London indie rock specialists return with sixth LP in November
London post-punk alchemists Desperate Journalist have announced details of new LP Gilding the Lily, due for release on 20th November, plus shows in the UK and Germany.
Signed to legendary independent label Fierce Panda, the record is the follow up to 2024s hugely acclaimed No Hero. Preceded by lead single Terrible Years, new track 20th Century Women comes backed with a video filmed and edited by lead singer Jo Bevan.
Ahead of a winter headline tour, the band support indie veterans The Wedding Present in Leeds and London. Next month also sees the outfit headline the Fierce Panda Stage at Shiiine On Weekender in Minehead (full details below).
Gilding the Lily is released through Fierce Panda on 20th November
Desperate Journalist Tour 2026 – 27
24 Oct, O2 Academy, Leeds(Supporting The Wedding Present)
Fri 30 Oct, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London(Supporting The Wedding Present)
Sat 7 Nov, The Hope & Ruin, Brighton
Sat 14 Nov, Shiiine On Festival, Fierce Panda Stage, Minehead
Thurs 10 Dec, Hare & Hounds, Birmingham
Fri 11 Dec, New Century Locker, Manchester
Sat 12 Dec, Bodega, Nottingham
Sun, 13 Dec, Exchange, Bristol
Weds 16 Dec, The Garage, Highbury, London
Fri 15th Jan 2027, Portland Arms, Cambridge
Sat 16th Jan, Lending Room, Leeds
Weds 24th Mar, Siegen, Vortex Surfer, Germany
Thurs 25 Mar, Schorndorf, Club Manufaktur, Germany
Country megastar rips the bandages off to deliver triumphant comeback record
By Ben Wood
Dolly Parton may be gone but there are still some old-school country icons sticking to their guns and singing their hearts out. The Hard Truth, is the first album in a decade from Wynonna Judd, who became an ’80s country superstar while still in her teens in The Judds, duetting with mother Naomi, and parlayed that into huge solo US country-pop success in the ’90s. Neither this period of super-success, or the years that followed, came easy, to put it mildly and this album is fearless in its lyrical determination to detail and confront the ties that bind, as Bruce Springsteen once put it.
The singer and her husband, producer/musician Cactus Moser, were determined to create a body of songs which felt less polished and more emotionally real, than much of her previous work, free of corporate pressures. This album fully justifies their vision. It sees Wynonna pen some hard-hitting, brutally honest yet poetic lyrics, aided by collaborations with such country-adjacent indie icons such as Sam Beam, aka the ace Iron and Wine; Patterson Hood of the Drive By Truckers; and The War and Treaty (unfortunate acronym, that…) and there are some real goosebumps moments.
Like so many artists, Judd has had to navigate the infamously conservative Nashville establishment and its determination to airbrush out the more interesting and genuine parts of artists’ music and personalities. But she seems to have found her natural home on the famously artist-friendly Anti Records, which has been home to legends such as Tom Waits, Mavis Staples and the late Merle Haggard. After a turbulent few years personally, The Hard Truth sees Judd detailing her struggles, facing her demons and hitting a rootsy, often country-soul groove that really serves the songs.
It only lasts a few seconds, but …Prelude (All Downhill From Ashland) sets the tone, its moody violin evoking a country noir feel. All Downhill from Ashland, a collaboration with The War and Treaty, portrays Judd’s ambivalent, love/hate relationship with her troubled late mother and duet partner Naomi, whose personal torments, sings Wynonna, meant, that she couldn’t love himself, so how could she love anyone else? From the start of her life, and music career, Wynonna’s life was intimately, unavoidably, tied up with Naomi’s. It sets the emotional tone of the record.
Everything, with the Drive By Truckers’ Patterson Hood, is an absolute killer, its super-groovy guitar line and shuffling rhythm creating a tune that swings like hell, complete with organ, pedal steel and killer chorus. If you join the family act as a teenager, you better keep quiet, look pretty and do what you’re told: ‘They threw me in / to see if I could swim..’. Be a good girl for them? Fuck that! ‘I was raised to stand up / conquer and control…’ Hmm, this isn’t going to end well… Everything ushers in a dynamite sequence of songs.
