Chartsengrafs

The Pattern Theory - The Pattern Theory (Album)

2011-04-25T02:55:00.000-07:00

Although, as a Newcastle resident, I feel enormously spoilt by our selection of bands, I must confess that I’ve always been just a tiny bit jealous of gig-going folk in Leeds, a city which seems to spawn another outrageously creative band every three days. Take The Pattern Theory for example, a band who are now Berlin-based, but whose roots are unmistakably Leodensian. Sound-wise, their closest kin would probably be the likes of Explosions in the Sky (or, if you’ll permit me to carry on the Leeds motif, maybe Vessels). While they don’t employ the world-endingly noisy crescendos of those two, the record is brimming with familiarly undulating swells of melodic build-up. The band build hypnotic little patterns of melody and deconstruct and rebuild them at their leisure, with Framed Fields the best example of this, starting off all plaintive and achy before it almost imperceptibly picks up the pace and turns into something more urgent. The overall result is an enormously listenable and beautifully eloquent instrumental album with an impact that is undeniably softer than that of its forebears, but which is no less enriching for that. One of the best debut records that will emerge this year.

4/5

MySpace Hop - May 2011 (Feature)

2011-04-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

Echo Lake

http://www.myspace.com/echolakeandthestrangeera

Echo Lake are by far my favourite new band this year. Their Young Silence EP is a proper dream-pop head-fuck; a hazy, cloying cloud of warmth that swamps your brain in the most gorgeous way. It’s disorienting and soothing all at once, with the lush vocals counterbalancing the uneasy ambience that drifts under the surface. I’m expecting a pretty trippy dawdle across MySpace based on my starting point...

Banjo or Freakout

http://www.myspace.com/banjoorfreakout

I’ve struggled with Banjo or Freakout for a few months, I must concede. I think it’s this ‘British Deerhunter’ thing that sets my suspicions a-tingling. The parallels are really obvious though, so it’s hard to escape the nagging feeling that it’s all a little contrived. If you can somehow manage to get past that (and if so, you’re more forgiving than this old curmudgeon), you’re in for some perfectly competent reverb-heavy pop. I’d still rather listen to Bradford Cox though.

Walls

http://www.myspace.com/walls_band

Oooh, now this IS good. This lot proudly publicise 9/10 and 4/5 album reviews aplenty on their page, so I’m moderately embarrassed to have missed this. It’s beautifully considered ponderous techno, ideal for languid summer evenings in the garden. Burnt Sienna is about the pinnacle of the loveliness, but A Wirus Waits is pretty interesting too. The ingredients might be quite minimal here, but there’s still a hell of a lot going on. A lovely find.

Allez-Allez

http://www.myspace.com/allezallez

Man, it took some effort to click off Walls’ page. Dancey London twosome Allez-Allez, to be honest, aren’t quite as enticing a prospect. Their sound is much more souped up than that of Walls, but it’s also far less imaginative, with each dreary beat-heavy cut bleeding into the last. Even their Fever Ray remix sounds exactly bloody like one of their own tracks, with not even Karen Dreijer Andersson’s infrequent ghostly mewlings managing to kick-start the thing.

It’s a Fine Line

http://www.myspace.com/itsafineline

The final stop of a fair less sleepy hop than I had anticipated is at the door of nutso London pair It’s a Fine Line, who should maybe double date with Allez-Allez to discuss how to be interesting. Their rubber-limbed electro-pop is an enjoyably mental diversion from the daily cut-n-thrust, although I’m not sure I’d have the endurance to sit through an entire album of it. Their remixes are a bit more palatable, as they breathe a bit of life into The XX and sex up Au Revoir Simone a treat.

The Futureheads - Cluny - 20/04/11 (Gig)

2011-04-22T14:59:00.000-07:00

If The Futureheads had got their heads together before tonight’s Japanese Tsunami Relief Benefit show and attempted to sketch out the ideal set of circumstances in which to extract optimum charitable goodwill, they would probably have struggled to come up with a better scenario than that which we actually encounter tonight. The seemingly endless supply of bank holidays stretched languidly in front of us has dovetailed beautifully with the unexpected delight of the first proper sunshine of the year, making Ouseburn Valley a pretty fucking happy place. Throw in a stellar supporting cast of some of the North East’s finest musicians, and you’ve got practically the perfect recipe to tease hands into pockets.

Because we’ve got five sets to accommodate tonight, the running order is squeezed about as tightly as can be, and it commences with Michael Littlefield who steps onstage in front of basically no-one, although thankfully a smattering of people drizzle in as his set progresses. Littlefield unassumingly informs us that he plans to play some Blues songs, which turn out to be absolutely immaculately observed. If his renditions of the likes of Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters seem just a little like hero-worship, then it’s forgivable because his voice is so authentic and his guitar work so accomplished.

Littlefield is followed by The Lake Poets, aka Martin Longstaff, a (mostly) solo artist who is currently doing a pretty decent job of hauling himself up the North East gigging hierarchy. These days it’s treacherously easy for acoustic singer-songwriters to tumble irredeemably into the ever-expanding sea of non-descript one-man/woman projects who forget to write actual songs, but so far Longstaff’s work has kept him a safe distance from the ocean of drips. The combination of his timorous, vulnerable vocal and his gently soaring songs, the scale of which become more apparent when he is joined late in the set by his backing band, illustrate pretty succinctly just why his popularity is increasing so steadily.

Speaking of growing repute, Grandfather Birds aren’t doing too badly on that front either, now that their grizzled charm is spawning impressive singles and propelling them around the country. They’re up against it a little tonight, because the malfunctioning microphone demons that occasionally tease Littlefield and The Lake Poets decide they’re going to well and truly bully Grandfather Birds, which isn’t really fair because their poor old singer is already battling a sore throat as it is. In spite of the fates’ concerted efforts to throw them off course, though, they’re brilliant, overcoming the odds triumphantly with a collection of intricately-fabricated songs, tinged with the odd intriguing splash of darkness.

The final support act of the evening is billed simply as Adam James Cooper, but, as Cooper himself acknowledges, that’s a bit of a disservice to the six other musicians who join him on stage, because we’re not talking about a solo artist with interchangeable backing musos here, this feels like a proper band in the fullest sense of the word. Their raucous, booze-soaked pub-folk is the nicest surprise of the night. It’s absolutely infectious, and it augments the already boisterous air of good cheer which pervades the Cluny.

By the time The Futureheads make their way out, the venue is, unsurprisingly (and gratifyingly) rammed. It was always going to be, of course, because the band have been selling out much bigger rooms than the Cluny for years, so it’s a pretty special feeling to have them back in the best small venue in the North East of England. It’s not just the Cluny that makes their appearance feel like a one-off though, it’s also the fact that tonight is a departure from your traditional breakneck Futureheads rock show, it’s a gig which sees them discard all instrumentation save for Barry’s acoustic guitar, meaning that Jaff, Ross and Dave find themselves exclusively on vocal duties. It’s clearly an alien position for them to be in, but the act of casting aside the fetters of traditional instrumental structures brings the band’s interplay (always a hugely endearing feature of their gigs) even more tangibly to the surface. Tonight’s set up lends itself to banter, and after a decade together, The Futureheads are masters of the art.

The set list is as relaxed as the chatter, meandering aimlessly through all four records, and including a pleasantly surprising outing for ‘Thursday’, a riotous singalong encore of ‘Heartbeat Song’ and the traditional crowd-war japes of ‘Hounds of Love’. There’s also room for more outlandish propositions too, like ‘The Keeper’, a 17th Century hunting song (which is at odds with the band’s 50% veggie population), and traditional drinking song ‘The Old Dun Cow’, which features a creditable shouting and stamping cameo from the entire crowd. It’s all enormously fun stuff which, in a strange way reminds us of why this gig is being put on in the first place. Because, in spite of the obvious solemnity of the cause, tonight is a life-affirming celebration of the power of music to be able to do something wonderful – no matter how small in the scale of Japan’s devastation – to help people.

Roddy Woomble - Cluny 2 - 02/04/11 (Gig)

2011-04-22T14:58:00.000-07:00

Roddy Woomble looks and sounds pretty weather-beaten these days. Perhaps it’s down to those rough Scottish winters (or maybe even Scottish summers, come to think of it), but it means he can play the part of fully-fledged grizzly folkster pretty convincingly now. If latter day Idlewild felt a little forced and cumbersome, then it seems like the freedom of going solo has done him good, because tonight he is relaxed and amiable, and his homespun folk songs come across as entirely authentic, giving us a heartwarming insight into his love affair with Scotland. The lovely enveloping cosiness of a full Cluny 2 helps augment this feeling of warmth and goodwill to all men, providing an intimacy which is lacking only a campfire. He works beautifully with his backing trio, weaving through his two solo records, with highlights including the unashamed MOR bounce of ‘Roll Along’ and the unfussy elegance of ‘I Came in From the Mountain’. So strong is the set that I’d almost forgotten about Idlewild by the time ‘You Held the World in Your Arms’ is dropped into the encore, but it’s a nice surprise, and speaks volumes about a man completely at ease with both his past and present.

Hunx and His Punx - Too Young to be in Love (Album)

2011-04-22T14:51:00.000-07:00

Neither Hunx nor any of his Punx seem to give a flying fuck that the year is 2011. As technology barges us ever more forcefully to the inevitable point where music will be downloaded from tiny little hard drives installed in molecules of oxygen straight onto our actual brains (for a reasonable monthly fee payable to Apple, of course), Hunx and His Punx are cheerfully ensconced in the 1960s. Their brand of bubblegum girl-band pop-n-roll yearns for a simpler time, a time when Phil Spector was merely an eccentric genius with a tendency to use firearms as a motivational prop rather than a murderous lunatic with an increasingly erratic taste in hairpieces. A time, even, when David Cameron didn’t even exist! Imagine!

The band look back on those days with rose-tinted spectacles, of course, but anybody who enjoys well-built pop music will find it difficult not to be swayed by the arguments in favour of bygone days which Too Young to be in Love presents. So impressive is the execution of the album, in fact, that it’s easy to overlook the fact that it represents Hunx and His Punx’ first proper foray into long-players, following on from 2009’s Gay Singles, a round-up of early 7” singles. Basically, they’ve completely and utterly nailed it, and I’d question whether they should even bother trying to follow it up, because it’s difficult to imagine them managing to better capture the essence of what they do than they have here.

On first glance, Too Young to be in Love appears to be a pretty simple prospect. Indeed, Hunx himself might happily have you believe that it is a one-dimensional collection of Wall of Sound-inspired pop songs about boyz, but any air of naivete conjured up is a mere affectation, presumably designed to augment the authenticity of the homage. Every Punx harmony, or Hunx whimper about making “my momma cry” is accompanied by a raised eyebrow and a knowing smirk. (Let’s not forget, the little boy lost singing here is also the chap who made an enormously NSFW appearance in Girls’ video for ‘Lust For Life’). The whole thing is very deliberately and very impressively assembled, something which makes it all the more impressive. Hunx takes the convincing part of the sweet lovelorn boy, while his Punx add bite to proceedings, most notably on ‘The Curse of Being Young'.

While Too Young to be in Love may be hugely impressive, it’s certainly not going to be for everybody though. For a start, I’d suggest staying clear of it if you find yourself in any way irritated by the world at large, because there’s a danger that Hunx’s nasal croon or the proudly retrogressive nature of the songs might push you over the edge. If, however, you feel inclined to indulge yourself with a sugary pop treat, then few albums released in this or any other year will be more effective.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong (Album)

2011-04-22T14:46:00.000-07:00

I don’t think I’m being too harsh on The Pains of Being Pure at Heart when I say that when they released their first album two years ago, they weren’t exactly weighed down by the burden of an expectant public. Flash forward to 2011, though, and the gradual but significant impact of the debut means that Belong represents one of the most significant indie releases of the early part of the year. It’s testament to both the simple endearing quality of the aforementioned debut, as well as the ever increasing power of blog-trotters the world over, that the band find themselves in such a position, but it also means that, for the first time, there’s a pressure on them to produce the goods.

Things start promisingly with the album’s title track, a pleasingly meaty chunk of guitar distortion, emerging more from the My Bloody Valentine extreme of the band’s oeuvre than the Field Mice one, which would appear to suggest that a couple of years of heavy touring have galvanised their sound. As it turns out, this proves to be a bit of a red herring because a few seconds into second song ‘Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now’, the fog clears and the band revert to chiming, melodic type, remaining in that mode for the bulk of the rest of the record. Nobody should be particularly surprised by this, because even at this early stage in their career, The Pains have always been the sort of band who gave the impression of being happily ensconced in their C86-shaped niche. This, by the way, is no criticism, either. As it happens, I absolutely loved The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, but let’s not beat about the bush: if you found that record too derivative, too twee or too cloying, then Belong certainly won’t change your perception of the band

As you would expect, then, the things that Belong does well are exactly the same as those that The Pains of Being Pure at Heart did well. It’s liberally strewn with sharp pop hooks which, as before, rely heavily on the interplay between the shoegaze-with-a-small-s guitars and Kip Berman’s breathy vocals. The weariness in Berman’s voice again provides an interesting counterpoint to the youthful exuberance of the musical backing, and ‘My Terrible Friend’ is probably the most effective example of this that the band have yet produced. Other particularly satisfying highlights of the record include the aforementioned title track, and the beautifully direct, twinkling pop of ‘The Body’ and ‘Girl of 1000 Dreams’.

Belong, unquestionably, find its mark more often than it misses it, and on those occasions, the songs are every bit as strong as those on The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. It’s all the more frustrating, then, that there are a couple of moments on the record which make it feel like hard work, namely the disappointingly dreary ‘Anne with an E’, and closing song ‘Strange’, which sees the band aim for a big finale without even getting close to the sort of grandeur they seem to think they’re attaining. It’s a shame that the album ends on such an underwhelming note, because there’s a danger that the listener will be left with the false impression that Belong is a disappointing record, which it really is not. It might be a stretch to say that it surpasses what went before it, but given the what the band where up against, there’s aboslutely no shame in that at all. All things considered, The Pains have quite neatly circumnavigated their unenviable task, adding some real gems to their back catalogue in the process.

Jeniferever - Silesia (Album)

2011-04-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve always had a massive soft spot for Jeniferever. Right from the misleading Smashing Pumpkins reference of their name, to the incredible grandeur of their debut record Choose a Bright Morning (and, to a slightly lesser extent, its follow-up Spring Tides), they’ve always been right up my street. I’m sure, then, you can imagine my delight to be tasked with the duty of reporting that Silesia is an absolute fucking triumph, and the main reason for its success is that, crucially, there is absolutely no attempt to replicate the Sigur Rós-esque beauty of their snails-pace elegies of yore. Yes, Silesia is still stunningly pretty in places, but it is also imbued with a brand new sense of urgency, playfulness even, which is gratifying in a whole different way. Take Deception Pass for example; it’s a thumping, booming slice of unsettling weirdness with a rhythm that your ear can never seem to quite catch up with, casually placed slap-bang in the middle of the record. This is telling of a band who are refreshingly willing to take risks when they could have quite easily knocked out BBC ident soundtracks ‘til the IKEA trucks came home. You need Jeniferever in your life.

5/5

Times New Viking - Dancer Equired (Album)

2011-04-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

Times New Viking’s sense of timing here is pretty serendipitous, given how the much-ballyhooed return of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart has put fuzzy mumble-pop back on the public’s agenda again. In an enormously over-crowded genre littered by saminess, Dancer Equired makes a decent fist of standing out from its contemporaries, but then you’d expect that from old hands like TNV for whom this represents their fifth full-lengther. By their own scratchy standards, they’ve softened a little, with Dancer Equired lacking the abrasive trebly scree of much of their earlier work, which has, I guess, robbed them of one of their most satisfying ingredients, but which has also undoubtedly made them a more listenable prospect. Don’t worry though, they still sound grubby as fuck, to the point where you actually start to wonder if the likes of Ways to Go and Downward Eastern Bloc are a willful attempt to wind up the audiophile zealots to whom the mere mention of 192kbps is akin to cheerfully shitting in their shoes. All in all, Dancer Equired is nothing we weren’t really expecting from Times New Viking, but it's good murky fun all the same.

3.5/5

Elbow - Sheffield Motorpoint Arena - 19/03/2011 (Gig)

2011-04-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

Arena Gigs. A scourge of ‘proper music’ symptomatic of the soulless lucre-driven market in which we wallow, or a necessary evil which we must all occasionally abide to enjoy certain bands at the more popular end of the scale? Well, now that Elbow are officially ‘A Big Band’, then it would appear that the only way that it is now possible to enjoy their enduring meat-n-potatoes charm in the live setting is for us to drag ourselves to the identi-hangars which punctuate the outskirts of our major cities.

As a far from frequent visitor to Britain’s overgrown tin sheds it is with a sense of uneasiness that I step into Sheffield’s ridiculously-monikered Motorpoint Arena tonight, a sentiment which isn’t helped when I’m greeted by idiotically-priced beer and snacks, as well as toilet queues more reminiscent of a football ground than a gig venue. (Although, I’ll concede that part of my discomfort may stem from being torn briefly from my beloved NewcastleGateshead). Fortunately, my sense of dépaysement disippates completely the second Elbow emerge on stage, as the reassuringly familiar sight and sound of the band soothe my jangling nerves.

Anybody with any kind of experience of Elbow as a band can probably predict with a fair degree of accuracy what their live shows are like, as they blend the ground-shaking anthemics that have carried them to the enormodromes with moments of disarming intimacy with an enviable ease. The absence of any real element of surprise (an ill-fated attempt at on-stage cocktail mixing notwithstanding) however, takes absolutely nothing away from just what a genuine pleasure the show is. Guy’s personality fills the place just as formidably as his wounded bear vocal, and you get the impression that, in spite of the bizarre Bieber walkway down which he frequently prowls into the crowd, he would treat this show the same whether it was at the Motorpoint, or the function room of a working men’s club. His relaxed and spontaneous chit-chat between songs renders him impossible to dislike, and it surely strips away any questions that any remaining hard-hearted folk may have about just why so many people feel such warmth towards Elbow.

The set list is pretty heavy on the last two records, with absolutely nothing from Asleep in the Back or Cast of Thousands being featured, and only a handful of songs from Leaders of the Free World making an appearance. Whether the band’s surroundings have influenced them to make a conscious concession to their biggest unit shifters, or whether they’re just a bit sick of playing songs that have been around for a decade or more is unclear. Either way, while it might be a bit disappointing that the likes of ‘Red’, ‘New Born’ and ‘Grace Under Pressure’ are absent, it’s a minor gripe, because the material we are treated to is pretty fucking special.

Even though it’s only been a fortnight since the release of Build a Rocket Boys!, its songs already sit in impressively comfortable fashion alongside their forebears like age-old compatriots. In particular, the stirring set opener ‘The Birds’, ‘Open Arms’ and ‘Neat Little Rows’ sound fantastic tonight, as do a bracing version of ‘Grounds For Divorce’, a typically gorgeous ‘One Day Like This’ and ‘The Fix’ which sees a popular homecoming cameo from Richard Hawley. ‘Station Approach’, too, sounds wonderful, a classic slice of Elbow triumphalism which beautifully eulogises the joy of returning home after a period away.

At the moment, Elbow would appear to be right at the peak of their creative and commercial powers, and it would take a pretty harsh critic to begrudge them their current position. Their rise in popularity has been a gradual but inevitable one, centring around the admirable paragons of hard work and good old-fashioned songwriting. Tonight’s show makes it abundantly plain that all five of them feel privileged to be where they are, and it would be enormously surprised if they started slacking any time soon. Enjoy your success, lads, you’ve earned it.

Iron and Wine - Gateshead Sage 16/03/11 (Gig)

2011-03-17T12:13:00.001-07:00

I’m just going to say it. There are far too many singer-songwriter types. The main consequence of this surfeit is that we’re completely and utterly inundated with bland fuckwits who seem to think that the purchase of an acoustic guitar comes with carte blanche to bleat dully about girls’n’shit to any unsuspecting suckers who happen to be in earshot. Step forward opening act Daniel Martin Moore, then, a man so stereotypically boring I don’t intend to waste any more of my word count on him. Based on the recorded evidence, Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam could certainly teach him a few lessons about how to maintain a balance between good ole-fashioned songcraft and actually being interesting. Things start off promisingly tonight, with Beam appearing relaxed and chatty,and his seven accompanists injecting songs from both ends of the discography with real gusto. But gradually, and almost imperceptibly, a change begins to permeate the set. What started off initially as satisfyingly full arrangements of the songs descend into interminable free-jazz wank-outs during which all eight musicians appear blissfully unaware of the presence of the crowd. It’s a fucking massive shame that the night takes this turn, because it takes more than a little bit of the shine off the wonderful songs and Beam’s impossibly warm vocal which is even more affecting when teamed up with the Sage’s space-age acoustics. An enormously frustrating night then, but hey, even a flawed Iron and Wine performance is preferable to what preceded it.

Those Dancing Days - Daydreams and Nightmares (Album)

2011-02-28T15:08:00.000-08:00

The subject of pop for pop’s sake has inspired some reasonably heated debate on these pages in recent weeks, igniting a slightly indier incarnation of the decades old beef between pop lovers and ‘serious’ music fans. Well, if you’ll indulge me my soap box for just a moment, I’ve always believed pretty fucking strongly that there is no purer musical thrill than a song which inspires in one the uncontrollable urge to dance and sing. And at a time when insipid, lifeless pop bands are tiresomely numerous, genuinely good ones deserve to be cherished just as much as the most creative of avant-garde pioneers

Slink forward Those Dancing Days, then. Having captured the twee zeitgeist in 2008 with their debut record In Our Space Hero Suits, its follow-up Daydreams and Nightmares sees them in an altogether more insistent frame of mind. It’s a bit of a stretch to say they have found a harder edge, but they’ve certainly developed an unmistakable fresh sense of urgency. As well as having attained a new level of vitality, the band also appear to have well and truly nailed the art of the chorus too, as evidenced by the almost instantly memorable mid-sections of ‘Dream About Me’ and ‘Reaching Forwards’

The strongest overall examples of the admirable pop nous of Daydreams and Nightmares can be found in its central one-two of ‘Can’t Find Entrance’ and ‘Fuckarias’, which are without doubt two of 2011’s catchiest singles so far. The breakneck pace of both songs and the snotty attitude of the latter are characteristic of the evolution of the band’s sound. Mind, you, I’m not sure the subject of ‘Fuckarias’ will feel too threatened by the barbs which are being levelled at them: “You’re an uninvited clown... You’re in my space, get out of my face”. Those Dancing Days might be able to convincingly beef up their sound, but, endearingly, their cuddlier core is still pretty plain for all to see.

Throughout Daydreams and Nightmares, in fact, there are numerous reminders that the band haven’t entirely ditched discarded the unfettered tweeness that characterised their first record, and there’s still plenty here for sensitive souls to fall for here. ‘I’ll Be Yours’ and ‘Help Me Close My Eyes’, for instance, are appropriately big-hearted, as is the closing track ‘One Day Forever’ (once you get over the bizarre resemblance between its opening few seconds and those of Grizzly Bear’s ‘Two Weeks’, that is). There’s plenty more evidence of the saccharine in the lyrical content too, or even from a cursory glance at the song titles, illustrating that Daydreams and Nightmares is still, at heart, a collection of sweet pop songs. You’ll just have to circumnavigate the extra layers of polish and synths to find it. Presumably the influence of Patrik Berger, latterly Robyn’s producer, has had a big part to play in all this. Hell, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine one or two of these songs being recorded by Robyn, most notably ‘Help Me Close My Eyes’.

All in all, the progression Those Dancing Days have shown here is pretty damn impressive by anybody’s standards. Whether this will be acknowledged by either our little world, or the wider public, I wouldn’t like to say. What I can say with some safety, though, is that Daydreams and Nightmares is a better record than In Our Space Hero Suits. A fellow DiS scribe at that time may have decried the band’s lack of anything memorable, but that is no longer an accusation which may be levelled at them with any kind of fairness.

7/10

Singles Round-Up - W/C 28/2/11 (Single)

2011-02-28T15:04:00.000-08:00

And so, it is that time of the week again. The time when we realise to our massive chagrin that the fleeting ecstasy of the weekend is once again fizzling out and in a matter of hours we will be back out into the grey misery of Monday morning for another week of toil and drudge. But fear not! Because although God might take our weekend every Monday with his left hand, at the same time he gives us new singles with his right hand! And butter my arse, there’s some real crackers this week.

Manic Street Preachers
Postcards From a Young Man

I expend on average about a thousand words a year telling Muso’s Guide readers exactly why Manic Street Preachers are the most important band ever, so let me warn you, you shouldn’t expect balance from me on this subject. Postcards is one of the highlights of the album of the same name, and it’s a glorious throwback to the late 1990s when the band shifted records by the shitload. It’s a swaying, swooning slice of enormous guitar pop, on which James Dean Bradfield sounds more energised than he has in years, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the slightly bitter nostalgic bent of the Wire’s lyrics. It’s quite obviously single of the week, but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Elbow
Neat Little Rows

Everyone likes Elbow these days don’t they? They’re like a band of Dave Grohls, a bunch of proper decent pub blokes, who also happen to make brilliant records. Neat Little Rows sounds pretty much exactly how you would expect an Elbow lead single to sound. It doesn’t start off like that, though, because for the first minute you’re a bit concerned that they couldn’t come up with their own song and instead have decided to completely plagiarise Zebra by Beach House, but then the piano starts twinkling and Garvey’s whiskied howl cranks up a gear and you’re back in the safe and comforting heartland of classic Elbow. Neat Little Rows may not be in any way surprising, but its predictability takes nothing away from how nice it is to have Elbow back.

