I've reviewed Secrets of the Beehive but given the chance to play it again, I'm not going to turn up by nose. He's an artist who works at his own pace and to his own dictates.
Wednesday, September 2, 2026
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 73 The Cure - Bloodflowers
I find myself apprciating The Cure more with the years, Their records increasingly have the poise and grace of the grand masters in previous decades and artforms.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 124 Drug Country - Country Drugs
Do drugs. Do drugs. Do Drugs in the country ! While you're at it. set the controls for erm, the heart of Drug Country. Richmond, Virginia's finest. And their latest album erm Country Drugs. They're nothing if not consistent. Dinosaur Jr and Whiskeytown's ragged feral children. They start by purloining the riff from Sweet Jane and riding their charabang out of town and onto the Road to Nowhere.Careering on and off the road. loose and inspired. Rarely in tune but that's just as it should be. Another cherrypick from Seabuck / Darren Jones and another winner.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,497 Little Gold
Out of Athens, Georgia, always a welcome roadsign. Little Gold's Public Gold is unrecostructed Independent C&W open strumming of the kind you might have heard any year going back to 1965.Neil Young, Dinosaur Jr and R.E.M. high in the mix. Familiar chord changes and moodswings it pressages an attitude which will never date .
Tuesday, September 1, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 125 Twisted Teens - Florida Water Blues
Florida Water Blues by Twisted Teens like most records thee days is another one which reminds me of way back when. Quite a lot reminds me of the first few terms of University in Autumn 1985 when I was harvesting experience with no little appetite.
Twisted Teens are certainly twisted, possibly not teens, but seem to be at least sligtly akin to American bands of these days in that they have a tangible craving for life that's highly memorable. They have a songwriter and vocalist who basks under the name of Caspian Holywell.
They hail from New Orleans which is even better and their sound is somewhere between Death of Samantha, Pixies and Gun Club. They're depraved and possibly cursed. I couldn't recommend them more highly.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 74 The Handsome Family - In The Air
A band that understands the importance of establishing a brand and sticking to the road you've set out on.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,496 Daughn Gibson
It's all about the voice Daughn Gibson's fourth album Lake Mary Not Mysterious. his first for eleven years is definitely sll about the voice. It's a smoky, insinuating Tom Waits kind of thing. Certainly not to all tastes.
But I found the beguiling enough while I made my way fromo ne online lesson to another on Tuesday. Sometives this veers into weird lanes of M.O.R. blandness . I was minded of Crash Test Dummies at points which for me is not always a happy place.
But I persisted and it won me over eventually. Narratives of disappointment. Songs of drift and doubt. But a gentle and quite winning resignation.
Monday, August 31, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,327 Bob Marley & The Wailers - Uprising
Bob Marley & The Wailers were a band with a momentum and energy all of their own..
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 75 Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
Merriweather Post Pavillion is an incredibly self conscious and premeditated title. Like Halcyon Digest, Surrealistic Pillow or many others you might care to mention. It has eyes trained on the stars. Eternity. The record immediately displays its ambition and scope.Like a peacock opening its tail.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,496 Mountain Goats
Indie Folk Stalwarts Mountain Goats are nothing if not a set of safe hooves. Active since 1991 they've moved from their base in Calermont, California and are now based in North Carolina. Days is their twenty fourth album.
It works from a familiar foundation . They sing songs about the everyman. Are prone to concepts. Appreciate the funny and difficult ironies of life. Days is like a pair of shoes that you're not sure about when you first put them on in the store but which almost immediately themselves yourself to your contours and you realise that you were made for each other.
The essential characteristic of Days is its sagacity. It's Springsteen without the raised fist. It makes Life feel like a fairly nice idea.They vary the velocity and angle of their gentle approach. There's comfort and love and then Days is done, Life is sweet.
Sunday, August 30, 2026
Songs About People -# 1,429 Layne Staley
I'm really warming to The Mountain Goats current album. Days. I'll get back to it. Here's the first track.
Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 41 Frank Sinatra - In The Wee Small Hours
Frank Sinatra carries you to a better place. In this case 1955. He was blue about Ava Gardener. This strikes me as a good way to address the blues.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 126 Ty Segall - Chrome
Ty Segall's album always feel a bit like indulgence projects to me. Albeit highly polished ones. So its apt his latest record is called Chrome. It's polished and highly proficient. Shiny. Straight in like a bullet at # 125.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,495 White Fence
'
'I just had an experience with God.....'
Sunday Morning. White Fence. Tim Presle . Orange. The eighth album under this banner and the first since 2019. Produced as generally by Ty Segall. Orange has a novel and rather enchanting foundation . That of jingle jangle mornings. The Rickenbacker Road and the McGuinn, Clark and Crosby aah......
