There’s a few new album reviews turned up on the web, and they’re not too shabby either. Stylus Magazine give the album a B rating, saying “Macmanus’s unappeased ache is the splintered reflection of the love-fearing adolescent in all of us”. Subba Cultcha also like the album, comparing The Crimea to Grandaddy, Brighteyes and Mercury Rev. And Manchester Music give a shorter review ending in a 4 out of 5 rating.

Pointing you in the right direction is the Morning Paper site with, dare I say it, hopefully one of the last album release stories I’ll have to write about here.

So, on to the gigs, and the BBC Berkshire site has a preview up of a gig last month. A bit late, but what can you do. More recent is the review of the band’s Wrexham Station gig a few days ago from Glasswerk, and this one from Fat Amp Music of the band’s recent Modest Mouse support slot in Wolverhampton.

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Now that the Witching Hour news assault is over, here’s a few things that have been around a while but never had the privilege of a mention on inaudible.co.uk…

Way back in 2005 The Crimea played a live acoustic session for the WOXY radio station in America. Strange then that it’s taken me until now to find this page on the woxy.com website with a 24 MB MP3 download of the whole session. Check it out for some old Crimea classics, then check out the Flickr page with pics of the band recording the session.

Featuring a number of reviews and photos from different Crimea gigs is the eFestivals Crimea page, including a link to this review from last year on the eGigs site. If you fancy a more personal experience, there’s also a partial upcoming gig listing with links to online ticket outlets.

There’s also a review of the Pleasance Courtyard gig last year up on the Skinny Mag site, which says of Davey “part Rain Man, part Bright Eyes, but good enough to rival the very best”.

And finally there’s an old single review of Baby Boom up on Caught In The Crossfire, and a White Russian Galaxy single microsite at Video-C.

One more, Iain points you towards Plus One Magazine who have a review of a 2005 gig up. Go to Review Archive then search for “crimea”, or just hit more to read it.

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As you all eagerly await the arrival of your SOTWH hard copies (I’m sure they won’t be much longer…), here’s a review and some more release news to keep you happy.

The CD was album of the week at Today FM last week, so check out the Google cache or read more to see what they said. What did they think? Here’s a clue: “a well-produced and assured effort”.

There’s a small mention of the release on Gigwise, and also on the Instep Magazine site during an interview with a seperate artist, and finally there’s a slightly bigger article on the Dutch site Kidsweek.

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Regular Crimea reviewer Jim Carroll gives the album 4 / 5 on Ireland.com, the Manchester Evening News give it 3 / 5 but with little bad to say about it, and ICWales say some good but don’t give a rating.

Other than that, Noise Pollution and Whats On Winnipeg give the release story a mention, Monofiopia get a little nostalgic over the MacManus effect.

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Today I have something vaguely different for you - a SOTWH release article from the Hey Charlie! blog which focuses on the band’s history over the years and has a couple of preview MP3s from their past.

Also slightly interesting is this forum discusion at Glosunit which features an email from a university lecturer who wants his students to follow the Crimea’s album giveaway story.

More of the usual from PC World New Zealand and Darkpaw who both mention the release, as does Molly O’Poverty though she’s not quite as impressed with the album as the first two.

And the two foreign sites for today are Italy’s NovaMusica with a large review of the album (Google translation here), and Israel’s Ynet with an even bigger article on the release though all the right to left stuff confuses my PC.

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Clearly showing no signs of slowing down, here’s the the web’s latest Secrets Of The Witching Hour news.

Todays only review comes from the Dorset Echo who say “It’s just beautiful - invigoratingly strange, limitlessly imaginative and powerfully atmospheric”.

Biggest article of the day goes to the Wall Street Journal who mention the current download total (now up to about 28,000). The other big publication giving the release a nod is the Wired tech blog.

A smaller mention comes from the Exitfare blog by someone who’s clearly not just a fan of the music. The Corporate Anthems blog adds more fuel the “he’s Elvis Costello’s son” rumour which I’ve seen far too much of already. Newsday.com give the release a very quick mention while AOL add a new pic to their paragraph.

If you’re frankly fed up of all this Crimea news and just wanna vent your anger, here’s the perfect opportunity at the Oh No They Didn’t celeb news blog, who have the strangest idea that the album ain’t so great to them. Oh well, can’t win em all, but numerous readers their did at least download it, which is frankly the whole point of the release.

And where would you be without an article you couldn’t understand? No, it’s not more of the above critics, it’s the German MusicChannel site with… erm… a bio I think.. it has album news anyway.

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On the eve of the official album release date, here’s a few more reviews of the thing to persuade anyone who hasn’t downloaded it yet.

Chip Adams from The Tripwire says “For a self-produced and self-mixed effort, these lads have done a mighty exceptional job”.

Giving the album 4/5 is Entertainment Manchester, who also compare it to Davey’s former band’s first album.

Meanwhile, John Siwicki at Comfort Comes gives the thing 8.3 / 10, saying “the album will not disappoint”, while a review at the Free Albums Galore blog says “this is a band well worth checking out”.

As well as reviews there’s the usual bunch of foreign press too, this time coming from Italy’s Indie Music blog mentioning the album release, and Wales’ Radio Cymru who mention both the band’s album and trip to China.

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Yes, real ones! After all that press, at least two people have actually bothered to listen to the thing. Here’s what they thought of it. Keep your eye out for more and do let me know if you find any.