Crocodiles
Mirrors

Sleep Forever was, for me, one of 2010’s finest albums but it never quite seemed to get the universal adulation that it deserved. Exactly why Crocodiles feel the need to release opening track Mirrors now eludes me, but screw it, it’s a brilliant song which calls to mind the best moments of The Secret Machines’ early career. It’s about the pinnacle of Crocodiles’ noise-gaze endeavours, easing its way in gently with a hypnotic, snaking melody ushering in the crunching chords which carry off the rest of the song into a sea of beautiful echoey confusion. Massively enjoyable stuff.

Belle and Sebastian
I Want the World to Stop

In exactly the same way that you know exactly what to expect from an Elbow single, B&S have long since ceased to surprise us when they knock out a lovely single. They are are one of indieland’s great comforting constants, and unless you’re made of granite, their deftness with an upbeat melody should be sufficient to lift you out of a miserable Monday mood. Typically, I Want the World to Stop is a beautifully crafted sliver of chirpy pop, which sees Stuart pondering “sheets of milky winter disorder” and a “grey adorable city by the docks”, and still making the whole thing sound utterly idyllic.

Dutch Uncles
Face In

I’ll be honest, this is my first experience of Dutch Uncles. It’s pretty nice, all told. I won’t pretend not to be a smidge disturbed by the chap in the wedding dress in the video, but hey, his guests seem to be enjoying themselves by the end. The song is another bit of sugary indie pop fun, and although this particular week there’s a danger of it being overshadowed by the titans of the genre, the nagging catchiness of the chorus sees it alright. Face In is a great example the type of pop music that is one of the few things we Englishers do better than anybody else in the world.

Those Dancing Days
Can’t Find Entrance

Well, we might as well finish off with more twee pop since that’s the route the singles schedulers seem to be taking us this week. Those Dancing Days have become consummate pros in the field, and I can give you a sneaky exclusive that their new album is excellent. Can’t Find Entrance is pretty representative of the breakneck speed at which the whole thing proceeds, rattling by in a blur of guitar, organ and little-girl lost vocals. In another week, this might have been single of the week, but, well, I’d already given that to the Manics before I’d even seen what other singles were out.

Efterklang - The Sage - 26/2/11 (Gig)

2011-02-27T05:34:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a gig is more than just a band standing on a stage playing songs to a room full of people who like their records. Very occasionally, there are instances where band, venue and crowd come together in a beautiful and poetic unison and it’s suddenly about more than mere music, it’s about an experience in the fullest sense of the word. Tonight, (unexpectedly to me, I must concede), Efterklang provide one of those magical gigs.

Having never previously been inducted into the Efterklang live experience, for all I know this could represent a fairly standard show for them, in which case that would make them they greatest live band in the entire world. I have to admit that I wasn’t the biggest fan of Magic Chairs, which felt a little flat compared to the lunatic majesty of Parades, but the sheer unadulterated enthusiasm of the band’s performance tonight levels the playing field, and the songs from Magic Chairs stand with their heads held high, fit to share a setlist with their forebears. It seems such an obvious point, but for me the key difference between a genuinely enjoyable performance and just a decent gig is the amount of joy the band show in delivering their songs, and with Efterklang their constant grins make it abundantly plain; they are fucking loving being here tonight.

Aside from the enthusiasm with which the band ply their trade, it also helps matters that they can play a bit too. The extended seven-piece version of Efterklang are able to instill a massive orchestral grace to songs which already sounded pretty full to start with. From the understated elegaic groove of Rasmus Stolberg’s bass to Peter Broderick’s furious violin wig-outs, the musicality of the band is extraordinary. The lines between the duties of each individual musician become blurred throughout, with drummer Thomas Husmer also playing the trumpet, keyboardist Heather Woods Broderick moonlighting on the flute, and singer Casper Clausen constantly banging something with a drumstick, whether it is a drum, a cymbal or the Sage’s conveniently placed (and surprisingly tuneful) pipes.

One of the key things which makes tonight’s show so wonderful is the way Efterklang are able to bring into such sharp relief that magical little niche they have created between the pure and unsullied beauty of Sigur Rós and the unfettered joyousness of Arcade Fire. More than once, the show descends into a collective singalong where the divide between band and audience ceases to exist (particularly when one enthusiastic couple hug Casper near the end, and it feels completely and utterly acceptable.) By the time the band reach the culmination of final song ‘The Modern Drift’, all seven of them find themselves stood on the edge of the sage leading us into a cathartic acapella clapping session (the impact of which is no doubt aided by the Sage’s expensive space-age acoustics).

When Efterklang depart the stage for the final time, I don’t think I am the only person left standing on the floor bemused by what I have just witnessed. It genuinely takes me a few minutes to get my breath and my bearings back. Fortunately, the band seem to like the Sage, which bodes well for our prospects of getting them back here in the near future. I have just one littler pointer for Casper to remember for the band’s next visit though: Try and remember you’re in Gateshead, not Newcastle. A lesser band would have been lynched for such a heinous crime...

Vessels - Helioscope (Album)

2011-02-27T05:26:00.000-08:00

It’s lovely to have Vessels back. It feels like way too long since they unleashed the post-mathrock colossus of their debut album White Fields and Open Devices upon the British public. Sadly, as it turns out, the ungrateful bastards who inhabit these shores were paying no attention whatsoever, abandoning White Fields to a horribly undeserved fate as an overlooked classic. Alas, providence has given us the chance to right that wrong with the release of Helioscope, because Vessels have, very magnanimously, delivered another stunning record. Much of what characterised White Fields is still present; the lunatic creativity, the staggering musical proficiency, the sudden and delightful swells of volume and swerves of tempo. Hell, parts of Helioscope (‘Recur’ and ‘Art/Choke’ in particular) could have been lifted right off White Fields. But Helioscope also shows that Vessels have developed a new brand of subtlety, something neatly illustrated by the moody beauty of ‘Meatman, Piano Tuner, Prostitute’ or the paranoid brilliance of ‘The Trap’. I’ve always had difficulty imagining a record more ambitious than White Fields and Devices, but if such a thing could be said to exist, then Helioscope is it. Vessels are a fucking marvel, and hopefully they haven’t finished surprising me yet.

5/5

Radiohead - The King of Limbs

2011-02-27T05:21:00.000-08:00

The King of Limbs definitely represents new ground for Radiohead in its cohesiveness and its unnerving, stifling mood. For these reasons alone, it is a good album. Problem is, though, all has gone before means that something merely ‘good’ represents failure for Radiohead. I’m six listens in and it’s yet to fully reveal the intangible wonders of a Radiohead record, but fingers crossed it’s just a matter of time.

7/10

Bright Eyes - The People's Key (Album)

2011-02-13T12:23:00.000-08:00

The four years since the release of the last Bright Eyes album Cassadaga have found Conor Oberst in a curious sort of critical limbo. For a number of reasons (the most frequently cited one being its propensity to the overblown), Cassadaga proved to be one of the most poorly-received albums of Oberst’s career. For what it’s worth, the criticisms weren’t entirely fair, because, firstly, it contained some of Conor’s best songs in ‘Hot Knives’, ‘Lime Tree’ and ‘Cleanse Song’, and, secondly, it’s hardly as if Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning were particularly low-fi recordings, and history seems to have been kind enough to them.

Ever since Cassadaga, though, every release to which Oberst’s name has been tagged has been greeted warily, almost to the point of apprehension. Sure, there were the odd isolated pockets of praise for the two Mystic Valley Band records and Monsters of Folk album, but utimately neither set critics a-quivering with anything even approaching the fervour inspired by Fevers and Mirrors or Lifted. Again, the less than enthusiastic reception of these records felt harsh, but that’s a debate which we will have to set aside for another day lest we find ourselves two thousand words deep without even broaching the subject at hand. One fact has become plain from all this prevaricating though, and it is that since 2007, any album recorded by Conor Oberst is more likely to inspire trepidation than unequivocal excitement.

Well, there’s a very strong chance that The People’s Key will be remembered as the point when the wind changed again, and suspicion ceased to be a feature of a Conor Oberst pre-release campaign. To put it succinctly, it is a brilliant album. And, crucially, a large part of its brilliance stems from the fact that it is completely unlike any previous Bright Eyes album. There’s no cynical attempt to rehash past glories and there is no experimenting aimlessly for experimenting aimlessly’s sake. All we have here is the sound of Oberst, Mogis, Walcott and co sounding completely fresh, pushing Bright Eyes forward into a new space, with inspired results.

Conor has recently spoken about how he went into the studio to record The People’s Key armed only with the lyrics, preferring to allow the instrumentation develop organically during the recording process with Mike and Nate. This spontaneity has resulted in an album which is bristling with vitality, and which, in an entirely different way to Cassadaga, boasts a luxuriously full-sounding cast of instrumentation. The songs are adorned with any number of new and unexpected little flourishes, like the rattle and clamour that heralds the beginning of ‘Jejune Stars’, the strange chugging guitar sound which carries ‘Haile Selassie’ along or the stuttering halt which concludes ‘A Machine Spiritual’, all of which combine to make The People’s Key a living, breathing thing. Oberst has been at pains to suggest that it is a ‘rocking’ album, and there’s no denying that it is, but it’s also utterly beyond the constraints that are implied by that description; it is forward-thinking and progressive too.

There are some things about The People’s Key, though, that are comfortingly familiar. For starters, it wouldn’t feel like a proper Bright Eyes album without a meandering spoken word intro, supplied this time by Refried Ice Cream’s Denny Brewer, who reappears on a few more occasions throughout the record to provide a dignified gravitas akin to the last Gil Scott-Heron album. At first it’s difficult to reconcile his grizzled, vaguely existential monologues to a Bright Eyes recording, but the more the album sinks in, the more integral they begin to feel to the whole tapestry. When you detach yourself from the engulfing embrace of the record (easier said than done, by the way), the resigned philosophy of Brewer’s contributions is actually a perfectly logical counterpart to Oberst’s ruminations on humanity and the universe at large, which are becoming increasingly outward-looking as he gets older.

As the album reaches it’s conclusion, we see two more flashes of ‘old’ Bright Eyes, the first being the aching piano-led ‘The Ladder Song’, which is as beautiful as any of Oberst’s greatest ballads. Aside from showing that he can still gently crush you with the sadness of his voice, ‘The Ladder Song’ also provides encouragement that even in the midst of the swollen sea of instrumentation, he still knows when to keep things minimal. The other glimpse of the Bright Eyes of bygone years comes in the form of the meditative closing song ‘One For You, One For Me’, which bobs along gently, in the process discreetly creating the same sense of low-key stateliness which made Lifted such a stunning album.

The final word on The People’s Key is left to Brewer, allowing him to sign off what he started with a neat symmetry, as he leaves us with a sermon on the importance of forgiveness, mercy and the importance of moving on. Whether the finality of his words will prove to a prophetic final chapter in the Bright Eyes story is, for now unclear, because Conor is about as reliable as James Murphy when it comes to giving definitive answers on the future of his band (and long may he keep us guessing). Either way, The People’s Key is fit to stand toe to toe with any record that will be released in 2011, and serves as a timely reminder of the distinction between form and class.

Medium 21 - Killings From the Dial (Album)

2011-02-06T11:06:00.001-08:00

Some time around 2003, Fierce Panda and Island got their heads together to form Temptation Records. You’d be forgiven for having difficulty in recalling this, because by the time we rung in 2004, Temptation was already lost to the history books. However, before it shuffled meekly off into the good night, it was able to create at least some kind of a legacy in the form of a clutch of singles and an album each from The Rain Band and Medium 21. I won’t pretend to have ever heard a note from the former, but the latter ended up spending much of the last decade as unexpectedly dogged companions in my travels along life’s dusty highways (well, Gateshead’s potholed highways to be precise).

The band’s arrival into my life came under unusual circumstances, with an envelope (addressed to me) containing promo posters, flyers and a promo copy of the ‘By My Side’ single dropping completely unheralded one morning onto the doormat of my second year Uni dwelling. To this day, I have absolutely no idea to whom I had given my name and address in order to warrant such a despatch, but my studently love of any kind of freebie as well as my pleasant surprise at the music contained on the disc outweighed any bemusement at the presumptuousness of whomever had sent it. (Who knows, if The Rain Band had been similarly brazen, you could very possibly be reading their eulogy right now, rather than that of their erstwhile labelmates).

Aside from a fleeting snatch of support from Mark and Lard, the songs from Killings From the Dial received practically no airplay (Perhaps I should have done a little more with those flyers than just giving a handful to each of my three flatmates). While this, of course, is true of the majority of albums, most aren’t able to straddle the fine line between musical richness and radio crossover potential quite as assuredly as Killings From the Dial did. ‘Black and White Summer’ and ‘Albert Ross’ in particular possessed a panoramic sense of wistfulness which could have quite easily made them genuinely big singles. In the end, they wouldn’t get the chance to achieve such lofty heights, because ‘By My Side’, only the second single from the album, would prove to be Medium 21’s last release.

Perhaps the only thing which might have limited any potential mainstream appeal would have been singer Jon Clough’s voice, a peculiarly throaty drawl which could have polarised sections of the wider record-buying public. For me, though, he’s the perfect example of the (enormously cliched, but still accurate) premise that you needn’t be a great singer to be a great singer. His vocals were always an interesting counterpoint to Medium 21’s more melodic moments (the likes of ‘The Plight of Losing Out’ and ‘Poisoned Postcards’) and they added real character and a genuine sense of urgency to the more agitated sections of the album like ‘Acting Like a Mirror’ and ‘Daybreak vs Pride’.

One of the most impressive things about Killings From the Dial, and the thing which would elevate it above most of its more successful contemporaries was the way the band were able to so convincingly blend gorgeous sun-dappled acoustic pop, off-kilter wanderings and occasional bursts of paranoid darkness. Their skill in making the sometimes disparate elements of the record sit so comfortably together, sometimes even in the same song (see ‘Catalyst R.U.N.’), resulted in an album of enviable depth and intriguing complexity.

Ultimately, Medium 21 would never recover from the demise of Temptation, and in spite of a number of attempts on Clough and co’s part to rekindle the band in various guises, Killings From the Dial would prove to be the only album they would ever produce. It’s an enormous shame that the band never got to stretch their legs properly and attempt to build on their debut, because even though you wouldn’t envy them the task of following it up, you get the impression that the creative range they possessed could have taken them to untold places. If nothing else though, at least their fleeting tenure left us with a more fulfilling record than most bands can muster in a full career, and in these grim and desperate times, that’s something for which we should be grateful.

The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar (Album)

2011-02-05T13:36:00.001-08:00

I have been waiting for The Joy Formidable’s debut album for about three years. Well, actually, that isn’t strictly accurate. As it turns out, I’ve been waiting for around half of The Joy Formidable’s debut album for about three years. You see, a sizeable proportion of The Big Roar’s songs have been kicking around for a good while now, with four of them reappearing after originally featuring on mini-album A Balloon Called Moaning a couple of years ago. But hey, let’s not get too precious about the band’s decision to recycle old work, because I guess the usual purpose of a debut album is to represent a compilation of an artist’s best work from their inception to the record’s production. A more relevant query is just exactly why it has taken so long for the album to arrive when The Joy Formidable have been featuring on ‘Ones to Watch’ lists since 2008.

For the most part (and I’m genuinely pleased to say this, having developed a growing soft spot for the band with each single release that has gone by), The Big Roar has been worth the wait. It is an impressive showcase of the twin cores of The Joy Formidable’s sound, blending urgent ballsy rock-outs with dreamy grunge blissfests. This is illustrated very neatly indeed by the opening one-two of ‘The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie’ and ‘The Magnifying Glass’, with the former showering us in wave after wave of ecstatic guitar fuzz, and the latter pulling off a wonderful Nirvana-esque directness of the kind that Feeder used to think they were good at.

One of The Joy Formidable’s strongest assets has always been frontwoman Ritzy Bryan’s voice. It’s something which they have utilised to its fullest potential here, safe in the knowledge that it is strong enough to hold out even under the pressure of the heaviest squall of guitars they can muster. Her seductive, throaty (and exceedingly Welsh) vocals work interact beautifully with the noisiness, never more than on ‘A Heavy Abacus’ or ‘Cradle’. Indeed, so beguiling can Ritzy’s vocals be that it’s slightly jarring when she briefly secedes control of the mic to bassist Rhydian Daffydd on ‘Llaw=Wall’. He’s perfectly capable, and his cameo perhaps offers a little breathing space from Ritzy’s voice, but it’s kind of like when James Hanna sings on Asobi Seksu songs, they just don’t sound like quite the same band.

The Big Roar may not be perfect (Whirring wanders away into guitar-mashing rambling for about two minutes longer than it has to, and Maruyama isn’t entirely necessary), but there’s a hell of a lot about it to admire. There’s little indication that the songs have been written across of period in excess of three years, because the oldies sit perfectly comfortably alongside the newer songs, with the big positive of the lengthy gestation period being that it allows the band to display more progression than is usually possible in the span of one record. As time has gone on, they have sharply honed their sound, developing it into something which not many bands are doing right now, (certainly not this well anyway). Yes, their shoegaze/grunge influences are displayed fairly nakedly, but what they are doing is still entirely their own. However, probably the most impressive thing the band have managed with The Big Roar is to have struck up a convincing blend of proper arse-kicking rock and something which is enriching and engaging. It’s a really strong debut album which shows room to grow, and give us good cause to be excited about what the future holds for The Joy Formidable.

Conquering Animal Sound - Kammerspiel (Album)

2011-01-30T15:13:00.000-08:00

I have long been of the opinion (and I suspect that I’m far from alone on these pages in thinking this) that the best record labels are those which are able to bring together bands with some kind of aesthetic similarity. Certainly the records released by my favourite labels over the years have, on the whole, tended to have a common thread which distinguishes them instantly as a product of their particular imprint. In recent years, one such label to have emerged to fit in with this particular penchant has been Leeds’ Gizeh Records, home to the likes of Glissando, Sleepingdog and Fieldhead. When a Gizeh release lands on your doormat you know that you’re reasonably likely to encounter something chilly and unearthly, but also something which more often than not will be a beautiful and enriching piece of work.

And so it is with Glasgow-based duo Anneke Kampman and James Scott who comprise Conquering Animal Sound. Their debut album Kammerspiel is a ghostly collection of minimalistic beats, loops and fragile ambience, overlaid with Kampman’s beatifully frail vocal. Its delicateness and woozy air mean that it is a record which is best absorbed late at night, preferably at the point last thing when your brain is at its sleepiest. In this context it becomes almost lullaby-esque, with Kampman’s soft burr tailor-made for soothing away the mental aches of the daily cut and thrust

Too often records made up of minimal components are misinterpreted as being gloomy, but this is unlikely to be a fate which befalls Kammerspiel, given the sunlit glow which bathes its sounds. Take opening song ‘Maschines’ for example, as it begins with a twinkling melody and builds gently like the breaking of the day, culminating in Kampman softly cooing “You are home”. As the album progresses, you come to realise that the template of ‘Maschines’ is in fact the blueprint for much of Conquering Animal Sound’s work. Frequently their songs begin in timorous fashion, gradually layering more and more sounds on top as they build. Let’s be clear though, this isn’t to say that Kammerspiel is in any way guilty of being formulaic, because the band display a boundless creativity with the finer details throughout, a little snippet of tape hiss here, a dissonant hint of cello or a snatch of thickly-distorted vocal sample there, meaning you’re never really fully aware of where they’re taking you at any point.

In spite of its predilection for abstract noise, Kammerspiel is still at heart an album of songs and melodies which frequently follows the verse/chorus structure. Clearly, Conquering Animal Sound are more than just aimless experimentalists, because throughout there is a strong feeling that while you might not know what they are going to do next, they most certainly do. Probably the most naked song on the album is final track ‘Ira’, which dispenses with much of the effects, leaving the beauty and the melody of the song unabashed. It’s an interesting taster of what Conquering Animal Sound might be like were they a little more conventional, and while ‘Ira’ might be sufficiently pretty to stand on its own two feet, the contrast between it and much of the rest of the album illustrates the importance of the flourishes of the noises and samples.

With Kammerspiel, Conquering Animal Sound have simultaneously managed to capture on record the full depth of their creativity and imagination, as well as the inherent beauty of their sound. It is a wonderful piece of work which deseves to be cherished, and gives us far more than we might reasonably expect from anyone’s debut album.

9/10

Band of Horses - Newcastle O2 Academy 26/01/2011 (Gig)

2011-01-26T16:22:00.000-08:00

When the fuck did Band of Horses became big enough to be packing out the Academy’s main room? I’d suggest it might be something to do with Twilight, but the ratio of males to females here tonight gives lie to that little theory. Whatever it was that brought about their popularity, the band, making their return to the live arena after a few months off the road, are for the most part in awesome form tonight. They emphatically cast aside the limpness that has latterly started to creep into their recorded output, playing with a pleasantly surprising vitality and transforming their sun-dappled Americana into bona fide arena-razing anthems, accompanying the whole thing with some beautiful backdrops (Seriously, why don’t more bands make an effort with the visual side of their shows?) Given the highs of the set, it's a shame that there are odd occasions when it can sag, which may have something to do with the general flatness of the possibly-vampire-enhanced crowd. Thankfully though, even this sorry bunch come to life during The Funeral and Is There a Ghost?, two songs which perfectly encapsulate all that is good about Band of Horses’ gorgeously warm songcraft.

Hannah Peel - The Broken Wave (Album)

2011-01-23T14:03:00.001-08:00

The route Hannah Peel has taken on the way to her day job as a solo recording artist has been quite a circuitous one, taking in various projects both musical and otherwise, but the arrival of her debut record finds her cast into an unenviably competitive scene replete with artists both male and female making similarly quirky folk music. In such a saturated market, particularly one encompassing so much ethereality, it can be difficult for an artist to separate themselves from their contemporaries or break free from the cliches of what folk music represents.

Unquestionably, Peel’s work comes more from Newsom’s end of the scale than Marling’s, carrying with it more than a hint of the otherworldly which stems in part from the ghostly, frail quality of her voice, which at times can be spellbinding here. It’s clearly one of her strongest assets, but it’s nice just how sparingly she exercises it, keeping it for the most part reined in rather than letting it overshadow the songcraft, an economy which is truly crucial in the album’s success. Because there is little doubt here, The Broken Wave is a hugely impressive piece of work, which showcases Peel’s adroitness with a melody quite beautifully, with the simple, elegant swells of ‘You Call This Your Home’ and ‘Song For the Sea’ being wonderful cases in point.

Peel’s previous musical meanderings with the likes of The Unthanks and Tunng have proved to be beneficial in the construction of The Broken Wave, because it has meant that she has been able to call on an impressive cast of collaborators, including the latter’s Mike Lindsay who is responsible for a strong production which is equal parts clean and off kilter. Also present is Nitin Sawhney who lends a hand composing the beautiful strings on ‘Don’t Kiss the Broken One’ and ‘Solitude’, resulting in two of the album’s most bewitching moments.

Amid the prettiness of the music, there is a profusion of melancholy in Peel’s stories of love, loss and longing, but in spite of the tone, you can’t help but feel ultimately comforted by the songs because there is such warmth present in the delivery and the music which accompanies it, particularly on those occasions such as ‘Unwound’ or tradition Irish folk song ‘Cailin Deas Cruite Na Mbo’ when she revisits an old music box which was used in much of her earlier work. It’s genuinely surprising to learn that the album was recorded in a mere three weeks, because The Broken Wave is certainly not an album which sounds like it was hurriedly assembled. Indeed, one of its greatest triumphs is how full, and beautifully put together the whole thing sounds.

The release of The Broken Wave heralds the arrival of a genuine creative force in British folk music, and one of the scariest things about it is that you get the impression that Peel hasn’t really even got going fully yet. The record inspires a feeling that as she grows in confidence and experience she will get even better, which is quite a prospect.

8/10

Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (Album)

2011-01-20T14:21:00.000-08:00

Due to their status as demi-Gods of beard-caressing experimentalism, any new music recorded by Mogwai will inevitably be accompanied by gallons of hyperbolic messageboard bullshit both positive and negative which, if you aren’t careful, could completely distort your perceptions of the music before you even hear a note. Hardcore Will Never Die... has inevitably continued this grim trend, prompting all manner of bitter bollocks about the band having been shit for ten years. Stepping away from the vicious context for a moment, the record is possibly their most direct effort yet, and one of their most upbeat too. Indeed, the propensity for straight-up rock instrumentals like Death Rays and San Pedro comes as a slight surprise after the misleadingly murky pre-release download of Rano Pano. There’s unmistakably less introspection here than normal, with the gorgeous Letters to the Metro representing the only moment where the album skulks into its shell, and even the quiet is shortlived, as the band immediately resume their mission to live out their alt-rock fantasies. It’s all pretty exhilarating stuff, and just because their pant-destroyingly brilliant previous work might still shade it, that doesn’t mean you should believe the naysayers that Mogwai are dead as a creative force.

4/5

Yuck - Tips for 2011

2011-01-09T11:19:00.001-08:00

My bit from Muso's Guide's Tips for 2011 article:

Yuck spent much of 2010 tantalising the blogosphere, gradually drizzling songs out on their own blog, in the process slowly whipping fuzz-rock aficionados like me into an ever-intensifying tizzy about how flipping brilliant they are. Then, over the summer, in a move seemingly designed exclusively to peeve anybody with a computer keyboard, they temporarily changed their name to Yu(c)k, and put a brilliant, if slightly baffling, EP of piano-led slow-burners. Not a predictable band, this lot, then...

Nobody is pretending that the brand of distorted guitar pop which constitutes Yuck’s day job is particularly new, but in the same way as we saw with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart two years ago, their music is so captivating that suddenly originality seems a bit over-rated. With songs as strong as ‘Georgia’, and live shows as gloriously scuzzy as Yuck’s are, well, that’s enough, and it really doesn’t matter just how nakedly they display their influences. Having landed a spot in the BBC Sound of 2011 (but please don’t hold that against them), and with their debut album due later in the year, 2011 is pretty much Yuck’s to do with as they see fit.

