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Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 20/03/26 : Trying Times - James Blake  I never think I like James Blake, but then I actually hear something by him and I'm like "ah, he's the one that actually does interesting stuff". And, for the first time, I'm actually going to document that - we've never met him before. Yeah, I didn't mind this at all. He's has a low-key but still interesting vibe - at times a less dramatic Sam Smith was brought to mind (his voice is a lot better than I expected), but at other times I thought it was more like a less dramatic Radiohead (there are some interesting sounds on here). And if you can take Sam and Radiohead but remove some of the drama, then that's got to be a good thing, right? I actually don't remember an awful lot of it (although I did recognise Dave, who blends in nicely), but I'd like to listen to it again to get more familiar with it - it feels like it would work well in the sun...

Continuing my trip up Empire's   top 20 films of 2025 #13 :     F1 It may not reinvent the wheel (sorry), but this nitro-boosted blockbuster is an old-school thrill-ride which successfully ports across much of Top Gun: Maverick’s vibes and style. One wonders if it was originally intended as a Maverick-style sequel to Days Of Thunder (’Days Of Thunder: Trickle?’), to star Tom Cruise. Instead, we get a laconic Brad Pitt as a 200mph underdog, vying against the cream of F1’s drivers — plus his own teammate, an excellent Damon Idris — and deploying all sorts of cunning tricks to out-velocity superior hardware. Bolting cameras onto 16 different parts of a car, Joseph Kosinski again delivers visceral spectacle, making you feel like you’re genuinely inside a modified Dallara F2 2018. But unlike Days Of Thunder, the off-track drama delivers too, with a bunch of likeable characters, and a hissable villain courtesy of Tobias Menzies. Plus, you get Martin Brundle and David Croft comm...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 20/10/17 : Carry Fire -  Robert Plant Our second visit with Mr Plant and "low key noodling" was my previous verdict - and whilst that may have been 34 years earlier than this album, I'll be surprised if we've moved too far from that situation. I think I'd go as far as describing this atmospheric low key noodling - it has a nice vibe to it, but it's really rather lacking in content. The main thought that drifted through my brain whilst it was on was "how many different stringed instruments are played on this?" - there are all sorts of interesting sounds on it. It's all well done I guess, but I don't like his voice and, whilst it's only 48 minutes long, it really did drag - so I remain unconverted to the charms of Mr Plant (but looking at the track ratings on Amazon Music, it appears that plenty are very much converted).  We're at a surprisingly high #3 with a new entry in the char...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 27/10/17 : Flicker -  Niall Horan Our third visit with Niall, and they've been generally bearable so far, but I seem to recall he started out aimed squarely at the Irish granny market, so I'm a bit worried as to what we're getting here. Well, Irish granny music is a bit harsh, but there's not a lot to scare the horses here. It's quite an interesting album in some ways because it's the opposite of the normal stuff that the young male poppy singer-songwriters churn out - it's mostly laid-back, slow-tempo soft rock with a few (slightly) faster numbers in there to give some variety. I guess it's well done if it's what you're looking for  (and I actually almost like "Slow Hands")  and he gets some bonus points for doing something different, but it's fair to say it's not aimed at me. He looks amusingly young on the album cover though - that beard's not going to stop him gettin...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 03/11/17 : Scream Above The Sounds -  Stereophonics Our eighth visit with the 'phonics (keeping them level with the Manics) - it's fair so say their output has been variable, so who knows what we're getting here.  Hmmm - it's basically a Stereophonics album with the added "bonus" that they sometimes sound a bit bored with being who they are and they fancy being someone else. I noted down hints of Starsailor (quite often), Radiohead, jazz, yacht rock, Status Quo and The Sweet (which is quite the combination!) but there were plenty of other "oh, that reminded me of <X>" moments that I couldn't quite place. As a Stereophonics-agnostic I quite liked it as a "well, they're trying something a bit, but not too, different" effort so I'll be interested to read what the critics and fans thought of it. We're at #2 in the charts this week with a new entry on the start of a twe...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 10/11/17 : As You Were -  Liam Gallagher Our third visit with Liam solo and our second visit with a Gallagher in a month - expectations are not high, but Noel managed to pleasantly surprise me, so you never know. Actually, this starts with "Wall Of Glass" which I knew I liked but I thought it was a Beady Eye track, so we're already ahead of the game. And taken, a track at a time, the rest of the album is decent enough (the singing isn't always great, but in other places it's way better than expected) - but there's not a huge amount of variety so I think you have to be a certain type of person to want a whole album of it. If you are that type of person, I'm sure you've already got this album so you'll be happy - it doesn't quite hit the spot for me but, and I can't stress this enough, this could have been far, far worse. We're all the way down at #8 in the charts this week on his fif...