Seems my blog has been hijacked over the weekend by Steve Sutherland, who's clearly having the time of his life out at Coachella. Here's his second report, involving The Arcade Fire, Kings Of Leon, the mighty Roky Erickson and a few random Hollywood A-listers. God, it sounds great. . .
What I’ve been playing most recently has been Neon Bible, the second album from The Arcade Fire, the follow-up to Funeral and possibly one of the most keenly-anticipated albums of the year, for which great things are predicted and will probably happen.
After last year's disappointing Never Go Home, Brian Krumm's Illinois quartet seem to have rediscovered the last-gang-in-town swagger that made 2000's Damaged Goods such a riot. Guitars cranked up to 11, it's bulging roadhouse rock, with the added croak of Krumm's phlegmy Tom Waits-isms. But there's a leanness about these loser-through-a-shot-glass songs that suggests they've matured too, not least on the latter-day gunslinger ballad "November" and in the neon-splashed moodiness of "St Christopher Street".
