The High Dials hail from Canada and have a sound that immediately calls to mind the jangly psychedelics and country rock of the late 60s. New album (their fourth) is called Anthems For Doomed Youth and is out on November 8th. It is full of soaring vocal harmonies, orchestral flourishes and rousing choruses and while influences are unashamedly worn on sleeves, there is enough originality … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends…The High Dials
Yesterday Partisan Records released the latest full-length effort from Paleo entitled A View Of The Sky, available in CD, LP, Ltd. Edition Color Vinyl and Digital Download formats. Paleo has been traveling the country for the last 6 years. Booking his own shows, he has been playing roughly 150 dates a year while living out of his car and staying with people kind enough to share … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends…Paleo
David Gergen takes acoustic indie rock places it rarely goes, especially on one record. Bending ambience on Seven Miles to Sunset, throbbing electronics on Ore De Electro, along with bluesy slide guitar on The Streets I’m Walking, there’s a taste of everything on Gergen’s latest solo release (his fourth), The Nearer it Was…The Farther It Became. His voice, though consistently deep and resonant evokes the … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends…David Gergen
My, they’re a good looking bunch aren’t they! We’ve posted about Gaoler’s Daughter a couple of times on Mad Mackerel and they’ve definitely been one of those bands we’ve marked out as worth keeping an eye on. An unusual mix of styles and sounds and a great ear for melody means they demand the listener’s attention and then retain the capacity to consistently surprise them. … Continue reading New EP from Gaoler’s Daughter
Thought for Friday numero uno: necessity is the mother of invention (or even re-invention). Secondly, not everyone in life gets what they deserve, or deserves what they get. And finally while MM is heading across the border to Scotland, me, four kids and the dog are going to Ventnor. Will the dog end up swimming backstroke to Cherbourg? Will I be following? And under cold … Continue reading Mrs Mackerel’s TFI Friday
There have been some free compilations doing the rounds recently that we think are definitely worth checking out. First up is the latest monthly Cross Section mix from Clash magazine featuring, among others, Carl Barat, Badly Drawn Boy, Sky Larkin, The Heartbeats and eight more. Asthmatic Kitty have made a rather enticing October mix available on their Bandcamp page, it features Sufjan Sevens, MM fave Julianna … Continue reading Free Compilations to Check Out
The rather oddly named (to our ears anyway) Pappy evokes images of preachers, ramblin’ gamblers and whiskey stills draped over Appalachian Mountains acoustic guitar and fiddles. His banjo figures largely into this 12-song record titled Pappy Time, but this is not a bluegrass album. Not entirely. The performances are low-key and understated, but the musicianship is of the highest order – laidback, never-in-a-rush songs, with Pappy’s … Continue reading Introducing…Pappy
We are loving this hypnotic cover of Outlaw Blues by the Morning Benders, which comes from a compilation titled Subterranean Homesick Blues: A Tribute to Bob Dylan’s ‘Bringing It All Back Home’. A quality line-up features J.Tillman, Laura Veirs, Castanets, Sea Wolf and William Fitzsimmons amongst others and the album is faithfully recreated right down to five outtakes from the original recording sessions. The album was … Continue reading Morning Benders Cover Dylan
When a song arrives that is described as “It’s the desert-rock murder ballad of a dancing girl and her two boyfriends at a strip club called Deja Vu Showgirls in Colorado Springs, CO, near where I grew up”, I cannot imagine a song I would want to hear more. The song, So Much Faster, is by a band called Salesman. It is the previously unreleased … Continue reading Mad Mackerel Recommends…Salesman
It’s been a week of away fixtures. First, a trip to Cardiff with my dearest friend and today, I cast my net across the water to Ventnor, where me and big brother will undoubtedly regress into a bit of sibling banter. I’ll be missing the rest of the mackerel clan big time and undoubtedly the sprats will have eaten more than their fair share of … Continue reading Mrs Mackerel’s TFI Friday
The Mad Mackerel 