Spring is almost here in the Northern Hemisphere. The days are lengthening and generally getting brighter. Some people see their thoughts turning to love, but not everyone’s! Post-punk veterans The KVB are thinking about loss and darkness in the form of a cover of “Black is Black.” Continue reading »
Screamo Oasis? That’s sure to piss some people off! Can’t wait for the Gallagher brothers to weigh in. This reminds me of Biffy Clyro’s highly divisive “Modern Love” a few years back. Not generally my genre of music, but I do love when a band takes a swing like this.
For a couple weeks this months, my Google Alerts were taken over by some TV-performance show called Chefsache ESC 2025. Which I’d never heard of, and still only vaguely understand what it is (some sort of Germany-only Eurovision?). It produced some wild covers though. The Feuerschwanz medieval-metal version of “Dragostea Din Tei” must be seen to be believed. But we’ve written about that song before—they released it on an album a couple years ago—so, instead, here’s a group called The Great Leslie performing Coldplay like they’re Franz Ferdinand. Continue reading »
At just over eight minutes long, “I Think I’m In Love” is only the second longest track on Spiritualized‘s third and most acclaimed album, Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space. (It was so critically acclaimed in the UK, in fact, that the infamous NME named it “Album of the Year” over OK Computer.) Continue reading »
Thea Gilmore has been on quite a journey these past few years, and, against the odds, has shown herself to be a survivor, when the odds were more she may barely wash up. One of those artists seemingly around for ever, it is a shock to realize she is still only in her mid-40s, despite a staggering catalog of over 20 albums, starting in 1998.
Whilst her own writing is sharp and incisive, she is neither a stranger to covering the work of other artists. That’s how we know her here, with her 2011 track-by-track recreation of Dylan’s John Wesley Harding meeting with no small approval. Prior to that she had issued 2004’s Loft Music, a diverse set that ranged from Creedence Clearwater Revival through to Phil Ochs, via the Ramones and Neil Young. On Don’t Stop Singing (also in 2011), she was gifted the opportunity to put music to a set of posthumous orphan lyrics written by Sandy Denny. (The fact that UK Denny tributers the Sandy Denny Project have covered one such song, “London,” is a wry testament.)
Anyhoo, here we are in 2025, and here is These Quiet Friends, a second set of disparate covers. The mood is here more consistent than the earlier set, that mood being generally low key and pensive, perhaps given away by the album title. An impression is that these songs helped sustain her over the brick wall her personal life crashed into, back in 2021. The details aren’t for here, but rather than a career-put-on-hold stalling release, this set provides a companion to Gilmore’s new material, which continues, her muse anything other than consumed by circumstance.
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The Christian pop duo For King & Country have released a cover of a U2 classic in advance of a new TV series based of the life of King David. The group, made up of brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone, cover “40”, which originally appeared on U2’s 1983 album War. It was released in advance of the first three episodes of House of David, which is premiering on Amazon Prime on February 27th. That’s the same day the soundtrack is being released, which will also feature songs by Christian and gospel artists including Anne Wilson, Chris Tomlin and Tasha Cobbs Leonard. Continue reading »
A stark ballad that briefly explodes into a rock jam buried deep in Pearl Jam‘s fourth album No Code – their first album not to go multi-platinum – “Present Tense” is a deep cut. It is their 37th most streamed song – so maybe it’s a little less deep than this No Code fan assumed – but it doesn’t seem to have an official cover by anyone (according to SecondHandSongs). That is, until last year. Continue reading »