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

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.

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

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)

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.

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

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.

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

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)

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...

Bright Eyes - The People's Key (Album)

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)

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)

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.

Yuck - Tips for 2011

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)

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.

Frightened Rabbit feature

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

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)

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.

Her Name is Calla Interview

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...

Her Name is Calla - The Quiet Lamb (Album)

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.

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

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)

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.