The Beaten Track

We drop our little wooden bucket into the well of folk this week. The Waterboys surprised many when, on the brink of mainstream success, they dipped into the world of traditional Celtic folk. We are glad they did though, as it brought us Fisherman's Blues an album packed with charm, escapism and extremely rewarding tracks. Louis and Joe provide you with bad quizzing, ramblings, and a bang on the e...

Louis and Joe dig out one of the great American alternative rock outfits, Sleater-Kinney. A band with a remarkably strong discography who sprung as an offshoot of the riot grrrl scene, Sleater-Kinney certainly provided our most challenging ranking list yet. Will their be harmony in our lists? Or will it come to blows as per usual?

Horses, horses, horses. Patti Smith  is the best. You know it, I know it, even Joe knows it now. This week we take you through a classic piece of punk from the world's coolest poet. Joe and Louis talk all things Horses and it's remarkable free form nature. Naturally, our quiz this week features great opening album lines.

In a historic episode of mild disagreement and general nonsense, Joe brings on a grungy noise-pop odyssey that Louis finds a bit flat. Luckily this under-heard 90s album inspires the duo to create some memorable quizzes, with Louis challenging Joe to guess the correct band roles of various mythical creatures. 

Diving into a garage rock revival classic, Joe and Louis discuss the legacy and immediate appeal of everyone's favourite dynamic duo. The bread and butter of musical pairings, Jack White's bombastic, howling guitar ripples above Meg's thundering drumbeats, creating some of the most authentic and blisteringly loud tunes of the early aughts. Also discussed is the band's deliberate attempts at conjur...

'Take a walk around my CAN album, gentleman, he's a colossus'. A quote from krautrock fanatic Bill Shankly that sums up this monstrous album from the German avant-garde outfit. With two tracks clocking in over 17 minutes, bewildering vocals, and some fat drum grooves, CAN's second album is quite the thing to behold. Louis and Joe make an exception to their love of the shorter album, and embrace ev...

Joe and Louis take you through the comeback album from iconic Jazz poet Gill Scott-Heron. Released in 2010, I'm New Here delved into post-industrial textures, trip hop, and even folk. It's a truly remarkable album and in tribute we have a spectacularly rubbish quiz.

I was lookin' back to see if you were looking back at me to see you listening to this pod. We review an absolute classic of the trip-hop genre this week and the album that started it all. Massive Attack's Blue Lines provided a unique blend of sounds when released in 1991 and still feels just as urgent today. Joe and Louis take you through the multiple stand out tracks and elsewhere, Banksy makes a...

This week we delve into some pretty essential post punk listening. Despite a short-lived career, Au Pairs produced one of the standout albums of the era. Playing with a Different Sex mixes economical post punk sound with sharp and aggressive lyrics. Joe and Louis walk you through the tracklist, mention Gang of Four too many times, and produce more rubbish quizzes. 

The album up for discussion this week is the recently released second album from the experimental rock group, Black Midi. Join us as Louis struggles to pronounce the album title, Joe correctly pronounces Marlene Dietrich, and Spud from Bob the Builder gets a passing mention. 

You find us this week deep in the world of lost albums. What sort of gems will we find hidden deep in the musical underworld? Joe and Louis take you through the world of unreleased, rumoured, and little known albums, focusing on the stunning solo recording of Sibylle Baier that was released over 35 years after being recorded. Oh, and there's also some awful quizzing at the end.

Did you notice we were gone? After a week with no episode and thousands of unhappy fans we're back with some new and pretty great music. St Vincent's Daddy's Home draws on 70s sounds and New York landscapes to create another stellar album from the pop wizard. Louis and Joe take you through their favourite tracks and some Will Ferrell based quizzing.

Get get get get got got got got. Louis and Joe turn the attention to the world of Death Grips and their acclaimed debut The Money Store. Following their pack-a-punch mixtape Exmilitary, the Sacramento based group released this frenzied, chaotic, and pretty spectacular album. Elsewhere Louis manages to slide in a mention of the Fall and Joe provides some quiz questions on hackers.

This week we reviewed one of Louis' favourite albums and a stone-cold classic from one of music's most iconic figures in popular music. It has become clear we needed an androgynous, bisexual, alien rockstar to save us from our pandemic apocalypse, so we felt it only right to discuss Ziggy and his bandmates, the Spiders from Mars. 

It's a Podcast about Broadcast. In today's episode, Joe and Louis talk all about Dream Pop outfit Broadcast and their atmospheric 2000 debut, The Noise Made By People. The Birmingham based band triggered our interest in Brum's music history and thus, Joe was put to the test on his knowledge of many exciting metal, new wave, and britpop bands.

Join us this week as we return to that long-forgotten format of discussing a genre and one of its landmark albums. Post-hardcore represented a shift from the rigidity of the hardcore punk scene towards more melodic and experimental sounds. At The Drive In produced some of the most notable work of the early 2000s scene, in particular their frenetic and incredible Relationship of Command. Louis and...

Well, it was only a matter of time before we entered the wonderful and frightening world of The Fall. Join us as we discuss everyone's favourite cult band and their quiet and unassuming leader, Mark E Smith. We focus on their 1986 record Bend Sinister, delve into some of Mark's great quotes and discuss the 'Indie News' of the week.

This week's album comes from a hallowed year for music. Xiu Xiu's Forget was released in 2017 and marked a more accessible point in their experimental catalogue. In the episode, we discuss some of the standout tracks from the album, Louis fails at another of Joe's trivia quizzes, and the 'Uppy Downy Side to Side Higher or Lower Pitchfork Album Reviews' quiz returns.

I wanna be your pod! This week we talked all about the legendary Iggy Pop and his 2016 collaboration with Josh Homme, Post Pop Depression. The album marked an interesting revival of Iggy's long and remarkable career, dotted with sharp lyrics and instrumentation. Also in the episode, we talk about the best honorific nicknames in music. 

For our 30th episode we ranked our top 5 Joy Division and New Order albums.

In this week's episode, we ventured into the world of music in cinema with Babylon, a cult classic based upon Jamaican sound system culture in 1980s London. The film focuses on the racism, poverty, and, police brutality experienced by the black Caribbean community in Thatchers Britain. There's also a fantastic score from Dennis Bovell that provides a pulsating soundtrack for this incendiary drama.

Here's our review of another new album from 2021, this one from Canadian folk outfit The Weather Station. This one caught our attention and could be an early shout for end of the year lists. Elsewhere, we discuss the musical talents of Feathers McGraw and Dick Turpin.

This week's album choice was the 1977 debut from early pioneers of electronic instrumentation, Suicide. We talk about their primitive and unique sound, as well as the terrifying track 'Frankie Teardrop'. Also, the Price it Up quiz returns with Joe guessing the cost of a Che Guevara action figure.

We promise we'll get back to reviewing ancient albums next week, but for now here's an exciting new debut album from the experimental septet Black Country, New Road. In the episode, we discuss some of the diverse influences of the band, the sound of this new record, and round off with possibly our worst quiz yet.

In a break from our disciplined 30-minute episodes we just couldn't help ourselves when discussing this classic Nirvana record. Louis and Joe delve deep into Nirvana's third and final studio album, as well as touching on the Kurt Cobain documentary Cobain: Montage of Heck.