I've taken my time to realise it, but Gravenhurst have quietly become one of my favourite bands. Despite already owning it, I only really began to fully appreciate Flashlight Seasons in the summer of 2006, while studying for exams. (I tend to gravitate towards one particular new discovery each time I enter a prolonged period of intense exam revision, but that's another topic.) I enjoy the flow of the album: were I to rewrite my journal on good album openers, Tunnels would feature prominently as a fine example; centrepieces The Diver and The Ice Tree are beautiful pieces of work;…

I apologise in advance if this all sounds a bit High Fidelity; I'm fairly sure it's one of the list categories mentioned in it. I mean to discuss the possible ambiguity in the idea of a good first track on an album: does it mean "a good tune, that happens to be the first track on an album" or "a track that fits in nicely at the start of the album, and leads smoothly into the rest of the record"? For me, a good opening track is the second, setting the tone for the album without dominating it too much.…

I suppose it has to happen to every music fan in time, but I'm starting to notice some of my favourite bands are calling it a day and moving on to new projects. This isn't necessarily the end of the individual members making good, worthwhile songs, but I had come to the point where any new album by mclusky, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci or The Delgados was an event to anticipate, and inevitably I feel a slight dissatisfaction that there will be no more. I'm pleased I got the chance to see all three bands in concert at least once,…

Lately I've been wondering how much store should be placed in the construction of an album. By this I mostly mean how the individual tracks fit together. I suspect this is less of a priority in these internet-obsessed, download-the-latest-single days, since you first have to get people to hear your album before they'll properly listen, but it's still an important artistic process. A good album won't just have strong individual songs, they'll fit together in some sort of coherent order. I still try to listen to albums from start to finish, without skipping tracks, in order to get the listening…

When I look back to the summer of 1995, I feel old. I was 12, and just getting into guitar music, and hence couldn't really avoid the battle between Blur and Oasis in the UK media and pop charts. I remember quite liking both Country House and Roll With It, but I sided with Blur when they went head-to-head in the singles chart, mainly because Graham Coxon seemed ill at ease with all the publicity, whereas the Gallagher brothers were apparently on a mission to get themselves in the tabloids as often as possible.

Anyway, popular opinion at the…