Kubichek - Not Enough Night (Album)

2011-01-02T15:28:00.000-08:00

It’s staggering how quick and easy the Internet has made our access to an utter cavalcade of bands. Obviously this is a bit of a double-edged sword, because while we are now discovering artists we might not necessarily have had access to in years gone by, there is a very real danger that music eventually becomes something we stuff gluttonously and heedlessly into our ears simply because there are three other albums queued in our eMusic download manager which also need listening to this afternoon. If we’re consuming music like this, it is an unavoidable and regrettable side effect that innumerable great bands and albums will slip off the radar, which is pretty depressing if you stop to think about it.

Now, obviously, I’m not suggesting that lost classics are a new phenomenon, but the current industry model has shown us that no matter how wonderful the Internet revolution has been for music, there will always be great records which will be overlooked, it’s just that there are now loads more of them tantalisingly sat at the end of our fingertips. All of which brings me (reasonably) neatly on to our new feature, in which we will regularly focus on exactly that sort of album, a record which is dear to our hearts but for whatever reason isn’t as well known as we feel it ought to be.

If it wasn’t for a happy accident of geography which meant that Kubichek just happened to hail from the same part of England as me, there’s every chance that I might still be completely oblivious to Not Enough Night, and my life would be a tiny bit worse as a result. The band had been mainstays of the Newcastle scene for a good few years, having dissolved their previous incarnation and waded their way through gallons of record label shite before their debut album finally emerged in 2007, sounding far sharper and fresher than it had any right to given the slog they had endured to just get the thing made. Sadly Not Enough Night would prove to be Kubichek’s only album, a tantalising case of what might have been, but, God, what a beautiful corpse to leave.

The most enriching thing about Not Enough Night is the unrelenting pace at which the whole thing is delivered. For the majority of its forty or so minutes, the album is lived out at breakneck speed with both barrels aimed at pretty much everyone, from lairy Bigg Market meatheads (‘Taxi’) to “poetic friends” who “just wanna get their ends away” (‘Stutter’). Then you have ‘Hometown Strategies’ in which some poor small-towner is indignantly berated about being “too clever by half and too stupid to notice”. And don’t even get me started on the near-perfect headrush of album closer ‘Just Shut it Down’...

In less skilled hands the seemingly endless stream of spiky guitars and universal spitefulness could quite conceivably become tiresome, but there’s never really a danger of this occurring with Not Enough Night, simply because the sheer unadulterated energy it transmits is just so fucking primal that you can’t really stop yourself wanting to jump around your room shouting, or slam your foot as hard as you can on the accelerator.

While Not Enough Night’s primary function is unquestionably served as an arse-kicking rock record, there’s another interesting element to the album too, a more wide-eyed sense of feeling which only really rears its head on the odd occasions when singer Alan McDonald drops his snarl and the band gets lost in a gorgeous sea of instrumental bliss as it does on ‘Hope is Impossible’ and ‘Start as We Meant To’. This nod to the band’s very earliest recordings means that Not Enough Night appeals not only to the feet and loins but to the heart and head too. This extra dimension is a big factor in the album’s enduring appeal, to the point that it still finds as regular a home on my stereo as it did three and a bit years ago.

The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar Preview (Album)

2010-12-17T14:10:00.000-08:00

It’s only been four years since they formed, but somehow it feels like it’s taken The Joy Formidable forever to get around to releasing a debut album. Having spent the last three or four years consistently appearing in ‘ones to watch’ lists and diverting us with an array of awesome dream-grunge singles and a barnstorming mini- album, the Welsh three piece have finally deigned to bless us with their first full-lengther The Big Roar which will land on record shop shelves on January 24^th. It’s worth ignoring the post-Christmas credit card bill just a little bit longer in order to grab yourself a copy, because this is a band who have been consistently growing in strength with every release, making The Big Roar a candidate to be the first great record of 2011. The album blends a load of new songs with a few that have been around for yonks (Whirring, Cradle and Austere), but sadly there is no place for the ridiculously moreish Paul Draper collaboration Greyhounds in the Slips or ‘festive’ single My Beerdrunk Soul is Sadder Than a Thousand Dead Christmas Trees. To a glass-half-full type like me, this would suggest that the songs which have made the cut might be even better. Besides, if you’re peeved by the absence of the aforementioned oldies, they feature on the stupidly comprehensive double CD and DVD box special edition, so indulge yourself. The band play the O2 in Newcastle on February the 8^th too, so if they are still strangers to you, there’s no excuse not to familiarise yourself with their music in the coming months.

Frightened Rabbit feature

2010-12-02T13:19:00.000-08:00

The Frightened Rabbit review and interview ended up being melded into one feature, so this is the end result of the editing:

As the scene of my ‘education’, Northumbria University will always hold a special place in my heart, primarily because of the many sweaty, boozy hours I spent in its Student Union watching bands good, bad, and fucking terrible. However, as I have gradually degenerated from a hip ‘n’ happenin’ snake-hipped teen to a doughy late twenties office drone, so too did Northumbria fall from its pedestal as a regular fixture in Newcastle’s gig scene. Now though, after a major refit which has included reducing the capacity of the upstairs room (and in the process massively improving its atmosphere), it appears that the place is slowly trying to claw its way back into favour, having recently nabbed a couple of gigs which would usually be shoe-ins for one of the Academy venues. If you’ve ever been to the Academy, you’ll agree this is undoubtedly no bad thing.

Frightened Rabbit’s visit to Northumbria comes at the end of a year of great success, where their third record The Winter of Mixed Drinks has very nicely consolidated the massive critical acclaim which was so freely lobbed at its predecessor The Midnight Organ Fight. Singer Scott Hutchinson, speaking to us after the show, definitely feels happy with how 2010 has turned out: ‘I think it’s been great. We’ve always said that as long as we’re moving forward then we’re happy. I never pay too much attention to people saying that it’s going to be your year or whatever, because, well they can say what they like, but I’ve had a fucking fabulous year, I’ve really enjoyed it. The reception to the record has been good, and the more time that people have had with it, the better the reception to the songs has been’.

In keeping with all the good cheer surrounding the band (although Scott will hear nothing of the festive season until we’re into December), they are in wonderfully relaxed and amiable form tonight. The set is a pretty thorough trawl through the last two records, with Be Less Rude the only song from Sing the Greys to make an appearance, something which just illustrates the massive bounds Frightened Rabbit have made as a band since their earliest days. There’s little doubt that The Winter of Mixed Drinks has taken a while to fully worm its way into people’s consciousnesses but now that we’ve had nine months or so to live with the newer songs, they are sitting very comfortably alongside their older counterparts. Indeed, Swim Until You Can’t See Land, and set closer The Loneliness and the Scream are two of the evening’s high points, providing just as much singalong potential as the likes of I Feel Better and The Modern Leper.

As time has gone on, Frightened Rabbit’s recordings have unquestionably grown ever more polished. Clearly, this isn’t always a positive step, and it’s been the death of plenty of bands before them, but in this case, it has felt like a logical, organic growth, taking place as they have gradually accumulated members and grown in both confidence and stature. Scott can’t help but feel that he may have got just a little bit carried away with the extra instrumentation employed on the new record though: ‘It was huge, and I went a bit over the top, I’ll be the first to admit, and it was symptomatic of me feeling that The Midnight Organ Fight wasn’t quite right. I didn’t get to finish it, if you like, and doing The Winter of Mixed Drinks was almost like venting my frustration and getting everything on there, and then going fucking way over the top. I think now is the time to pull it back.’

Indeed, as it turns out, the fleeting instances where the band do strip things right down tonight are probably the greatest moments of a set not lacking in focal points. Scott delivers Poke and Good Arms vs Bad Arms solo, and it’s raw, gut-punching stuff. These songs serve to prove that no matter what strengths Frightened Rabbit develop as a band, ultimately, the thing they will always do best is to articulate the bleakest depths of lovelorn sorrow, and drag you down there with them.

This propensity with miserablism makes the band unlikely fodder for marketing types, yet still they have recently found their music thrust into millions of households thanks to a certain National Lottery advert. In spite of the odd bit of indier-than-thou vitriol, Scott sees no reason for self-reproach: ‘Until very recently, we were label-less, so we were paying for everything. I’m completely unapologetic about all that stuff because I do this so that I don’t have to do anything else and stuff like that goes back to the culture of downloading meaning you don’t make money from selling records. I have to make money somehow, and that’s one of the ways of doing it. A couple of people have been a bit... And I came to understand it, and now, I think I probably would be more wary of doing that in the future. I understand now that that album, and that song, will mean a lot to some people and to hear it in that setting might cheapen it a little bit, but, well, I don’t really care, because it’s going to be on for about two months, and it’ll be forgotten about by Christmas time. I won’t listen to too much stick, because you try working your arse off for four years for very little return financially, and then see if you’re going to give me shit for it! I don’t care. I haven’t actually even seen it. We’ve actually turned a lot of adverts down in the past, and there are a lot of companies I wouldn’t advertise. My thinking is that if somebody hears it and likes it, then it’s one more way of hearing the music.’

After a busy year, the band have one final blowout planned at the Bowlie 2 weekender which is being curated by Belle and Sebastian, and they intend to make the most of it: ‘It’s insane. I first looked at the line-up about two months ago and they added some more bands about a month ago, and it’s fucking even better. I think it’s probably one of the best festival line-ups I’ve seen this year. It’s our last show of the year, and it’s going to be our office party. It’ll feel extremely Christmassy.’

After Bowlie 2, don’t expect too much from Frightened Rabbit for a while, as Scott plans to go to ground to make album 4: ‘We’re going to really spend a long time doing it, I’ve got almost nothing written, so I’m going to have to go and do that at the start of the year, and I want to spend some time at home too.That’s my favourite part of it all. Touring is fine, but recording is why I started the band, so I just want to keep making records.’ There’s no question that Frightened Rabbit deserve their brief respite, and you can’t help but feel total faith that the next album is in safe hands, and it will be very surprising indeed if it doesn’t carry them still deeper into the hearts of the general public.

Frightened Rabbit Interview

2010-12-01T12:16:00.001-08:00

After a successful 2010 which has seen Frightened Rabbit firmly cement themselves in the hearts and minds of an ever-increasing section of the record-buying public, the band are rounding the year off with a UK tour. We caught up with singer Scott Hutchinson after their show at Northumbria University for a chat about how life is treating him...

At the start of this year when The Winter of Mixed Drinks was coming out, following the fantastic reception The Midnight Organ Fight received, I think a lot of people were expecting this year to be your year. How do you feel it’s gone?

I think it’s been great. We’ve always said that as long as we’re moving forward then we’re happy. I never pay too much attention to people saying that it’s going to be your year or whatever, because, well they can say what they like, but I’ve had a fucking fabulous year, I’ve really enjoyed it. The reception to the record has been good, and the more time that people have had with it, the better the reception to the songs has been, because I think the Midnight Organ Fight was an album that so many people took really strongly to...

It was a very intense record...

A completely intense record, and we were never going to repeat that. You don’t write two Midnight Organ Fights, so I think people were, like, ‘oookaaay...’, and now they’re getting used to it and I think it’s been fantastic.

It must be nice seeing a room of this size so full for you?

Yeah, we’ve been talking about trying to move forward in a lot of ways creatively and developing the songwriting and stuff, but, hell, we want to see more people getting into the music and this tour we’ve seen that.

In comparing the two records, The Midnight Organ Fight was very obviously a break-up record, but you didn’t have that ready-made subject matter in place this time out, so was it difficult, or was it liberating having to start from scratch?

It was a challenge, but it was a good challenge, because it came to the point where I could write these songs about heavy angst, torrid times and black periods easily, it’s an easy language to get used to. It’s more difficult to write a song about being content and happy and enjoying yourself without sounding too cheesy, so that was a challenge for me, and I liked it. I don’t want to repeat myself.

So is the next record already in your mind?

I’m formulating ideas, and I’m thinking about it a lot just now, although I’m not actually acting on it just yet because I don’t write on tour. I’ve got bits and pieces floating about and it’s going to be different again. I want to strip it all back, strip all the shit that went on on the last record, all of the orchestration and stuff...

Yeah, The Winter of Mixed Drinks was definitely a much fuller sound...

Oh, it was huge, and I went a bit over the top, I’ll be the first to admit, and it was symptomatic of me feeling that The Midnight Organ Fight wasn’t quite right. I didn’t get to finish it, if you like, and doing The Winter of Mixed Drinks was almost like venting my frustration and getting everything on there, and then going fucking way over the top. I think now is the time to pull it back, yeah.

These days, we’re living in a world where it’s commonplace for people to help themselves to music off the internet, particularly before albums are released. How do you feel about that, and what sort of impact do you think it has on Frightened Rabbit specifically?

I’ve never really known a period of time when people make money from selling records, so actually it’s not changed the way that I feel. I think that it makes it easier for people to hear your music and that can only be a good thing. You can’t replace a live show, so as long as people have heard us and they want to come to a show and they want to buy a t-shirt and all that, then bands can survive, and I think, actually it’s put the power back into the bands’ hands. Labels are wondering how they can survive because records aren’t selling , but lots of people are coming out to the shows, and you get a much broader ocean of competition. There’s so much for people to consume, it’s really easy to get lost.

For a punter, there’s so much out there to explore, you almost feel like you’re not spending enough time with an album to do it justice...

Yeah, I mean I’m still seeing people writing on the internet about ‘giving this new Frightened Rabbit album a listen’, and it’s been out since March! It’s understandable, at one point I’d have maybe been a bit dismayed by that, but I think of myself as a listener as well. For instance it was only a week ago I got into the Bon Iver record, which is fantastic. I’d been thinking, ‘ah, fuck it, I’ll do it sometime’, and then last week it happened, so I completely understand that point of view.

In order to keep yourself ticking over, do things like the Lottery advert become a necessity to be able to continue doing what you do?

Until very recently, we were label-less, so we were paying for everything. I’m completely unapologetic about all that stuff because I do this so that I don’t have to do anything else and stuff like that goes back to the culture of downloading meaning you don’t make money from selling records. I have to make money somehow, and that’s one of the ways of doing it.

Have you had much stick for it?

A couple of people have been a bit... And I came to understand it, and now, I think I probably would be more wary of doing that in the future. I understand now that that album, and that song, will mean a lot to some people and to hear it in that setting might cheapen it a little bit, but, well, I don’t really care, because, it’s going to be on for about two months, and it’ll be forgotten about by Christmastime. I won’t listen too much stick, because try working your arse off for four years for very little return financially, and then see if you’re going to give me shit for it! I don’t care. I haven’t actually even seen it. We’ve actually turned a lot of adverts down in the past, and there are a lot of companies I wouldn’t advertise. My thinking is that if somebody hears it and likes it, then it’s one more way of hearing the music.

You’re playing Bowlie 2 soon. Are you excited about the festival?

It’s insane. I first looked at the line-up about two months ago and they added some more bands about a month ago, and it’s fucking even better. I think it’s probably one of the best festival line-ups I’ve seen this year.

Who are you looking forward to seeing?

This year I was surprised how much I loved the Foals album, it’s fucking amazing, because I didn’t really like the first one, but this one’s got something extra to it, so I really want to see them, and really want to see Wild Beasts again, I like them. I want to try and see all the Scottish bands! It’s our last show of the year, and it’s going to be the office party. It’ll feel extremely Christmassy.

Just to close things off, what does next year hold for the band?

Writing and recording the next record. We’re going to really spend a long time doing it, I’ve got almost nothing written, so I’m going to have to go and do that at the start of the year, and I want to spend some time at home too. It’s my favourite part of it all. Touring is fine, but recording is why I started the band, so I just want to keep making records.

Frightened Rabbit - Northumbria Uni - 23/11/2010 (Gig)

2010-11-30T12:51:00.000-08:00

As the scene of my ‘education’, Northumbria University will always hold a special place in my heart, primarily because of the many sweaty, boozy hours I spent in its Student Union watching bands both good and bad. However, as I have gradually degenerated from a hip ‘n’ happenin’ snake-hipped teen to a doughy late twenties office drone, so too did Northumbria fall from its pedestal as a regular fixture in Newcastle’s gig scene. Now though, after a major refit which has included reducing the capacity of the upstairs room (and in the process massively improving its atmosphere), it appears that the place is slowly trying to claw its way back into favour, having recently nabbed a couple of gigs which would usually be shoe-ins for one of the Academy venues. If you’ve ever been to the Academy in Newcastle, you’ll agree this is undoubtedly no bad thing.

Frightened Rabbit’s visit to Northumbria comes at the end of a successful year which is about to climax with a slot at Bowlie 2 in a couple of weeks, which seems a fitting way to celebrate how nicely their third record The Winter of Mixed Drinks has consolidated the massive critical acclaim which was liberally lobbed at previous album The Midnight Organ Fight. In keeping with all the good cheer surrounding the band (although Scott will hear nothing of the festive season until we’re into December), they are in wonderfully relaxed and amiable form tonight. The set is made up almost completely of the last two records (with the exception of Be Less Rude), which, to be fair, illustrates the massive bounds Frightened Rabbit have made as a band since their earliest days.

As time has gone on, there’s no doubt that their music has grown more polished. Obviously, this isn’t always a positive step, and it’s been the death of plenty of bands before them, but in Frightened Rabbit’s case the progression of their sound it has felt like a logical, organic growth, taking place as they have gradually accumulated members and grown in both confidence and stature. Clearly, the self-deprecating emotional heft wielded by the lyrics has always been a major factor in making their songs so fucking stirring, but it feels like we’re now at a point where it’s not just about Scott’s words, because the music is every bit as enriching.

It‘s not unfair to say that The Winter of Mixed Drinks has taken a while to fully seep into people’s hearts and minds, and it’s possible that this is due to it being so different from its predecessor (ie it’s not a heart-shredding break-up record) but now that we’ve had nine months or so to live with them, the newer songs are sitting comfortably alongside their older counterparts. Indeed, Swim Until You Can’t See Land, and encore closer The Loneliness and the Scream are two of the evening’s high points, providing just as much singalong potential as the likes of I Feel Better and The Modern Leper.

As it turns out though, it ends up being two of The Midnight Organ Fight’s more tender moments which stand out most this evening. Poke and Good Arms vs Bad Arms are delivered solo by Scott, and it’s raw, gut-punching stuff. These songs serve to prove that no matter what strengths Frightened Rabbit develop as a band, ultimately, the thing they will always do best is to articulate the bleakest depths of lovelorn misery, and drag you down there with them. It’s undoubtedly a ride worth taking though.

December Singles Round Up

2010-11-30T12:41:00.000-08:00

Those of you with a stock pile of back issues of Narc and too much time (or perhaps a worryingly precise memory) will be able to note that the last time I manned the singles column I made an ill-fated crack about how futile the attempts to sabotage Cowell’s dominance of the Christmas singles chart usually are (and subsequently lobbed my crystal ball in the Tyne). Well, I’m in no mood for such folly this time round but I will at least make a not-that-bold guess a that none of the singles I’m highlighting this month are likely to top the charts come Christmas day. Not that it’s a bad month, mind you, it’s a bloody strong one actually considering December’s usual truce between good taste and big bucks.

Unquestionably foremost among December’s 45s is the double A-Side from Vancouver’s Shimmering Stars, a band who appear to have shamelessly lifted the best bits of C86 and The Beach Boys and mashed them together in expert fashion. East Van Girls and its more laid-back cousin I’m Gonna Try are both exemplary chunks of sunny guitar japery, which are as impressively well-crafted as they are exhilarating. You can expect blogging types to be absolutely all over this lot next year.

A similarly lovely effort is Cambridge brother-sister duo The Cordelier Club’s Don’t Let it Go By, which is a lush example of how good guitar pop needn’t necessarily be particularly complicated, or even all that original. Indeed, both of the aforementioned bands could teach We Are Enfant Terrible that being derivative doesn’t always have to mean being boring. Sure, their double A-Side Wild Child / We Are Flesh n Blood Kids shows them to be perfectly competent handlers of catchy synth-pop, but there’s absolutely fuck all separating them from the dozens of bands making basically exactly the same records. The same thing could also easily be said about Primary 1, whose single Never Know is just as inoffensive a piece of electro pop as WAEF’s, and just as unremarkable.

Speaking of imitators, this month sees the welcome return of Panda Bear, a man who has almost single-handedly initiated a generation of low-fi sonic explorers, which is both a good and a bad thing. Last Night at the Jetty incorporates his usual dreamy ambience, his usual starry-eyed wonderment and his usual blissful sense of disorientation underpinning the song. With new album Tomboy due to land next year, this is an early indication that the record could be pretty special.

The second of this month’s more experimental efforts is Dog Bite’s Machino Machino, which takes its cue from Deerhunter’s recent work, so it’s heavy on echoey vocals and muddy guitars. It’s enjoyable enough, but there’s no denying that it feels a bit lightweight, to the extent that it’s difficult to keep your attention focused on it. A decidedly more engaging piece of music than this is Civil Civic’s Light on a Leash, which is a beautifully laid-out instrumental which veers unexpectedly from an ominous post-punk intro to a barmy synthy meltdown about halfway through. It’s addictive stuff, and in a weaker month would probably be top of the heap.

The only cover in the pile this month is Dirty Projectors’ take on Dylan’s As I Went Out One Morning, which, mystifyingly, turns out to be crushingly non-descript. It’s a shame that a band normally so adroit with a bit of loveable lunacy would bother to toss out a half-arsed effort like this, but at least it’s only a between album space-saver. A much better bit of folky fun comes from Lupen Crook with Dorothy Deserves, which is an exhilarating and enormously likeable bit of quirky stop-start pop which is up there with the best of this month.

Minus the Bear - O2 Academy 2 - 16/11/2010 (Gig)

2010-11-16T15:43:00.000-08:00

It takes a hardy soul to brave the rancorous North-East winter when it is not absolutely necessary, so it is to the credit of Serious Young Men Newcastle-wide that the Academy 2 is two-thirds full on a night when the freezing fog stings your nostrils. Those present tonight are rewarded for their courage with an exemplary set of beard-stroking virtuosity from a Minus the Bear who are taking a welcome side-step from their current Jimmy Eat World support slots. This, in fact, may be the reason why tonight feels like a one-off rather than just another leg of a tour, and may be why the band are so relaxed and engaging between songs, in a manner which belies the solemn nature of their music. It’s the sheer skilfulness of their musicianship which is most impressive though, constantly illustrating the fact that these are five fucking talented people. The intricacy and melodiousness of their playing often calls to mind a less abstract version of Battles, although unlike their meandering countrymen, Minus the Bear’s musical detours usually give the impression that they are leading somewhere. Tonight we have witnessed a criminally underrated band whose passion and skill deserves a wider audience.

Munch Munch - Double Visions (Album)

2010-10-20T11:33:00.000-07:00

Prior to recording their debut album, Bristolian quartet Munch Munch felt compelled to lay down some ground rules for themselves, (apparently in order to curb their maximalist tendencies), which included sacking off guitars entirely and limiting themselves solely to live percussion. You’d think such restrictive tenets would result in the whole thing sounding a bit constrained, but Double Visions is a gloriously creative hotchpotch of songs. To call it pop is simultaneously accurate and misleading, because, sure, there are hooks present, but there are bloody dozens of them. The record seems to have been built from little 30-odd second snippets which have been chopped up, put back together in no particular order and then sliced into ten songs seemingly for the sake of convention. As a result, it’s a pretty disorienting listen initially, but it doesn’t take long for the boisterousness and sheer fucking fun of the likes of Wedding and Bold Man of the Sea to come gushing over you like some heaven-sent remedy to the miseries of the Northern Winter. Not many bands are ambitious enough to attempt an album like Double Visions, even fewer are clever enough to actually pull it off.

5/5

Her Name is Calla Interview

2010-10-10T13:57:00.000-07:00

These are exciting times for Her Name is Calla. Having spent six or so years making music together, they have reached a stage precious few bands attain, where their music is so utterly unique and so magically enriching that you marvel at the fact that mere human beings should be capable of creating such a thing. It’s a very good time for the band to be releasing their debut album then, and we recently caught up with Tom from the band for a bit of a natter about it.

For the benefit of those of us who enjoy being able to neatly categorise their record collection, the first thing we want clearing up is the thorny issue of whether forthcoming record The Quiet Lamb is their debut, or whether that would be 2008’s The Heritage? “I consider The Quiet Lamb our second album but some of the other guys don't and acknowledge it as our first. We're an unnecessarily complicated bunch of people, sorry. The difference for me would be how the record works as a cohesive whole, which I feel both albums do. That said, you could also consider that we intended The Quiet Lamb to be a full album, and so may have approached it differently from the start. That might not be true of The Heritage”.

So clearly, the band’s opinions differ on the semantics. They do, however, show an entirely united front on the much more important issues surrounding the creation of the music. The thoughtful sound of The Quiet Lamb was borne out of a determination not to hurry things, but although this approach has yielded an astonishing piece of music, it wasn’t without the odd wobble: “I always knew the album would be finished and released as it's a hugely important piece of work for us. We wouldn't have just let it fall by the wayside. But our promise to ourselves was that we wouldn't rush it and that we'd get it as close to perfect as we could. Obviously, the moment we sent it to Denovali for pressing we totally shit ourselves and found there were things that we wanted to change, but sometimes it's important to just let go. We recognised that we'd completed the album to the best of our abilities in quite difficult circumstances. For sure there were a few moments along the way where things seemed really bleak and unending. We scrapped the entire album recordings about four or five times, I think.”

