TMN review the first show of Prince's Australian tour.

Although seven years have elapsed since Garbage last released an album, it appears that musically, not too much has changed.

While it doesn’t hang together quite as perfectly as Teen Dream, Bloom is just as magic and possibly even more interesting.

The blindingly bright synth notes that ring in Spiritus suggest that things are going to be markedly different the second time around.

Darnielle is an interesting man to watch on stage. Somehow the combination of his geeky awkwardness, his comfortable manor on stage and the audience's obvious love for his prolific catalogue earned him your full attention as you watched. His barebones songwriting was set alight by the tight and dynamic trio.

This is a fun listen, if not a classic, and possibly bodes well for a proper return to form.

It’s impossible to divorce Spiritualized’s seventh record from the circumstances in which it was made. Frontman Jason Pierce was suffering from a degenerative liver disease and began a course of experimental medication, which played havoc with his wellbeing and mental state.

“I’d forgotten who I was without music,” Higgins explained to the assembled press, and music itself, predominately songwriting, seems to be a key lyrical theme on the new record

If the audience had been a coach on The Voice that night, and Seal was but a hopeful contestant trying to impress the judges with his musical abilities, their hands would definitely have been numb from pummeling that big red button and screaming ‘I want you!’

It’s not just its weaving of The Getaway Plan’s braised delivery, nor the lyrical aptitude of Chiodos and Emarosa, it’s the heavier concentration on samples, keys, and galloping drums that prove the band are completely unafraid to denounce their kindred predecessors.