Country rock

Like lying down in front of a bulldozer: the Jesus Lizard, at the Electric Ballroom, reviewed

Many indie types from the 1980s and 1990s were secretly metal fans. But it’s not something they ever really wanted to admit to in public. They’d talk a good game about the Stooges and the Velvet Underground but back home – as was the case with Leeds’s goth overlord Andrew Eldritch, of the Sisters of Mercy – their living rooms were full of AC/DC videotapes. In fact, I’d go further and say the most influential track in the history of alternative music might very well be ‘Kashmir’ by Led Zeppelin rather than one of the hipster-anointed underground classics. It sometimes feels as though every indie band with one foot in

The real best album of last year

Grade: A+ In a desperate wish to avoid the appellation of a derided genre, this young man from Asheville, North Carolina has been described by the press as Americana, slacker rock, indie and alt-country. But we at The Spectator will call it how it is: this is country rock, pure and simple. And if country rock isn’t slacker, indie and a little bit alt, then it’s the Eagles – and nobody wants to start going down that road. Of the four albums generally thought to have been the best of last year across a vast number of publications, I’ve reviewed three of them for you – Beyoncé, Fontaines D.C. and