To make life even trickier, the current economic climate means that a harsh reality of life for any musicians who aren’t selling out arenas is the ongoing problem of earning enough money to simply keep going, something Tom has recently highlighted in the band’s blog. Something that can’t help matters is the emergence of a culture in which people view it as their right to help themselves to music for free: “I think it's a disappointment. I don't have much money at all, but when I'm able to buy a record it makes it all that more special. I don't download music illegally. What's the point? I'd be a contradiction. It affects us hugely. Some folks think that it is only an issue for big bands but if anything it's the other way around. It's harder for the smaller bands or the bands that are just breaking out to a bigger audience. We give plenty of music away for free and there are plenty of tracks from the new album that are available to stream. Ultimately, downloading the album via illegal means does directly damage us as well as our label. I think it should be our choice to make it available for free download or not. That's something we chose for our first album and and EP we released earlier in the year.”

Given Tom’s feelings towards the pleasures of the physical specimen of a record, it’s no surprise that the presentation of their music is important to the band, resulting in the wooden box special edition of The Quiet Lamb: “We didn't put all this effort into making an album so that iTunes and MySpace could compress the living fuck out of it. I buy my music and there are people out there who do the same, so this album is for them, the folks who like to feel a record in their hands, smell it and leaf their way through a beautiful booklet of artwork whilst the record plays.”

From an entirely musical standpoint, although The Heritage was an extremely impressive piece of work, The Quiet Lamb feels like a big step up for the band, not just in terms of running time, but in terms of its scale, and an all-pervading sense of grandeur about the thing. With regard to how the two records sit together, Tom recognises more differences than similarities: “Both albums are fairly autobiographical. There are parts which are total creation, but those parts are far and few between. Mostly it documents the relationship with my ex-wife, the shit I put her through. There are certain punishments that I expect. If the album sounds personal it's because it is. The Heritage was more about the past and the future and what we'll leave behind. The Quiet Lamb is very much present tense. I'm happier with The Quiet Lamb. It's the first album where we worked together as a full band. It feels more complete and I'm happier with the arrangements and production. Even though both albums were just recorded in our houses, with the new album we were just a bit more experienced and found a better way of working.”

Although they are now freed from the recording environment, Tom expects the band to be no less busy over the next twelve months: “We'll do a few tours, and we are already in the initial stages of a new record that we'd like to release next year if all works out. We've also recorded a collaborative album with our friends The Monroe Transfer. That should come out early next year; it's just being mixed at the moment. There are all sorts of side projects and things going on as well.” So if for any reason the seventy-five minute masterpiece of The Quiet Lamb doesn’t slake your thirst for all things Calla, there’s plenty more music on the horizon. Can’t wait...

Ou Est le Swimming Pool - The Golden Year (Album)

2010-10-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

When their singer Charlie Haddon died on August 20^th this year, it meant that the release of the debut album by Ou Est Le Swimming Pool would pale almost entirely into insignificance. The story of the end of Charlie’s life is an awful one, and there is nothing I can add to it that you haven’t read already. While it would be completely crass for me to talk about The Golden Year without acknowledging the tragedy which preceded it, it would be equally wrong to discuss the album exclusively in the context of Charlie’s death. Chances are that if you’re reading this, then you know the background, and you’re probably here to get an idea of what the album sounds like.

For the most part, The Golden Year sees Ou Est Le Swimming Pool building on the reputation which their previous singles built for them as doyens of punchy synth pop. The album houses a good five or six instances where the band completely and utterly hit their mark from a pop point of view, snaring you with a catchy chorus or insistent synth line and refusing to let go. ‘Dance the Way I Feel’ and ‘Jackson’s Last Stand’, in particular, provide the sort of devastatingly effective thrill out of seemingly simplistic ingredients which so many bands strive for, but which few achieve as completely as this.

When you’ve hit on a successful formula for pop perfection, there’s always a danger of overdoing it, and laying it on too thick with the hooks which has the inevitable impact of diluting their effectiveness. This is a pitfall which Ou Est Le Swimming Pool sidestep here, because The Golden Year isn’t played out entirely at full speed, with the pop stompers broken up with the odd slowie. While the more downbeat moments like ‘Our Lives’ don’t necessarily show the band playing their strongest hand, they are useful in saving The Golden Year from overwhelming you with boisterousness (aka The Passion Pit effect).

In spite of anyone’s best efforts to separate The Golden Year apart from its background, it was always likely that there would be one or two moments where its context would result in moments more poignant than the band probably intended them to be. ‘Better’s occasional dark sentiments, although masked by an upbeat melody, make for pretty difficult listening: “The quiet walls are more help than a friend could be”. A similar effect is created by the waves of delicate hope which open up the album on ‘You Started’, particularly its “You have started the beginning of my life” refrain.

Whether or not The Golden Year will prove to be the only album Ou Est Le Swimming Pool ever release is, at the time of writing, unclear, and is something which is a private decision for the band’s remaining members to make in their own good time. Clearly, if they do continue it will be with an entirely different dynamic to that which produced this record, a dynamic which at once shows the finely honed instincts the band possessed even at this early stage, as well as highlighting the potential they had for the future. Hopefully the strength of the album means that this is what Charlie Haddon will be remembered for, rather than the manner of his death.

7/10

Her Name is Calla - The Quiet Lamb (Album)

2010-10-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

The five years since Her Name is Calla’s first recordings have been punctuated by a steady stream of releases, but The Quiet Lamb represents their debut album (they apparently consider 2008’s The Heritage a mini album). Clearly they are not a band to be unduly rushed into anything, and they have recently pointed out the efforts they have made to ensure that the record is as perfect as it could be. This is quite a refreshing approach, really. You only get to make one debut album, and the age of accelerated consumption in which we live means that a band who are pressured into rushing out something half-cooked might never get a chance to rectify the situation.

The unhurried philosophy to producing the album is something which can be clearly discerned on listening, because it sounds painstakingly considered. It is an approach which fits Her Name is Calla’s sound perfectly, and the result is that The Quiet Lamb sounds utterly majestic. Like The Heritage before it, it is far from an easy listen, and its seventy plus minutes are splashed with far more dark shades than light ones, but it is a hugely well-executed piece of work. The attention to detail which has gone into it is clear from its sequencing. The album flows wonderfully, right from the portentous openings of Moss Giant, into the desolate, moody A Blood Promise, through to Pour More Oil which sees the emotion which has built up finally being vented. There are times on the album where you find one song has drifted into another without you even noticing the transition, such is its smoothness and completeness.

One of the most impressive things about The Quiet Lamb is its diversity, which adds breadth to its grandeur, but never takes away any of its coherence. The combination of wintry beauty and bombast is underpinned by occasional departures in tone like the funereal folk of Homecoming, or the closing trio of The Union, which veers from triumphal otherworldly brilliance, to ambient beauty, to some kind of insane soundtrack to a sunset horseback pursuit. The album’s undoubted centre piece though is Condor and River, a gorgeous mini-epic which feels like the album in microcosm, building entirely at its own pace from placid beginnings into something so luxurious that seventeen minutes wash by in an instant.

With The Quiet Lamb, Her Name is Calla have managed to simultaneously build on their previous work and open up new doors. One of the key components in how good they are is the fact that they sound like no other band, a genuinely unique proposition who keep adding more and more components to their sound. Their decision to take things at their own pace has been entirely vindicated, because the album is a wonderful slow-burning success. Even if it takes another five years for them to follow up, it’s okay, because there’s plenty here to sustain us in the interim.

Feature - The NARC. Issue 55 Mixtape

2010-09-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

The first of a new regular feature in NARC., a 10 track Spotify Mixtape

http://open.spotify.com/user/browno2/playlist/1pTxezMllmTs441dO3TOaa

Vessels – An Idle Brain and the Devil’s Workshop (Errors Remix) – A reworking which sees Errors deconstruct the wandering grandeur of the original, and replace it with a far more playful, glitchy aesthetic.

Trouble Books – Houseplants – Trouble Books are one of the USA’s best kept secrets. Here, they infuse the most minimal of musical elements with an abundance of space to create something beautifully fragile and affecting.

Emmy the Great – Canopies and Drapes – An offcut from Emmy’s impressive debut record which later emerged on the extended version. She namechecks The Magnetic Fields, S Club 7 and KD Lang among others on a lovely folk workout.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Higher Than the Stars (Saint-Etienne Remix) – The EP from last year’s biggest word of blog successes was arguably as good as their debut record, and this remix adds a new air of dreaminess to their sunny C86-isms.

Elliott Smith – Son of Sam – While his sparser work is his most lauded, on Figure 8, Elliott showed that a fuller sound didn’t strip his songs of their emotion. Opening song Son of Sam is an undoubted highlight.

Her Name is Calla – Nylon – Her Name is Calla are one of our most interesting, creative bands, and Nylon illustrates their darker side, building slowly and menacingly to a histrionic crescendo.

Everything Everything – Photoshop Handsome – Any band hyped to fuck like Everything Everything will be met with suspicion, but the infectious bounce of Photoshop Handsome illustrates why they are worth (most of) the hyperbole.

Los Campesinos! – The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future – 2010 saw Los Campesinos! apparently outgrow their twee pop origins. This is the apex of the new LC’s achievements, at once euphoric, despairing and thoroughly enriching.

Asobi Seksu – Thursday – Taken from 2006’s Citrus, Thursday is the perfect blend of Asobi Seksu’s twin strengths, Yuki Chikudate’s gorgeous vocals, and the sometimes overpowering tumult of guitars.

Sonic Youth – The Diamond Sea – Clocking in at just under 20 minutes, this is Sonic Youth’s most decadent work, but also the most liberated they have ever sounded, as Thurston’s weary vocal gives way to 20 minutes of exquisitely meandering noise.

Manic Street Preachers - Postcards From a Young Man (Album)

2010-09-12T09:03:00.001-07:00

A little over a year ago, when on these very pages I covered Journal For Plague Lovers, an album which saw Manic Street Preachers triumphantly rugby-tackling their personal history, I pondered whether 2009 would be a fitting time for their unfeasibly epic story to end. At the time, my logic seemed fairly sound. The act of bringing the last of Richey’s abandoned words into public consciousness after fourteen years had an undeniable air of finality to it, leaving the band with something of an unenviable dilemma as to how they would follow up such an album. But of course I’m forgetting that the Manics have always been contrary bastards who have spent more than twenty years being perfectly happy to do exactly the opposite of what you might expect. Therefore, the release of Postcards From a Young Man sees them emerging from the shadow of Richey’s ghost for a second time, and in exactly the same manner as they did in 1996, with an album which is brazen in its radio-conquering ambitions. The circumstances surrounding the two records, however, are entirely different. Where Everything Must Go displayed a defiant sense of optimism borne out of tragedy, wrapping it up in bombast and saturating it with strings, Postcards From a Young Man finds a band at an altogether more settled stage in their lives, crucially no longer needing to escape from their history. In spite of the clear differences surrounding their inception though, both records share the same sense of rejuvenation, a feeling that the band are no longer weighed down by the burden of expectation, and able to make a record just for the enjoyment of it.

In a recent press missive, James described the album as “one last shot at mass communication”, and, regardless of how tongue in cheek his sentiments may be, it’s easy to see what he means. Postcards can most definitely be considered a pop album in the sense that it is unmistakably front-loaded, and that it contains three or four absolutely killer singles which stand head and shoulders above much of the rest of it. Following on from the archetypal lead-single stylings of opening track ‘(It’s Not War) Just the End of Love’ is the album’s title track, which amounts to the most perfect distillation yet of what the band have been trying to achieve musically and lyrically for nigh on fifteen years, as Nicky laments the sting of seeing your youth drift away (“This life, it sucks your principles away”) while James engulfs his words in swooning, sweeping guitar. Even grander is the Ian McCulloch duet ‘Some Kind of Nothingness’. The song is enormous in scale, coming across like some Spector/Walker Brothers hybrid on which McCulloch’s magnificently jaded delivery is supported by an uncharacteristically benevolent-sounding vocal from James. Towards the end the whole thing swells to improbable levels of grandeur when the gospel choirs kick in, to such an extent that it really should all be too much, but the song is so gorgeous that it is impossible not to get caught up in its waves of joyous sadness.

Its first three songs are Postcards From a Young Man’s undoubted high points, before it begins to settle in a little, but every now and again it revisits the stateliness of its beginnings. ‘Hazelton Avenue’, for instance, sees an unlikely ode to the simple pleasures of consumerism (would anyone have seen that coming in 1992?) wrapped in an elegant, swirling refrain, while ‘Golden Platitudes’ comes off like a more grandiose version of the MOR pop of Lifeblood, with the massively uplifting musical accompaniment offsetting a song tinged with the sadness of being betrayed by your own political party (and possibly also by your own failing ideals): “What happened to those days when everything seemed possible... Where did the feeling go? Where did it all go wrong?”

Although they are clearly its most recognisable and memorable facets, the happy/sad big guitar pop numbers don’t quite tell the full story of Postcards. There are also occasional blasts of the characteristic anger which clearly still lingers in the 40-something version of Manic Street Preachers, aimed at targets both old (The decline of national industry, and with it, national identity) and new (Wire’s distaste for the blogger culture which means that anybody with a keyboard can now dispense the same kind of bile which he has spent years honing, to the point that “the printed world is all done and dusted”.) Truth be told though, for all that the angrier songs are bracing, with the rattling chorus of ‘A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun’ a standout example, they are ultimately a little bit throwaway, and at times feel just a little bit redundant. Not quite to the same extent as the likes of ‘Underdogs’ on Send Away the Tigers, mind you, but still they never quite seem to rise above the status of being decent rock knockabouts.

Really, Postcards From a Young Man can not be considered to be a logical follow-on from its predecessor. In spite of the relatively short period of time between the two, the parallels are fleeting, and only the paranoid, tetchy ‘Auto-Intoxication’ would come close to fitting comfortably on Journal For Plague Lovers. We only really see one direct reference to the emotional impact of creating Journal, but it is a telling one when on ‘The Descent (Pages 1 and 2)’, James sings “I’ve lost my last defence / The pages that you left”. Finally committing the last of Richey’s words to wax has left the band exposed, and without the safety buffer they have enjoyed all these years, which might explain the gusto and defiance with which they have attacked this project. While they have undoubtedly recorded better albums than this, they have also recorded much worse too, and there are moments on here which prove they can still genuinely surprise even me, a hardened Manics fan of some thirteen-odd years, with their passion and skill. The long and short of it is that Postcards From a Young Man is a microcosm of the band’s career, rich in glorious successes, pitted with the occasional mis-step, often contradictory, but ultimately completely life-affirming.

Grammatics - Brudenell Social Club, Leeds - 20/8/2010 (Gig)

2010-08-22T12:54:00.001-07:00

About a month back, and seemingly out of the blue to the majority of us, Grammatics announced their intention to split, citing insurmountable financial woes as the primary cause. I have watched their latter days with interest, both as a fan of the band, and also as someone intrigued by the machinations of the music industry. They have fallen back on online resources to repay their debts by selling off band paraphernalia, merchandise and little exclusive treats like access to rehearsal time and gigs in people’s gardens. While it has been disagreeable to see a band having to resort to flogging off parts of their history, it’s also encouraging that these days they would have the means to be able to do this to break even, and it has also allowed them to draw a neat line under their story with a final tour and a farewell EP.

Tonight sees the very last leg of their send-off, the last ever Grammatics gig which takes place (of course) in their hometown, and features (of course) two locally-based support acts. Opening band These Monsters are gloriously chaotic, battering the shit out of their instruments, themselves, and our ears. Their songs are messy, unkempt, but thrillingly energetic, and they seem to raise the Brudenell’s temperature to sweltering levels which don’t diminish for the rest of the evening. After the frenetic implosion of These Monsters’ set, there is a sea change in tone when Blue Roses steps onto the stage. There is an endearing sense of awkwardness around her between song chat, which belies the extraordinary, spellbinding voice upon which her music hinges. There is a clear debt of gratitude owed to Joanna Newsom, but it’s difficult to quibble when the songs are so beautifully presented.

By the time Grammatics emerge onstage it is pushing eleven o’clock and there isn’t a soul in the room not drenched in a not-altogether pleasant cocktail of their own and someone else’s sweat. There is also a strange feeling in the tangy air, a mix of anticipation and sadness that this is the very last time that this band will play together. Indeed, one girl at the bar feels the need to tell me about how much she is going to cry tonight, and enquires whether I will experience the same response. Now I’m a bit too stoic a boy for all that (and, to be fair, probably not as drunk as my interlocutor), but as the band commence with the stuttering, swooning The Shadow Committee, there is no denying that it does feel a little emotional.

As the show progresses, the sense that this is their last one ever begins to dissipate (for a while at least), and the gig settles in to feel almost like any other. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it means that both we and they can relax a little and enjoy the night without it taking on a funereal air. The band themselves might not be particularly chatty, understandably, but they are in wonderful form. In typical Grammatics fashion, the songs are full, polished and deliciously melodramatic. It feels like a wise move when they drop album closer Swansong into the middle of the set as opposed to ending proceedings with it, because as far as choosing a song to permanently end Grammatics as a live band goes, this would probably be a little too on the nose.

The main set finishes with Double Negative, a song accurately described by Owen as ‘the whitest hiphop ever’, and it is here that the fun ends, and the sweet sting of finality begins to take hold. Having primed us with a particularly fraught version of one of their most overwrought songs, Broken Wing, to open the encore, the band’s finale is a massive, throat-shredding Relentless Fours. It is brutal, cathartic and downright fucking beautiful, concluding with one final, tumultuous descent. And then that is it. Grammatics are no more.

Magic Kids - Memphis (Album)

2010-08-15T12:36:00.000-07:00

It’s probably inevitable, but a bit gloomy nonetheless, that as I’ve edged further into my twenties, and as I begin to lurch ever more rapidly towards their conclusion, my tolerance for anything even remotely youthful has waned significantly. This presents something of a quandary when it comes to attempting to critically appraise Memphis the debut album by Magic Kids because youthfulness is something which positively oozes out of every pore of the record. I must soldier on, though, because it really isn’t their fault that I’m seethingly envious that they retain the lustre which deserted me long ago, and who knows, maybe a little vicarious burst of vitality will do me some good.

One thing which will become abundantly clear from even the most cursory of listens to Memphis is that this is a record which nakedly displays its influences. The spectre of 60s pop hangs heavy in the air, with the Beach Boys being the most blatant of reference points. This is immediately evident on opening song ‘Phone’ which gleefully raids Brian Wilson’s box of tricks, pulling out some of his best harmonies along with his well-thumbed juxtaposition of the headrush and yearnings of young love. The Beach Boys influence goes on to pop its head above the parapet sporadically throughout the rest of the record, and is supplemented by occasional bursts of Spector’s girl bands (‘Hey Boy’), and glimpses of a perkier version of baroque pop (‘Superball’).

While Magic Kids’ magpie-like tendencies are pretty barefaced, more often than not they get away with it because they pilfer more than just a sound from their idols; they also display the faultless attention to detail of classic pop music, meaning that the hero-worship never really grates. It might all feel a little lightweight, but there’s no question that the songs are gorgeously well-crafted, making the intricate appear simple, something which is underlined by a straightforward, unfussy production which makes the album feel quite timeless, regardless of the fact that its roots are planted firmly in the 1960s.

Clearly Memphis is a summer record. This could, of course, present a bit of a potential problem for those of us dwelling in parts of the world where summer is but a myth. Fortunately, though, it is an album which doesn’t need a supportive environment, because it is bold enough and evocative enough to create a sunny climate entirely on its own. It is rich in things which make it easy to like, but undoubtedly, the most agreeable thing about it is the seemingly endless surge of happiness on which it is carried, which is so infectious and authentic that even a prematurely aged curmudgeon like me can do little to avoid being swept along with the tide. You probably wouldn’t expect Magic Kids to realistically be able to make more than two or three records with this blueprint, but frankly that isn’t something for us to think about right now. All that really matters for now is that their debut album is an unqualified success, a concise and perfectly-presented collection of first-class pop music.

8/10

My Vitriol and Me

2010-08-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

My small contribution to the forthcoming DiS is 10 celebrations, a piece about an overlooked record from DiS' lifetime which has been of particular significance to me:

I’m pretty sure that the DiS’ tenth birthday celebrations will feature accounts of user/website relationships which are far more interesting than mine. It’s been a pretty commonplace journey for me, you see, one where boy meets website, boy falls in love with lots of bands, boy writes a few words for website in the hope of discovering more bands and (just maybe) helping others to do the same. While I’ve been plodding away mundanely on the boards, posting barely 4000 times in six years, there are those who have made friends, found and lost love, got married, had babies (probably) and, in one or two select cases, found national tabloid infamy. How could I compete with that? So, instead of even trying to, I wanted my little contribution to the festivities to be about a record which has been massively important to the development of my tastes, one which was released before I was even aware of the existence of drownedinsound.com, but which is probably just as much to blame as DiS for my unslakeable thirst for new music.

Around the start of the century’s maiden decade, I wouldn’t have said music was particularly important to me, something reflected by the fact that at the age of 17 the entirety of my ‘collection’ will have consisted of about 12 fairly standard samples of radio-friendly indie (of which probably only the Manics have endured to this day). As time progressed though, I gradually grew bored of the stodgy dad-rock, started borrowing a mate’s copies of the death-throe issues of Melody Maker (well, thieved really, sorry about that Richard), and began to spend time in the company of MTV2. As a direct result of the latter, My Vitriol appeared on my radar around the time they released the Pieces and Always: Your Way singles. They were the perfect band for me to discover at that particular time, accessible enough not to repulse my unsophisticated palate (and indeed to actually discover in the first place), but alternative enough for me to satisfy my urge to rebel against my own tastes.

On the surface (which is about as deep as the younger me would tend to delve), Finelines was a pretty uncomplicated proposition, a nice heavy rock record, bristling with venom, and sprinkled with the occasional catchy chorus. But if its appeal were merely superficial, it would have been chucked to one side with my Feeder, JJ72 and Kinesis records long ago. Instead, while I have experienced dozens of infatuations with songs, albums and genres, both brief and longer term, and discarded far more bands than I have loved, Finelines has grown with me, and become one of the few constants in my musical landscape, to the point where my Digipak copy is now just about ready to fall to bits once and for all.

A huge part of its appeal lies in its dextrous melding of pop rock and shoegaze. The likes of Cemented Shoes, Grounded and Losing Touch are instantly exhilarating (and, unsurprisingly, all singles), and their immediacy acts as a necessary breather from the endless surging waves of effects-heavy guitars, a handhold to cling to in the storm of noise. Even now, it’s hugely satisfying, and quite refreshing, to hear how unrestrained the album is. I mean, just look at Tongue Tied. On the face of it, a mainstream rock record could probably do without a meandering, overblown five and half minute instrumental peppered with false endings slap bang in the middle of it, but thanks largely to its joyous bloody-mindedness, it turns out to be a perfect distillation of the entire My Vitriol philosophy, and one of the highlights of the whole album. And then there are the other instrumental snippets, the shorter pieces like Alpha Waves and Taprobane, which in clumsier hands could jar or slow things down unnecessarily, but instead prove to be vital threads in the tapestry of the album as a whole.

So if you never discovered Finelines (and I wouldn’t were it not for opportune timing), if you dismissed My Vitriol out of hand, or even if you own the album and simply haven’t listened to it for ages, then it is without question a worthwhile way to spend forty-eight minutes. It’s a shame that its lack of a successor has overshadowed the record’s sheer strength, but it also means that it gives My Vitriol that rarefied air of mystique which shrouds bands whose only record is a stone-cold classic. For me though, while Finelines is a special record for its own qualities, what is arguably more important is the gateway it provided me to the likes of Seafood, The Cooper Temple Clause and Idlewild, who in turn each gave me a few more outlets, which then led me to a few more other threads to follow, and so on and so on and so on to a point where my hard drive and bookshelves creak under the strain of music they carry.

Bear in Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth: Remixed (Album)

2010-08-08T05:58:00.001-07:00

Beast Rest Forth Mouth is likely to end up one of 2010’s great overlooked records, destined to be overshadowed by Yeasayer’s similar, inferior effort. Entering the minefield of the remix album seems at first a curious decision, especially given the near-perfection of the source material but the result, by and large, vindicates Bear in Heaven. Undoubtedly, the album’s shimmering pop charm is lost, but in its place comes a subtler new appeal, particularly on The Field’s remix of Ultimate Satisfaction, or Deru’s Deafening Love, which experience two of the most radical deconstructions here, both taking on an unnerving, ghostly air. The BRAHMS remix of Fake Out, meanwhile, is a less drastic tweak, enhancing the song’s essence with a skittering little beat, the result of which is probably better than the original. As with practically every remix album ever made, not every reworking is a success, with Pink Skull’s version of Wholehearted Mess turning the song into a shapeless mush. On the whole though, the band have presided over a real success, adding an interesting new dimension to their album, which will hopefully bring it back on the radar to those who missed it first time round.

4/5

Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest Preview (Album)

2010-08-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

These days, it feels strange to bemoan a period of less than twelve months as too long to have gone without recorded output from any artist. But such is the outrageously prolific nature of Bradford Cox, a man usually good for at least two records a year, that it seems like an age since his last release, October’s Atlas Sound album Logos. He even stopped spewing out the formerly frequent Virtual 7” recordings which litter the archives of the Deerhunter blog (most of which are well worth exploring if you find yourself with a spare afternoon and a fuckload of hard drive space). His quiet spell is due to end on September 28^th, as he and his Deerhunter cohorts knuckle back down to the day job with the release of their fifth full-lengther Halcyon Digest. Lead single Revival (quite fittingly, given the name), picks up the thread left by last Deerhunter EP Rainwater Cassette Exchange, taking on the same lazy, mildly shoegazey ambience of its predecessor. That’s not to say you should expect any kind of rehash of past glories, mind you, because Deerhunter are most definitely not that kind of band. There may be some vague sense of narrative logic running through their back catalogue, but a huge part of their overall appeal lies in their unpredictability and their sublime meandering tangents. In fact the only thing about Halcyon Digest that isn’t likely to surprise is its inevitable prominent spot in the end of end of year love-ins.

