REVIEWS
Album reviews
Wild Beasts recently described their Two Dancers album as ‘downbeat erotic music’. It’s a description which would also apply to Matthew Dear’s latest record, Black...
Quick smartly after January’s brilliant but incredibly sad End Times, Mark Oliver Everett is back again with...
Let’s get this out of the way, shall we? Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin have perhaps the worst name in music. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, they briefly became blog darlings...
Here at Ragged Words, we were rather smitten with Fight Like Apes’ quirky, witty and nearly...
Women’s self-titled debut, released in North America in 2008 and our side of the pond early last year, was an...
“In many ways this is a record of what could have been, a snapshot of an artist mid-evolution.” (El-P)
Now essentially a byword for forward-thinking leftfield music, the Bay Area anticon collective has been striving since before the turn of the century to...
The latest offering from the noise-rock scene based around LA’s Smell club (the venue that has spawned No Age, Abe Vigoda and Wavves) is, surprisingly, a sprightly breezy affair. The product...
In many ways, it’s a surprise that the collaboration between former Belle & Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell and grizzled grunge survivor Mark Lanegan has made it to album number three....
Caught live
Bear In Heaven may be coming to town sporting a Stereo-Fork seal of approval, but tonight the New Yorkers are given a serious run for their money by Dublin-based support band Halves. The latter...
Having released one of the finest albums of the year so far, great things are now expected from former Czars...
Ambling onstage with a bath towel wrapped around his head for no particular reason, Will Oldham looks every bit the anti-rock star. With his beard trimmed back to a handlebar moustache that wouldn'...
A bizarrely brief set from one of our favourite upbeat, antipodean electro acts left the crowd decidedly nonplussed in Dublin’s Tripod on Tuesday. While some welcomed the shorter set, allowin...
When news broke that Arcade Fire were set to play a ‘secret’ London show as a warm-up for their sprint across this summer’s festival circuit, blogs and message boards duly lit up...
November 30th, 2002: The Notting Hill Arts Club is filled with the usual music loving, workshy folk who seemingly always have the good fortune to attend such late afternoon musical showcases, albei...
"It's just me this year… It's the austerity tour!" Neil Hannon tells Ragged Words with a giggle a few hours before taking the stage at Dublin's Sugar Club. Tonight is one of a hand...
While the book on Irish album of the year may have already virtually closed before hot favouite Villagers' release their highly anticipated debut Becoming A Jackel this week, many in the UK - i...
The pre-show announcement goes something like this: “The artist has asked for you not to clap between songs, or until after he has left the stage. The exit is part of the show. The first half...
The last time Hypnotic Brass Ensemble were in Ireland, they left many an Electric Picnicker standing in the rain, peaking into a packed tent where early Sunday morning revelers were being whipped i...
