Black Country, New Road - Forever Howlong (2025) Album Review

After my initial exposure to the mercurial talents of John Martyn - who created his own language through Folk, Blues and Jazz through the 1970's and on - a follow up. Before I focused on the immortal albums like Solid Air and One World, this time an extensive look at the rest. Well, up to a point, specifically from his debut, London Conversations in 1967 to The Apprentice in 1990. A slow start, and some real 80s trash lie in wait, but a few more classics are added to the list and it's a fascinating journey. Fans of Beverley Martyn turn away.

After a lackluster decade of documentaries, Theroux returns with one of his finest, most important - and most timely - ever, on Israeli colonization of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It says the quiet part out loud - it never has been about how the Palestinians behave, it's always been about ethnic cleansing.

Since their second album, Ants From Up There, bagged my album of the year in 2022, and promptly lost their iconic leader - no British indie act has gone through more change. Now firmly ensconced in their Harry Potter House Band/Music Hall Indie phase with a beguiling, detailed and unique baroque new album.

Director Gareth Evans rightfully made his name with the iconic Indonesian action crime films, The Raid and the even better The Raid 2. This grimy cop thriller goes unexpectedly full tilt Hong Kong era John Woo, but it's a law of diminishing returns as the dozens (hundreds) of bodies pile up, albeit imaginatively.

Happily, Justin Vernon's much loved project has made the tilt away from the experimental, abstract songwriting of the last two albums, and a return to more satisfying complete pieces of the first two, albeit with the odd slightly annoying and incongruous hangover stylistic elements. Still, it's great to have him back in this pocket and with his own defined genre of Neo-Country-Soul.

Well who knew, if you take something with a rusted on fan-base and don't abuse that fan-base or take them for granted, people will come and watch your film. There's nothing good about it - great turns from Jason Momoa and Jack Black aside - but there's nothing really bad about it either.

I went in expecting mid-tier MCU, like Captain Marvel or Black Panther, I got bottom tier, like Antman 3 or The Marvels. This is an abomination of a film with no reason to be and horrible visuals. An excellent Harrison Ford aside - there's zero reason to even bother once.

There are commonalities with Hollywood and TV in recent years. Having not one single original idea and remaking something no one asked for, to a terrible standard and for some reason, cynically using an existing fan-base but rubbing that fan-bases noses in it by race/sexuality or gender swapping a lead character. There's also a more vile and insidious trend going on here where only one person always seems to pay the price.

Director Steven Soderbergh's latest is a classy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy variant, expertly made and with an impeccable cast, exceptionally led by Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. The odd improbabilities aside.

I do love Germany's DJ Koze, and ranked both his previous long form behemoths, Amygdala (2013) and Knock Knock (2018) as my second best albums of those respective years. The same cannot be said for his third. A beautifully produced and effortlessly classy affair, that is almost never compelling, sadly.