BEASTIE BOYS: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two.Eight albums down the line and they’re still beating up the airwaves like never before, but why can’t they have a sensible album title like most others? The rap’s hammered out with all the clout of a blacksmith’s hammer but they often opt for the distorted, the scratchy and the downright mutilated as they draw in aspects of synth, soul and rock. Every track’s got a hookline as large as a shepherd’s crook.
SIMON McBRIDE: Since Then.One for the guitar connoisseurs as the former Young Guitarist Of The Year can, quite rightly, be spoken of in the same breath as late great fellow Irish countrymen Phil Lynott and Gary Moore. From fast and really quite furious through to drawling blues and smoky rock, he plays like his guitar’s part of his body.
THE ROBOT HEART: The Robot Heart.If this Brighton band got any more fragile you’d have to wrap them up in cotton wool for safe-keeping. Pipsqueak pop that chugs along exceptionally melancholy at times and when it comes to an end you wonder where it’s actually been. It’s a way of frontman Tom Marsh grieving for friends who have died through drug or alcohol abuse.
