JAN WOOLF invigilates images that meditate on Palestine, and the people who witness them
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Tasty new strain of rock-hard Bean
A murderous convention of crime writers, a hymn to nursing, a monster hunt, and robber baron capitalism
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a three-hander that broaches big themes, but doesn’t transcend dry academia
DAN GLAZEBROOK eavesdrops on the bourgeois intelligentsia and the stories it tells itself at this moment of crisis
JAN WOOLF is bowled over by a major retrospective for the YBA artist
LEO BOIX, ANGUS REID and MARIA DUARTE review Night Stage, Two Women, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, and Fuze
Sunflower Bean
The Wardrobe, Leeds/Touring
“LET’S make some loud music!” hollers Julia Cumming, the first of many such exhortations from Sunflower Bean’s bassist and lead vocalist, whose volume-control button seems to have malfunctioned.
This might be a problem if the New York trio, joined by keyboard player Danny Ayala, failed to deliver on the statement of intent. Yet from opening track Burn It — all Joan Jett attitude and big rock riffs — it’s clear that they’ve outgrown their formative roots in shoe-gaze and indie psychedelia.
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This is poetry in paint, spectacular but never spectacle for its own sake, writes JAN WOOLF