). So when a series comes along that is both weighty in subject matter, depth and richness but also relatively short and served up in easily consumable chunks, I'm inclined to take note.

The BBC's Mr Loverman - an eight-part adaptation of Bernadine Evaristo's novel of the same name, done and dusted in four hours - certainly fit the bill.

At the heart of the drama is Barrington Walker (Lennie James), a dapper dandy and cad in his 70s, a paterfamilias and pillar of his local community in London who just so happens to have been conducting a secretive gay affair with fellow Antiguan emigre Morris (Ariyon Bakare) for the last 50 years. The blue touchpaper is lit when Barry, having lived a lie for so long but aware he's entering his twilight years, decides it's finally time to come clean to those closest to him.

That means confessing to his long-suffering wife Carmel (Sharon D Clarke), who disapproves of his carousing and boozing and suspects extra-marital dalliances (albeit with women), and his two daughters. And it also means - in Morris' view, at least - taking a step towards being out and proud in public.

It turns out to be an even bigger challenge than Barry could have imagined, and he finds himself hamstrung by inertia and indecision. There are constant reminders of the homophobic prejudice of his cultural milieu that has caused him to conceal his true identity all these years. The illness and then death of Carmel's father back in Antigua puts the confession on ice, while his instinctive revulsion at Morris' suggestion of marriage - at odds with his free-spiritedness, as well as his desire to keep his homosexuality somewhat under wraps - threatens to fatally derail the affair.

What is remarkable is that - while the series cultivates sympathy for Barry as a man caught in an impasse, whose life is unravelling as he sinks into alcoholism - the other key protagonists are also fully rounded characters treated with generosity. Carmel might initially come across as sour and resentful, but she's been ground down by living in a loveless marriage for half a century - a marriage for which, it transpires, she has sacrificed her potential happiness by bringing a short-lived affair of her own to an abrupt halt. Morris knows the meaning of sacrifice too, having lost his wife and children and had to look on as his lover continued to have his cake and eat it.

Mr Loverman is a sensitive, superbly acted portrayal of a complex situation in which everybody is hurting - but a portrayal that is lightened by comic touches and Barry's wit and charm, and that ultimately stands as a celebration of the courage required to be authentically oneself.

"A direct assault on the historical record"

It's too blunt to claim that the camera never lies - perspective can be deceptive, after all - but Nate Gowdy's eyewitness images of the January 6 storming of the Capitol tell an infinitely more reliable truth than the narratives "recasting insurrection as resurrection" that have since emerged. Those narratives have been validated by Trump's pardons and the subsequent release of "J6 Patriots".

Little wonder that Gowdy is bewildered by what has transpired - and the fact that MAGA meatheads are now legitimately back in the building. As he wrote in a piece for Columbia Journalism Review, photojournalism may be a beleaguered profession but retains a vital role as a bulwark against revisionism and propaganda: "My photographs document a moment when democracy teetered, the nation's timeline itself an active crime scene. As newsrooms contract and misinformation swells, independent journalists stand at the breach - not just to preserve truths that others reject, but to ensure the past isn't rewritten to fit the present. The pardons don't just forgive, they endorse, transforming accountability into proof of persecution. Without our work, this chapter, too, will be lacquered in sepia and sold as heritage."

Star quality

Jay Rayner, once critical of Cardiff's food scene, has in recent years understandably updated his opinion - and his verdict isn't the only marker that things have changed. Last night it was revealed that Gorse has been awarded a Michelin Star - the first of any establishment in the capital.

Having paid Tom Waters' Pontcanna restaurant a lunchtime visit back in the summer, soon after it opened, I can vouch for the validity of the Michelin Guide inspector's comments - especially the reference to restraint and how "every composition [is] expertly balanced in a way that underscore[s] Waters' brilliant understanding of flavours".

I suspect a Michelin Star may attract more attention than a glowing Buzz review; whatever draws more people into sampling his cooking is to be welcomed.