Salli Lunn - Heresy and Rite (Album)

2010-08-01T14:17:00.001-07:00

I’ve often wondered what compels a band for whom English isn’t their mother tongue to sing in English. Clearly it is an artistic decision which is entirely theirs to make, and there are certainly a host of wonderful bands, including Phoenix, Mew and M83 to name a mere few, who choose to do it, but the motive behind it has never been entirely clear to me. Is it for commercial appeal? Is English particularly easier on the ear than other languages? Do foreign musicians just like to show off how expert their English is? Answers on a postcard (or that little comments box at the bottom) please.

Danes Salli Lunn are another example of a band recording in English as opposed to their native language. Now, short of hearing a recording of Heresy and Rite in Danish for comparison purposes, we are limited in our ability to assess the relevance of their linguistic choices, but what is all too apparent is that there are times when some frankly atrocious lyrics take the shine off what could have been one of this year’s most shining examples of noise-drenched indie. The most obvious and most squirm-inducing example of this can be found on Mirror Girl. You could take your pick from the song’s whole lyric-sheet, but the line which makes me recoil most is probably ‘She can not be a single girl with those pretty cheekbones’. One aberration of a song does not entirely ruin a record, but the unfortunate effect it has is to make it difficult to totally lose yourself the first half of the album because you know this is lurking portentously round the corner.

This is a real shame too, because at its best Heresy and Rite is a record which, either intentionally or otherwise, takes a number of reference points (I spotted, among others, very early Sonic Youth, Interpol, and Engineers) and blends them into a fairly agreeable melange. What Salli Lunn do really well (and it’s tragic the album doesn’t explore it more) are the huge assaults of squealing, crashing noise which punctuate the album, never more so than about five and a half minutes into Fast Cars, Clean Bodies, or the latter stages of Frame of Reference. When they pull this off, they are visceral, vital and exhilarating, and it’s a pleasure to slip the headphones on, turn the volume up, and immerse yourself in the shower of noise. Although the album’s more tumultuous sections represent its greatest successes, they are backed up by one or two strong lower key moments too. Parachutes Forever, for instance, shares a similar wide-eyed innocence to Jeniferever’s best work, while Belongings is a skilfully delivered slice of paranoid brooding.

On the whole, then, Heresy and Rite is an album which produces hugely inconsistent results. To call it a mixed bag would be the most enormous of understatements. It undoubtedly contains a lot of the right ingredients for Salli Lunn to be major noise-rock players, and the more experimental elements of the album are beautifully-realised, but what will ultimately stay with you after listening to Heresy and Rite are its slips into formulaic territory, as well as the horror of Mirror Girl.

Mystery Jets - Serotonin (Album)

2010-07-04T06:23:00.001-07:00

It's probably something of an understatement to describe Mystery Jets as unpredictable. Having meandered from their initial messy prog jams all the way through to pastel-hued pop, few could have guessed with any kind of accuracy which direction their third record would take. So then, probably the most surprising thing the band could have done is make a direct follow-on from its predecessor, taking the 80s-flecked pop blueprint and running even further with it. And while part of Twenty One’s appeal was the huge contrast to the sound of Making Dens, Serotonin’s perverse logicalness is equally thrilling.

Twenty One covered youthful romance pretty extensively, focusing on both the joy of being young in love, and also the pain of things not going completely to plan. This time out though, the spotlight is squarely on the latter, because Serotonin is undoubtedly a lovelorn record. However, the way the downbeat lyrical content is handled is further proof of Mystery Jets’ sheer contrariness, because the giddy headrush of pop which accompanies it makes the whole thing feel like a celebration of having the shit kicked out of your heart.

Take these snapshots from Alice Springs for instance – “Freedom is an illusion generated by your brain... Better to have loved and lost than to have lived and never loved anyone”. The maudlin gives way to the hopeful, and the blast of powerful pop energy blows away any sense of resentment which might have still been lingering when the lyrics were written. The result of this is that you get the impression that Mystery Jets would be great people to have around you if you were ever ditched by a loved one. (Who knows, perhaps supporting the recently dumped might be a handy sideline for them to explore if this fickle industry ever leaves them strapped for cash)

Serotonin is one of those records which feels like more than the sum of its parts, because it contains some of the simplest pieces of music Mystery Jets have put to record, yet it is probably more invigorating than anything they have ever done too. There is a lot on here which would make fantastic singles, songs which are radio-friendly in the most positive sense of the expression. Dreaming of Another World is the ultimate lead single, because it is difficult to imagine a more perfect three minutes of pop being released this year. It’s a beautifully buoyant hymn to escape and feels unimaginably fresh and youthful, the sort of song which can soothe aching limbs and iron out the dents in your psyche.

In a record built almost exclusively of highlights and gigantic choruses (the most ecstatic of which, by the way, can be found on Lady Grey), it is difficult to single out individual moments. The songs all hang together nicely, complementing each other and making for a record which is a million times more coherent than you would have expected from the band they were when they first started out. One song which stands apart from the rest, however, is Melt, primarily because it feels Christmassy where the rest of the record feels unmistakably summery. It’s a gorgeous, waltzing piece of music, which calls to mind Flakes from the last album, mainly because it shares the same wide-eyed sense of wonder, something which characterises a lot of the songs on which Blaine takes lead vocals.

The release of Serotonin will hopefully strengthen Mystery Jets’ reputation as our premier purveyors of eccentric pop music. In a year when two of their most prominent contemporaries Foals and Los Campsinos! have returned with records far darker in their execution than their previous efforts, Mystery Jets have, typically, gone against the grain with this boisterous surge of pop. Having shown their aptitude for surprising us with both change and then the lack of it, I guess it makes most sense for us to expect even more finely honed pop next time out, but knowing Mystery Jets, it’s probably more likely that album number four will be a nine hour suite of jazz-drone.

5/5

Delays - Star Tiger, Star Ariel (Album)

2010-06-26T03:41:00.000-07:00

I have never been in a band. No obvious journo/failed musician clichés here then, more journo/never even tried to be a musician. Therefore, it is quite difficult for me to accurately assess at which point it becomes clear to a band that their creative and commercial peak (which are sometimes concurrent, but more often than not come at completely different times) are gone. More to the point, when that realisation does dawn on you, what do you do? Do you give up the ghost, or do you continue to plug away gamely, making music entirely for yourself and the die-hards? There’s an argument for both really. There are few things more depressing than seeing a once-wonderful band knocking out by-numbers tripe to an increasingly uninterested public (Weezer, anyone?). But then surely your first aim as a musician is to make songs that satisfy you, regardless of whether or not the public take them to heart?

The reason for this meandering train of thought is that to me, it is fairly apparent that Southampton four piece Delays probably enjoyed their zenith in their early years, with debut record Faded Seaside Glamour quite rightly garnering plaudits aplenty for its blend of Cocteau-esque beauty and jangly indie-pop. Mildly electro-infused follow-up You See Colours, perhaps harshly, didn’t take off in the way it was expected to, and Everything’s The Rush seemed to pretty much pass most people by entirely. So for the release of fourth album Star Tiger, Star Ariel, I guess you could say at least there is little to no pressure on the band.

And, for the most part, this freedom seems to show, because Star Tiger very definitely sounds like a band who, perhaps for the first time, have been liberated from the demands of having to follow up a successful debut record, or from the burden of having to regain lost momentum. It also gives us the impression that Delays are entirely comfortable in their own skin, old enough and mature enough to know who they are, and capable enough to convey that in the songs.

Where Everything’s the Rush was largely an exuberant blast of straight-up pop, Star Tiger tends to be a slightly more diverse affair. Its greatest successes are undoubtedly the moments where the band retreat into their shell with opening song Find a Home the most gorgeous example of this. Along with Hold Fire, it is also probably the most direct excursion the band has ever taken into dream pop yet. Few British bands can do woozy as well as Delays, which has a lot to do with Greg Gilbert’s falsetto, something which has always accounted for a sizeable chunk of the band’s column inches.

While the sleepier moments are the high points of the record, there is still plenty to cling on to for those who enjoy Delays doing straight up pop. In Brilliant Sunshine is an invigoratingly boisterous piece which has Aaron Gilbert’s fingerprints all over it, and would have fit quite nicely on You See Colours. Shanghaied is similarly urgent and also serves as a timely reminder that there’s another element to Greg’s voice, though, because as affecting as it is when he’s being all ghostly, it’s also pretty exhilarating when he lets rip with those throat-tearing howls. It’s like Mark Greaney probably thought he sounded on those JJ72 records all those years ago.

The album comes to a close with its title track, which is about as grand and majestic as we have ever seen the band. It reinforces the feeling that Delays have probably found their niche, a slot below the surface of mainstream success which allows them to quietly plug away safe in the knowledge that history will be kind to them. Granted, they might never produce such pure and perfect pop as Long Time Coming again, may never serve up another glorious dancefloor shredding curveball like Lost in a Melody or Valentine, and chances are they may never inspire in me that same feeling I did upon first encountering the band some seven years when a solo rendition of There’s Water Here by Greg pinned me spellbound to the floor. However, with Star Tiger, Star Ariel comes the realisation that Delays will also never produce a half-arsed record, nor is the quality of their songwriting ever likely to dip. Sometimes, you know, that’s enough.

4/5

Perfume Genius - Learning (Album)

2010-06-17T12:05:00.001-07:00

There are rare occasions when you just know. When you put on a record for the first time, and you are encompassed by the vague and indefinable sense of warmth that comes with the knowledge that what you are listening to is, in a word, special. It has nothing to do with epoch, genre, or geographical origin, but stems from an intangible kind of magic that elevates the music above the confines of being merely ‘good’, into something wondrous. Learning by Perfume Genius (aka Seattle native Mike Hadreas) is such an album.

It’s difficult to know where to even begin picking Learning apart, really. The first thing which will strike you about Hadreas is his voice. Floating above the bobbing piano intro of the title track which opens the album is this tragic, pain-laced voice which sounds almost childlike, but which also seems worn out by years of sorrow. This is far from the only contradiction which adorns the album, because really, one of the most intriguing things about Learning is that it is sheathed in paradox. It is resolutely dark in tone, yet it emits a gentle warm glow. It is utterly minimal in its components, but it still comes across as a hugely complex piece of work. And while the songs are shot through with the starkest kind of fragility, it is difficult to escape the feeling that from the catharsis of putting this pain on record, there emerges a kind of defiance.

Perhaps wisely for a record of such emotional heft, Learning is short in length. The ten songs clock in at less than half an hour, and each is in itself an ephemeral snapshot of raw humanity. The album seems to drift away on the breeze before it has even begun, and while you are left drained from the experience, ultimately it leaves you pining for more. Hadreas, clearly, is a believer in the old maxim that less is more, something which is abundantly plain from the sparse instrumentation he employs throughout.

In spite of the fact that the shelves of our record stores are clogged up by a million and one albums constructed, like Learning, almost entirely from piano and voice, you can’t really accurately compare Perfume Genius to any other artist. There may be a hint of turn of the decade Radiohead (think Motion Picture Soundtrack) in the ghostly murmur of Gay Angels, and very occasionally the vocal delivery calls to mind Jason Lytle and Grandaddy’s more tender moments, but aside from these all-too fleeting reference points, Hadreas is an artist whose sheer uniqueness is extraordinary. Just take this coda from ‘Mr Petersen’ as an example: “He let me smoke weed in his truck / If I could convince him I loved him enough...When I was sixteen, he jumped off a building / Mr Petersen, I know you were ready to go / I hope there’s room for you up above or down below”. It’s difficult to imagine any other artist who could take what is essentially the tale of (at best) a questionable relationship between an older and a younger man, and imbue it with such heartbreaking compassion. This is the real power of Perfume Genius, his ability to inspire feelings that can not be drawn from the work of any other musician.

By now, it probably goes without saying that Learning is not the easiest album that 2010 will give us. But at the moment it is almost impossible to imagine anything being released that will even come close to being as enriching as this. It is the sort of record which can completely engulf you with its beauty, and leaves you wondering just what other marvels Perfume Genius will be able to sculpt in years to come because, lest we forget, this is his first release. Mike Hadreas is a rare and wonderful artist. Savour him.

Allo, Darlin' - Allo, Darlin' (Album)

2010-06-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

There has probably never been a better time for a band to produce straight-up indie pop, particularly if they happen to position themselves at the twee-er end of the scale. What with the mass acclaim for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart last year, the gently swelling commercial and critical success of Camera Obscura, and a general wave of C86-inspired bands seemingly sweeping the blogosphere, it would appear that in 2010 it’s hip to be fey. It is into this hospitable environment that Allo, Darlin’, a part-English, part-Aussie punctuationary nightmare launch their eponymous debut record.

It’s clear from even the most cursory of listens that it is a record which nakedly displays its influences, a factor which makes it no less enjoyable. Album opener Dreaming calls to mind the sweet youthfulness of mid-90s twee superheroes Heavenly, and specifically their Calvin Johnson collaboration with its lovely boy-girl interplay. The Polaroid Song, on the other hand, has the sort of gently insistent melody which calls to mind a more girly Smiths. There are plenty more reference points to be found in here if you look further, but the band deliver the whole thing in such a way that it never feels like theft, more like affectionate homage to their musical idols.

One of the band’s greatest strengths is the disarming directness of their lyrics. Take Silver Dollars, for instance, a simple but charmingly pretty love song to the toilet circuit: “And yeah, I sold all my records, but I’m still in debt by two grand / and yeah, we played that show, but we spent what we earned on the cab...we do it, because we love it”. The delivery of singer Elizabeth Darling aches with vulnerability, and carries the same sort of delicate emotional punch as Tracyanne Campbell, something which is at its most apparent on Let’s Go Swimming.

It is Kiss Your Lips which sees Allo, Darlin’ achieve their aims most perfectly. Aside from the mildly grating pronunciation of the word lips (although I must concede that as a Geordie many would say I have no cause to call anyone up on any kind of accent-related foibles), the song is the glorious high point of the album. It is the centre-piece around which the rest of the album is built, a breezy burst of pop exuberance, and gains extra kudos for the beautifully reverential mini Weezer cover in the middle.

The other side of Allo, Darlin’ is their slow-paced ukulele-led laments which resonate with obvious heartache, but they don’t all find their mark in the same way as Let’s Go Swimming. Heartbreak Chilli is very nearly a step too far into tweeness, a syrupy ode to culinary flirtatiousness, while What Will Be Will Be is a bit of an inconsequential way to end a record so replete with pop gems. While this is a bit of a shame, it by no means takes the shine of what is a hugely impressive debut album. As far as the current wave of mid-tempo indie pop goes, Allo, Darlin’ is likely to be a key album, one which I’m sure many will try and fail to emulate.

4/5

Band of Horses - Infinite Arms (Album)

2010-06-13T11:07:00.001-07:00

As much as it pains me to admit it, it is probably a bit snobbish to suggest that all bands who achieve stratospheric levels of radio saturation are chancers whose sole aim in making music is to hit the lowest common denominator paydirt. Nor should I really imply that they all sacrifice their artistic vision in favour of the ever more insipid for the sake of shifting another 100k units. Still though, there has quite clearly been a large element of this in popular music for a lot of years, and to those responsible, well, I guess all I can say is fair enough. Clearly the likes of Lightbody, Martin and Followill have long since reconciled themselves with their choices, and a bit of stick from little old me isn’t likely to change their ways. That said, it doesn’t half stick in your craw sometimes that such blanditry is so ubiquitous when there are innumerable artists producing music which could conceivably cross over to larger scale popularity without completely sacking off ambition or creativity. Band of Horses are a perfect example of such a band. Their dust-hewn Americana has raised their profile steadily for five years, making Infinite Arms a relatively major release in indie circles, but its arrival still comes largely unheralded in the mainstream.

Gradually increasing stature aside, little else seems to change in the band’s world. With every new release you know what you’re likely to be in for, something which makes the result no less pleasing. Sometimes the art of simple, stately songcraft, when exhibited as consummately as it is on Infinite Arms, can be far more stimulating than wild directional twists and turns.

The lilting waltz of Factory with which Infinite Arms opens is about as strong a back-up of the previous point as I could possibly provide. It is at once gorgeous, swooning, and completely and utterly typical of Band of Horses. Like much of the rest of the record, it provides little in the way of the unexpected, but it is still entirely satisfying. Perhaps the closest thing to a surprise to be found on the album is lead single Compliments, if only for the fact that it imbues an otherwise simple slice of pop with more bounce and swagger than we’re used to hearing from the band.

Band of Horses have always been fond of slow-burners, and Infinite Arms dips into their canon of lovelorn laments more than either of their previous two albums. They are masters of the art, and the likes of On My Way Back Home and Older can sit comfortably with their back catalogue, but with the heavy reliance on the sleepier songs comes the uneasy sensation that the balance of the album doesn’t feel quite right. There’s an unmistakeable lull between the middle and the end of the record where it is difficult to stop your attention from wandering until the gust of NW Apt suddenly blows away the cobwebs. I can’t help but feel that had the band bared their teeth once or twice more over the course of Infinite Arms, then the album would have been the healthier for it.

All told then, Infinite Arms is further proof, if such a thing were necessary, of Band of Horses’ enviable command of a song. It is not a perfect record, indeed it is probably not quite the best of their career, but there is sufficient elegance here to deem the album a success. And who knows, with a place on the soundtrack of the next Twilight film coming up, perhaps it’s not too unrealistic to expect them to be catapulted to the large scale fame soon...

3/5

Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record (Album)

2010-05-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

Is it really five years since the last Broken Social Scene album? It really doesn’t feel like it. Perhaps it’s the ubiquity borne out of their indie megastardom, perhaps it’s the not-quite-solo, not-quite-BSS records released by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning since 2005’s eponymous effort. Either way, it feels like they’ve never been away. However, that didn’t stop the initial announcement of Forgiveness Rock Record’s arrival being greeted with a feverish level of anticipation only matched so far this year by The National. Like Messrs Berninger, Dessner et al, BSS were on a bit of a hiding to nothing in trying to satisfy expectations, however Forgiveness Rock Record, like High Violet, comfortably achieves this feat.

Impressively for a band whose membership is so befuddlingly fluid, Broken Social Scene have been quietly cultivating an entirely specific sound ever since You Forgot it in People. Their albums have always been pretty diverse affairs (and Forgiveness Rock Record is no exception), but there have always been odd common threads loosely woven throughout their music, that creaky guitar, for instance, or that slightly dusty feel to the production, all of which serve to make a Broken Social Scene record instantly recognisable. Forgiveness Rock Record has this same sense about it, yet is still markedly different to anything yet released by BSS.

The biggest difference to a lot of the band’s previous work is that large chunks of Forgiveness Rock Record show a greater focus on more conventional song structures than usual, which is no bad thing. You might be surprised to hear it of a mass conglomerate of indie experimentalists, but when they want to, BSS can do pop pretty nicely thank you. ‘Art House Director’ is the finest example of this, a glorious slice of fun driven by a bounding brass refrain which races breathlessly onwards. ‘Meet Me in the Basement’, too, is similarly unrestrained in the joyousness which seeps out of its instrumental elegance.

Broken Social Scene have featured their fair share of big name female singers over the years, but one of Forgiveness Rock Record’s most gorgeous moments comes courtesy of one of their less feted chanteuses in Lisa Lobsinger. ‘All to All’ is heartbreakingly pretty, all woozy and lovelorn, and also has a disarmingly catchy groove to it. Perhaps the competition from Lobsinger has inspired Emily Haines, who in response turns in one of her most seductive vocals in years on the irresistibly sexy ‘Sentimental X’s’. It would be misguided to think that it’s just the girls who are capable of sending a tingle down the listener’s spine, though. ‘Sweetest Kill’ creeps up on you after a few listens, gently tugging at your sleeve for attention, and it is Kevin Drew’s careworn vocal which is largely responsible for this. For years, Drew has been a master of understated emotion, and this is one of the finest moments of his enviable career.

It probably won’t come as a surprise to hardened Broken Social Scene listeners that Forgiveness Rock Record isn’t without its missteps. There are undoubtedly times when the album can frustrate, such as with the aimless closer ‘Me and My Hand’, or the throwaway ‘Ungrateful Little Father’. And the less said about the ill-advised ‘Scoody-doody’ bits at the start of ‘Highway Slipper Jam’, the better. That said, the slack quality control which comes with their chaotic make-up is part of the band’s appeal. After all, how often do we berate bands for being a bit too slick? Besides, none of the record’s faults can possibly take anything away from its high points, which are as plentiful as they are enriching. Forgiveness Rock Record is definitely as much of a slow burner as any previous BSS efforts, but it’s at least as good as any of them.

4/5

Pulled Apart by Horses - Pulled Apart by Horses (Album)

2010-05-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure exactly what it takes for a post-hardcore band to cross over successfully to indie-land, but Pulled Apart By Horses might be able to answer that question. Like Rolo Tomassi and Dananananaykroyd before them, they have managed to get check-shirted types a-quivering with anticipation for their debut record. They might not have Rolo’s lunatic creativity or Dananana’s insane levels of unbridled energy, but PABH are still quite adept with straight-up dumb shouty rawk. They have a sense of fun which is pretty appealing. This is music which doesn’t take itself too seriously, something that is clear from a mere passing glance at the track-list. The likes of ‘I Punched a Lion in the Throat’ and ‘The Crapsons’ are more than just silly one-liners though, they are backed up by satisfyingly meaty riffs and are catchier than all the yelling might lead you to believe at first. A lot of this might be a bit tongue in cheek, but there’s still a convincing amount of anger present, particularly in ‘I’ve Got Guestlist to Rory O’Hara’s Suicide’. It’s unlikely to reveal much more of itself after the first few listens, but PABH is still a decent rock knockabout.

3.5/5

Singles Round-Up - W/C 17-5-10 (Single)

2010-05-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

It’s been suggested that the single is a dying artform, and although I’m a firm believer in the format, there are some weeks where it is hard to argue its case. Disappointingly for me, embarking on my maiden run at our Singles of the Week column, this week is one of those weeks. Still, there are one or two diamonds buried in the rough, so onward we go...

This week sees releases from more of pop’s luminaries than usual. Firstly, Christina Aguilera is back, and it would appear she has decide to reprise her filth-pop heyday, when she used to go around calling herself X-Tina. Sadly for pop’s yummiest mummy though, ‘Not Myself Tonight’, is a forgettable slice of “If you don’t like it, fuck you” –themed bluster, which sounds a little hollow now that we have far more interesting pop stars like Lady Gaga. A slightly better attempt at urban pop comes from little Alexandra Burke, whose ‘All Night Long’ at least has a more memorable chorus which is likely to go down well with Radio 1 types. She’s definitely one of the more worthwhile of the X Factor ‘artists’, but that contest is a bit like trying to decide what the best type of skin disease is. Completing the trio of pop giants releasing records this week is the wonderfully batshit Shakira, who at least deserves our admiration for gaining such prominence by embracing her lunacy rather than allowing herself to be buffed into radio-friendly generica. Her song ‘Give it Up to Me’, however is no ‘She-Wolf’. It’s a bit too straight, doesn’t really play to her eccentric strengths, and ends up sounding kind of like something Timbaland would have chucked at Nelly Furtado a few years ago.

While we’re on the subject of female pop solo artists, this week also sees the release of Ellie Goulding’s latest effort ‘Guns and Horses’. The song is perfectly pleasant, inoffensive and quite catchy (though not quite ‘Starry-Eyed’ catchy), but it’s difficult to take her seriously. It just feels like she’s been vacuum-packed in the lab which produces BBC Sound of 20xx candidates, with this year’s vintage requiring liberal splashes of baggy checked shirts, leggings and kooky vocal tics. You’d like to think there’s some irony present when she sings “It’s time that we found out who we are”, but there probably isn’t.

A far more enjoyable effort comes from Swanton Bombs (apparently it’s something to do with wrestling). Their single ‘Wasteland’ is a beautifully shambolic chunk of messy guitar pop. It has that fantastic grubby sound of Let’s Wrestle and the energy of Dananananaykroyd, but amid the murkiness, a tune is buried, and a surprisingly catchy one at that. Competing with Swanton Bombs for this week’s best single are Wild Palms. ‘Deep Dive’ is comprised of equal parts ominous portents of doom and driving power-pop, and is an all the more interesting proposition for its identity crisis. The singer might want to tone down the affectations just a touch though.

Also out this week is Camera Obscura’s cover of Richard Hawley’s ‘The Nights Are Cold’, which I would have loved to have told you all about, but as there seems to be an implausibly wide online exclusion zone around it, I’m afraid that’s not possible. The original is a lovely example of gently bouncing acoustic songcraft, so I expect the cover is kind of like that, only a little bit twee-er. They’re a lovely bunch, so you might as well just buy it and let me know what it sounds like.

Foals - Total Life Forever (Album)

2010-05-15T06:47:00.000-07:00

When Foals first unveiled their debut album Antidotes, it dawned on most of us that they were not a band who were particularly keen to do what was expected of them. Their earliest singles led many to expect a by-numbers Math Rock knockabout of a long player, but, much to the surprise of those who had them pegged as hipster fodder, Antidotes took a more considered approach than that. It combined fleeting bouts of bombast with moments that subtly worked their way under your skin, all of which made for a sharply enriching end result. It also showed that Foals possessed a stubborn determination to do things entirely on their own terms, something which has continued through to second album Total Life Forever.

