MOJO Bar - Music for the people

There has been a lot of talk in the reviews of the Doves latest effort of it arriving in a more welcoming world. Why more welcoming? Because Elbow have just had a huge Record. This may be a trifle unfair as Doves last 2 long players both reached the No. 1 spot and whilst they [...]

Manassas were formed in the early part of the seventies around primarily the musical tour de force that is Stephen Stills. Joined by musicians who had backed up first CSNY and latterly Stills two solo albums. Vitally though, the band was buoyed by the inclusion of ex Burrito Brother and Byrd, Chris Hillman, fresh from [...]

One half of Detroit blues crunch act The Black Keys, Auerbachs’ solo debut set sees a continuation of the subtle wing spreading that imbued much of last years Dangermouse produced effort, attack and Release. There is no abandonment of the principles that have informed the 5 Keys albums to date, rather a distillation and a [...]

It really grabs you by the nuts this record. It took me some time to listen to Understanding Electricity in its entirety as I was forever skipping back to the start to enjoy the first three tracks again. Mainstream, So Tomorrow and The Girl From The BBC catapult you in with driving basslines and drums [...]

White Lies arrive as possibly the first hyped band of 2009. This debut arrives fully formed with widescreen choruses of stadium dimensions. It’s all shamelessly Joy Divisionesque with Ian Curtis phrasing and Hooky Bass lines. Imagine the The Editors but on a cocktail of performance enhancing drugs. Same building blocks, much stronger result. So it’s [...]

Franz Ferdinand do appear to have misplaced the zeitgeist that they held so firmly, only letting go long enough to pick up an award or two in their first cosmic year at the head of an irresistble post punk revival. It would appear however that we did resist. There is nothing within as struttingly brilliant as [...]

This is animal collectives ninth studio album (which was news to me), but it would seem from digging into their past a little, that it is their most ‘Pop’ to date. More used to emmitting long, avant garde soundscapes rather than what’s to be found on offer here. This is easily accesible without being obvious. Touchstones [...]

Some months ago I wrote on this very website about those albums you buy, that you listen to once or twice through, don’t really get, and then discard telling everyone who’ll listen that they are terrible. Later though, you are forced to eat your words over a massive six course banquet that you can barely [...]

Saxophones. That’s the thing I’ll take from my couple of weeks with Day and age. Saxophones. And not just any saxophones. These are ABC, Wham style brass orgies. With 2004 debut hot fuss, The Killers had worn their 80′s anglophile influences clearly enough on the tops of their sleeves but this is more like the [...]

Josh Rouse is one of those talented souls destined to forever play the fringes. He’s been a constant on Mojo playlists since the early part of this decade but our constant championing  has made little difference. He has a similar work ethic to Ryan Adams, writing and recording seemingly constantly and throwing out smooth sounding [...]