A day in the lives

In many ways, I wish I'd read If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor's debut novel, before Reservoir 13, the book that first introduced me to McGregor's writing. If I had, then it would no doubt have blown me away, as it did many an astonished reviewer.

For McGregor, "remarkable things" are to be found everywhere; as in Reservoir 13, his focus is very much on the ostensibly mundane minutiae of life. Painting a portrait of a city street in masterful, sleek prose, he builds up a bigger picture of innumerable separate personal dramas - both joyous and painful - unfolding behind every front door.

In this instance, however, the narrator's bird's-eye view seems less sinister, obtrusive and voyeuristic, and the tragic events that animate the story come not at the beginning, gradually fading from view, but loom ever larger as the book moves towards its conclusion.

Nothing in this novel is more remarkable than the opening section, transcribing "the song of the city" at night in deceptively simple yet rapturous terms as it temporarily falls silent - though that's certainly not to say that what follows is a letdown. Far from it.

"A nouveau dish altogether"

Did everything really go to shit as soon as Fugazi went on indefinite hiatus in 2003? As my wife - a scientist - is fond of saying, it seems like a case of correlation rather than causation. But JR Moores is not one to shy away from a grand thesis (even a tongue-in-cheek one) - and who's to say he's not got a point?

Not that any excuse should be needed, but the documentary WE ARE FUGAZI FROM WASHINGTON D.C. has prompted him to pick one song from each Fugazi release for praise for a Quietus article - from the lyrically controversial 'Suggestion' to the wonderful 'Epic Problem' from swansong LP The Argument, via (among others) End Hits' 'Pink Frosty', which is "as if Fugazi were trying to deconstruct themselves back down into virtual silence".

I'm one of those for whom 1993's In On The Kill Taker is the "triumphant apex" - as good as what came after is - so I don't buy Moores' narrative that each album was an improvement on the last. But what's undeniable is that, unlike so many other artists, they never settled into comfortable complacency. Quite the opposite - they sought to escape the hardcore straitjacket and grew admirably more uncompromisingly ambitious with every release.

Which is part of why he's right to be fearful of a reformation. Commiserations/apologies to anyone who didn't see them first time around, but I hope they're never tempted to step back into the limelight.

A sentimental journey

A Real Pain is one of those films where not a great deal happens, and it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it's about, but it stays with you for days (indeed now a couple of weeks) after you've left the auditorium.

In a nutshell, two Jewish American cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) team up to travel to Poland, join a guided tour and visit the place where their late grandmother grew up, but end up finding out more about themselves and each other. Once bosom buddies, they've drifted apart - life inevitably driving a wedge between them - but are trying to reconnect as best they can.

It's an incongruous duo road movie of sorts, albeit with much greater depth, nuance and heart than staples of the genre might imply. Neither is it played purely for laughs - though it's frequently very funny (the statue posing scene in particular).

Eisenberg - also the writer and director - is excellent as the uptight, mildly neurotic David, but Culkin undoubtedly steals the show as the whirlwind/dynamo Benji. On first impressions charming, carefree and the life and soul of the party, he's unable to keep the mask on forever, inner troubles gnawing away at him to an extent that his cousin cannot comprehend, despite best efforts. Sometimes a shoulder to lean/cry on is all you can offer, but also all that is needed.

Chart failure

On Friday, Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite delightedly posted on Bluesky that his band's new album The Bad Fire had reached "#5 UK, #1 Scotland": "It's absolutely unreal seeing such support after all these years. It means the world. Thank you all so much."

Even allowing for the fact that its predecessor As The Love Continues hit the UK top spot in 2021, Braithwaite's words ring true; it's remarkable that a band as supposedly obtuse as Mogwai can find themselves chart toppers, especially for someone like myself who's been with them for nearly every step of the whole journey. His bewilderment and pride are quite understandable.

