With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

Music reviews, gig reviews, fun trivia and extra added random stuff!

Mayhem’s Top 50 Albums Of 2025 (Part 1) November 26, 2025

Filed under: Album Of The Year — justwilliam1959 @ 8:34 pm
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Here it is, we are finally ready to reveal Mayhem’s Top 50 Albums Of 2025. In past years it has only ever been a top 20, but it was hard to whittle the original list of 60 down to 20, so we kept 50 of them! This is part 1 which covers positions 41 through to 50. Have your favourite albums made the Mayhem cut? Check out the list below and check out parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 which will reveal the rest of the top 50 very soon! very soon! Are you looking forward to the countdown? There will be a 50 song play list when Part 5 arrives! Here comes numbers 41 to 50

41 ‘The Sky, the Earth & All Between’ – Architects – “A metalcore masterpiece from Architects, one of the finest bands in the UK”
42 ‘Music Can Hear Us’ – DJ Koze – “DJ Koze creates music that takes you to a wonderful happy place with some help from his mates!”
43 ‘The Collapse Of Everything’ – Adrian Sherwood – “The Doyen of Dub and the Master of Mixology delivers his opus!”
44 ‘Sad And Beautiful World’ – Mavis Staples – “86 years old and making some of the finest music of her career. I hope I age that well!”
45 ‘Metalhorse’ – Billy Nomates – “An immaculate return to form for Billy Nomates“
46 ‘A Fine African Man’ – Knucks – “A sizzling sophomore release from ace London rapper Knucks”
47 ‘Faux Animaux’ – Blue Violet – “Their music has a dark and mysterious pop rock style and is loaded with great hooks.“
48 ‘Lost In Good Intentions’ – Fishing 4 Compliments – “A band that state their intent with passion and fire“
49 ‘Dreaming In Stereo’ – Jellybricks –“Everyone needs some Jellybricks in their life. Why not build your music house out of Jellybricks?”
50 ‘Naked Truth’ – Autumn Dawn Leader – “If Jim Steinman had ever decided to produce a more considered and less bombastic album than the type he did with Meatloaf and Bonnie Tyler and employed Philip Glass and Brian Eno it might have sounded a little like ‘Naked Truth’.“

If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog. You can also follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Linkedin.

Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch via EMail.

 

Jeb Loy Nichols – Long Time Traveller January 20, 2016

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 7:51 pm
Tags: , , , , , , ,

longtimetraveller

Until just a few weeks ago I had no idea who Jeb Loy Nichols was. I had the opportunity to review his recently released mini album ‘Ya Smell Me?’ for the Subba-Cultcha site (click here to read it). So having only just discovered this American who lives in Wales I need to make up for lost time.

premiere-jeb-loy-nichols-thats-all-i-want-lg

So let’s start with a forthcoming reissue of his album ‘Long Time Traveller’, which originally found limited release in Japan in 2010. The album is produced by Adrian Sherwood and features members of both the Dub Syndicate and the Roots Radics. My first exposure to Jeb suggested that he is an excellent purveyor of country soul, which he clearly is. However I am very pleasantly surprised to say that he is also a talented country/ dub fusion artist. Is there another person in that genre? Somehow I doubt that there are many.

download

As a teenager I loved reggae and dub but I disliked country, largely because my parents liked it (oh that ridiculous teenage rebelliousness) . But as I have got older I have learned to love much country music. The combination of country and dub doesn’t sound like it would work, well not on paper anyway. But on record (or CD in my case) it works bloody well. This album is definitely going to soundtrack some afternoons in my garden this summer.

ca-a-lindsay-01

The songs are infectious especially “Lonely King Of The Country”, “Poor Man’s Prayer” and “To Be Rich (Should Be A Crime)”. Although I am not sure that I agree entirely with the sentiments of the last one. The extra disc I have with my copy has some great alternate mixes of seven of the albums songs. All very good but the main album mixes are more preferable to me. Disc two also has four songs not on the album of which “Salt Of A Fallen Tear” is stupendous. All credit to the On-U Sound label for getting this out there.

If you fancy something a bit different then buy this album, I love it and I hope that you do too. I hope to see Jeb live sometime soon. Why are artists like him not performing to bigger audiences? He needs to be heard!