Corinne Bailey Rae review – a genre-mashing celebration of her artistic freedom | Corinne Bailey Rae

Corinne Bailey Rae and band at Ladbroke Hall, London.

Corinne Bailey Rae wanders the stage wordlessly, wafting handheld percussion instruments at amplifiers and members of her band as though burning sage to cleanse the space. All around her is the sound of more percussion […]

Review: Bad Bunny’s ‘Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana’

Review: Bad Bunny's 'Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana'

By the onset of 1977, Héctor Lavoe, the Puerto Rican salsero of legend, was down and out. Lavoe, a Fania All Star who once soared in hit songs like “Mi Gente” and “Periódico de Ayer,” […]

The Chemical Brothers review – mesmerising barrage of thunder and lighting | Chemical Brothers

Bad-trip visuals … The Chemical Brothers.

Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons are indistinct within a looming ring of keyboards, drum machines, laptops and mixers. It isn’t clear, through darkness and dry ice, what precisely they are doing to conjure the mesmeric […]

Billy Bragg: The Roaring Forty review – four decades of flying the flag | Music

The artwork for The Roaring 40.

In his 2010 history of protest music, 33 Revolutions Per Minute, Guardian writer Dorian Lynskey makes a bold claim about Billy Bragg: “If you ask someone to name a British protest singer,” he writes, “there […]

Gilberto Gil review – farewell London concert for a joyful musical great | Pop and rock

Celebratory mood … Gilberto Gil.

Political prisoner, exiled psych-rock idol, reggae pioneer, cabinet minister, reality TV star … the English-speaking world really doesn’t have an equivalent of the Brazilian polymath Gilberto Gil. Aged 81, he has declared that this show […]

Yussef Dayes review – London jazz linchpin delivers a masterful set | Jazz

Ferocious beats … Yussef Dayes.

Few drummers hit faster or with more dynamic control than Yussef Dayes. Over the past decade, the south London-based musician has become a guiding light for rhythm sections looking to blend jazz improvisation with the […]

Review: Queen + Adam Lambert bring ‘The Rhapsody Tour’ to Madison Square Garden

Queen + Adam Lambert

Queen + Adam Lambert. Photo Credit: Bojan Hohnjec On Friday, October 13, Queen + Adam Lambert performed at Madison Square Garden in New York City. This marked their second consecutive show at The Garden as […]

‘Dreamin’ Wild’ review: Tuneful Casey Affleck shines darkly

Two men embrace and smile.

Late-blooming recognition becomes both a blessing and a sideways needle scratch for the aspirations of a struggling singer-songwriter played by an epically downbeat Casey Affleck in director Bill Pohlad’s sweetly melancholic “Dreamin’ Wild.” A well-cast, […]