Free American Apparel goody bags? Drinks tokens? What is this madness? It can only be the launch of Vice!

Gone are the gender bending days of Culture Club. You’ve just got to wear a suit of lamb chops and you’re halfway to number one.

Skream, SBTRKT, Hudson Mohawke and Shadowsphere dazzle in Warehouse Project’s first outing of the year.

Thrash legends make a blistering return with their 10th studio album.

One of the UK’s biggest and most popular festivals returned this year with headline acts Muse, My Chemical Romance and The Strokes, but who stood out and who just flopped?

Tom Geddes gives a quick rundown of the highs and lows of this year’s Sonisphere, as headlined by Metallica, Biffy Clyro and Slipknot.

The decisive nail in the coffin of independent record stores?

Judas Priest, Slash and Dream Theater, to name but a few, graced the stages at this year’s High Voltage but who impressed Tom Geddes and your dad the most?

Manchester’s own end-of-exams summer festival returned with a sterling line-up, including names such as Chase and Status, Kelis and Mark Ronson.

The guy’s got solid Americana sensibilities.

The Strokes, Arcade Fire and Elbow come under Tom Hickman’s scrutiny in the first of our summer festival highlights.

The Canadian duo cast aside past differences to deliver a scintillating set at the Academy

In only its second year, High Voltage has certainly targeted the dads market. With a line-up relying heavily on classic rock, prog and metal, as well as none of that tiresome camping malarkey, it’s not difficult to see why. Two days of legendary acts however, means that students shouldn’t shy away from a fantastic festival.

Their new album, The King Is Dead, went to number one in America and tonight’s show is part of their biggest UK tour to date, but the strongest indication of The Decemberists having ‘made it’ surely comes in the form of a pre-recorded message, played before the band take the stage, from the mayor of their hometown of Portland, Sam Adams.

The intimate atmosphere in Academy 3 was the perfect setting for the first appearance of intriguing new sound and beat makers, The Naked and Famous. This New Zealand-originated rock band have fused the ferocious talents of Alisa Xayalith and Thom Powers to create a five-piece band with a style similar to that of MGMT, yet they differentiate with vocals to rival that of Paramore’s Hayley Williams.

Scuba vs SCB, Dark Sky, Pangaea, Instra:mental, XXXY
Sankeys
11th March 2011
4 stars

For a new Mancunian rock band, bringing out a debut is normally a difficult process; yet one that happens in droves. If, however, that band is actually a successful old band, minus one member, it’s a walk in the park. Though Different Gear, Still Speeding was set for scrutiny and controversy from the offset, Liam Gallagher and his tribe of merry men have, surprisingly, exceeded themselves.

2011 has been a year of Britpop revival. Oasis-esque Brother are set to release a hotly anticipated debut, Liam Gallagher’s new band have just released theirs and a reformed Pulp are about to take this summers festivals by storm. Now, 15 years on from its original release, the too often forgotten Ocean Colour Scene are re-releasing their classic album Moseley Shoals.

West Palm Beach-based indie rockers Surfer Blood brought with them a little bit of Florida sunshine to Academy 3 on Wednesday night, as they powered through a set that lasted just shy of an hour, but for what it lacked in quantity it more than made up for it in quality.

Musical re-inventions don’t come much more drastic than that of rapper turned crooner Ben Drew (aka Plan B aka Strickland Banks) who tonight plays host to an evening of retro-soul at Manchester’s Apollo. Liam Bailey prepares the crowd perfectly for the main event with his deep husky tones, performing a short set of bluesy tunes including the raw and beautiful ‘It’s Not the Same’, and soon to be hit single ‘You Better Leave Me’, demonstrating exactly why he’s tipped to be the next big thing in contemporary soul.