Brent Balinski, Journalist

Live Review: The Black Keys, Royal Headache

Album Review: The Mountain Goats - Transcendental Youth

Production-wise, this is the most polished the band have ever produced.

Album Review: NOFX - Self Entitled

They don’t care if we think they’re stuck in a time warp, and you wouldn’t care either if you were having this much fun.

Hard Yards

"It’s all kind of been, ‘Oh man, why’d you put saggy tits on your cover’ or whatever. 'Are you thirteen?! Have you ever had a girlfriend? Are you even a person?' But yeah, that’s the story behind the picture.”

Live Review: Jim Ward, Jen Buxton

Album Review: Aaron Freeman - Marvelous Clouds

If you ever wished Ween would tone it down and grow up a little (though why would you?), then this’d be damn near perfect.

Album Review: Matt Skiba & The Sekrets - Babylon

His love for teen goth morbidity and pre-fabricated phrases is undiminished, and his way with big choruses and his blending of pop-punk with The Cure is as savvy and enjoyable as it’s ever been.

Album Review: Tim Barry 40 Miler

On the whole, there aren’t many surprises here, but this is a great collection of simple, honest, urgent, soulful tunes by a chap who’s doing this for the best of reasons.

Live Review: Frank Turner Manning Bar

Turner and co. put on a tremendous show to a packed Manning Bar. You get the feeling the next album they tour out here will be to much bigger venues.

One Foot Forward

So it was only in the last couple of minutes that I actually looked and went, ‘Fucking hell! This is enormous.’ But yeah, it felt good.