Category: Reviews

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This Many Boyfriends – (I Should Be A) Communist

By on May 20, 2012 in Reviews, Singles

The prospect of a celebrated Leeds band produced by The Cribs’ Ryan Jarman is a very exciting one. However, ‘(I Should Be A) Communist’ leaves a lot to be desired. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very easy to tap your foot to but nothing we haven’t heard before, albeit with a bit of reverb on top.

If you haven’t guessed it already, This Many Boyfriends play jangly guitar music that instantly draws comparisons to The Smiths and The Housemartins. Admittedly, when [...]

TRIO VD – Maze

By on May 19, 2012 in Albums, Reviews

TrioVD are at the heart of the improvisational music world in Leeds. They merge jazz, rock, dance and metal together with sounds that are unusual and avant-garde. They are Chris Sharkey (guitar), Christophe de Bezenac (sax) and Chris Bussey (drums).
Their 2009 leftfield debut album Fill It Up With Ghosts won MOJO Jazz Album of the Year and Jazzwise Album Of The Year. Their latest album Maze is released on 21st May, 2012 on the Naim label.
Brick is a typically crazy [...]

JAMIE HARTMAN – Before I Close My Eyes

By on May 19, 2012 in Reviews, Singles

Jamie Hartman, an award-winning British singer-songwriter and Ivor Novello award nominee, was once the frontman to Ben’s Brother.
His double A-side single Before I Close My Eyes / Buddha Allah Jesus Jones is released on May 21st 2012 on Flat Cap Records. It follows the release of his acclaimed third debut solo album III.
The recent birth of his daughter is the subject of his bitter-sweet new lullaby Before I Close My Eyes. Before the song was written he received a phone [...]

Ninetails – Blue Bottle Flu

By on May 19, 2012 in Reviews, Singles

The latest from Manchester’s small scale yet perennially interesting Superstar Destroyer roster, Ninetails’ ‘Blue Bottle Flu’ is a dreamy prog-pop number via a tasty dash of 00s indie, with intricate, forlorn guitars and melancholy vocals, alongside a deceptively slick bassline and some rather atmospheric drums.
I’ll have to say, it won’t be to some peoples’ tastes. The fussy melodies and heart-on-sleeve lyrics at first jar, but the song for all its space age frills is a pop song in many respects, [...]

Karin Park – Restless

By on May 19, 2012 in Reviews, Singles

Sugar and synths abound on Karin Park’s new single ‘Restless’. Sugar, synths, and some kind of sinister feverish drive. Park may initially seem like a ethereal presence with her breathy vocals and electro instrumentation, but there’s an undeniable dark edge to proceedings, with increasingly bleak lyrics being spoken in such a fairylike tone, and the synths regularly take the plunge from cute electro to something teetering on the brink of a goth club’s EBM/Industrial floor. It’s not a massively danceable [...]

Blowgoat – Blowgoat EP

By on May 19, 2012 in Albums, Reviews

Wow. Okay, without a shadow of a doubt, this is a bloody savage EP. ‘Blowgoat’ doesn’t so much explode from the speakers as it does spray you with aural viscera and rubble from a nuclear explosion that took place somewhere in South Wales. They’ve got vicious passion in absolute spades these guys, and some great riffs. Unfortunately, subtlety doesn’t really seem to be a strong point of theirs, and this EP has two stellar tracks on it, in the sense [...]

DONOVAN WOODS – The Widowmaker

By on May 19, 2012 in Albums, Reviews

Donovan Woods is a Canadian folk singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Ontario, Canada. His influences are Paul Simon, Mark Knopfler, Bryan Adams, Emmylou Harris and Phil Kessel.
His praised first album, The Hold Up, was released in 2007. His second, The Widowmaker, is released in the UK on 25th June, 2012 through Aporia Records. Piano, banjo, guitar, moody synth tones and female backing vocals are used throughout the album.
Jail has a beautiful piano with a country style vocal supporting the banjo, whilst [...]

