Silent Words Speak Loudest

It's no slight on the calibre of the company that Bill Ryder-Jones keeps, but the opportunity to see him perform solo in a church barely...

1. 'Staring At The Sun' - Straw Man Army In among the band's intriguing selection of (predominantly) jazz and electronica for th...

It often takes me a while to warm to a new album and stop comparing it unfavourably to what has gone before, but from first listen it was ab...

As their name would imply, The Twilight Sad have never been the cheeriest of bands, but It's The Long Goodbye is bleak even by their st...

Nearly a week on and I'm still smarting from the derby defeat. But at least some good came from the day, in the form of this stunning se...

Having thoroughly enjoyed Keith Cameron's mighty tome 168 Songs Of Hatred And Failure: A History Of Manic Street Preachers last year (y...

The fourth volume of Alan Bennett's diaries, Enough Said , is (not unsurprisingly) a delight - full of amusing observations on life, aci...

Like Mclusky , Bristol stoners The Heads have been away for two decades, during which time their reputation has only grown. Thankfully, new ...

Ben Benton's book  All You Can Eat is certainly not without its flaws and irritations, but I agree with his overall argument that ...

We'd got used to a long wait for new Mclusky material - nearly 20 years, in fact - but now Andrew Falkous and co have popped, it seems t...

With all the gloom surrounding grassroots gig venues these days, it was heartening to read the remarkable story of Minsthorpe High School in...

I alluded to it at the time , but I found the snapshot of August Sander's monumental photographic series  People Of The Twentieth Centur...

Three albums into a solo career that didn't begin in earnest until she was 66, alt rock icon Kim Gordon continues to astonish with a pro...

1. 'You Let My Tyres Down' - Tropical Fuck Storm I'll occasionally go a few weeks without watching this KEXP performance. More f...

If you were reading an article in a copy of NME in the 1990s, there's a good chance the accompanying images were taken by staff photogra...

Like many in Wales and indeed further afield, I've found myself seduced by the effervescence and exuberance of Melin Melyn's live pe...

Bands and artists inevitably hog the limelight when it comes to music coverage, but it's worth remembering they never exist in total iso...

I've written before about photographer Gordon Parks' celebrated series on segregation in the American South, but this Guardian arti...

If Fugazi were going to spring a major surprise, it was never going to be a comeback tour. But we've got the next best thing: a Bandcamp...

Artists and bands often like to talk about establishing a DIY culture, but rarely is it quite so evident as in the case of the Welsh reggae ...

My natural inclination is to give chain restaurants a wide berth, and my first and (to date) only Nando's - in Newport in September - pr...

1. 'Sicko!' - Mandy, Indiana feat. billy woods Both song and video deliver sensory overload. There's a lot to get your head roun...

If you want an insight into the trials and tribulations of being a mid-tier band in the current musical climate, Gareth David of Los Campesi...

As opening lines go, " We got a McDonald's the night my mam got lung cancer " hits hard. But Richard Milward's debut novel...

What better time to pay a long overdue first visit to the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol than for an exhibition celebrating the late phot...

Very few bands would be more suited to a place on the roster of a record label called Weird World than Hen Ogledd. New album Discombobulated...

This  Guardian   list of the " best songs inspired by literature " may have been prompted by the new film adaptation of Emily Bro...

It's very rare that the same story dominates the front pages of every single newspaper - and even rarer that they all carry the exact sa...

Admittedly, it's somewhat unfair to continually gauge a band's latest release against their finest achievement, especially when that...

I've never really been able to understand the impulse to remake films, and in the case of Threads it seems even more incomprehensible. ...

The 33 1/3 back catalogue is an extraordinary treasure trove: pocket-sized books dedicated to single albums, written by knowledgeable fans ...

Gary Barlow once sang of using " a million love songs " as a means of communicating his romantic feelings. I wonder whether he tri...

Mark Kermode was hardly likely to give Melania a rave review, but his utter evisceration of the entire hubristic shitshow is an absolute tr...

My first encounter with The Bug Club came in July 2022 , at a hometown (or thereabouts) show as they were gearing up to release debut album ...

Self-flagellation is nothing new for Don McCullin - but in a recent interview with the Observer 's Andrew Anthony , conducted to coinci...

I've often wondered (though not so much as to actually stop and count) the body count on Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' Murder Balla...

Right, after several years on hiatus, it's about time this regular feature was resurrected - not least because it's a helpful way fo...

Faced with the threat of eviction from our homes, most of us would put up a fight - but not many would decide to stage a remarkable rooftop ...

It being Independent Venue Week , the Quietus drew renewed attention to this 2024 piece by the site's co-founder Luke Turner , which tak...

Contemporary events, I accept, are such that none of us really need any more reason to be depressed - and yet George Monbiot's commentar...

Many an artist has struggled with the question of how to make art in the midst of atrocity - but at the present moment, with atrocity seemin...

It's little wonder that filmmaker Joel Coen struck up " an immediate rapport " with photographer Lee Friedlander . After all, ...

Thurston Moore is no stranger to evangelising about artists and genres, and sharing his recommendations. Who else would compile and publish ...

If  MTV Rewind got me in a nostalgic mood , then  this  Guardian  article about vintage crisp packet designs  maintained it. As an avowed cr...

Once upon a time, MTV was about music videos. Which is where MTV Rewind comes in - an incredible project that enables users to relive the e...

Never judge a book by its cover - wise words, the truth of which is underscored by I Saw A Man . At first glance, it might look like a commo...

It's a running joke in our house that I'm obsessed with covering the living room walls with depressing black-and-white photo prints....

I've written critically about AI recently , but it was also with a sense of despair and futility. It feels like the horse has bolted and...

For the past four summers, we've lent a hand to the archaeological dig that has been uncovering evidence of Cardiff's oldest house ....

Dry Cleaning's new LP Secret Love isn't the first album to be oversold/missold by its press release, and it won't be the last, ...