Opening track ‘Blue Blood’, builds from a fragile, reflective opening into something denser, growing so gradually that you barely notice the transition. This, really, is the album in microcosm. With each song that passes, and each repeat listen to the record, Total Life Forever reveals layer after layer until its majesty engulfs you entirely. It takes a lot longer to absorb than Antidotes, but once it has sunk in it becomes clear just how good a record this is.

It has been suggested that the process of making the album was a fraught one for Foals, and this is reflected in the tone of the music. Part of the reason that it initially proves tough to penetrate Total Life Forever is its largely gloomy nature. Much of the record sounds darker than anything the band have recorded before, but at the same time it is more rounded than any of their previous work, and, dare we say it, much more mature.

The entire thing hinges on the astonishing centrepiece that is ‘Spanish Sahara’. It is borne out of the darkest depths of the most miserable nights, and carries with it a sense of desolation which is particularly harrowing. Yannis Philippakis’ vocal delivery is that of a man completely exhausted, and adds to the almost suffocating mood of the song. It feels like there is a black cloud overhead, constantly threatening to erupt but which never quite breaks completely. It is this tension which makes the song so absorbing, no matter how disturbing a listen it is.

The despondency of ‘Spanish Sahara’ is followed by ‘This Orient’, which perks things up, but only in the slightest of fashions. In spite of its big single vibes and the gentle swell with which it builds, under the surface it still contains the same anxiety which permeates most of the album. A similar sense of timorousness can also be seen in ‘Black Gold’, whose chilly, isolated guitar builds into a vast, creepy final two minutes which are totally at odds with Yannis’ contention that “Spring is finally here”. Really, the only shaft of light to illuminate any part of the album appears early on in the form of ‘Miami’, which possesses a groove reminiscent of Friendly Fires and is probably the most overt pop song in Foals’ armoury.

The songs on Total Life Forever are powerful in both concept and realisation, and a massive part in what makes the album so impressive is the way the music has been captured. Phillippakis’ voice is consistently affecting, as he sounds far more jaded than the young pup whose yelps punctuated Antidotes. The band’s musicianship is stunning too, with the jittery rhythm section combining with the characteristically chiming guitar to produce a sound which is, at different stages, graceful, sinister and beautifully nourishing.

So clearly Total Life Forever is a record which demands time and attention from the listener. In return it offers more than its predecessor. Even this early in their career, there are suggestions that Foals are masters of reinvention, something which puts them completely in control of their own destiny. When Yannis sings “Singularity is here to stay” on the album’s title track, it is as honest a lyric as he will probably ever deliver, because for Foals it is quite obviously their way or no way.

Ash - A Retrospective

2010-05-03T10:03:00.000-07:00

We all have our seminal bands, those who take a major part in forming our tastes in our younger days, and with whom we form such strong bonds that we will follow them unconditionally, football style, whatever kind of form they are in. For me, Ash are one of those bands. Now that they have eschewed the album format altogether for their much discussed A-Z singles project (The first thirteen of which have recently been compiled and released as a single disc), now would seem as good a time as any to run a critical eye over their recorded output and see just why they are such an important band to so many.

When debut mini-album Trailer appeared in 1994, Tim and Mark were still only 17. Much was made of the band’s age, and stories of them needing their headmaster’s permission to go on tour abounded, but the crux of it is that Trailer remains a vital piece in the Ash jigsaw. It bore the clear hallmarks of a young band trying to find their own sound, but even at this embryonic stage it was distinctly recognisable as Ash. The spikier punk songs like ‘Intense Thing’ are the earliest examples of the strength of Tim’s often under-rated guitar work, even if his voice was a little too sweet to convincingly carry off the shouting. Trailer’s best moments, however, were the songs which aligned most closely with the buoyant pop Ash would eventually become feted for. ‘Jack Names the Planets’, ‘Petrol’, and ‘Uncle Pat’ in particular can still stand toe to toe with much of the band’s back catalogue.

The band’s first album proper, 1977, saw them round off some (though thankfully not all) of their rougher edges into the power-pop which most casual observers would associate with them. It was (possibly inadvertently) timed to perfection in the summer of 1996 with ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘Oh Yeah’ in particular rightly being remembered as stone-cold pop classics, perfect distillations of the band’s youthful energy and skill with a memorable hook. It also provided the first indications that Tim was capable of writing more than just a catchy pop song, with ‘Gone the Dream’ and ‘Lost in You’ glistening with a yearning, wide-eyed sense of teenage angst. Unlike many albums from the same era, the record has aged well, partly thanks to the ageless quality of the songs, and partly because of Owen Morris’ meaty production.

Perhaps inevitably after seeing such success at such a young age, after 1977, the band went off the rails a little. Having recruited Charlotte Hatherley to beef up their sound, they produced Nu-Clear Sounds, a massive departure in tone from 1977 which left Joe Public completely baffled. Looking back, its poor critical and commercial reception was an unfair reflection of the quality of the record. The band’s collective psyche may have been completely frazzled, as displayed quite candidly on ‘Low Ebb’ and ‘Burn Out’, but there were moments of brilliant creativity lurking amid the gloom. ‘Projects’ and ‘Death Trip 21’ in particular were gloriously dense blasts of Sonic Youth-esque energy. While the album had little in common with the sugar rush of the previous record, under its blistered surface, the likes of ‘Wild Surf’ and ‘Jesus Says’ still displayed some of the old propensity for a catchy chorus.

After Nu-Clear Sounds, something had to give, and it was very nearly the band’s existence. Burnt out and almost bankrupt, they returned to Northern Ireland to lick their wounds and recorded Free All Angels, an album which would prove to be the most glorious of salvations. The record-buying public latched onto Ash again with the killer one-two of singles which preceded the album, ‘Shining Light’ and ‘Burn Baby Burn’ both gatecrashing the top end of the charts. As strong as it was, Free All Angels didn’t really tell the full story of a time which saw the band hit the richest creative seam of their career. The likes of ‘Walking Barefoot’, ‘Cherry Bomb’ and ‘Pacific Palisades’ were stunning pop songs, while ‘Submission’ and ‘Shark’ were cuddlier versions of the tales of excess explored on Nu-Clear Sounds. However, the five singles the album yielded where backed by a slew of songs which were at least as strong as what eventually made the cut. The likes of ‘Stay in Love Forever’, ‘So the Story Goes’, ‘Nocturne’ and ‘The Sweetness of Death by the Obsidian Knife’ meant Free All Angels could quite conceivably have been a fantastic double album.

In 2004, for the second time in their career, Ash followed up a massively successful album with something with a harder edge. Meltdown saw them ditch the strings and pop hooks which were dotted around Free All Angels in favour of straight-up ballsy rock. The album was a straightforward proposition; big choruses and simple dumb fun. Aside from the power ballad ‘Starcrossed’, which never quite sat right on the album, there was little deviation from the formula. As a consequence, the album was only moderately successful, but like Nu-Clear Sounds it was a better album than its reception suggested. The huge driving riff of ‘Orpheus’ and the Queens of the Stone Age-aping ‘Clones’, were wonderful blasts of visceral power. The glorious, surging ‘Out of the Blue’ and devastatingly concise ‘Renegade Cavalcade’ were similarly effective. Ultimately, Meltdown was an arse-kicking summer rock album; no more, no less.

By the time the band reached Twilight of the Innocents in 2007, there was a sense that the momentum was fading a little, which probably wasn’t helped by the departure of Charlotte, who had been a huge part of the band’s success for almost ten years. The album proved to be a bit of a mixed bag. It was certainly not without its highlights, with ‘I Started a Fire’ oozing the typical Ash energy, and ‘Polaris’ and ‘Twilight of the Innocents’ providing proof that Wheeler’s nous with pathos was as strong as it was in his teenage years, with the latter being imbued with an impressive new sense of grandeur. That said, there wasn’t as much of that intangible spark which ignites the best Ash records. It’s not that Twilight of the Innocents was a bad album; it just ended up being the weakest of an extremely strong bunch, and suffering by comparison.

As we have seen, it turned out to be the last Ash long player as they returned to the singles format which has always been kind to them. The songs released so far from the A-Z collection have provided a few glints of their old lustre, suggesting that being freed from the traditional album cycle of albums has reinvigorated the band somewhat. Still only in their early thirties, there is clearly plenty of life left in Ash yet, whether they return to albums or stick to singles. Whatever happens, there are plenty more than me who owe a serious debt of gratitude to Ash for the innumerable moments of sheer joy they have provided for so many years.

She & Him - Volume Two (Album)

2010-04-28T13:13:00.001-07:00

Much has been made of the unlikeliness of the pairing of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward. Around the release of She & Him’s debut effort two years ago, references to the improbable juxtaposition between indie boys the world over’s fantasy object of choice and the folk troubadour became pretty tiresome in the end. Thankfully, Volume One became one of those depressingly rare records where the music spoke louder than the back story which accompanied it, and it was received well on its own merits as a record of charming, sun-kissed pop.

Volume Two, you won’t be surprised to learn, is no great departure from that template. It sees Ward and Deschanel serve up another set of refined, summery morsels. Ward’s instrumentation and Deschanel’s distinctively lovelorn delivery combine to produce a shimmering combination of country, folk and classic 60s girl-band pop. The point at which the two became a ‘proper band’ is unclear, but at no point does this album fall into self-conscious collaboration hell. Instead, the chemistry between the two means it always makes perfect sense.

Clearly, if you’re not a fan of the Deschanel’s out and out tweeness, then this record is not going to change your mind. Those who find her in any way annoying are advised to stay away, because they will inevitably be infuriated by her vocal characteristics and simplistic lyrical style. Indeed, even the most well-intentioned of listeners could find the whole thing a bit cloying, because at times it feels like you’re trying to swim through a sea of the gloopiest honey. But, if you’re taking the album at face value, as nothing more sinister than a dreamy, breezy little pop record, then it can be placed alongside other dainty popstrels like Camera Obscura in terms of quality.

Things start off at a fairly languorous pace with ‘Thieves’ on which a particularly heartbroken-sounding Deschanel pines that “A love like ours is terrible news”. From this point onwards, the album drifts along in placid fashion, from the bobbing refrain of ‘In the Sun’ to the naggingly catchy piano-led ‘Don’t Look Back’. The most saccharine moment on Volume Two, and probably the song which Zooey-haters will hold up as an example of her evil powers is ‘Home’. It feels briefly like a rare thundercloud is threatening to break the muggy air of the album, until the chorus kicks in, the sun bursts through and the song becomes a sultry exercise in girliness which sees her repeatedly cooing, “It doesn’t get better than home, now, does it?”. The elements of the record which prove to be most impressive are those where the classical pop influences are at their most obvious. ‘Over It Over Again’, in particular, is all layered backing vocals and rickety piano and guitar, and the result conjures up the same intangible wide-eyed splendour which characterised the best Spector recordings.

Volume Two is a well-timed release, poised perfectly to capitalise on the occasional (okay, rare) bouts of sun we get in this country at this time of year. It is a beautifully-realised progression of classic records of bygone days, which benefits from the painstaking care which has clearly gone into its production. Its unrelenting sweetness will probably prove to be divisive, but it would take a hard heart not to succumb to its charm.

Idlewild - O2 Academy 2 - 26/4/2010 (Gig)

2010-04-27T11:29:00.000-07:00

Most indie fans will have seminal bands, those with a big role in shaping their tastes in their formative days, and for me, like many others, Idlewild were one of those bands. Tonight a completely crammed Academy 2 sees them on their final tour before an indefinite hiatus. It’s a strange night, because it serves as a reminder of the brutal creative force Idlewild once were, and the lifeless shadow of their former selves they eventually became. However, dips into the last three records are thankfully infrequent in a set which is heavy on 100 Broken Windows. The likes of ‘Idea Track’, ‘ Little Discourage’ and ‘Roseability’ are glorious throwbacks, searing flashes of anger which are brilliant examples of the bracing energy of Idlewild at their best. Not that all their post-2000 work was dreadful, mind you. When ‘American English’ closes the main set, it is genuine lump-in-the-throat stuff. Really, the best way we can remember Idlewild, is illustrated by the mid-set one-two-three of Hope is Important songs. They are delivered with a particularly savage intensity, and go a long way to eliminating the limp radio rock of recent years. For these wonderfully visceral moments, we will remember Idlewild fondly.

Rufus Wainwright - All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu (Album)

2010-04-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

As the years have passed, Rufus Wainwright’s creative output has become increasingly ambitious. Having started off with jaunty (if showy) piano pop songs, his recorded work has swelled in scale, reaching its apex with the enormous productions of his last few records. In addition to this, two of his most recent projects have been a painstakingly constructed retelling of Judy Garland’s Judy at Carnegie Hall, and more recently he has staged his first opera Prima Donna, which tells the tale of an aging soprano. Clearly then, it might come as something of a surprise that his sixth album’s twelve songs feature only voice and piano. This less expansive approach was a conscious reaction to the increasingly ostentatious nature of his more recent recordings, and given the ill health of his mother Kate McGarrigle (who died in January) it is a logical step. The outcome of all this is that All Days Are Nights shows Rufus Wainwright at his most vulnerable, and features some of the starkest, most emotionally naked songs he has ever written.

Although the base ingredients of the record might be more minimal, this is far from a simple or straightforward album. In fact, it is probably one of the densest that we will see this year. It sashays into life with ‘Who Are You New York?’, all glittering arpeggios and snapshots of slightly stalkerish imagery set against a backdrop of The Big Apple’s landmarks. Like large swathes of the rest of the record, by isolating Wainwright’s piano playing from the heaps of instrumentation which sometimes overwhelm it, it shows his precocious musical ability, as well as dramatically emphasising his most powerful asset, that extraordinary voice which has won him so many devotees over the years.

Rufus has recently said that All Days Are Nights was a means of mourning his mother while she was still alive, so unsurprisingly the lyrical content is dominated by Kate. He has never shied away from the intimate when writing songs, but even by Wainwright’s standards, his lyrics here are often disarmingly. The clearest example of this is ‘Martha’, a poignant rallying cry to his sister, backed by a twinkling piano line, to spend more time with their mother as her health deteriorates (and also their father – which given the past antagonism is a telling sign of the family’s pressing need to be united). There is desperation in Rufus’ voice which reflects the fact that, really, only his sister knows exactly how all this feels. The uncomfortably intimacy of ‘Martha’ furthers a longstanding Wainwright/McGarrigle lyrical characteristic, and the fact that Rufus can make you feel like a voyeur, intruding on something too private for the likes of the general public, underlines his gift as a songwriter.

The Spartan components of the album mean that there is a strong sense of cohesiveness, but there is still one song which sticks out like a sore thumb. ‘Give Me What I Want And Give It To Me Now!’ appears, at least on the surface, a bouncy, throwaway number which would sit more comfortably on earlier Wainwright recordings than a record as intense as this. Scratch the surface, though and the song contains serious vitriol aimed at the opera purists who lambasted Prima Donna. However, it is difficult to escape the feeling that the perky melody is a failed attempt to offset the spite, and the song just ends up feeling a little out of place.

The latter stages of the album allow those not familiar with Rufus’ extra-curricular activities a bit more of an insight into his other life, starting with a trio of Shakespearian sonnets set to new musical compositions which featured in a Berlin production last year. Rufus brings the sonnets to life beautifully with his vocal delivery and three of the loveliest melodies on the record. This will be the point at which casual observers will either become completely entranced, or just drop off the map altogether because the sonnets prove heavy going on an already intense record. It becomes ever clearer as All Days Are Nights progresses that it is not an ‘easy’ album, but it is so much more rewarding and emotionally engaging for that. The decision to feature three sonnets rather than just one or two is further evidence of Rufus’ shameless and boundless sense of ambition. His flights of fancy might not always prove successful, but they are crucial to his work and a major factor in what makes him so captivating as an artist.

The final nod to his non-pop star activities is the penultimate song on the album, ‘Les Feux D’Artifice T’Appellent’, a rendition of the closing aria of Prima Donna, on which its protagonist Madame Saint Laurent reflects on the end of her career as an opera singer. The sense of sadness tinged with the tiniest glimmer hope is captured and delivered beautifully, and encapsulates the overall tone of the record entirely. In a far simpler way, so does ‘Zebulon’, which closes the album in devastating fashion. Delivered as an entreaty to a childhood friend and crush, and set to an austere melody, it sets out Rufus feelings about his lot in the simplest, most heartbreaking tones: “My Mother’s in the hospital / My Sister’s at the opera / I’m in love but let’s not talk about it”. It is probably the most beautiful song in Rufus Wainwright’s canon, and seems the most fitting way to end a record as draining, complicated and flawed as this.

The tone and content of All Days Are Nights give it an air of finality which has been echoed in the live shows which have supported it. Were I a betting man, I would wager that we would be far more likely to see another Rufus Wainwright opera before another album. If this does prove to be his last album for a while, then it is certainly a fitting way to draw a line under this phase of his career.

Holy Fuck - Latin (Album)

2010-04-18T11:44:00.001-07:00

By allowing their third record to drift unhurriedly into your conscience with the creepily ambient scene-setter MD, Holy Fuck toy with us a little. Fans of their infectiously experimental electro may even fear that they’ve forgotten how to write a tune this time out. But then the almost comical funk of Red Lights kicks in, and such fears are rendered groundless. Latin is another massively accomplished piece of work, a beautifully rendered blend of noise and surging rhythm. All of Holy Fuck’s work is marked by sheer danceability, and this will inevitably make them a popular festival band, but what will make this record worth revisiting in future years is the range of moods encapsulated by its layers and textures. It is hugely evocative, often roaming into darker territory than usual, but you still sense that for all the seriousness, their funster instincts are always lurking under the surface, occasionally making a break for freedom in the mischievous basslines. After the major artistic breakthrough their last album represented, Holy Fuck have been successful in building on this, and have given us one of 2010’s most creative, inspiring albums so far.

5/5

Ash - A-Z Volume 1 (Album)

2010-04-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

When a band has been together as long as Ash have, keeping it fresh must presumably become increasingly difficult. After eighteen years, five long-players, a mini-album, a live recording, and a singles collection, they have decided that now is the time for them to shake things up. Having already returned to their original three-man line-up, and apparently sickened by the lack of support their last record Twilight of the Innocents received, the band have decided to dispense entirely with the traditional cycle of albums. In a move which would probably be very pleasing to the geeky teenagers who first formed the band in Downpatrick, they have resolved to release only singles from now on.

That would seem a bold enough step in itself, but they haven’t quite stopped there. Last year they commenced with the A-Z Singles project which would see them releasing a single every fortnight for twelve months. We now find ourselves at the halfway stage of the venture, and singles A-M have been compiled on A-Z Volume 1. Whether or not this counts as reneging on their ‘no more albums’ pact is beside the point, and for more pedantic souls than me to debate. What is far more important is that these singles have inspired in Ash the best form since the career rescuing effort that was Free All Angels. For the first time in a good few years, the band seem to be having fun, an element which has always been fundamental to their best work. While Twilight of the Innocents was not without its highlights, even the staunchest of Ash lovers would struggle to argue that it didn’t sound just a little tired.

While they haven’t quite reinvented the wheel with these songs, they have certainly pumped up its tyres and given it some shiny new hubcaps. The freedom presented by the project would appear to have given Ash licence to be a little more experimental than they might attempt on a conventional album. This point is illustrated immediately with the playful electro pulse of Single A ‘True Love 1980’, a song which also contains the first of many classic Tim Wheeler pop choruses present on the disc (See also ‘Joy Kicks Darkness’, ‘Arcadia’ and ‘Neon’.)

Save for the occasional musical flourish here and there, these songs are still unmistakably and undeniably Ash. The same ingredients which made 1977 so thrilling to a whole generation of indie kids all those years ago can be found in the best songs on this collection; the gigantic melodies, the unbridled sense of youthfulness, Tim Wheeler’s boyishly just-about-in-tune vocals and the headrush of the power chord-led choruses. For those who have followed Ash’s journey from the start, the effect this produces is more than just nostalgia; it is a sense of rejuvenation.

While Ash have always been doyens of power-pop, none of their recordings have been complete without the odd flip into lovelorn teen mode. This has historically acted as a sobering antidote to the dizzying effect of the band at full pelt. A-Z Volume 1, true to form, is home to a couple of particularly lovely moments in the shape of the wide-eyed and expansive ‘Tracers’, and ‘Pripyat’, a longing paean to the titular nuclear city. Tim’s voice has always been suited to songs of yearning, and this is something which has not dimmed as the years have gone by.

So great are the high points of the collection that it’s a shame that it starts to run out of steam slightly towards the end. From ‘Space Shot’ onwards, things begin to drift along a little aimlessly until Single M ‘War With Me’ revives things at the death with a grand piano motif and yet another mega chorus. The flaws of the collection don’t spoil it in any way though, and they probably won’t even come as a surprise to most because Ash have always lived had a laudable lack of fear of screwing up. Their imperfections have always been a part of what makes them so endearing, and may even be why they have endured when most of their contemporaries gave up the ghost years ago. Either way, while this compilation brazenly embraces their past, it also shows their future could be far more compelling than might reasonably expected from a band nearing the end of their second decade.

7/10

Blank Promotions First Birthday Bash - The Cluny - 28/03/10 (Gig)

2010-03-30T13:08:00.000-07:00

With the exception of the lovely folky songcraft of opening act Lesley Rowley, tonight’s birthday bash for Blank Promotions is heavily laden with the new wave of post-rock bands. Sona Di exemplify this, as their fantastically tight musicianship builds up to a raging, roaring crescendo. Late additions to the bill worriedaboutsatan also display post-rock tendencies, albeit mingled with their beautifully textured electronica. Tonight their set is a bit of a mixed bag. When they step away from what appears to be a fascinating game of laptop Battleships and really let go, they are excellent, but there are times when it is difficult to take them seriously as a live band. Fellow Leodensians I Concur are far more engaging, ripping through a speedy set of their well-honed Mogwai-gone-pop songs. Lanterns on the Lake provide a nice gap in the gloom with a beautiful set of elegant, twinkling pop songs. Their lightness of touch belies the plethora of musicians crammed onto the Cluny’s stage, and were it not for the scintillating form of the headliners, they would be the band of the night. If Lanterns on the Lake represented a break in the clouds, Her Name is Calla prove to be the storm which engulfs the Cluny entirely. Just when it seems they will wander off into muso noodling territory, they pull it back with waves of crashing, doomy noise. Their set is an exhibition of their creativity and virtuosity, and serves as a tantalising taster for their new album later this year.

Bear in Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth (Album)

2010-03-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

It has taken almost six months from its American release for Bear in Heaven’s second album to appear on our shores, a time period which heralded the arrival of Yeasayer’s Odd Blood, a record which would unintentionally pave the way for this release by placing it neatly into context. Beast Rest Forth Mouth occupies a similar space to Odd Blood, sharing its unbridled sense of groove and shimmering synths. In its own right, though, this is an ambitious and expansive piece of work which carves Bear in Heaven a niche that is entirely theirs.

The journey which the record takes you on is a rambling, rangy one and sometimes it might seem like it will lose you along the way, but the great skill Bear in Heaven exhibit here is to be able to keep everything together. For all its diverse elements and meandering detours, there is some common thread running through it which prevents it from becoming a messy or disjointed affair.

Underpinning it all is a sharp pop sensibility which is largely what has led to the Odd Blood comparisons. This is clear right from the start with the mesmeric tribal rhythms of opening song ‘Beast in Peace’, which bleed straight into the ridiculously danceable fizz of ‘Wholehearted Mess’. The album reaches the apex of its poppiness with ‘Lovesick Teenagers’ which is a carefree and summery little gem. The sense of fun exhibited in these moments is so exhilarating and infectious, and it makes this album a hugely likeable one, as well as being so enriching and interesting.

The funkier leanings of Beast Rest Forth Mouth tend to be more apparent in its first half, fading as the album progresses to be replaced by a more considered, dreamy feel. ‘Ultimate Satisfaction’ for example, feels like something Mew would have produced around the time of ...And the Glass-Handed Kites. In the music and vocal delivery, it shares that same wistful, wide-eyed sense which the Danes have knocked out so effortlessly for years. ‘Dust Cloud’ is a similarly gorgeous case which opens up with an unhurried and enchanting intro before eventually exploding into a crescendo of heavy distorted guitars. This is probably the highpoint of the second half of the album.

With Beast Rest Forth Mouth, Bear in Heaven have shown themselves to be a major creative force. Their invention and imagination, mingled with their astute pop nous have combined to produce an album which is fit to stand toe to toe with most that will be released this year. There is so much to enjoy here, this is a record which reveals itself more with each listen. Whether Yeasayer end up overshadowing it in the end of year lists remains to be seen, but if that does happen, then this would be an unjust reflection of a wonderful album.

9/10

Rufus Wainwright - Want One and Want Two (Album)

2010-03-24T14:55:00.001-07:00

Part of a Rufus Wainwright career retrospective to appear on Drowned in Sound:

Spend about ten minutes in the company of Want One, and it will become abundantly clear that this this was the point at which Rufus Wainwright decided to ratchet up the ambition, where for the first time his monumental vocals found themselves consistently paired with arrangements which were sumptuously similar in scale. It was the record he had always been threatening / promising to make, depending on your point of view. The likes of opening track 'Oh, What a World', 'Go or Go Ahead' and '14th Street' in particular were logical extensions of what had gone before, soaring pop songs which precariously piled layer upon layer of instrumentation, while Wainwright's voice and wordplay rose ever more powerfully to the challenge.

However, the impact of Want One would surely have been considerably less, without the contrast provided by the sparser, gentler pieces like 'Harvester of Hearts' and 'Natasha'. Perhaps inevitably, these were shouted down by the more ostentatious songs, but as well as offering a touch of breathing space, they also provided the record with some of its most beautiful moments. 'Dinner at Eight' was the most obvious example of this, laying bare as it did Rufus' oft-discussed Daddy issues in the starkest of fashions: "In fact you were the one / long ago, actually in the drifting white snow / who left me / So put up your fists and I'll put up mine / No running away from the scene of the crime".