Am I Missing Out sounds like an instant classic, the second tune in a row that proves that genre labels are often just racial gatekeeping. If Mavis Staples sang this song, people would call it soul. Nevertheless, its beautifully phrasing and relatable lyric are the essence of good country (ie impossible not to sing along to after a few drinks). ‘All I wanna know / is there life out there that I’m missing?‘ Like all such songs, it makes feeling bad sound so good.
Broken but Blessed – now there’s a song title! – is further proof that deceptively simple-sounding soulful ballads get the best of Judd’s voice. ‘I sing no matter / what shape my heart is in‘. It’s what keeps her going. No over-singing here, just grace under pressure: ‘I know who I am.’ Hear Me Now is a collaboration with Iron and Wine, but while a good listen, it doesn’t quite live up to the standard of its stellar predecessors. It feels sonically slightly MOR.. and while the line ‘Rain falls just as free as Joni plays guitar‘ may be another grab for a crossover indie audience, like the song, it doesn’t quite land.
The Hopeful Lie, with The War and Treaty, will get the party back on its feet. A super-funky swampy bass/drum intro leads into a dulcimer-led stomp that would fit right in on Robert Plant’s Band of Joy album. It tells the agonising story of being unable to help someone backsliding into bad habits. The narrator can’t stop trying but knows it is futile: ‘I can’t save you but I try / ‘I don’t want to but I still believe / in a home full of lies.‘ It’s got the ring of truth and rocks out in the outro.
The self-mythologising Kentucky Queen could be the album’s theme song and is packed with great one-liners (‘The dirt made me… The road made me… Like a mother with no shame made me…’) Another down-in-the holler stomper, it pays obeisance to all the influences that made Wynonna what she is, as she sloughs off all that showbiz bollocks verse by verse. It’s rootsy, bluesy, catchy as hell.
Girl Who Could Sing shows Wynonna can break your heart from the off – its weepy pedal steel intro leaning into killer opening lines ( ‘I didn’t know my daddy / I guess he was proud’). A tale of close-held family secrets, it tells the story of a man who remained a mystery to her but kept clippings of her career. Did he see her as ‘Your daughter / or just a girl who could sing’? Gulp…
Drive is a rockier number, a ‘drivin’ and thinkin’ song followed by soultastic closer Love Ain’t Got the Best Of Me Yet. Drum rolls and Muscle Shoals horn blasts contribute to a valedictory number saying yes to life despite all the hard times. There’s even a refence to Kris Kristofferson’s Me and Bobby McGee (‘If freedom means I got nothing left to lose… ‘) It seems right that we end on a triumphant note. Wynonna is still here, fighting, with an open heart. It’s a heartening conclusion to a record that feels like a rebirth. 8/10
Laconic master of his craft and stellar band expand on new LP and impressive back catalogue to engaging, highly musical effect
By Ben Wood
Alt.country icon Bill Callahan seems very comfortable in his own skin. Twenty-four albums into his career, initially as the more lo-fi Smog and then for the last two decades under his own name, the implausibly well-preserved 60-year old singer-songwriter and US indie icon knows what he is and what he can do.
Always an intriguing lyricist, recent albums have seen Callahan increasingly journey towards the light… and it suits him. That’s not to say tonight’s songs are free of dark thoughts and ‘Zoloft pines’. But he seems to be having fun out there – and has one hell of a back catalogue to dip into.
His current live incarnation sees the man’s super-deep baritone and existential ruminations married to increasingly exploratory, ambitious music and a wry, conditional sort of optimism.
As with his amazing 2022 Roundhouse gig, he has a superpower…Dirty Three legend Jim White on drums, helping Callahan’s sometimes muted sonic palette soar into intriguing areas thanks to his endless rhythmic subtleties. White is no show-off but he makes it all sing.
The night begins with a curveball. Support act Nathan Bowles shuffles diffidently onstage, his studious and low-key mien rarely changing as he samples and layers two lengthy pieces of industrially tinged analogue instrumental psychedelia.
Oscillating frequencies alternately soothe and provoke, as more noisy, dissonant threads appear. A drumbeat kicks in as what appears to be a heavily treated banjo layers wah-wah’d Eastern scales on top. The vibe is kinda goth with psychedelic sprinkles on top. This listener could have done with more changes, but I guess that’s not what this sort of droning trance music is all about. It would make a suitable accompaniment to a drug coma, if that’s your bag. However, this ex-raver was itching for a four-four beat to take it in a more energetic direction, into Orb-esque or kosmische territory.
