Blog: There Goes the Fear

The beauty of a slower - and a spiritual and supernatural - life is examined in the Maccabees ' new video for 'Feel to Follow'. Watch it below. Click here to view the embedded video.

Someone should just give Ok Go the Godlike Geniuses of Video award already. The latest example of their inventiveness in the visual musical form is their new one for 'Needing/Getting'. I'm not even going to try to explain what's happening in this video, it'd not do the band justice. Watch it below and prepare for the smile on your face. (Also, it sure beats Spector's 'Chevy Thunder' out of the water, I think you will agree.) Click here to view the embedded [...]

You wouldn't have thought it but Lostprophets have been together since 1997: that's a whole 15 years! What's even more remarkable is that they're still loitering around the edges of mainstream success. Yes they've had big hits with 'Last Train Home' and 'Rooftops', but they're still not headlining the O2. That said, 2012 could be the the year for the Pontypridd boyos. With their fifth studio album 'Weapons' hitting the shelves in April, Lostprophets have released the first single to tease us with. Entitled 'Bring 'Em Down', it's (as the name suggests) [...]

Sound of Guns have announced their biggest tour to date, touring many venues in the UK and Ireland in support of their upcoming album 'Angles and Enemies' which is due to be released on the 5th of March. Tickets are on sale now. Tuesday 6th March 2012 - Newcastle Academy 2 Wednesday 7th March 2012 - Glasgow King Tuts Thursday 8th March 2012 - Inverness Ironworks Friday 9th March 2012 - Aberdeen Tunnels Saturday 10th March 2012 - [...]

Richard Judge, the frontman of I Dream in Colour and a previous celebrity guest reviewer for us here at TGTF, have revealed this solo cover of a lesser known track by Manchester Britpop masters Oasis. '(It's Good) to Be Free appeared as one of three B-sides to the 1994 single 'Whatever'. Watch the performance below that's sure to raise some hairs on the back of your neck in awe. Click here to view the embedded video.

London soul singer Liam Bailey 's had a mixed few months. Co-writing and featuring in Chase and Status ' huge 'Blind Faith' brought him a whole new fanbase but his debut album release was delayed by over 6 months. We talk to him about this, the BBC Sound Of 2012 List and the future. Having been a dedicated artist for a while now, the album was meant to launch at the end of last year. What happened to that and are there plans to reschedule? The album [...]

Big Deal 's new video is for the song 'Talk', and the story plays on a metaphor for a broken relationship. (Well, that's my best guess anyway. A guy comes back to the girl he hurt, because he knows she's "safe" and can heal him.) It dawned on me that we never gave away a free track from the duo, 'Chair'. (You can grab the mp3 here. ) And since we're big about giving here at TGTF, I've also embedded a live performance of 'Chair' below as well. Enjoy! [...]

Various Cruelties are doing a UK tour as a follow up to their recent single release back in January this year, 'Great Unknown' ( reviewed here ). The tour dates are below. Tickets for the shows are priced at £8 (£10 in London) and are available now. Tuesday 17th April 2012 - Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms Wednesday 18th April 2012- Nottingham Bodega Thursday 19th April 2012 - London ULU Friday 20th April 2012 - Leeds Cockpit Sunday 22nd April [...]

In the promo video for Miike Snow 's 'Paddling Out', your everyday John Doe get abducted by aliens and is turned into a breakdancing Iggy Pop...? You can't make this stuff up. Watch the video below. Click here to view the embedded video.

Factory Floor was one of several big name performers at Fred Perry Subculture 's opening launch party of Sub-Sonic Live last November ( we gave away tickets to this event ). If you are an unfortunate soul like myself and missed the event, we've got the band's performance of 'What You Say' from the night. Enjoy it below. Click here to view the embedded video.

From the first bars of 'Sweet Sour', I know I am listening to a Band of Skulls record. The drum beat is almost deafening and you can smell the influence of the White Stripes in the first beat! Band of Skulls broke onto the scene with their debut album 'Baby Darling Doll Face Honey.' With single 'I Know What I Am' leading the charge on the album, it gained huge critical praise, no doubt with drums that would make even John Bonham think, "ooh, that's loud". Their brand of garage-blues rock [...]

So. What about Madonna ? It seems like everyone is talking about her right now. The new video, 'Give Me All Your Luvin'' was released last Friday (video below); her Super Bowl performance was on Sunday. Isn't this the point, to be talked about? While I have a tendency to agree that all press is good press, I am a little disturbed by some of what I am hearing. Maybe it's just me, but I think Madonna is being held to a different standard based on her age. [...]

The new video from Dry the River , for their forthcoming single 'The Chambers and the Valves', doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you consider they're indie folksters. If anything, it proves deep down they're lads underneath, are rather fastidious when playing dress-up and would be fun party guests. This single will be out on the 27th of February.

Foster the People - who were a little-known band when they appeared on TGTF's stage at Brighton Coalition at 20112s Great Escape last May - will be returning to England to do a few precious dates in Manchester and London. A third date at London's Brixton Academy on the 29th of April, just added to this very short tour, will be on sale Friday at 9 AM. Wednesday 25th April 2012 – Manchester Academy (sold out) Friday 27th April 2012 – London O2 Brixton Academy [...]

Letter B is Beth Jeans Houghton 's latest project... Outside it feels like even a penguin would catch a chill, but inside the Garage the temperature is rising from the early arrivals to HMV's Next Big Thing gig at one of London's best-loved venues. Downstairs Reckless Love are no doubt giving the city's rock contingent a bloody good seeing to, but upstairs it's time for the indie fans to witness some of the finest new music on offer in 2012. Opening this Thursday night showcase are the London indie-folk [...]

'Kisses on the Bottom', the fifteenth offering from pop institution Paul McCartney , is a blend of jazz classics with an odd Macca original stirred in. It was never likely to knock 'Mull of Kintyre' off its perch, or stop 'Hey Jude' being wheeled out for every goodwill mission, but an insistence on an empty kind of easy listening risks the album becoming just a kitsch footnote to a jaw-dropping back catalogue. The title sounds like a dirty comment from an elderly relative: so desexualised by time that imagining the literal seems comic, [...]

Juan Zelada 's song 'The Blues Remain' is iTunes' single of the week. Grab it for absolutely nothing through this link. You're welcome. Zelada heads out on a tour of the UK in late March that doesn't finish until the end of April ( details here ); his album 'High Ceilings and Collarbones' just came out on Monday (6 February) on Decca.

In Ladyhawke 's new video for 'Black, White and Blue', Pip Brown plays a photographer from an era of days gone by. I don't really get it, it doesn't fit the lyrics at all? Watch it below and see if you agree. Or have a theory about it... Click here to view the embedded video.

Manchester-based We Have Band have released this acoustic version of 'What's Mine, What's Yours', featuring mesmerising piano, which you can watch below. This is part of the deluxe version their new album 'Ternion', and you can purchase that deluxe package here. The album came out just last week, on the 30th of January. You can read Ben's review of 'Ternion' here. Click here to view the embedded video.

Words by guest reviewer Matt Abbott of Skint and Demoralised As we all know, there have been an abundance of outstanding debut albums from indie rock bands over the last decade. The lines between a distinctly British musical sound and a distinctly American one were blurred beyond recognition, and the indie world was united in worshipping the heroics of The Strokes , The Libertines , Arctic Monkeys and dare, I say it, Razorlight. So if you're going to release an album that [...]