But, without wishing to trash the achievement entirely, there is a big caveat, and one that the BBC's Mark Savage hinted at in his recent interview feature with Braithwaite: As The Love Continues triumphed over Dua Lipa and Harry Styles for "one glorious week" four years ago (and The Bad Fire achieved similar success this January) because Mogwai were "aided by chart rules that place higher value on physical record sales over streams when calculating rankings" and so - as "a cult band with a fanbase that prizes vinyl - found the scales tipped in their favour".

In a recent article for the Guardian, Eamonn Forde was pointedly critical of these rules, turning his nose up at the "increasingly fusty scent of anachronism". He explained: "Streaming comprised around 85% of the total recorded music market last year, while physical sales made up 13%, and downloads the remainder. For all the hoopla about 'the vinyl revival' and the industry pointing to a CD renaissance around the corner, streaming effectively is the market - yet the album is the unit the industry persists on using to calculate success."

His point is crystal clear: "In 2025, trying to explain success in 'album' terms is archaic at best and desperately unfit for purpose at worst. It is taking the biggest part of the market and trying to explain it through the language of the smallest part."

Now, I'm no streaming evangelist; on the contrary, I'm as ardent a fan of the physical artefact as anyone (albeit CDs rather than vinyl), and retain a firm faith in the significance of the album as an artform, refusing to believe that it might be an endangered species, threatened by shortening attention spans and playlist culture.

But even I have to concede that when it comes to assessing success/sales, the status quo seems strangely and indeed unjustifiably skewed, and that Forde's conclusion is very hard to dispute: "[I]f the record business is to truly speak from the 21st century, it at least needs to establish a new and appropriate system of tabulation and stop reaching for the buckled abacus of yesterday."

Critical critique

I'm still a Manics fan and want to like their albums, I really do. So it doesn't give me any pleasure to report that their latest, Critical Thinking, is - if you do indeed think critically, seeing through sentiment, PR hokum and Wire's own track-by-track guide supplied to reviewers, which seems to relate to a record that exists only in his imagination - a real dud. Buzz review here.

Interestingly, the Guardian's Phil Mongredien has given a very similar characterisation of the album, though considerably more generous/charitable in his evaluation. "Growing older ... gracefully" is one way of putting it; "growing older boringly" is another.

Like the very fine 'The Secret He Had Missed' on predecessor The Ultra Vivid Lament, there's a track inspired by Welsh-born painter Gwen John - and more specifically by Sue Hubbard's poetic biography God's Little Artist, which Wire's wife bought at the recent exhibition of John's work held at Bath's Holborne Museum. Any opportunity to plug what is a marvellous little volume.

Going underground

When, towards the end of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad, one of the characters refers to "the secret beneath us", he's talking about the titular railroad - in actuality, a metaphorical term for the network of sympathisers and safe houses that enabled people to escape slavery in America's Deep South, but in Whitehead's fiction, in a brilliant magic realist conceit that caught me totally by surprise, a literal railroad facilitating escape and evasion.

By this late point in the book, however, it's clear that "the secret beneath us" has a double meaning; it also refers to the dark, brutal history on which supposedly civilised modern America is built. As has been noted earlier, "[t]his nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft and cruelty".

Drawing on the testimonies of real-life slaves, Whitehead pulls no punches in detailing the savagery of life on plantations. He captures in visceral terms the sadistic horrors of punishment, perhaps most shockingly in an instance of sexual torture and immolation performed before a largely indifferent well-to-do white audience apparently more interested in enjoying their host's hospitality.

Slaves are utterly dehumanised: "Every name an asset, breathing capital, profit made flesh." As a medical student and gravedigger's accomplice reflects, "when his classmates put their blades to a colored cadaver, they did more for the cause of colored advancement than the most high-minded abolitionist. In death the negro became a human being. Only then was he the white man's equal."

Whitehead is, however, careful to underline that the violence is not only perpetrated by white slaveowners and their minions against Black slaves. "Men start off good and then the world makes them mean" - and sure enough, some of the Black characters are complicit, aping the attitudes of their masters and seizing the opportunity to become oppressors rather than merely oppressed.