The second, concluding piece is shorter but explores similar territory. This is music that makes no concessions to the listener and, as such, is always going to be a minority interest. While many aren’t able to suitably adjust their ears, the applause at the end of end shows that a fair few enjoyed the experience.
The first indication that Callahan is in a different headspace nowadays is his backing tape. An impassioned James Brown monologue doesn’t presage an unlikely new funk direction. But it does show that Callahan’s muse is happy to dart off in different directions and he wants us all to have fun. Remember fun?!
The line up features the singer on acoustic guitar, a saxophonist who takes various tunes into new dimensions, a bad-ass, unconventional, Marc Ribot-style electric guitarist…and no bass.
The set is dominated by songs from the recent record My Days of 58, with a smattering of songs from his solo and Smog back catalogues. Opener Why Do Men Sing is a neat exemplar of current era Callahan, asking some big existential questions but always ready to wrongfoot the listener.
There’s a lot to ponder, lyrically. The narrator of The Man I’m Supposed To Be has a revelation (‘I’m living too much in my head / From now on I’ll live my life as if the next day I’ ll be dead‘).
Lonely City completes an opening trio from the new album. This moody nocturnal meditation features a surprise Jim White monologue, where the man of many talents informs us, from his vantage point of the drum stool, that his mate ‘Has a great ass’!
Further highlights include the lovely simplicity of Sycamore; a piece with a jazzy Van Morrison feel; and a Dolly Parton tribute which sees Jolene interpolated into Partition.
Natural Information is an upbeat gas, while local icon Amy Winehouse is saluted with an anecdote wondering if she is really as small as her statue.
The Smog days are referenced with a brace of songs mid-set. Let’s Move to the Country (‘Have a monkey a mule and a flea’) is a wackily touching declaration of love.
Stepping Out for Air is moody and touching, while Highway Born is a classic country anthem about living on the road, complete with rhyming couples: ‘I was born between towns with the pedal down / How am I ever gonna settle down?‘. Plus, of course, whistling!
The set concludes after nigh on two hours with the epic feel of Drover. This band can be as tight as anything on more typically old-school Callahan fare. But when the sax and guitar go out on a limb, the music leaves genre constraints behind.
There are no encores here, though the last tune kinda sounded like it. That part of the showbiz lexicon was not required… We certainly got our money’s worth.
See Those ‘Eyes: Lancastrian indie pop ensemble continue their rise
Heading down into the cosy basement of the legendary Jacaranda, the Slater Street institution plays host tonight to a group firmly in the ascendent.
Lancastrian quartet Alsatian Eyes have been building a profile the old fashioned way, namely playing any venue that will take them.
An intriguing mash up of post-punk, 1980s US hardcore punk and the melodic aspects of New Wave, to throw another genre category into the mix (hey, c’mon, it’s music journalism!), the outfit revive the dormant form known as indie pop.
With post-punk becoming a crowded field in recent times, the current outfit stake out their own territory in the genre with melodic vocals courtesy of charismatic lead singer Lily. The group’s idiosyncrasies become immediately apparent as they open the set with a cover of Rocky Horror standard Science Fiction Double Feature, (RIP Tim Curry).
Earworm moment Bathtime, an activity pop music ought to chronicle more, comes complete with a bubble generator placed centre stage. The highlight of the set arrives with the following track, the Graham Coxon-esque chordage of their guitarist piloting a song that very pleasantly evokes ultra-sour bubblegum power pop doyens Altered Images.
In keeping with the post-punk ethos, as defined by Siouxsie and the Banshees’ early manouevers, the crash cymbals are scarcely ever used, the drummer and bassist and paring up to create a thunderous bedrock.
A cover of sorts of Dead Kennedy’s California Uber Alles, sees the sunshine states’ location amended to Mar-A-Lago, as the lyrics take aim at the idiot currently resident at the address. The succeeding track, a balancing swipe at his counterpart in the Kremlin is named simply after the tyrant himself. A tad ragged in places – entirely understandable – they’ve only been operational for six months, another few goes around the gig circuit and these ‘Eyes will be dazzling.
