Neon

Uncut reports from day two of Brighton's new music festival

Uncut reports from Brighton's Great Escape opening night

“I can’t for the life of me understand how 50-year-old rock critics can pretend to like Babyshambles,” thunders Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy in the current issue of Uncut.

Very quick post today, because the Uncut move has become rather pressing here . But a few things that you might be interested in. Firstly, the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack turned up this morning.

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.

Inarritu's fractured story stlye finds it's ultimate expression

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".

Clammy electro-sleaze from Vancouver wild card

Coppola's love-in-Las Vegas musical fantasy is ripe for reappraisal