Whitehead's wonderful heroine Cora may be repeatedly victimised, but she steadfastly refuses to play the role of victim. Parentless, she grows up fierce and feisty, not afraid to take on injustice. Like her mother, Cora plucks up the courage and resolve to flee her plantation in Georgia, and the novel develops into a game of cat and mouse, her nemesis the dogged slavecatcher Ridgeway in hot pursuit across the country.

Along the way she finds herself, courtesy of supposedly enlightened folk in South Carolina, on display as a living exhibit at the Museum of Natural Wonders - a grimly ironic echo of the dehumanising objectification she has fled. Cora, characteristically, fights back: "She picked the weak links out from the crowd, the ones who broke under her gaze. The weak link - she liked the ring of it. To seek the imperfection in the chain that keeps you in bondage. Taken individually, the link was not much. But in concert with its fellows, a mighty iron that subjugated millions despite its weakness."

The Underground Railroad is a phenomenally powerful, deeply unsettling novel, but it's Cora's unbreakable spirit and defiant rejection of her lot that drives the reader to devour the pages. Even then, though, she cannot entirely escape her fate: "Cora thanked the Lord that her skin had never been burned in such a way. But we have all been branded even if you can't see it, inside if not without."

Fire brigade

It feels like an absolute age since my first exposure to the new Mogwai album, such are the requirements of reviewing deadlines and winter breaks. While I wouldn't say that The Bad Fire pushes the band in a bold new direction or is likely to win over hordes of sceptics and new fans, there's certainly enough novelty to capture and hold the interest of anyone who's been with them from the start.

Buzz review here.

Studio wizardry

I first came across David Wrench in his role as one half of the wonderfully weird pop duo Audiobooks, but it turns out that the man who looks like a wizard is actually more renowned as a producer/mixer with the magic touch.

Back in October, the Guardian's Daniel Dylan Wray spoke to him about a trajectory that's wound up with him working with Blur and Frank Ocean and along the way included cutting his teeth recording metal bands, immersion in the Welsh-language music scene, "a Nick Cave-esque solo album" and taking career advice from Julian Cope.

Bad Moon rising?

Two months since it suddenly shut down, Cardiff venue the Moon is back - well, sort of.

It's been rebranded as the New Moon, complete with a naff logo and even naffer slogan ("Making the DIFFerence"), and is promising to deliver "Motown, Soul, Old School Bangers and the best talent around!" That awful descriptor "urban" has been bandied about too.

Part of the charm of the Moon was that its doors were open to anything and everything. The glorious Cosmic Carnage all-dayers - and, for that matter, the folk nights - are clearly very much a thing of the past.

Such is the state of the live music scene in Cardiff that I'm loath to shit on anywhere new opening up - but this latest venture looks decidedly dubious.

Fatal attraction

First and foremost, it's worth stating that I'm not really a member of Nosferatu's core demographic, so the fact I found it very silly probably shouldn't count for that much - not least because when it comes to vampire movies, that pretty much goes with the territory.

For me, Robert Eggers' remake of the 1922 original is visually stunning (albeit CGI-enhanced, no doubt) but somewhat vacant. While the gore and soundtrack were effective, I found it hard to take seriously the voice that Bill Skarsgard gives to the titular wrong 'un. It's always good to see Ralph Ineson in action, though, and Simon McBurney puts in a sterling performance as Herr Knock.

Was the EastEnders-esque finale, with one chap walking in to find another man in bed with his wife, supposed to be so funny? Doubtful - and, as happy endings go, it's rather more unusual than most.

By the book

Last month I heard David Hurn talk about his then fresh-off-the-press photobook On Reading, a tribute to his hero Andre Kertesz. The Guardian have now published a selection of the images, taken around the world over the course of his long career, so you can get a flavour of its contents.

