The Down Of Civilisationkkk

Following their critically acclaimed Creation Records’ debut, The House Of Love signed to Fontana and embarked on four years of non-stop recording and touring that would take them into the mainstream. Produced in association with founder, frontman and principle songwriter Guy Chadwick, ‘Burn Down The World’ takes an in-depth look at that period in the band’s career, both in the studio and onstage. Featuring countless never before heard demos, lost tracks and live recordings sourced from Fontana’s archive, alongside rare fan club-only releases, compilation appearances, promotional versions and tracks never before available on CD, and accompanied by the thoughts of Guy Chadwick, ‘Burn Down The World’ sheds new light and insight on a rollercoaster ride which took House Of Love from indie darlings to mainstream globetrotters.

Macca To Mecca! Begins as a 12-song tribute to The Beatles that kicks off with a performance of "I Saw Her Standing There" recorded in London with a special appearance by Paul McCartney. It is followed by an extraordinary surprise set at the Cavern Club recorded during the band's sold out European tour. The intimate gig is filled with renditions of "Magical Mystery Tour," "Got To Get You Into My Life," and "All You Need Is Love," alongside iconic songs famously performed by the nascent Fab Four.

X: The Godless Void and Other Stories appeared at a timely point in …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's career. It arrived six years after the release of 2014's IX, during which time Conrad Keely returned from Cambodia to the band's home base of Austin, Texas, and also coincided with their 25th anniversary. It makes sense, then, that their tenth album finds them taking stock. As …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead explore how people become more themselves over time while everything else changes, they deliver their most emotionally direct music in quite a while. Their need to follow their hearts – even if they get a little broken along the way – has dominated their music since Source Tags & Codes, and the tension between cathartic freedom and poignancy is as powerful on X: The Godless Void and Other Stories as it was on that landmark album.

This 2014 Hyperion collection of 22 hymns sung by the Choir of Westminster Abbey is a straightforward presentation of familiar versions for choir and organ. For the most part, the arrangements are conventional four-part settings, with occasional interpolations of seldom-heard harmonizations and descants, and the performances by the men and boys are appropriately reverent and joyous. The majority of selections are hymns of praise, including Praise, my soul, the king of heaven; Thine be the glory; and Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, though Drop, drop slow tears; I bind unto myself today; and Let all mortal flesh keep silence bring a more somber and penitential mood to the program. The recordings were made in late 2012 and early 2013 in Westminster Abbey, so the sound of the album is typically resonant and spacious, and the choir has a well-blended tone, though the trade-off for the glorious acoustics is a loss of clarity in some of the words.

A monster bit of funk that's unlike anything else we can think of! Their number 15 pop smash "Funky Nassau Part 1 & 2" is the cream of this hands-on production by the Bahamas natives. The nine cuts fuses island rhythms and American jazz/funk into a doable, choppy mixture featuring guitars, bass, drums, and scratch vocals. Misclassified as a disco band, the Beginning of the End served up breezy Phil Upchurch-esque sounds, with "Come Down" and "Surrey Ride" being prime examples.