SUMMERLIN – YOU CAN’T BURN OUT IF YOU’RE NOT ON FIRE

By on May 15, 2012 in Albums, Reviews

Pop-punk is a tricky genre. It’s always (and wrongly) overlooked as the chidren’s punk-pool where everyone sounds the same, yet seems to be constraining in terms of boundary pushing. It’s a place where fans of hardcore punk genres refuse to lend their ears, but rarely has enough sheen to be suitably amiable for pop and pop-rock fans. Summerlin, a four-piece from Leeds, have done a pretty damn good job of accounting for these genre downfalls with their debut ‘You Can’t [...]

The Unkindness of Ravens – Virus

By on May 14, 2012 in Albums, Reviews

You listen to Nina Wagner’s voice and straight away you think of The Kills and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but there is much more to this London / Berlin based duo than this.
The Unkindness of Ravens blends indie, electro and rock music and creates an interesting and creative hybrid. After the pounding Viper, Virus starts like a Sleigh Bells’ rant before growing in a hard-core deflagration.
Das Gift is a melodic syncopated cavalcade where Nina’s voice is emphasised and summarises strengths and [...]

Gossip – A Joyful Noise

By on May 14, 2012 in Albums, Reviews

After having gotten rid of a “The”, of the energy characterising Standing in the Way of Control and the catchy rage of Music for Men, Gossip release A Joyful Noise, the fifth album by Beth Ditto & Co.
Well, let’s be frank from the beginning. Never an album title has been so ridiculously wrong. There is nothing joyful about AJN, only a failed attempt to reach the mainstream audience and the charts.
After the opening Melody Emergence and its weak riffs here [...]

Sansa – Savior

By on May 14, 2012 in Albums, Reviews

This album features a mixture of electro synth and acoustic pop from Finland, and proves to be a fairly pleasant surprise. Sansa is a young female artist and this is her third album. Filled with a nice mix of contrasting soundscapes and decent songwriting, it just about gets away with some dodgy lyrics and a lack of musical breadth or originality.
The two different styles that dominate the album are clearly marked out by the opening two tracks. Waiting For The [...]

The Wild Eyes – I Look Good On You

By on May 14, 2012 in Reviews, Singles

There’s not much to say about I Look Good On You by The Wild Eyes. It’s a very generic and simplistic quasi-punk guitar rock number – which sounds like the sort of song you write after you’ve just started learning the guitar and are overly excited about being able to make so much noise. It has youthful vigour, but no musical intricacy or imagination. Peculiarly, the B-side Too Much is better, featuring a more diverse and imaginative sound, and harmonies [...]

LETTERS – Older Motion Pictures EP

By on May 14, 2012 in Albums, Reviews

Letters are an indie quintet from Edinburgh with a reputation for dark, timeless and melodic music.
Letters comprises: Ed Ellis (Guitar/Vocals), Mikey Ferguson (Guitar/Vocals), Georgie Williamson (Cello/Vocals), Dougie Fuller (Bass) and Kerr Donaldson (Drums).
Their debut EP Older Motion Pictures is released through God Is In The TV Records on the 19th May, 2012. This is the follow up to the recently released single The Halfway House.
Explosions is a powerful instrumental rock number with a fast rhythm. In Older Motion Pictures the [...]

Hannah Cohen – Child Bride

By on May 14, 2012 in Albums, Reviews

She looks beautiful in her record’s artwork photograph.
I have never heard of her name.
Hannah Cohen is a New York model (no, please, we don’t need another Carla Bruni), her mother is British, her father is a jazz drummer from San Francisco. Oh, her grandfather, Bertie Rodgers a famous intellectual, an Ulster acclaimed poet. The family photograph’s taken.
After travelling the world and posing as model and muse for several artists (among others, David Salle), she recently learned guitar discovered her voice [...]

Stalking Horse – Specters

By on May 14, 2012 in Albums, Reviews

Recently I felt I was obliged, as an avid NME reader, to try and listen to Animal Collective’s 2009 “Masterpiece” Merriweather Post Pavilion. I felt that I was missing out, that many others had gained a deeper appreciation of Pop music because of it’s “artistic depth” and “fierce creativity”. Or something. Turns out that when I did get round to listening to it I got through two tracks that both felt half an hour long and then turned off because [...]

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