Heart on sleeve

If there's one thing that turned me off checking out Romance, the latest album by Fontaines DC - a band whose previous output I've enjoyed with steadily increasing enthusiasm - it was lead single 'Starburster'. If there was a second, it was the bizarre Korn-inspired makeover. If there was a third, it was the cover featuring the work of Taiwanese artist Lulu Lin. So it was bemusing and baffling to discover that Romance was named runner-up for the Best Art Vinyl award for 2024. What were the judges on?!

By contrast, the inclusion of Arab Strap, Sex Swing and Julia Holter in the list of nominees seemed rather more reasonable.

At the heart of things

Little wonder that Sam Dabb of Le Pub was so bullish in her comments to NME recently, claiming that Newport was "heading into another golden era". She knew that the venue she's been involved with for three decades was on the verge of being announced as the latest acquisition by Music Venue Properties (MVP), thus staving off acute financial pressures and safeguarding its future.

That Le Pub has joined the Bunkhouse in Swansea in MVP's portfolio shouldn't come as any real surprise. After all, as Mark Davyd of the Music Venue Trust has said, "Le Pub was one of the very first venues to join the Music Venues Alliance, and has been, for the last ten years, one of the most vocal and active campaigning voices about the importance of grassroots music venues to our communities, towns and cities". The security that ownership by MVP will bring seems like just desserts.

National treasure

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Michael Sheen has once again confirmed his status - in general, but especially in these parts - as an all-round good egg by announcing that he's spearheading the establishment of a new national theatre for Wales.

The Welsh National Theatre will step into the void left by the National Theatre Wales, which effectively went out of existence late last year after its Arts Council of Wales funding was slashed. While talk suggests that the NTW wasn't a particularly well-run organisation, and so the defunding wasn't entirely surprising, Sheen is undoubtedly right that there remains a pressing need for Welsh stories to be told on the stage in English.

Of course, funding will be key for Sheen's new enterprise too, but he has the profile, personality, drive and dynamism to attract financial backing. Initially, though, it's on him. He has previous form for dipping into his own pockets where necessary, covering much of the considerable cost of staging the Homeless World Cup in Cardiff in 2019 - and his passion and generosity are set to benefit Wales once again.

Shooting gallery

If you were a press photographer working in Palermo in the 1970s and 1980s, then it was an inevitability that you'd end up covering a lot of Mafia assassinations. It's fair to say that Letizia Battaglia's subject found her rather than vice versa. It's also fair to say that Life, Love And Death In Sicily, the retrospective of her work currently on display at the Photographers' Gallery, features more death than life or love.

On the one hand, Battaglia's pictures capture humanity's ugliness. She certainly couldn't be accused of glamorising the Mafia lifestyle, showing none of the prestige that can come with power and authority.

But on the other, the images are frequently beautiful, even in their depictions of blood pooling behind heads and the anguished faces of relatives and mourners. In one, a victim lies behind a parked car, looking like he's sleeping peacefully; in another, artfully displayed nearby, a group of women cluster around and watch over a dead Christ.

Children are a recurrent presence, perhaps most notably in 'The Little Girl And The Darkness', in which the titular girl is bathed in light while adults skulk barely visible in the shadows - innocence amid the murk.

There are kids in the streets playing at being killers, and the heavy gaze of a boy sitting beside his father's deathbed, the realisation of the weight of the world dawning on him. These are not the smiling carefree kids of Tish Murtha's work, but children whose youth is snuffed out prematurely by their circumstances, who have learned that resilience is required just to survive.

There's a film noir quality to the pictures, thanks to Battaglia's evidently instinctive understanding of light and dark. She may have been a photojournalist, but she was an artist too. Yet the aesthetic appeal of her images troubled her deeply, as it has many other photographers before and since. "I dreamed of burning my negatives", she says in a short video screened in the gallery, expressing disgust at her own work. "I want to take away the beauty that others see in them. I want to destroy them."

Battaglia saw photography as "a tool of denunciation and empowerment as well as documentation", and as a result she herself became a target; the exhibition also features a death threat sent as a dire warning. Ultimately, though, she took a grimly pessimistic view of the possibility of bringing about change: "Photography changes nothing. Violence continues, poverty continues."

