24 April 2026
Press
Band: BLU & EXILE
Who: Renowned American hip-hop duo, formed in 2007,
composed of rapper Blu and hip-hop producer Exile.
Album: TIME HEALS EVERYTHING
Simple, but wonderful artwork.
ALBUM
24 April 2026
Photo by Meghan Law
Band: DIVIL
Who: An Irish trio of childhood friends from Dublin. Spending their childhoods learning instruments together in primary school, the trio had fallen out of touch as adults. They hadn’t been in the same room together for nearly a decade, until the night of bassist Conor Cusack’s father’s funeral.
Then Connor was diagnosed with cancer. In the wake of these life-altering events, music becomes their way to reconnect, process grief, and lean on each other in ways words alone cannot.
Track: THANKS A MILLION
Their first single. It’ll feature on their debut EP,
titled Divil I, planned for release on June 19th.
Artwork EP
“The song is about hope in the form of friendship. It’s about your friends checking in to see if you’re alright after you’ve been in a self-inflicted depression. I have this image of being stuck in a box bedroom suffering, the door opens with the lads checking that I’m ok. I respond, ‘I’ll be right here, thanks a million’.”
TUTV: Finding comforting companionship, and mental support through friendship
is the storyline in this avid anthem of hope for a better future. Universal sentiments embedded in a mid-tempo, electrically-charged stunner.
In these hectic times of intolerance, social inequality, and war-greedy
world leaders, close friends are a welcome force of togetherness.
Vocalist Danny Dempsey McMahon‘s relieved and impassioned vocals and his spot-on, direct, and honest lyrics lift Thanks A Million to a most gripping and emotional level.
Superb debut stroke.
You can stream the song on several platforms. Links here.
24 April 2026
On June 16, indie icons THE SMITHS‘s
masterpiece The Queen Is Dead turns 40.
In this month’s UNCUT cover story, the band’s Mike Joyce (62 now)
reflects on the ineffable spark behind so much great music.
“On a personal level, being in The Smiths was massively intense. That feeling between four people in a band doesn’t happen very often. With The Smiths, it was everything — the four
of us, every single day. We all understood what we had, and that’s what set us apart from
any other band I’d been in.”
Also in this issue Ringo Starr regaling us with his side-hustle in country music, a return
to Talk Talk’s magnum opus Spirit Of Eden, plus more new interviews with The Lemon Twigs,
Jeff Parker, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, The Human League, Laurie Anderson, and an extended report from the opening night of Springsteen’s Land Of Hope And Dreams tour in Minneapolis, and much more to read.
This month’s Free CD features 15 new tracks by
Kevin Morby, Brown Spirits, Tamikrest, Aldous Harding,
and 11 more.
You can purchase a copy and have it sent to your home address. Info HERE.
23 April 2026
Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Brussels, September 2025
A couple of weeks ago imperishable rock star and political activist NEIL YOUNG
said in a press release that a 2nd LP with The Chrome Hearts was in the making.
Young who cancelled all his planned concerts for this summer gave more details
regarding the upcoming album via an update on his Archives website. He revealed
that 3 of the songs were written more than 60 years ago.
Young: “It’s quite a special album to me. Music is a gift and when it comes
like this I really feel it. Everything here feels so good. I hope you will agree.”
He goes on to say that the album includes five news song, noting
they recorded four on day one in the studio, and the fifth on day two.
“We were then out of songs. We needed more. The next morning I had a song going
through my head and was playing it. I checked it out in the archives and found it was
from 1963, unreleased.”
“There were three more. I found the three others with it, also
unreleased. Three 60 year old songs and five brand new ones!”
Yep, that’s some more details, but the album’s title and exact
release date (somewhere this summer) is still unknown.
First album with The Chrome Hearts, named
Talkin’ To The Trees was released last year,
in June.
23 April 2026
As the saying goes, “you’re never too old to rock ‘n’ roll.”
DEEP PURPLE (1968–1976, 1984–present / 23 LPs with 2024’s
‘=1‘ as the most recent one) are one of the many examples.
The band still features 3 key members, drummer Ian Paice (aged 77),
bassist Roger Glover (aged 80), and powerhouse voice Ian Gillan (aged 80)
and they still tour nonstop around the globe.
This summer they return to America.
Still smoking.