Joyous old-school soul and more done right by charismatic Georgia frontman and his shit-hot band
By Ben Wood
A little while ago, an album made its way to Bearded Towers. Brother Wallace‘s debut Electric Love, on ATO Records, sounded like an update on classic 60s soul and R’n’B coming straight from the source. A passionate, gospel-infused vocalist telling stories of passion, faith and betrayal, with funky, propulsive piano grooves, Stax-y horn stabs…all that good stuff. Hooky and anthemic, the arrangements and chord changes make them sound like lost Southern soul classics. Stompers, ballads, mood pieces all present and correct.
But the best live acts use their recorded material as a stepping-off point to take us all somewhere else. Hot and cooking after touring Europe, Wallace and co have the stage presence and confidence to play without a support act. Their one recorded album’s hook-packed three-minute nuggets become the source material for a barnstorming 90-minute set that organically stretches out without feeling padded out or self-indulgent.
Shoreditch’s Courtyard Theatre gig space is a small boxy room, perfect for sweaty communion between performers and audience. I am fairly sure me and my gig buddy walked straight past noted soul buff Paul Weller at the back, looking sharp as ever. The requisite vibes are established by a pre-gig selection of classic soul – Aretha, Marvin, Otis – and a stage full of retro kit and vintage amps.
The band come onstage first, setting up a moody 60s spy film intro before Brother Wallace comes on and launches into the album’s uptempo title track. Sweetly charismatic with funky orange-tinted glasses, the 47-year-old singer dances his ass off, ending up soaked in sweat as he works the crowd like a pro. All those years directing church choirs and bands and teaching music to schoolkids, have led to this, his second vocation ….the ability to get onstage and lift a willing and up-for-it crowd higher.
In this mission, he is aided by a tight and swinging band with stellar chops: two long-haired dudes on all manner of keys and guitar; a tough-looking guy called Brad on warm, nimble, bass; and an on-point drummer who wouldn’t look out of place in Chic. They can lock into a tight groove or stretch out as required and look like they’re having a ball.
Promising us a “night of love”, the singer begins to fulfil his end of the bargain. Who Do You Love summons up the spirit of Otis Redding, with classic chord changes and country-tinged guitar. Gone with the Wind takes the tempo down before the jumping bassline and Hammond-esque organ swirls of Top Shotta tell of a guy who gets sucked into the drug game and ends up “too lost to be found”. It’s then time for a breather as the band slips offstage to make room for a drum solo that grooves enough not to outlast its welcome.
A Patient Man’s chords hint at Satisfaction as the piano lifts us into anthem territory. No God in This Town is a slowie, a “You’re all doomed’ slice of Southern soul sharing lyrical DNA with the Flying Burrito Bros’ Sin City. Some lovely swelling churchy organ, complete with classic stops and starts, make this another set highpoint with Wallace milking it for every drop of emotion.
A midtempo swampy number doubles as a showpiece for the otherwise tastefully restrained guitarist, who bursts out with a cracking slow-burning bluesy solo. Then a funky squelchy groove brings the influences into the early 70s, with hints of Sly and a trippy bit that unexpectedly morphs into skanking quasi-reggae.
Spacey meditation Any Day Now has a psych soul feel, stretching out into a groovy early Funkadelic wigout (always a good thing). Jealous is a slow-burning slice of green-eyed soul, its emotion and gradual build a natural fit for Wallace’s skills.
The album’s bangin’ first single Who’s That tells of seeing his woman with another man but triumphs over circumstance by being funky as shit with a killer piano and wah wah guitar groove. The singer is having a lot of fun, and the audience are too…the classic positive feedback loop which sees both sides of the equation pushing each other onto greater heights.
Let’s Get Together is a gospelly belter pleading for “L.O.V.E. energy / Peace and harmony…” Yep, we’ll have some of that mister! Then after we have been driven to a frenzy, the band heads offstage. But after a set like that, an encore is inevitable and all return for straight-ahead Motown stomper Honey. It’s been an unqualified triumph, the band tipping their collective hat to the golden age of soul but avoiding pastiche due to the originality of Wallace’s vocals and the sense that all involved have grown up on this stuff and it runs through their veins.