Indeed they do, sadly - but a world without these stunning images would be a worse place.

The beat goes on

When Alex Deller interviewed David Yow and Duane Denison of The Jesus Lizard about last year's comeback album Rack, one of the details that caught my attention was Yow's admission that he'd been working with a personal trainer to ensure he could still deliver the goods on stage. Despite the fact that more bands than ever seem to be reuniting, and others soldier on into decades-long careers, there's very little discussion of the toll that touring and performing takes on the body, and of whether and how ageing members manage to meet the challenge.

It was interesting, then, to read this article by Michael Hann detailing the thoughts of Paul Cook (Sex Pistols), Rat Scabies (The Damned), Ian Paice (Deep Purple) and David Kendrick (Sparks/Devo/Xiu Xiu) on continuing to play that most physically demanding of instruments, the drums, into their later years.

On the one hand, there's a measure of frustration that while the mind is still willing, the flesh is increasingly weak - and a grudging acceptance that, even if you look after yourself, you need to adapt your playing style accordingly.

But on the other, the enforced change in approach may actually be productive, with Cook adopting a critical perspective on his contribution to Never Mind The Bollocks, and Scabies and Paice both discovering that restraint can sometimes add value.

Of course, for some drummers, it all becomes too much, or they acknowledge the need to relinquish the stool because they feel they can no longer do the songs justice. Credit to Iron Maiden's Nicko McBrain for bowing out with dignity. A few other veteran musicians could arguably take his lead.

"We're heading into another golden era"

Let's start the new year (belatedly) with a bit of positivity: this NME article about "Newport's resurgent music scene", written by my fellow Buzz contributor Tom Morgan.

Cynics might point to the way in which Sophie Williams' NME article of last year about Cardiff glibly overstated the health of that city's scene, drunk on Music City PR and failing to fully acknowledge the reality on the ground.

But the important difference along the M4 in Newport is that there venues are appearing rather than disappearing. Or, at least, the opening of the new 500-capacity Corn Exchange and the growing reputation of rough 'n' ready punk venue the Cab have bucked the general trend both in South Wales and elsewhere in the UK. I haven't yet been to either, but they are evidently welcome additions to Le Pub, which boasts a better beer selection than any of the principal venues in Cardiff (and is actually quicker and easier for me to get to than some, too).

Perhaps most importantly, the reported resurgence seems to have the firm backing of the city council, whose offer of financial support rather than merely fine words - in the form of cash from the Shared Prosperity Fund and rates relief - was vital in enabling the Corn Exchange to open. Other local authorities should take note.

In the vein of the proposed Sweaty Ceilings project in London, let's celebrate what we have now rather than only bemoaning what we've lost.

Critical critique

End-of-year-list season always brings welcome nudges/reminders to check out albums that have, for one reason or another, passed me by. And so it was that I finally got around to listening to Thurston Moore's latest.

I take no pleasure in what I'm about to say - the exact opposite, in fact, as a long-time Moore fanboy who has lapped up his post-Sonic Youth solo work almost as eagerly as his former band's output. But Flow Critical Lucidity is lame: pallid, unadventurous, unexciting. Harsh, perhaps, but it sounds like the work of someone who may - finally - be creatively spent. And I think we also have to grasp the nettle and acknowledge that he seems to have become the kind of drippy hippie his former self would have despised.

It's probably unfair on both parties, but I can't help but compare the album to Kim Gordon's The Collective, also released this year. The latter is not exactly an easy record to love, for SY fans like myself taken way out of our comfort zone - or at least not instantly. But there's no doubting it's bold and cutting edge - both attributes that could hardly be ascribed to the dreary, zero-thrills Flow Critical Lucidity.

Here's hoping, of course, that this is merely a temporary blip and that Moore soon rediscovers his mojo. In the meantime, I guess it just goes to show that even your heroes can let you down sometimes.