Vitalizing tunes that work faster than a stream of caffeine
23 April 2026
mgk/fd press
Sharp-mouthed rapper MGK , formerly known as Machine Gun Kelly invited his
nu-metal buddy FRED DURST, frontman of Limp Bizkit for 32 years now, to join
him for a new maddening moshpit anthem, named FIX UR FACE
MGK: “I called up my friend Fred Durst. I said, ‘Sir,
drop something on this. The rest is history.”
The accompanying video clip is directed by @samcahill. It was shot
all around the world, from Prague to Ireland to London to Germany to
the States.
Jump! Jump! Jump!
Jump! Jump! Jump!
Significant longplayers from yesteryear
23 April 2026
The New York punk pioneers RAMONES (1974 – 1964 / 14 studio albums)
released their self-titled debut LP on 23 April 1976, today 50 years ago.
All 4 original members Joey, Tommy, Dee Dee,
and Johnny are already gone. R.I.P.
The New York Times said back then: “What the Ramones do is deliver a nonstop
set of short, brisk, monochromatically intense songs. Conventional considerations of
pace and variety are thrown calculatedly to the winds. The ingredients are simplicity
itself. The effect in the end amounts to an abstraction of rock so pure that other
associations get left behind.”
TUTV: In my punk book, this gabba gabba hey debut was a game-changer.
Turning bubblegum pop into sickly catchy and speeding blitzkrieg electricity
was just jaw-dropping. Without a shadow of a doubt, da brudders’ best exploit.
A timeless document in rock history. Hail hail!
Singles.
– BLITZKRIEG BOP –
– I WANNA BE YOUR BOYFRIEND –
ALBUM
23 April 2026
Tired of his limited role with Massive Attack, trip-hop bigwig TRICKY (born Adrian
Nicholas Matthews Thaws in Bristol-UK 58 years ago) wanted to do his own thing.
So, 31 years ago (I know, sounds like ages), he
left MA and started his significant solo career.
On July 17th, he will launch his 15th full-length.
It’s named Different When It’s Silent. Tracklist
and pre-order info here.
Press info: “‘Different When It’s Silent’ follows a prolific period of activity. Since 2020’s ‘Fall to Pieces’ LP, Tricky has released music under several different guises, all via his own label, ‘False Idols’. Yet returning to an album under his own name took on a different shape. For Tricky it was another side project, until ehis manager Alan McGee felt the songs clearly belonged to a Tricky record.’
Tricky (who lost his daughter Mina, who took her own life, in 2019) : “Since my daughter died, I want to work. I want to do stuff. But all the press, being on camera, everything just changed when she died. I’ve never been a pop star as such but: that made me even more
want to go in the background.”
In 2020, he released his heart-wrenching LP Fall To Pieces that dealt with his terrible loss.
“Emotionally, I’m saying I’m ready to start my life again. I’m looking forward to touring. I want to record. I was emotionally paralysed. Now I’m moving again. And sonically, this lets people know: if you have your own sound, you’ll never go out of fashion. When genres come and go, you’ll still be there. This album says that – nothing sounds like it.”
The lead single is titled OUT OF PLACE and features
his collaborator of late, Marta Zlakowska, on vocals.
Signicificant longplayers from yesteryear
23 April 2026
Rock giants THE ROLLING STONES released their 9th album,
titled STICKY FINGERS on 23 April 1971, today 55 years ago.
It topped the charts in the UK, US, Canada
and several European countries.
Back sleeve
AllMusic/Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote in retrospect: “Pieced together
from outtakes and much-labored-over songs, Sticky Fingers manages to have a
loose, ramshackle ambience that belies both its origins and the dark
undercurrents of the songs.
It’s a weary, drug-laden album, well over half the songs explicitly mention
drug use, while the others merely allude to it. With its offhand mixture of
decadence, roots music, and outright malevolence, Sticky Fingers set the
tone for the rest of the decade for the Stones.”
Singles.
– BROWN SUGAR –
– WILD HORSES –
ALL FINGERS
EVAN DANDO and his band, for almost 4 decades, THE LEMONHEADS,
released their newest album, Love Chant, last year. The first one with
original, new Lemonheads music since 2006. One of his best in a long
time.
Following the release, the band went on a promo
tour to Australia, the UK/EU, and North America.
Just now, new dates for the UK and Europe in the fall were announced.
LOVE CHANT