But there’s still one final treat left. Bearded’s post-gig pint is enlivened by the appearance at the bar of the man himself and his manager. Grabbing a cheeky couple of tequilas as the kit is packed away, Wallace – open and affable – is happy to chat. He tells Bearded how he loves teaching music to kids and how his performing life inspires his pupils; stresses his love of Georgia hip-hop icons Outkast; pays tribute to The Heavy guitarist Dan Taylor, who produced the album; and expresses his delight at how well the tour has been going. Wallace stresses the importance of live music and his hope that AI will never replace the human need for genuine communication – musical and otherwise. Funny, charming and thoughtful, he is all positivity and embodies the message of the music. Hopefully, bigger venues beckon…but seeing a band this good on a small stage was a treat.
Singer-songwriter’s second volume of memoirs is a hymn to following your dream, not the almighty dollar
By Ben Wood
In late 2024, this writer was impressed by an album of rootsy garage-rock by an artist he’d never heard of before. Amy Rigby‘s Hang In There With Me had a DIY sensibility, classic three-minute songwriting chops and poetic, down-to-earth lyrics. Songs such as Dylan in Dubuque had a kind of Tom Petty vibe: country-tinged, low-slung cool from someone who sounded like she’d seen some shit and come out the other side with her soul intact. It sounded lived-in, rough-edged and agreeably human.
It inspired him to check out Rigby’s gig at indie shoebox The Waiting Room, in Stoke Newington. Backed by her second husband Eric Goulden, aka former Stiff Records icon Wreckless Eric, Rigby kicked arse. Where had she been up ’til now? What inspired her to keep playing the same small venues, year after year, when many lesser talents are playing arenas?
This second volume of memoirs gives the answer. The well-received Girl to City (which, full disclosure, Bearded has not read) told the story of Rigby’s Pittsburgh childhood, her discovery of New York’s 70s punk scene and her move from scenester to musician with the bands Last Roundup and The Shams. It ended with her releasing 1996’s solo debut Diary Of A Mod Housewife to great reviews but few sales due to minimal distribution. You may be detecting a pattern here…
This follow-up is a diaristic, no-frills account of Rigby’s peripatetic mid-90s to mid-Noughties existence as she exits her marriage to decent guy Will, one of many drummer lovers (must be the sense of rhythm). It’s an endless battle as our heroine struggles to support her empathetic, smart and musically minded daughter Hazel, taking temp work when necessary as she searches for love, success and rent money through endless small tours and potential career breaks. The journey includes a move to Nashville (she’s always been a big country fan) and a spell in Cleveland, before she meets the love of her life, Mr Whole Wild World himself, and moves to rural France.
Rigby never makes it rich – and indeed, the one time she enjoys material comfort, it’s ‘Thanks’ to Charles, a controlling arsehole businessman who gives her a BMW and a laptop and constantly belittles her. The moral of the story? Stick to music guys, they are far better fun and way less likely to look down on you. By the time charming English geezer Eric turns up on the scene, it’s like their meeting is foretold – and the reader cheers at Rigby’s well-deserved happy ending.
The book is strong on incidental detail, the little victories and challenges of a life where money is always a struggle, cars are old and break down, and survival is impossible without the support of true friends. Rigby, like her heroine Patti Smith, is eloquent in her praise of those musicians who have followed their star and never sold out for the easy buck. Dylan, Warren Zevon, Dolly Parton, Steve Earle, Johnny Ramone, Gina Birch from the Raincoats and Sid Griffin, the man who spread the gospel of cosmic Americana, all receive due tribute.
It’s like an extended indie-rock catechism: success rests in those little epiphanies where friends save the day with a generous offer; charity shops hide much-loved bargain buys; gigs in tiny bars feel like bigger successes than soulless corporate gigs. All the time, she tries to persuade her dad that her lifestyle is persevering with as she attempts to hone her craft and stay true to the source. Garage rock, pure pop, classic rock, country, Brill Building and punk, all have something to teach her.