Long time Crimea fan and occasional inaudible.co.uk author Stuart Denyer has stuck his long and thorough review at virtualdebris.co.uk, and there’s another one, found by Rusty… Allan Ogg from The Jumbled Box chips in a personal recommendation..

Also reviewing the free offering is Mike Rea who’s comments pop up on both Contact Music and the Salisbury Journal, with the eventual 7 / 10 mostly due to the excellence of Tragedy Rocks.

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You know the deal. Colin Murray, another Crimea album tune, tracklisting after the jump.

French website and Crimea fans Sound Of Violence post news of the new album. It may say it’s great, then again it may say it’s shite. I ain’t got a clue cos it’s all in French and I defy anyone to understand the language. À cette même! Believe.

English Crimea fans Comfort Comes had album news a few days ago, but it’s dissapeared now. Google’s cache, while it’s available, or just hit more.

Everyone’s using Vox right now. Confuses the hell out of me; bring back Audiogalaxy groups I say. Anyway, at least someone’s posted about the Crimea on there. Yup, you guessed it, more album news.

Here’s details on one of the tour gigs from Norwich Arts Centre. More tour news coming very soon; if you’d signed up to the mailing list you’d already know

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Loop A Loop was Colin’s track of the week yesterday. Apparantly it’s his favourite song on the album. He also mentioned his clearly all-time favourite Crimea track Opposite Ends, saying that lyrics from it featured in the new album. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of what they are, so clue me in people. Anyway, listen again or hit more for the tracklisting.

Camden. Don’t you just love the place? I had a pet Camden once. I shot it. Erm… Camden New Journal have a preview of the last Proud Gallery gig. Don’t worry, there’s one more onthe 24th April so you too can get down there and nab your very own Camden. What you do after that is your own business.

Today’s album preview comes from The Irish Times. It’s only short but hit more to read it.

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I know my loyalties may seem a little screwed, but seriously, if the guy stays in Fame Academy past today you’re gonna miss tomorrow’s installement of the Colin Murray Crimea show aka. his Radio 1 slot. So vote the man out already, you all know Barry’s gonna win anyway.

Last month Mog.com featured a post on The Crimea. There’s a couple videos and some Wikipedia text there, regular Inaudible readers will have seen it all before.

And I dare say you’ve seen this interview at Penny Black Music before, but I can’t find it in the archives so either my search tool or my brain are buggered. I’m know which I’m going with.

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Colin Murray continued his Crimea support last night, playing The 48A Waiting Steps during the Black Hole section of his show. I think it’s safe to say that tuning in every Tuesday around 10.45pm will get you a new Crimea track. Anyway, the good stuff: Colin said he loved em so much he got them to play at his engagement party. More news on the suposed “free” album, he said it’ll be made available via MySpace. And he mentioned the song is about a bus Davey gets in Dublin. The bad stuff? By the time the albums out you’ll have heard the whole thing already The inquisitive can click here and skip to 45 minutes in, the not quite so can read more for the evening’s tracklisting.

Here’s a review, albeit a very short one from Rock Beast who were at the Beautiful Days festival last year. At least they have a nice pic of our very own rockbeast-in-my-pocket, Owen Hopkin. They’ve also posted a few more pics of the band up here on pages 4 and 5.

Big Swap news - Contact Music posted an article on the Crimea’s charity job, probably sometime last century, like I care. If it feels like deja vu reading it, welcome to my life.

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I think I need more practice writing XHTML. So here’s another review. Visit LosingToday.com or read more for a review of The Crimea’s gig at Manchester Academy 3 on 4th September 2006. I know it’s late, but it’s not like they’ve played much since, is it?

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Sometime Inaudible writer Denyer has posted two Crimea single reviews on his site. Both White Russian Galaxy and Baby Boom are covered, with CD1, 2 and vinyl getting a mention. Also included are lyrics to all songs on each release, which is good because lord knows I haven’t added any lyrics here for ages. I think I’m gonna copy them to the extended part of this post, just for the practice, I’ve not added any of those for ages either.

Some girl from the Crimea (the actual place, not the band) has posted something about the band on Last.fm. Roughly translated it says “There’s a band in England called The Crimea (i.e. my NATIVE LAND ) Besides the name the group has good music! I recommend! And they have a good website too…” I’ll leave it at that because said website mentioned is not mine. How dare they . Head’s up, there’s another Crimea native on the official board… blimey. Crimea, big in Crimea.

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Turns out the Daily Mail featured the following review of The Crimea’s new album by Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody at the end of last year:

‘I think 2007 could well be the breakthrough year for the Crimea. The Londonbased band are releasing their second album, Secrets Of The Witching Hour, in February and it’s a wonderful collection of skewed pop songs. Lead singer Davey MacManus’s voice is ragged and sumptuous, and his lyrics morph the mundane into something wildly surreal. At its heart, it’s classic British pop music lush, elegant and gorgeous but it has a dark, disturbing undercurrent, like a wall-rattling party in the basement of a luxurious Georgian townhouse. The Crimea’s music is devilishly brilliant, like all great pop.’ Look out for the new album Secrets Of The Witching Hour will be available in its entirety as a free download from the band’s website from February 14. A three-week UK tour kicks off later that month.

I don’t know about the whole album (hell, as far as I know it’s not even finished yet) but there’s deffinately one song available for free. Sorry to dissapoint anyone. See the previous post, then punish yourself for believing any tabloid lies.