Boyz will be boyz

As previously mentioned, Ansh have very sadly now closed their doors. The (potentially) good news for burger fans in our corner of Cardiff is that the premises won't be vacant for long, as Burger Boyz are moving in, expanding from their current bases in Newport and Port Talbot.

I say "potentially" as I'm more than a little sceptical. Suspicions aroused by that name (and particularly the "z") are confirmed by the fact that - despite the claim that their burgers are "made to be savoured and enjoyed" - they set eating challenges, rewarding those who are successful with a place on their wall of fame, and there are Instagram images of inedibly tall burger stacks. Personally speaking, at least, all this Man v. Food macho cockwaving is a complete appetite suppressant.

Keeping the flame alive

It seems like a great idea: celebrating a diverse plethora of grassroots music venues, to counterbalance all of the doom-and-gloom reporting on challenges and closures. But sadly Sweaty Ceilings - a book project paying tribute to London's independent venues that will hopefully feature the Quietus' John Doran among its contributors and help to raise funds for the wonderful work of the Music Venue Trust - has failed to hit its crowdfunding target.

All is not lost, though. The organisers have said that they "are exploring alternative funding options, including applying for Arts Council funding", which would require them "to secure 10% of the total from other sources". Fingers crossed it comes off - a bit of positivity is desperately needed in these dark times.

"Decaying kingdom"

It is - as advertised - a long read, but Mark Blacklock's Guardian piece on the Samuel Smith Old Brewery pub empire really is as good as everyone has said online. That it was evidently carefully worded and meticulously researched is entirely understandable, given chairman Humphrey Smith's penchant for litigation.

Blacklock's article is a jaw-dropping tale of bizarre business practices, puritanical rules (no swearing, no digital devices), heavy-handed interventions in local planning issues and an extensive portfolio of properties that are perversely being allowed to fall into ruin.

On the one hand, I've always enjoyed Samuel Smith beers (especially the Organic Lager). Back in the day, one of their pubs near Old Street in London became a regular haunt on visits to London by virtue of permitting city-centre meet-ups that didn't break the bank, and I like the Waterguard in Cardiff, though haven't been in for a few years. It's also worth saying that there's sometimes something to be said for pubs without music, and the other rules - ridiculously draconian though they are - are not rigidly or uniformly enforced. (If they were, my phone-obsessed friend wouldn't have lasted more than two minutes in Ye Olde Murenger House in Newport last year.)

Yet the facts set out by Blacklock - especially the treatment of landlords and the apparent willingness to let historical building become derelict - are more than enough to make a boycott of the company's pubs seem like the only reasonable reaction.

Art and accessibility

To mark the tenth anniversary of the opening of the fantastic and feisty Workers in Ynyshir, Shaun Thomas of Bylines Cymru spoke to Gayle Rogers and Chris Williams about the gallery's past, present and future.

As he reports, the Workers was "born out of protest" and owes its survival to commitment and hard work. That pugnacious tenacity has been essential in the face of perennial funding challenges and an enormously frustrating lack of support from Arts Council Wales. In that respect, its spirit of fierce independence is partly enforced.

But the Workers is also posing challenges of its own. What is particularly inspiring about the work that Gayle and Chris do is that the focus is always on accessibility and on creating energising connections with the local community: "We're challenging the 'is art for me' narrative. People may think art doesn't happen here, but we're here, actively bringing art to people's doorsteps." (On that note, it's good to hear that more Art Box Tours are planned, following the blueprint established by the mobile exhibition of David Hurn's work in 2020.)

Gayle adds: "I guess that's quite a political thing to say - art is for everyone and this space is for everyone." Of course, it shouldn't be political - yet it is, in a cost-of-living crisis, when artists are painted as mere hobbyists and the creative industries are a closed shop to an increasing number of people. Depressing, certainly - but all the more reason to celebrate individuals, organisations and institutions that are doing their utmost to buck the trend. As Thomas observes, spaces such as the Workers "give people hope and build community in innovative ways, despite the challenges they face".