Rigby is sweet about her love for her brothers and parents, and funny about the traits she picked up in New York. She continues writing and playing as New York gentrifies and prices her out, the music industry collapses and an office job beckons. The only time she goes against her instincts and tries to live the straight life, she ends up with a sneering psycho yuppie. In the end, her book shows that it is possible to dedicate yourself to rock n’ roll while remaining a decent human who doesn’t destroy herself.
Like many of us, Rigby is a study in contradictions. A lover of NY outsider cool with a love of homespun country music, and an American to her bones who ends the book in rural France. By the end of the book, it’s the mid-2000s and she is still doing what she loves. How many people can say that? 8/10
Three decades on, indie songwriting master shows no sign of running out of inspiration
By Ben Wood
A Bill Callahan album is a masterclass in ambiguity. After 30 years writing and singing songs, the ex-Smog man certainly knows what he’s doing. But what is that, exactly? On album number 25, Callahan’s warm, low baritone is as happy joking around (Lake Winnebago’s goofy rhyming couplets) as he is dispensing well-worn wisdom (The Man I’m Supposed To Be.)
Bearded was lucky enough to see Callahan’s Ytilaer (Reality’ backward, y’see) tour live at the Roundhouse (captured on the Resuscitate! album). His stellar band, including Dirty Three drum colossus Jim White, stretched the album’s simple structures into sprawling, endlessly surprising forms. The line-up and improvisatory approach was so inspiring that this, the follow-up record, was recorded with Callahan singing and playing alongside White, before a large cast of collaborators on sax, guitar, backing vox and more added their own colourations. The result is a collection of songs which sound like low-key country-adjacent balladeering meshed with the impressionistic cosmic explorations of mid-period Van Morrison.
Opener Why Do Men Sing is one of several to tackle the album’s main lyrical theme: how does a committed artist combine his loyalty to the muse with a happy home-life? Eve Searls contributes lovely soulful country backing vocals, as she does on several tunes. Callahan displays his talent for a quirky digression as the song recounts a bad dream where premonitions of death are salved by the appearance of Lou Reed ‘all dressed in white’ with some helpful Zen advice.
The Man I’m Supposed To Be resolves to cut the crap and get out into the world, with some killer lines delivered in that deep deadpan register: ‘I’m been living too much in my head / Not loving you enough in our bed / From now on I start living my life / as if the next day I’ll be dead’. His protagonist admits: ‘My biggest fear is not the dying / It’s that I’ll stop trying…’ It is rare that a writer can nail such lyrics without sounding banal – but, like Johnny Cash, Callahan manages it.
Pathol O.G. warns us not to cocoon ourselves from the world, even with the things we love. But amid references to life’s spiritual side, Callahan delights in lyrically wrong-footing the listener: ‘I remember one girl in east Tennessee / where girls in songs always seem to be‘. Stepping Out for Air’s tale of walking ‘Among the Zoloft pines’, on a downer, has yet more killer lines (‘I think I’m gonna rain today‘). Empathy sees the protagonist come to terms with a tricky upbringing to take delight in his children and forgive his father. Computer is a humanist manifesto from an old-school liberal who refuses to be blinded by ideology or in thrall to machines.
Highway Born is a Roger Miller-esque faux-folksy exploration of the pleasures and perils of a footloose life: ‘I was born between towns with the pedal down / How am I ever gonna settle down?‘ This account of a ‘Ramblin’ Man’ is iconically American, albeit with Callahan’s ironic distance baked in as ever. Lake Winnebago is another tune with cowboy hat firmly in place, although the reference to sutras indicates that this cowpoke’s equanimity may be the result of meditation instead of Old West values. Callahan is having fun with line-endings here for sure (‘Fuego/They go/Winnebago‘).
West Texas is another road vs. home song, which quotes Francis Bacon quoting Aristotle: ‘He who is delighted with solitude / Is either a wild beast or a God…‘ Lovers of melancholy will appreciate Lonely City, an enjoyable wallow in sadness. We conclude in a minor key with The World is Still, an impressionist number with atonal flute and a whiff of desert weirdness.
My Days of 58 has a tendency to ramble on occasions, but its creator knows what he’s doing and I guess he likes it that way. Lovers of understated soulfulness, songwriting chops and killer lyrics will have much to enjoy here – while the richness of the music means that every track is a pleasure to listen to. 8/10
