Albums of the Year 2023: Lana Del Rabies – Strega Beata review - another year of fine live music as well as plenty of new tunes theartsdesk.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theartsdesk.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
If anyone turned 2020 s many lemons into sparkling lemonade, it was Sam Means. The musician and head of local merch company Hello Merch went from a planned reunion with The Format to releasing an excellent five-song EP, I m Sorry. The project clearly owes something to Means main band, and there s a kind of earnestness and heart-on-sleeve mentality linking both sounds. But from there, Means spins in 70s-style folk-rock (a la Stephen Stills) and 90s alternative (think Teenage Fanclub) for energetic jams on American politics and doomed love. If there are any downsides, the EP feels too brief; Means cuts right to the heart of this moment with breathtaking efficiency. It s the sort of project that almost makes you glad 2020 went haywire because from that chaos we got to experience a hugely talented artist display his true strengths.