#max sefton

16/5 – Stereo From their rather smug bastardisation of the name of an equally insufferable bunch of seventies dad rockers to their portentous Morrissey-meets-Robert Smith vocals, there are a lot of reasons why Eagulls sound immensely irritating on paper. Over the past five years though they’ve built a reputation as an impressive new band, particularly with the release of their self-titled debut…

Live Review: @BlocParty, Drenge and @RATBOY at 02 ABC.

O2 ABC – 5/2 There was a time in the mid-2000s when the NME tour was one of the hottest tours of the year, bringing together the country’s most exciting new acts on one stage, but with indie rock in the doldrums, this year’s edition has had to rely on a tried and tested headliner to bring in the audience. (more…)

Film Review: The Hateful Eight

  In association with The Grosvenor The Hateful Eight is, appropriately, the eighth film from visionary director Quentin Tarantino, arriving on the heels of a series of controversies ranging from comments on police brutality that prompted a boycott from a number of police unions to a dispute with Disney over the right to screen the film at a famous widescreen movie outlet. So is the Eighth…

Arts Review: Lanark – A life in three acts

Dir: Graham Eatough, Citizens Theatre, 15-19 September 2014 There are few plays which open to as much anticipation or come with as star studded a pedigree as Lanark. Written by Alasdair Gray, adapted by David Greig and directed by Graham Eatough, it’s an almost four hour epic, following an awkward young man called Duncan Thaw (also known as Lanark) as he grows from boyhood to adulthood, attends…

Album Review: James Bay – Chaos and the Calm

  On Thursday 6th May, 1937, the German airship LZ 129 Hindenburg exploded while attempting to moor on its dock in New Jersey. Even almost 80 years on, its fiery demise is an iconic image, capturing the destruction of an invention which pushed the physics of flight to their limit. There’s something admirable about such a grand failure. Industrious people strove to create a leviathan: an airship…