Saturday, August 29, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,328 Suede - Coming Up
Sueded's slighly unexpected third. When they came when they weren't really expected to. And endured. It's a classy Pop record aimed purely at the Alternative Mainstream.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 127 European Sun - When Britain Was Great
The title is deceptive. No European Sun are not Reform voters or Enoch Powell revivalists. Well they might be but by the sounds of the record I doubt it . Istead they're sweet Indie nostalgists and this is impossibly warm.
Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 42 Billie Holliday - Lady Sings The Blues
Forty minutes in the company of Lady Sings The Blues is an experience of insight into grief. beauty and pain of a rare kind.
Days # 11 Bill Callahan
A switch from Bob Dylan to Bill Callahan is always a fairly straightforward one.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 76 Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series Volume 8
This is a Hard Call as it has 38 songs of easy going mysticism. Perhaps one to did in and dip out of. But he's always one to take heed of. Ezekiel one moment. Iisah the next. Job come along for the ride,
Song(s) of the Day # 4,494 Dinosaur Jr
'Everybody's coming home for luch these days. Last night there were skinnheads on my lawn.... ' Never fret. Here comes the good news. Dinosaur Jr. albums seem to be coming round a little bit faster these days.Their latest is called There Near. I imagine you can surmise how it goes.
They're something you can trust in Dinosaur Jr. reecords. They're like the days in the week. Always have the letters D - A and Y in them. Always sound pretty much the same and project a similar approach and way of looking at the world . 'Rain' Always rhymes with 'Insane'
Here's a band that knows their audience's needs. And set our to to satisy them and make them come back the next time. There something rather effortless and lovely about this. But of course they were a band that never looked as if they were trying which was generally the Ace in their hand. .
Friday, August 28, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 128 Tomora - COME CLOSER
A collaboration between AURORA and The Chemical Brothers which synthesises Radiohead, Suicide and Bjork with remarkable results.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 78 Elbow - Seldom Seen Kid
Well before Andy Burnham became King of The North, there was Guy Garvey. This was something different. A little bit precious on occasion but it's earnest and heartfelt. Ambitious.and with a genuine pride in its sense of place and moment. Its sense that the mundane is extraordinary.
Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 43 Roy Harper - Stormcock
I've been listening to Roy Harper's Stormcock on repeat for the last week or so. It takes me back unerringly. To a favourite place. A safe one. 1993 -94 in Dortmund, Germany and the best music friend of my lifetime. I used to go to his flat on a Friday afternoon and we;d talk into the evening.and we'd drink beer and smoke dope and talk about life.
Listen to Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Kevin Coyne and Roy Harper. And Stormcock particularly . Listening to it now takes me back unerringly across the years and the continent like an arow. I'm sat on his armchair at the window and he's sat on his sofa rolling a joint on the cofee table and we're laughing . Talking about the night ahead. Meeting the others in town.
This is a beautiful record. I need a vinyl copy of my own. It's only got four tracks but they hint at remarkable wisdom and insight. The stuff of the ages. there's incredible weeping and remarkable dignity and majesty.Music does this !
Song(s) of the Day # 4,493 Drug Country
Do drugs. Do drugs. Do Drugs in the country ! While you're at it. set the controls for erm, the heart of Drug Country. Richmond, Virginia's finest. And their latest album erm Country Drugs. They're nothing if not consistent. Dinosaur Jr and Whiskeytown's ragged feral children. They start by purloining the riff from Sweet Jane and riding their charabang out of town and onto the Road to Nowhere.Careering on and off the road. loose and inspired. Rarely in tune but that's just as it should be. Another cherrypick from Seabuck / Darren Jones and another winner.
Thursday, August 27, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 129 Woo - Whichever Way you Are Going You are Going Wrong
A long running project from brothers Clive and Mark Ives. Gently Psychedelic and instrumental. Nothing much happens but its all gently intriguing.
Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 44 Allman Brothers - At Fillmore East
There's something of the Mythic about a record like this at this distance. Live Double debut albums that start 'Wake up mama. Turn your lamp down low...' and proceed with astonishingly fluid duelling guitars may be worth sticking with.This is an album for lazy days.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 78 Grizzly Bear - Vecktamist
A record which came out in 2009. I saw the band shortly afterwards. They're a band apart and this is an album apart. It's one that understands light and proportion, understanding and literature. It has a rare poise and beauty.
I started listening to this this afternoon. I found I could not stop even though I know the album well. Sometime you have to pay something its due.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,492 Shredded Sun
Shredded Sun come motoring out of Chicago, Illinois with waterpistols blazing on latest album Never Odd Or Even. They trip through the tulips, unpack their hamper of Indie tricks and picnic in a field. Another suggestion of loveliness from Darren Jones / First Mate Starbuck. Thanks Darren.