Part two of the saga, Want Two, turned out to be a more reflective album, which acted as both counterpart and complementary piece to Want One. As a whole it perhaps didn't hit quite the same heights as its predecessor, although it was a more diverse affair which more than stood up in its own right, probably justifying the decision to split the records rather than release them as a double as originally planned. It wandered further than usual from Wainwright's pop roots, particularly in the mournful 'Agnus Dei' and 'Little Sister' which was steeped in classical influence. This meant that the album was less immediate than most of his other work, but it was still a hugely rewarding listen.

The record's high point was probably 'The Art Teacher' a song built around a gently bubbling piano line, detailing the history of a married woman still pining for a schoolteacher from her childhood. It was sympathetic, affecting and generally gorgeous, and proved to be a fine example of how Wainwright's storytelling abilities should not be overshadowed by his penchant for grandiose musicality. There was more poignancy to be found in the Jeff Buckley tribute 'Memphis Skyline', but it was typically perverse of Rufus that this song was immediately followed by 'Gay Messiah', a mildly graphic and quite probably blasphemous exploration of the reincarnation of its titular deity. This is a contrast which quite neatly sums up the two records which would lay the groundwork for the ever more decadent flights of fancy which followed in Rufus Wainwright's career.

Wild Beasts - The Cluny, 20/03/10 (Gig)

2010-03-20T14:55:00.001-07:00

You may or may not have noticed it in the last year or so, but we here at Muso's Guide are quite fond of Wild Beasts. After a raft of thoroughly deserved acclaim for their second album Two Dancers (including their capturing of the number one spot in our top 50 of 2009), the Kendalians' bandwagon is trundling merrily on with their current tour in support of the single release of 'We Still Got the Taste Dancin' On Our Tongues'. Ably supported by the darkly captivating work of Lone Wolf, and Erland and the Carnival, whose bouncy, mildly pyschedelic pop invokes the untethered sense of adventure shown by the early recordings of The Coral, Wild Beasts are quite clearly in the form of their lives.

So good are they, in fact, that you don't even feel all that hacked off that the Cluny is so ludicrously rammed that you aren't quite sure whose pocket you just put your hand in, or what might be causing that disconcerting trickle running down your back.

It is amost beyond debate that on record Wild Beasts are a band capable of breathtaking elegance, both in the lush structure of their music and the lunatic world portrayed by their lyrics. What makes tonight so enjoyable is that the grace of the songs is not only enhanced with a terrifyingly tight performance, but it is also infused with an extra sense of boisterousness which is massively contagious. The otherworldly quality of the songs could make it easy for the band to appear almost inhuman, but they don't just disappear into their pantomime world of Dickensian depravity, they externalise it, bringing it to life with such gusto that even the hardest of hearts would struggle not to warm to them.

The thing which jumps out at most people when they first encounter Wild Beasts is the extraordinary timbre of the vocals, both in Hayden Thorpe's insane falsetto (which has a knack of reaching such monumental peaks that even Matt Bellamy might consider it all a bit much) and in Tom Fleming's warm, rich baritone. The interplay between the two is sometimes spellbinding, and both are in fantastic fettle this evening. Their voices are wonderful foils for the music, and vice versa, a major factor in the quality of the recorded output, and even more so in a live setting, especially a tight little venue like the Cluny.

The setlist is quite heavy on Two Dancers, which is understandable really given that it is barely six months since the record saw its release. That it feels like so much longer that is a testament to the ageless quality of the record. Tonight illustrates that Wild Beasts are not a band to confine their mesmeric qualities to the recording studio, they are able to translate them in their live performance, and with every day that goes by they show themselves to be one of the most extraordinarily special bands we possess.

Blood Red Shoes - O2 Academy 2, 11/3/10 (Gig)

2010-03-11T15:17:00.001-08:00

Sometimes as a gig-goer you can sense when a band is at the absolute peak of their powers. This evening, a group of people at a regrettably half-full Academy 2 are fortunate enough to catch Blood Red Shoes at this stage of their career. They play with the triumphant swagger of a band who know they’re touring a brilliant album, so much so that not even frequent guitar troubles, though clearly irksome to Laura-Mary, are not enough to dim their light. Having started off with a debut album which was just a little too polished, and then buffed away some of the gloss for Fire Like This, in the live setting they reduce it even further to its basic elements: thunderous drumming and brutally melodic guitar. I’ve always been astounded just how noisy two such slight people can be, but tonight they are ear-shreddingly intense. The set is heavy on the new material, which is probably as pleasing for the band as it is for the crowd, given how long they spent touring the first record, to the extent that the songs started to sound just a little tired. The break from touring has meant that when the likes of It’s Getting Boring by the Sea and Say Something, Say Anything are dropped into the set, they sound revived. Really, I could go on about this band all day, but apparently some other gigs took place this month too, so perhaps it’s only fair that they get a little page space…

Brilliant Mind, The Notebook and Mansfield Holiday - The Head of Steam, 9/3/10 (Gig)

2010-03-10T11:08:00.000-08:00

It's fair to say that local gigs don't always feature entirely complementary line-ups, often shoe-horning a few bands together simply because they all happen to be free on a given night. Tonight's selection, however, would appear to be a little more thoughtfully assembled, rich as it is with sharp, literate guitar pop. Mansfield Holiday are our starting point. They reference any number of classic bands, but imbue it with a touch more aggression and some lovely keyboard noises. They are deceptively melodic amid the clamour, and thoroughly exhilarating. Next up we have the graceful, elegant The Notebook. Their bookish pop comes tinged with lilting Americana, with the exception of the thunderous mini post-rock epic they close the set with. They are a band who already sound fully formed, with the muddy sound of the Steamer failing to mask the quality of the songs. The same can be said of final band Brilliant Mind. The spirit of Pulp is heavy in the air tonight, particularly in the Jarvis-alike appearance of The Notebook's singer, but it is most apparent in Brilliant Mind's sharply-observed and wonderfully lean songcraft. Frontman Calum is a classic English pop star, a squirming, agitated creature whose presence enhances the band's appeal. Their set is truncated slightly by time constraints, but this just makes their playing all the more urgent. The likes of Leave Your Friends Behind and Our Osprey in particular are getting better with every show. All told, a great show. Three cracking bands for four quid - Take that economic meltdown!

Duke Special - The Stage, A Book and The Silver Screen (Album)

2010-03-08T15:21:00.000-08:00

Duke Special has always been a curiously enigmatic prospect. His live performances are usually joyous affairs, often seeing his flouncy vaudevillian antics accompanied by maniacal cheese-grater wielding percussionist Chip Bailey. One strength he constantly displays is to make each show seem like a one-off, as opposed to the identikit sets occasionally yawned out by some other perma-touring artists. However, he has always been faced with the dillemma of how to communicate the eccentric charm of his live shows on record, a feat he has yet to fully accomplish really. His previous album I Never Thought This Day Would Come was a classic case in point. The record was so polished that the set of jaunty piano singalongs came out limper than their quality deserved. Nowadays, finding himself free of the big label constraints which presumably played a big part in this, Duke is going it alone for a laudably ambitious project. The Stage, A Book And The Silver Screen comprises two concept albums, as well as a concept EP.

The first disc, The Silent World of Hector Mann is a collection of songs inspired by Paul Auster's The Book of Illusions, which features silent film star Mann. Special sent a copy of each of each of Mann's twelve films to a different Irish artist with a brief to pen a pre-rock and roll style song about each, which he would then record himself. The result, in spite of the slightly disparate elements is surprisingly cohesive and massively enjoyable. By far the strongest piece on the record is Neil Hannon's, 'Wanda, Darling of the Jockey Club', which tells the story of a bumbling waiter's infatuation with a female pilot. Hannon's wit, a playful piano line and the cheery warmth of Special's delivery mingle perfectly to produce one of the best morsels of pop either artist has ever been attached to.

The theme of the oafish suitor pursuing a woman who is way out of his league is a common one on the record, continued more directly but no less charmingly on 'Country Weekend', this time featuring "just a chauffeur who really hopes for the honour of his passenger's hand". This would appear to be a common component of Mann's films, as was the idea of the loveable rogue, a subject covered on the Thomas Truax's ludicrously bouncy 'The Prop Man', an almost slapstick song about a thieving film staffer. The silly fun displayed here is an example of how with this record Special has gone the furthest distance yet towards capturing the merry spontanaeity of his live shows.

Disc two, the Huckleberry Finn EP, is a suite of songs written by Kurt Weill, originally intended for a musical which was left unfinished when Weill died. Where Silent World played up to Special's penchant for quirky piano pop, Huckleberry Finn adds a touch more grandeur. The songs are laced with strings and splashed with brass, but the slightly bigger sound does not make it any less playful. The record might only be a touch over a quarter of an hour, but there's still a lot to savour, from the swaying, swooning, 'Chantry River' to the flamboyantly catchy 'Apple Jack'. It is the EP's closer, 'Catfish Song' which steals the show though, a darling little duet which apes an interchange between Tom 'n' Huck.

While Huckleberry Finn sounds richer than the mischievous sounds on Silent World, it is Mother Courage and Her Children which really encapsulates the depth of ambition of Duke Special's mammoth project. The final disc is a collection of studio recordings of songs from Bertold Brecht's anti-war play of the same name, to which Special contributed music for a recent run at London's Royal National Theatre. The sizeable arrangements are probably to be expected given the context, but what you might not expect is that an artist who a mere disc or two ago was chirruping cheerfully about clumsy waiters can comfortably turn his hand to lines like "We hated the soldiers / Their army took our town / I was sixteen / The foreign occupier grinned as he loosened my nightgown". His voice is powerful and soulful enough not to be lost amid the soaring orchestral backing, something which is exhibited best in 'Mother Courage' and its reprise which closes the album.

The subject matter may be dark, but sometimes you have to listen carefully to realise this is the case. The powerful arrangements lift the tone, adding an occasional air of triumph to the grimness. So too do Special's piano melodies, particularly the driving, forceful 'The Great Capitulation', a common thread which links together all three elements of The Stage, A Book, And The Silver Screen.

With this collection, Duke Special has escaped from the confines of the conventional, and it has clearly done him the world of the good. Each of the three records are hugely enjoyable standalone pieces, but as a trio they serve to illustrate his limitless ambition, versatility and skill with a melody. Lord knows what else is lurking in that eccentric brain of his, but here's hoping his future projects are as gloriously outlandish as this.

The Silent World of Hector Mann - 8
Huckleberry Finn - 7
Mother Courage and Her Children - 8

Trouble Books - Gathered Tones (Album)

2010-03-05T15:57:00.001-08:00

There is undoubtedly something magical about a great lost album. Even when you discount the dirty pleasure of indie snobbery, there is still something warming about a really special piece of music which you share with a small number of similarly enlightened souls. Ohio band Trouble Books' last effort, The United Colors of Trouble Books was a thing of almost impossible beauty which fell squarely into that category, missed as it was by many. Given the delicate, unhurried nature of their sound, it is perhaps fitting that the acclaim for the band is starting to swell ever so gradually, including a recent spot in The Guardian's New Band of the Day column, meaning their fanbase is starting very slowly to expand.

After The United Colors, Trouble Books had a hand in two more records in the last twelve months, firstly the Endless Pool EP and then offshoot project Talons' Songs For Babes. Both were similarly lovely, and served as excellent appetisers for the follow-up to The United Colors, Gathered Tones.

As we might have expected, it is quite simply wonderful. The record has a slightly fuller sound than its predecessor, but it sacrfices none of the delicacy Trouble Books have always exhibited. Gathered Tones feels like the soft trickle of rain against a window, while The United Colors was more like the very first sensation of drizzle in the air. Right from the outset with album opener 'Ascending Kidney', it is clear that the band have lost none of their deftness. About a minute and a half into the song, a guitar line comes in, devastatingly delicate, but all the more powerful for it, and this is the most perfect example of Trouble Books' greatest strength. They can create the strongest of emotions from the most minimal of ingredients. This is a huge part of what makes them such a special band, giving them more substance in five seconds of music than some bands manage in an entire career.

The way the band structure the album has not changed from previous releases, and really, there is no reason on Earth why it should. The songs are still constructed from sleepy ambient textures, embellished with elements of noise, drones, and all manner of miscellaneous background chirruping. This is really why Gathered Tones, like all their other work, will stand up to any number of repeated listens. The ingredients might be sparse, but it's very possible you will be too spellbound by the sheer elegance of it all to notice every minute detail, so there will undoubtedly be sounds you miss the first, second or seventieth time you listen.

More than anything else, what really elevates Gathered Tones above their previous best work is its evocativeness. Every song creates its own particular mood, one which you might instinctively associate with its subject matter without even noticing it. On 'Abandoned Monorail Station' for example, even before a glance at the song title, and before hearing the line "and debris swirls around me", you might find yourself picturing a desolate, windswept platform haunted by a forlorn solitary figure. It's a similar story on final song 'Houseplants', a wonderfully spacious piece which conjures up images of a sun-bleached room filled with blanched-leafed plant life. The lyrical content, as well as the music also helps to paint these pictures of an idyllic kind of reality, telling tales about subjects as diverse and commonplace as feeding fast food to stray cats, putting the bins out, and the downright inconvenient sense of timing death sometimes has.

With Gathered Tones, Trouble Books have raised their stock even further. Their prolific release rate would suggest that they have an inexhaustible supply of these dreamy little morsels, which is all the more lucky for us. It was difficult to imagine how they could possibly top an album as perfect as The United Colors, so it would be narrow-sighted of us to wonder how they could improve on this record. All we can do is wrap ourselves in its cosy glow and wait as patiently as we can for everything else they have in store for us.

Midlake - The Courage of Others (Album)

2010-02-27T15:07:00.000-08:00

In the three and a half years since the release of what eventually proved to be their breakthrough record, The Trials of Van Occupanther, Midlake have seen the musical landscape shift in a manner which is unquestionably favourable to them. The sort of beardy, woodsy Americana they specialise in has swelled to a wider popularity with the successes of the likes of Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear and Bon Iver. It could reasonably be argued that the slow-burning success of Van Occupanther paved the way for these artists to reach mass acclaim. This has made The Courage of Others a much-anticipated album, all the more when you consider the lengthy wait we have endured for its arrival.

And really, there's no doubt that it has been worth the tantalising wait. What they have delivered to us is a quite different record from Van Occupanther, but one which is ultimately an even more enriching and rewarding listen. It might be less immediately obvious than its predecessor (which in itself is hardly an instant hookfest), but the more it slowly seeps into your consciousness, the more spellbinding it is.

The 70s AOR influences which informed the last album have mostly been pushed aside, and have been replaced by a more folky feel. In similar fashion to Van Occupanther, it is steeped in an earthy, natural kind of imagery. This is immediately clear not only in the song titles, but also in the lyrics: “As the spring is made alive, the winter dies” and “Into the core of nature / No earthly mind can enter” serving as but two examples out of potentially dozens. The relatively sparse, and occasionally ghostly instrumentation compliments the lyrical themes beautifully, as does the hangdog vocal delivery of Tim Smith. The whole thing feels more intimate, and closer to the bone. Van Occupanther was a stroll through a crisp autumn morning, while The Courage of Others is akin to being lust in the forest as dusk descends.

The strongest example of the album's stunning mesh of mood and beautiful construction is probably ‘Rulers, Ruling All Things‘, the record’s midpoint which swells gradually until the miserable air becomes almost uplifting. This gives way immediately to the only real example of any kind of tempo in the form of ‘Children of the Grounds‘, which adds a rare splash of light. It's quite telling that this happened to be one of the first songs written for the album, having appeared in live sets towards the end of Van Occupanther's run while the rest of the album was written during the recording process. It is quite possible, had this not been the case, that The Courage of Others could have ended up being a completely different animal. Let us be thankful that it turned out the way it did, then, because it is quite simply a stunning record, certainly Midlake's best yet, and one which will easily end up being one of the most evocative 2010 has to offer.

Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks

2010-02-16T11:49:00.001-08:00

Ahead of the release of their third long-player, Frightened Rabbit found themselves at a critical sort of crossroads. Their last album, The Midnight Organ Fight was a slow-burner which found its acclaim building ever so gradually as it reached the end of its run. This led to very faint rumblings that FR were all set for a more mainstream audience next time out. This notion gained momentum at the tail end of last year when Swim Until You Can’t See Land appeared with the aroma of ‘breakthrough single’ oozing from its pores. Fortunately though, they’ve steered clear of the terrible path trod by almost-countrymen Snow Patrol (for now at least), because The Winter of Mixed Drinks isn’t the Radio 1 album some feared it might be.

Nothing on here quite matches the highest points of The Midnight Organ Fight (the likes of Fast Blood and The Modern Leper), but all things considered, this is a more consistent affair than its predecessor. Scott Hutchison has previously lamented the faults he finds with the last album, and it’s clear that there has been a concerted effort to fill the holes. In doing so though, his band don’t appear to have lost their edge. The beautifully dour sense of humour which has always permeated their songs still shows itself in fleeting glimpses, never more than on Skip the Youth: ‘All I need is a place to lie / Guess a grave will have to do’

The album opens in gorgeous fashion with Things, which has that wide-eyed, evocative feel normally best produced by The Twilight Sad. The aforementioned Skip the Youth is equally stirring, building from a clattering, noise-heavy intro into another chest-thumper of a song. Fans of swoony guitar lines will also find plenty to like on Foot Shooter and Not Miserable (a little irony in the titling there, perhaps?)

The moments which don’t find their mark are few and far between. Yes I Would is a curiously flat way to end an album for a band who’ve proven themselves to be skilled in the art of creating a mood, while Man/Bag of Sand is an oddly-placed reprise of Swim Until You Can’t See Land which doesn’t do the pacing of the record any favours. All told though, The Winter of Mixed Drinks has neatly sidestepped the banana skin of following up The Midnight Organ Fight.

4.5/5

Blood Red Shoes - Fire Like This (Album)

2010-02-15T14:38:00.000-08:00

A little under two years ago, the unlawfully pretty Brighton two-piece Blood Red Shoes released their debut album Box of Secrets. At the time the general consensus (if such a thing could be said to exist) was that it was a good, first effort, if a little overproduced. It’s not unfair to say that the record didn’t quite capture the full effect of their live shows which at their best are deafening and visceral experiences. It might have been that the frustratingly protracted process of getting the album released left them too much time to meddle with the recordings, meaning some of the rawness which made them so enticing in the first place was lost. Either way, while this didn’t exactly spoil the album, it still meant that each listen was accompanied by a very faint feeling of disappointment at what it might have been.

Its follow-up Fire Like This comes with a promise that the superfluous gloss which beset its predecessor has been scraped away, as the record was recorded to analog tape with a bare minimum of overdubs. This seems to be a more logical way for a band like Blood Red Shoes to work, and one which is far more in keeping with their aggressive, elemental sound.

Recording processes aside, the album actually has quite a lot in common with Box of Secrets. The band haven’t reinvented the wheel here, but they’ve taken the blueprint of their debut and built on it. For instance, the effortlessly skilful utilisation of the quiet-loud dynamic is still there, only this time infused with a little bit more subtlety. The vocal duties are once again split fairly evenly between Steven Ansell’s throat-shredding yells and Laura-Mary Carter’s sweetly bolshy singing. The interplay between the two is as effective as ever, which is just as well because their chemistry has always been one of the band’s strongest assets, whether live or on record.

Where Box of Secrets only really had one mode - breakneck speed, this is an album with more layers to it. The most obvious example of this is ‘When We Wake’, on which Laura-Mary’s gently introspective vocals are set to an atypically slow-burning backing which eventually builds to a beautifully colossal outro. The result is one of the major highlights of an album which is hardly short of them. Closing track ‘Colours Fade’ is another departure, clocking in at over seven minutes, taking on a far more epic feel than we’d normally associate with Blood Red Shoes.

The instances of experimentation (with a resolutely small e) have definitely lifted the band up a level or two, but they haven’t forgotten their major strengths either. The album is liberally peppered with their typically punky shoutalongs. Recent single ‘Light it Up’, for example, is Nirvana-esque in its devastatingly simple (and completely exhilarating) make-up.

As noisy as Blood Red Shoes are, they still know their way around a pop hook, and there are plenty here, possibly even more than there are on Box of Secrets. It‘s ironic that a heavier album, shorn of studio trickery should contain more radio-friendly songs, there isn’t much on Fire Like This which would sound out of place as a single. ‘Don’t Ask’ is a breathlessly urgent way to open the album, while ‘One More Empty Chair’ is another exemplary piece of snotty, melodic pop.

To be quite honest, it’s difficult to resist the urge to pick out every song and highlight it as a focal point, because Fire Like This is so strong from start to finish. This isn’t really anything new, because Box of Secrets was similarly consistent. What is different, however, is the focus the band have found. In the past, there’s been an unfortunate tendency to take songs a chorus too far, but that doesn’t appear to be an issue any more. This is one of a few imperfections Blood Red Shoes have managed to overcome with their second album. The only problem they have now is that they haven’t really left themselves much room to improve for album three.

9/10

White Rabbits - It's Frightening (Album)

2010-02-06T12:03:00.001-08:00

To many, competence is considered to be a positive attribute. In a lot of walks of life, whether of the everyday variety or in the public eye, the ability to set about your task in a steady and consistent manner is often commended. Even in this minefield we loosely call alternative music, it will always be those wilfully adequate careerist plodders who garner the filthy lucre. However, I’d still like to think that most right-minded music fans would plump for a creative spark over unswerving professionalism every time.

All of which brings me on to the second album from White Rabbits. On It’s Frightening, the New York-based six-piece display an acute proficiency when it comes to the art of song structure. There’s a lot to admire here, from the bouncy pianos, urgent drums and vocals which are delivered in a manner vaguely reminiscent of Hail to the Thief-era Thom Yorke. There are plenty of interesting musical ideas thrown into the mix, too, like the creepily grandiose piano breakdown in the middle of ‘They Done Wrong, We Done Wrong’ or the minute or so of gentle ambience which gives way to the paranoid beat of ‘Lionesse’. The big problem is that for all this professionalism, there just isn’t quite enough of that intangible magic which makes you want to keep coming back to an album time and time again.

Things start off promisingly enough with recent single ‘Percussion Gun’, which in spite of its uneasily self-referencing title is an enjoyable enough song which is carried along by a tribal drumbeat and Stephen Patterson’s vocal hysterics. For a while, the album continues in a fairly similar vein, taking in another of its highpoints ‘Lionesse’, until ‘Company I Keep’ threatens to derail the whole affair halfway through. You can see what exactly what effect they are going for here; the mid-tempo centrepiece which gives lifts things up to the next level and also allows a bit of breathing space after the mildly furious moments which peppered the first half of the record. As it turns out, though, it ends up falling flat and just comes across as a bit drab, undoing a lot of the momentum which has been built up earlier on. The album never really recovers from this frustration, and indeed, it’s not the only moment of mediocrity we see in the second half. This is in spite of the best efforts of the mildly sinister ‘Midnight and I’ on which Patterson coos ‘Get to sleep now’ as creepily as he can.

It’s clear, then that It’s Frightening is by no means a record which is without merit. I suspect that the input of Spoon’s Britt Daniel has infused it with a lot more presence than it might otherwise have had. However, that notwithstanding, the album’s lack of anything substantial to get your teeth into proves fatal. In an age where unfathomable amounts of music are but a click away, I fear White Rabbits might be destined to be one of those bands which fade meekly into the background.

6/10

Postdata - Postdata (Album)

2010-01-23T14:13:00.000-08:00

Solo albums from the frontmen/women of indie bands often carry negative connotations. The record is frequently the product of the over-stimulated ego of a singer who has grown so big for their boots that they feel they will fare much better if they are shorn of the tuneless lunks who dare call themselves bandmates. Or perhaps it’s the opposite extreme: The ‘creative force’ has written ten songs so horrifically shoddy that their colleagues can’t countenance the thought having their names attached to them. In the case of Postdata, the first solo flight from Wintersleep’s Paul Murphy, neither of the above examples appear to be the case. The album finds itself separated from the Wintersleep discography largely because it is a world away from the sound of the band.

Instead of the urgent indie-rock he usually delivers, Murphy has produced an album of forlorn, stripped-to-the-bone songs which are mostly constructed of just his voice and plaintive acoustic strumming. Clearly there is currently a hell of a lot of music out there which consists of these same basic elements, and it’s a disheartening fact that for every Bon Iver there are half a dozen Damien Rices, but Postdata’s eponymous effort definitely adds something to a sorely saturated genre.

The key to its success is that it is more than a mere collection of songs. There is a tangible atmosphere here, a slightly oppressive, and entirely poignant feel weaved into the very fabric of the songs, making them far fuller than their rudimentary elements. In a way, it is almost a concept album. The seeds of ideas for the nine songs came, according to Murphy, from dreams of family members. Therefore, it is a record which is almost exclusively rooted in the subjects of love and death which serves as a tribute to his loved ones both living and dead.

As you might expect, the lyrical content is far from breezy. The songs are often bleak. On opener Lazarus, for example, Murphy sighs ‘And the sky’s as alcoholic as it’s ever been / The whole world’s got Alzheimers and we’re just checking in’. Equally crushing is the final line of Tobias Grey: ‘At a very young age, the paramedics took her away’. Such is the extent of the gloom, that by the time a fairly straightforward love song like Drift appears (sample lyric: ‘You’re my lover, my very best friend / I want to hold you forever’), it’s still difficult to shake the dark clouds that might appear to have formed your ears on listening.

