Album Review: Live for the Moment // The Sherlocks

Originally published on The Indiependent.

I must admit I did not go into Sheffield band, The Sherlocks, debut album Live For The Moment, with a particularly open-mind. Throughout their relative rise in popularity over the last two years I have happened across their singles in sponsored Facebook posts that appear to have been met with hype and derision in equal measure. It is certainly true that the young band have managed to build quite an impressive indie following through social media campaigns, no doubt inspired by the grassroots, youthful energy of fellow Sheffield band, Arctic Monkeys. That band has probably inspired most guitar rock bands over the last decade in some way but their legacy here mostly spans from their early albums. Another band that The Sherlocks can all too easily be compared to are Manchester’s Courteeners. Indeed, my initial stance on the band was essentially; they’re not going to make my ears bleed but they sound exactly like any number of other bands that I could listen to instead.

Album Review: Ellipsis // Biffy Clyro

Originally published on The Indiependent.

Biffy Clyro have reached the distinguished milestone of their seventh album and with it is the beginning of a new cycle in the band’s life. Biffy Clyro by their own admission are a band who embrace the three album cycle, in which there is a simple stylistic or thematic similarity grouping the trilogy together. The band has suggested that Ellipsis is the beginning of a ‘re-birth’, a back to basics embrace of chaos.

Frontman Simon Neil has called it ‘fight rock, pint-in-the-face rock’. This claim is certainly true of some songs and the album has a feeling of different pieces being thrown together, albeit in a good way. However the glimmer of pop on many of the tracks and the undeniable production values present suggest otherwise. At times it is unclear what direction Biffy are really trying to take with this album.