One moment the Velvet Underground , (who provide the essence and base ingredients and moral and artistic compass for projects like these) are chugging in the slowlane. Next C-86 pick up the batons and press down on the accelerator. Never Odd Or Even. strike a good balance and lasts the course.
Wednesday, August 26, 2026
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 79 Drive By Truckers - Decoration Day
Drive By Truckers records strike me as a long night out with someone you don't really care for who's intent on paimting the town red and then proceeding at a certain point to itemise exactly what he doesn't like about you.
Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 45 Neu! - Neu!
Neu ! Is an unbeatable concept and record. An album that presents itself as a brand. A name that describes exactly what it want to be. A sound that's is pretty much an intercity speeding between Dussledorf and Cologne. A record that must be climbing the charts. Into the Top Ten !
Song(s) of the Day # 4,491 Hovvdy
Hovvdy are a Texan Independent duo who have popped up intemittently on It Starts with a Birthstone over the years but I've finally found the album I'd nail to my mast with latest release, their sixth in all, Big World.
All their ingredients and influences seem to have fallen into place this time round and no mistake. Breathy laid back relaxed ballads and mid tempo chuggers that assimilate and triangulate The Shins, Elliot Smith and Alex G.
But the key spirit of this , at least to my ears, is that of Simon & Garfunkel. An interesting essay could be rewritten on these mavens of melody. As important in many respects as Beatles, Velvets, Love, and Byrds for the post millennial independent sound.
Tuesday, August 25, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 130 Brother Wallace
I just dig this kind of record. One that doesn't really make the slightest effort to be modern or contemporary or clever because it's got a sound and attitute to burrow into for firty minutes or so.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 80 Dixie Chicks - Home
This is the album that Uncut takes very seriously and I can't really because I was brought up in Europe. It's nice I s'pose.
Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 46 Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Blood & Chocolate
This is a particularly personal choice for the author of this list. It's i,portant to me to in terms of my personal life narrative. I was supposed to be seeing Elvis Costello & The Attractions during my second year . I was supposed to be going to see them at the LCR university venue with a friend I was not getting on with as well as I'd have liked. The band pulled the gig and I've still never seen them or him. A great regret.
As to the record. It covers a lot of bases. You can't help thinking Dylan, There's plenty of invective. Plenty of pain. Plenty of barely checked aggression and rage . Confusion. Wordplay. But lots of wordplay anditwisted nvective. A very good innings and everyone concerned carry their bats back to the pavilion. 
Days # 7 The Beatles
'Got a good reason....' No good reason is required for a riff and momentum that would have done any Stax Atlantic artist proud. Well plenty of them went on to cover this....
Song(s) of the Day # 4,490 Lambchop
You have to wonder or maybe you don't whether a laconic Alternative C&W album released in 2026 called Punching the Clown is alluding to anyone in particular. Every American artistic statement has to be these days.
Lambchop's latest is a set of riddles within riddles,almost fifty minutes of sly, wisecracking epiphanies. Sporadic bursts of military cadences and Russian Orthodox choir routines. Every track offers fresh pleasures. It wiles away an afternoon and early evening like a favourite Coen brothers film. So I've put it on again this morning as I'm preparing for my day.
We're on our way to the pearly gates. Heaven. The place where something always happens. This record is genuinely cinematic and quite as good as it gets ! Another great advert for the vinyl format if further evidence is needed.
Monday, August 24, 2026
Top 100 Records - SublimMedia # 47 Deep Purple - Shades Of Deep Purple
Not the Deep Purple album you might expect in a rundown of greatest ever albums but this aligns to its author's taste more than their best known and celebrated records. This is limbs flying night on the town ago go.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 81 Anthony & The Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now
Lonely is a place on earth.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 131 Seu Jorge - The Other Side
Knockout Ned . The most honorable man in the Favela. A beautiful, dreaming jazzy album that has wings. We are sailing down to Rio.
Days # 6 The Dream Syndicate
A song about riotous unhinged debauchery that shares its name with a deeply desperate film about alcoholism. Trying somehow to remember them.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,489 Twisted Teens
Florida Water Blues by Twisted Teens like most records thee days is another one which reminds me of way back when. Quite a lot reminds me of the first few terms of University in Autumn 1985 when I was harvesting experience with no little appetite.
Twisted Teens are certainly twisted, possibly not teens, but seem to be at least sligtly akin to American bands of these days in that they have a tangible craving for life that's highly memorable. They have a songwriter and vocalist who basks under the name of Caspian Holywell.
They hail from New Orleans which is even better and their sound is somewhere between Death of Samantha, Pixies and Gun Club. They're depraved and possibly cursed. I couldn't recommend them more highly.
Sunday, August 23, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,329 Dr. John - Gris Gris
Best listened to as night falls. Preferably on a Swamp. Speaks of a world that most of us will never know. This is an album that flows seamlessly as a voodoo suite.
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