Clearly then, Postdata is not an album to lift your spirits on a dank Monday morning. However, that’s not to say that it is an entirely depressing piece of work. It’s a dead-of-night record which, despite (or possibly because of) its forlorn content can soothe your aching limbs. There’s a warmth in Murphy’s delivery which isn’t always present on Wintersleep’s output, presumably because of the heartfelt content of the songs. His voice is responsible for a lot of the emotional impact of the album, rarely rising above the gentle whisper which glides lazily along the acoustic guitar lines.

We’ve seen a different side to Paul Murphy on Postdata, one only very gently hinted at on Wintersleep’s albums. It’s interesting to see how the style of these songs is incorporated in Wintersleep’s future work, if at all. That’s a musing for another day though. For the time being, all that we really need to consider right now is that Postdata is a beautifully-realised piece of work which has set an early high watermark for anyone considering making an album of acoustic laments this year.

9/10

Pantha du Prince - Black Noise (Album)

2010-01-17T11:43:00.000-08:00

Hendrik Weber has gradually hauled himself into an enviable position within the electro world, garnering major acclaim for his albums as Pantha du Prince, as well as doing remix work for the likes of Bloc Party, Long Blondes and Animal Collective. His increasingly impressive CV means his third full-length Black Noise is more eagerly anticipated than any of his previous work. This also means he can rope in some indie pals, including Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear) who thanks Weber for his brilliant Peacebone rehash by contributing vocals to Stick to My Side. This proves to be one of the weaker moments on the record, but only because Lennox’s usually spot-on vocals only serve as a distraction from the glorious electro work. The rest of the album is a masterclass in the art of mimimal techno, as gently throbbing basslines weave their way through warm ambient textures, and the whole thing is interspersed with percussive industrial noise. This reaches its zenith on A Nomad’s Retreat, which condenses all that is good about Pantha du Prince into just under seven minutes. Black Noise is a real achievement, a darkly captivating slice of brilliance which few will top this year.

4.5/5

Efterklang - Magic Chairs (Album)

2010-01-17T10:34:00.001-08:00

With their second album Parades, Efterklang were responsible for one of 2007’s greatest records. It was a stunning, sprawling masterpiece, and left them with a hell of a standard to live up to. Magic Chairs doesn’t quite hit the same dizzying heights, but that’s not to their discredit, because it can still stand in its own right as a pretty impressive record. The songs are more instant, but don’t be fooled that this is some sort of cop-out. The instrumentation is as subtly intricate as ever, even within the confines of the slightly more conventional song structures. The best moments of the album ooze a majestic beauty. Full Moon, with it’s tense strings and creepy choral backing, and the gently swaying Harmonics are up there with their best work. However, the album can also occasionally drift into an uncharacteristic inconsequentiality, and at its lowest point (namely The Soft Beating) it leaves the unfortunate impression that you’re listening to Coldplay trying to sound like Sigur Ros. In spite of its flaws though, Magic Chairs should enthral more than it disappoints, and really, the very fact that anybody could be disappointed by it just illustrates what a special band Efterklang are.

4/5

Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring (Album)

2009-12-17T12:20:00.000-08:00

In the two years since their debut, Los Campesinos! have come to embody all that is good about British guitar bands. This means that the arrival of their third (yes, the last one does count) long player in February is a big deal. But does Romance is Boring live up to expectations? Well, let’s have a listen, posting knee-jerk track by track reactions as we go, shall we?

1 ‘In Medias Res’ - A really ambitious start. Contains a wonderfully creepy mid-section and a first dalliance with brass. A real statement of intent and indication of how much they’ve grown.

2 ‘There are Listed Buildings’ - … but they haven’t grown too much. This could sit perfectly on either of the two previous records with its ‘ba ba ba’s and boundless exuberance.

3 ‘Romance is Boring’ - Perhaps as direct as they’ve ever been, this is straight-up ballsy rock with what might prove to be the biggest, boldest chorus of 2010. This is all going very well so far.

4 ‘We’ve Got Your Back (Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #2)’ - Feels like an extension of that BSS-style texture that started to emerge on the last record. So much going on under the surface. Still very LC! though with those shouty gang vocals and lyrics (“Every girl I ever kissed / I was thinking of a pro footballer”)

5 ‘Plan A’ - In which Los Campesinos! pay homage to their fuzz-rock heroes. Aggressive and abrasive, but in an endearingly cuddly way.

6 ‘200-102’ - A little breathing space of weird creaky acoustic guitar. Gives us all a chance to calm down after all that shouting.

7 ‘Straight in at 101’ - More classic LC!, all soundbites and urgency: “I think we need more post-coital and less post-rock / Feels like the build-up takes forever but you never touch my cock”. Another instant, huge pop song.

8 ‘Who Fell Asleep In’ - God, this is incredible, a killer torch song. It just swells and swells. It’s woozy, fuzzy-headed and lovelorn as can be. Another indication of exactly what this band have always been capable of. The best so far.

9 ‘I Warned You - Do Not Make an Enemy of Me’ - But how do you follow that? Well, they keep it nice and simple, another catchy guitar-line and a WAB,WAD-style stomper.

10 ‘Heart-Swells / 100-1’ - Continues exactly where its predecessor left off on the previous record, all echoey, windswept and forlorn.

11 ‘I Just Signed, I Just Sighed, Just So You Know’ - More of this heavily-layered, complex production that should give the songs much more longevity. The recording of the songs is becoming as much of a star as the tunes themselves.

12 ‘A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show Me State; Or, Letters From Me to Charlotte’ - Organ and more brass is splashed across the song, and it seems to make perfect sense. Right at the end Gareth tries some singing to befit the sheer hugeness of the song, and he just about pulls it off.

13 ‘The Sea is a Good Place to Think About the Future’ - We’re cheating a bit here, because this song’s already very famililar. It’s an incredible achievement, though, taking you on a rollercoaster of emotions in less than five minutes, from sadness to serenity to euphoria and back.

14 ‘This is a Flag. There is No Wind’ - One of three or four instantly catchy songs. Playful, crunchy guitars and a sky-scraping party chorus. The sound of a band at the peak of their powers.

15 ‘Coda: A Burn in the Shape of the Sooner State’ - Curiously down-beat closer. A lot of Parenthetical Girls influence here with its layer upon layer of percussive noise and pain-laced vocals which make ‘I can’t believe I chose the mountains every time you chose the sea’ sound like the saddest sentiment imaginable.

…So even on first listen this is already shaping up to be a massive album. Everything good about the band has been amplified and they’ve unleashed a gaggle of impressive new tricks. The way they’ve developed in the last three years or so is staggering. Los Campesinos! really don’t seem able to put a foot wrong at the moment.

January Singles Round-Up

2009-12-11T06:42:00.001-08:00

It's now traditional that the music world agrees a ceasefire in December, allowing X-Factor hangers-on free reign to ride roughshod over the charts. A few (usually futile) infiltration attempts aside, most realise it's just easier that way. Let Cowell have his fun, because January sees things return to something resembling normality in terms of singles releases.

Not that considerations of the calendar bother Ash any more, now that they are taking the tag 'singles band' to worryingly literal extremes. Space Shot is the eighth in their 26 single series. It has their typical monster chorus and languid delivery, but really it's a shadow of the band that thrilled me years ago.

Far more endearing is Ben Dalby's impressively crafted Doctor Can. It's an absorbing piece of bass-led songsmithery which is just a little bit 80s although mercifully not in that horribly contrived La Roux way. Arno Cost flies in the face of Dalby's conciseness with his remix of Cicada's One Beat Away. Nicely textured electro it may be, but there's no need whatsoever for it to exceed seven minutes.

A one-two of local singles provides a doubly pleasant surprise. Hartlepool band Runwells’ As You Begin is the purest, simplest type of guitar pop. It‘s easygoing, catchy, and strangely moreish. Revelation number two comes from Longbenton's Nev Clay whose song Tony Robinson's Tears is a breezy, charming exercise in modern folk which recounts the tale of a particularly absorbing episode of Time Team. Nev has the sort of authenticity Paolo Nutini would slay his granny for. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you, but Nutini's 10/10 is a derisory lump of ironically-titled shite which sees him for some inexplicable reason pretending to be Jamaican. Hadouken are equally impossible to take seriously as their faux-everything, Sub-Skins drivel-fest Turn the Lights Out hammers another nail in their coffin. Winter Kiss by Young Guns is no better, as a bunch of rock kids from High Wycombe attempt to disguise their place of birth with generic phony American rawk mewling.

The antithesis to this posey horror comes in the form of Mixtapes and Cellmates' Soon and Victorian English Gentlemen's Club's Bored in Belgium. The former represents that gorgeously melodic and vaguely shoegazey pop the Swedes always do excellently. The latter is a quirky, playful line in yelping indie-pop. Both are excellent, and head and shoulders above much of the rest of January's offerings.

The Tailors - Come Dig Me Up (Album)

2009-12-10T15:42:00.001-08:00

As the years glide by, trends come and go in music. As the artform which is most easily misused as a fashion statement only to be quietly discarded when the tide of public opinion changes, this is of course inevitable. Increasingly (and equally inevitably) bands will eschew the choppy seas of ‘the scene’ in favour of that gently drifting stream which ultimately doesn’t really lead anywhere but which is blissfully unaffected by trendy crosswinds. This waterway is often navigated by the sort of bands who make simple, unassuming pop music.

There are the likes of Left With Pictures, who are devastatingly adept with a simple melody. Then there are the sort of interchangeable and pointless scumbags who smash the bland-o-meter and thus invariably end up on Radio One six times a day. And then you have the likes of The Tailors who sit right in the middle of middle-of-the-road. This is a term which is often used as an insult, but in this context an insult is not what I mean. Equally though, on approaching Come Dig Me Up, their second album, it is important to go in with your eyes open. What you will get will be a pleasant and often pretty half an hour of music, but it is unlikely that it will ever be a particularly rewarding experience.

The album takes its cue from American alt-Country records, as it bobs along gently on arrangements lead by delicately strummed acoustic chords and piano. Singer Adam Killip’s care-worn voice sits perfectly with its backing, but at the risk of promoting an unhealthy lifestyle, I can’t help but think that it would benefit from a slug of whisky and a few fags to make it sound a bit more lived in, and give things that all-important bit of edge. ‘Impossible Wonder’, for example, is a well-constructed ballad which, like the rest of the album, can’t be faulted for competency, but would be all the better for being a little more scuffed up.

Notwithstanding the faults of Come Dig Me Up, it isn’t without its high-points. The slightly insipid opening track ‘Pictures of Her’ is washed away by ‘Bow Road’ and it’s jaunty, carefree refrain. There is also penultimate track ‘Crocodiles’ which appears to tell the tale of being disembowelled by the titular animals. The song is carried by a delicate melody which is at odds with the gruesome (although admittedly probably metaphorical) imagery.

‘Crocodiles’ segues into ‘Flying Blues’ which is an oddly jarring way to end the album. The band bare their teeth for the first time with crashing drums and power chords, which would be a welcome slice of diversity but for the fact that it all comes across very disjointed. The little quiet bits in the middle before the guitars kick in sound like they belong in a different song. It’s a strange way to finish off the record, and doesn’t really reflect what The Tailors are as a band. If you hadn’t been paying attention for the 28 or so minutes that precede it (sadly something which is not entirely impossible to imagine), and just dipped in at the end, I suspect you’d be left feeling pretty disoriented.

Ultimately, The Tailors are quite obviously good musicians. They clearly know how to write what most people would term a good song. They just need to consider the fact that this alone will not make them a good band. There’s potential here, but they need to shake off some of their niceness if they want to be truly memorable.

Trouble Books - Ones to Watch

2009-12-10T15:39:00.000-08:00

The second of my two pieces in NARC's Ones to Watch in 2010 article:

Trouble Books are the ultimate accompaniment to the miserable rainy nights which probably won’t shift until about July. Their sleepy ambient noises have graced Akron, Ohio for a good few years now, but only in the last twelve months have they surfaced on the UK radar, after MIE Music issued the breathtakingly pretty ‘The United Colors of Trouble Books’. 2010 heralds a new album (‘Gathered Tones’) and a UK tour is planned, so we should see their elegant, woozy pop reach a bigger audience. It makes you wonder, what other secret gems have been lurking across the pond?

Arrows of Love - Ones to Watch

2009-12-10T15:35:00.000-08:00

One of two pieces to appear in NARC's Ones to Watch in 2010 feature:

Arrows of Love are a mini super-group based in London and comprising a revolving cast of musicians who have previously worked with the likes of Hush the Many, Jamie T and Courtney Love to name a few. They have won an array of plaudits already for their singles so far which have been sharp, catchy, and tinged with that same hint of menace that characterises the best Sonic Youth songs. If they can put together an album which can match the quality of Burn This Town and The Illusionist then 2010 is theirs to do with as they see fit.

Gig of the Year (Take 2) - Yeah Yeah Yeahs at Newcastle O2 Academy - 3/12/09

2009-12-06T12:51:00.001-08:00

After last Thursday, I had little choice but to amend my choice for the Muso's Guide Gig of the Year piece. Good job it hasn't been run yet!

It isn’t just a trick of my memory that the best gig I’ve been to this year also happens to be my most recent. It’s just that Yeah Yeah Yeahs were THAT good at Newcastle Academy on December 3rd. It’s not easy whipping the indie-kids into a frenzy in a venue of that size (I’ve seen plenty of bands fail) but from start to finish the band were a whirling buzz of energy, and the crowd had no choice but to comply. The new songs were as visceral as the old ones, and showed that the band can now put together a pretty meaty set after three albums. There was a real triumphant feel to the show which rounded off a fantastic year for the band. It wasn’t just the best gig I’ve seen this year, it was one of the best I’ve ever seen.

We Fell to Earth - We Fell to Earth (Album)

2009-12-06T12:26:00.000-08:00

We Fell to Earth are a collaboration between longtime UNKLE stalwart Richard File and Wendy Rae Fowler (best known for her work with Queens of the Stone Age and Mark Lanegan). File was clearly aware that he was onto something with this project because his desire to completely focus his attention on it prompted him to quit his day job with UNKLE after nigh on ten years.

His decision would appear to be a sage one, as We Fell to Earth is an impressively engrossing debut album. The band’s manifesto is made quite plan right from the start with opening track Spin This Town. Its hypnotic beats and File’s mantra-like vocal delivery call to mind James Chapman’s best work with Maps.

From that point onwards, the record follows a fairly similar path to its opening moments. You‘d be forgiven for thinking that it is a path that we‘ve all seen trodden plenty of times over the last few years. It stops sufficiently short of copy-cat level, but that Maps parallel really is quite strong and there are even occasional echoes of 2009‘s biggest blog-hype victims the XX. That said, this doesn’t make its execution any less impressive. The key We Fell to Earth’s success is the same thing which made its counterparts so engaging - it has a certain intangible sense of brooding menace which draws you in and envelopes you right up to its climactic notes.

The most captivating moments on the record are those which see Fowler’s vocals drizzled over the songs. She is used sparingly throughout the album (perhaps a little too sparingly really), but on a few occasions she gets free reign. Two of these songs in particular, Sovereign and Be Careful What You Wish For are among the album’s high points. The backing tracks on both complement her voice perfectly, augmenting the atmosphere with ghostly synths and otherworldly percussion.

The album as a whole is an intriguing contrast between the muggy sultriness of the layers of noise and the sense of chill suggesting by the brooding basslines and the repetition-heavy vocal delivery. You get the impression that We Fell to Earth are conscious of this contradiction and play around with it purely to fuck with our heads. I get the sense that this is something which will give this record plenty of longevity, as there is hell of a lot to discover here, even notwithstanding the album’s reluctance to stray far from its formula. However, you also fear that the subtlety of the work will see it overlooked in most quarter. Therefore, I urge to persevere with it until it opens itself up, because the rewards are plentiful.

8/10

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Newcastle O2 Academy - 3/12/09 (Gig)

2009-12-03T15:58:00.000-08:00

When you’re an indie luddite like me, it becomes a bit of a rarity to attend a gig which involves you running the gauntlet of vultures touting ill-gotten tickets outside the venue. Tonight’s appearance by Yeah Yeah Yeahs at Newcastle Academy is such an occasion, where the presence of a parade of scum-sucking touts serves as a reminder of the scale we’re dealing with here. The band have grown out of their days as NME hype victims into a permanent fixture in the indie big league. And rightly so, given the consistently high standard of their three full-length records.

But what of their live show? Well, it’s peerless. Karen O is the undoubted star of the show, a prowling, twirling, pogoing hipster dream, decked out in some sort of Amazing Technicolour Dream Poncho. Her voice is like razor blades dipped in honey, and when on ‘Cheated Hearts’ she sings “Sometimes I think that I’m bigger than the sound”, it’s with a glint in her eye. She knows she’ll never write a truer line, because she’s without doubt the most charismatic and engaging front woman we’ve seen this decade.

Not that it’s all about Karen, mind you. One of the things which have allowed Yeah Yeah Yeahs to endure the initial push is the fact that they are more than just KO and Friends. Drummer Brian Chase and guitarist Nick Zinner pull their weight too, and help to amplify the energy captured on the records. This applies as much to the synth-heavy songs of It’s Blitz! (understandably dominant in the setlist) as it does to the rawer older material. The newer tracks maintain their inherent groove, but still sit comfortably alongside songs from the first couple of records thanks mainly to Zinner’s guitar work which instils them with more raggedness than the versions committed to tape.

There’s a moment during the set tonight when the lights turn the ceiling bright blue and for a fleeting second you’re transported from a rainy December night in the North East to a field somewhere in the middle of summer. This sits perfectly with the triumphant, one-off feel of tonight’s show which can only be compared to that of a festival. The fact that the Academy’s floor is stickier than the boggiest of farmer’s fields only serves to add to that impression.

There are elements of tonight’s set which would come across as cloying and hackneyed in the hands of lesser bands than Yeah Yeah Yeahs. However, moments like the regular (and blatant) crowd-pandering screams of “Noo-caaa-sull” from Karen come across so enthusiastically that they just make the band seem more likeable. The same goes for the lighters-in-the-air acoustic version of ‘Maps’. Far from being a cynical and lazy ploy, it’s a genuinely warming slow dance fit for the first dance at the indiest of weddings.

It’s clear now that Yeah Yeah Yeahs are Indie royalty. Few other bands out there can grab your attention so fully and so completely that you want to squeeze as much as humanly possible out of every second you spend in their company. Tonight sees them absolutely at the peak of their powers, and twenty pounds seems an absolute bargain for the privelege of experiencing it. Did someone say ‘Gig of the year’? Yep, everyone in the room.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Newcastle 02 Academy 2 - 2/12/09 (Gig)

2009-12-02T16:39:00.000-08:00

It’s been a hell of a year for New Yorkers The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. They’ve triumphantly ridden a wave of blog-driven hype for the whole of 2009, picking up a legion of plaudits for their effortlessly wonderful debut album which has culminated in a top 10 place in our very own albums of the year poll . I had them far higher than 8th in my own personal list, but hey, such is democracy…

Tonight’s trip to Newcastle’s O2 Academy 2 sees them hauling in a respectably sized crowd of skinny check-shirted types. At first, it seems they are going to struggle to live up to our (admittedly colossal) expectations, as the songs commence in a worryingly anaemic manner. ‘This Love is Fucking Right!’, one of the most buoyant, gleeful moments on the record raises the curtain in fairly underwhelming fashion, as it is tossed out almost indifferently. It gives us serious cause to worry that Newcastle’s first experience of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart will be a disappointing one.

However, after a couple of songs, the band visibly begin to relax and settle into their stride. As they do so, the volume seems to pick up, the drumming seems sharper and more urgent, and their distinctive wash of sound fills the room. It all culminates fittingly in the sky-scraping ‘Gentle Sons’, a microcosm for the whole set which starts off with a powerful ‘Be My Baby’ drumbeat and gradually builds into a tumult of almost My Bloody Valentine-esque proportions.

In spite of the obvious progression in the quality of the performance, sadly the Academy remains absolutely devoid of atmosphere. Maybe it’s down to the less than top-quality sound which obscures the vocals even more than is probably intended, or whether the crowd are just having a bit of an off-night, it’s hard to say. However, it doesn’t make the band’s job any easier, nor does it reflect on their efforts to engage us with their songs and occasional smattering of likeably awkward between-song chatter.

One other slight gripe is that it is clear that the newer songs are the ones which inspire the most enthusiasm in the band. In particular, the tracks aired from their gorgeous new Higher Than the Stars EP seem to be delivered with the most fervour, as does the apparently nameless new song (very much in the vein of their previous work, by the way, and no worse off for it). It seems that perhaps they’ve now reached that stage which all bands will eventually reach after having toured the living shit out of their debut for God knows how many months. No matter how good the songs, their jadedness in playing them night after night after night begins to show. Tonight is only a minor example of this, and we still leave with our faith in The Pains of Being Pure at Heart firmly in tact, but perhaps now is the time for them to go to ground and commence the daunting task of following up this year’s breathtaking recorded output.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (Album)

2009-11-21T09:16:00.001-08:00

My other contribution to the Muso's Guide Top 50 of 2009 countdown.

Plenty of artists have capitalised on the upsurge in popularity of the revival of 80s and 90s indie-pop. However, none have done so with quite as much aplomb of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. While some bands seem to spend years honing their sound, The Pains… appear to have just dropped out of the sky with a sound that is at once unique and zeitgeist-embracing. Their debut album is a collection of upbeat and compelling songs, riddled with hooks and slathered in that wonderfully echoey dreaminess of C86. The songs are consistently strong, with particular highlights for me being ‘Come Saturday’ and ‘This Love is Fucking Right!’ What is even more encouraging is that they have followed up this record with an EP which occasionally even surpasses parts of the album. So then, a wonderful debut record, with the tantalising promise of an even better follow-up to come. Can this band do any wrong?

Asobi Seksu - ReWolf (Album)

2009-11-21T08:44:00.001-08:00

Earlier this year, New York shoegazers Asobi Seksu released their third studio album Hush. It showed progression from their previous releases, moving away from their usual noise-heavy sound to something a little less ostentatious. As it turned out, the record proved slightly underwhelming, but then it had two very strong predecessors to live up to.

Asobi have always been partial to giving us the odd little sweetener between albums, and they’re at it again with ReWolf, which is a collection of acoustic reworkings of their existing compositions and a Hope Sandoval cover, all laid down in a single day in London last year. It’s actually a repackaged and renamed version of the previously tour / webshop only ‘Acoustic at Olympic Studios’, and is presumably designed to tide us over while they work on Hush’s follow-up. And, if that is ReWolf’s main aim, then you can certainly say mission accomplished. What we get here is an interesting curio, which showcases a starker, more fragile side to Asobi Seksu which we have only really seen fleeting glimpses of on previous releases.

By removing the heavily layered noise normally present on most of these songs, they have definitely emphasized the beauty of Yuki Chikudate’s voice.
However, in doing so they have also inadvertently taken away an important component in what was good about them in the first place. Because part of what makes Asobi Seksu interesting is the contradiction between the tumult of the guitars and the beguiling little girl lost vocals. Without that juxtaposition, this album can occasionally sound a bit one-dimensional, and at worst comes off like those pointless acoustic versions bands sometimes put out as b-sides when they’ve run out of songs.

ReWolf’s best moments are mainly the songs which were already relatively quiet, like Blind Little Rain and Breathe Into Glass. The emotional pull already present in those songs is amplified and thus so is their intrinsic quality. A large chunk of the credit here is due to Yuki’s delivery, the prettiness of which is unquestionably the highlight of the album. Of the songs which get a major reworking, only Thursday really benefits. Perhaps this is because the delicately melodic rehash it receives seems a bit less wishy-washy and a lot more thought out than some of the other songs on here.

Really then, ReWolf is a bit of a mixed bag. It’s a sweet and occasionally gorgeous listen, and like all of their records is a logical step from its predecessor, but it also leaves them at a bit of a crossroads. You wonder now what Album Four will sound like. I don’t think there’s any fear that they’ve fallen out of love with noise. Anyone who saw them on their UK tour earlier this year probably still has a faint ringing in their ears, so I think I can say with confidence that they won‘t be descending into radio-rock hell for the foreseeable future at least. That said, it might still be worth crossing your fingers that Yuki and James are astute enough to realise what makes their band so compelling.

6/10

Gig of the Year - Dananananaykroyd (Newcastle Cluny - 21/10/09)

2009-11-16T14:29:00.000-08:00

My bit from Muso's Guide's Gigs of the Year Feature

For all the praise it received this year, Dananananaykroyd’s album Hey Everyone didn’t quite click with me until I saw them at The Cluny in Newcastle in October. Their live show took me back to my formative gig-going experiences and the rush of The Cooper Temple Clause’s early sets. It blended merciless aggression with sheer fun, and their onstage chemistry was a joy, blurring the lines between band and crowd. It felt less like a gig, and more like a party, and predictably the hour or so they played felt like five minutes. They’ve got a big reputation as a live band, and it’s entirely justified.

Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers (Album)

2009-11-16T13:19:00.000-08:00

My two penn'oth on my favourite album of this year for Muso's Guide's impending Top 50 Countdown.

The prospect of Manic Street Preachers finally recording Richey’s last lyrics was both mouth-watering and terrifying. This weighty task had dogged them for fourteen years, what if it proved too great? Such trepidation seems foolish, even insulting, now. The process of finally exorcising their ghosts triggered a catharsis, as the band delivered one of their best albums yet, sounding more alive than they have in years. James’ delivery and guitar work, in particular often reached his high watermark of 1994. The songs were typically dense and occasionally harrowing, but they also contained odd flickers of the mordant humour that has long since been written out of Richey’s history. There’s also a real tenderness present in Nicky’s heartrendingly flat vocals on ‘William’s Last Words’, a strength always possessed by the Manics, but rarely fully appreciated. With Journal For Plague Lovers, the Manics have enhanced Richey’s legacy, when they could easily have harmed it.