31 July 2006

by Adam Anonymous

Animal Collective, Lily Allen, James Dean Bradfield, Shack, Head Automatica, The Twighlight Singers, Ladyfuzz, Stereo MCs, She Wants Revenge, Richard Ashcroft, Plan B, Sharp End First, Korova, Catherine Feeny, Tangaroa, Tapes 'N Tapes, Love Is All...

"This is the obvious melodic choice for a single from young Forest Gate strum-rap hoodlum Plan B’s decent debut LP"

Animal Collective – Grass
When bands such as steadfastly weird anti-folk – anti-music might be closer – gang Animal Collective are re-releasing singles it’s clear capitalism has taken over the globe once and for all. Don’t get us wrong: avoiding state food stamp queues is great, but if it means bizarrely innocuous oddities like ‘Grass’ milking the market, we’ll continue looking for an alternate solution, ta.

Lily Allen – Smile
Actually reviewing this blot on the musical landscape, given it’s on the chart slide after ubiquitous airplay, is a touch pointless.

James Dean Bradfield – That’s No Way To Tell A Lie
Emerging from the dress-wearing shit lyric-writing shadow of Nicky Wire, JDB’s solo escape exceeds virtually all latter day Manics output. That’s only a relative compliment, of course, though while the A-side’s airy synths are marginally passable, its accomplice, ‘Don’t Look Back’, is a semi-memorable mini-epic.

Shack – Cup Of Tea
As nondescript and run-of-the-mill as the eponymous metaphorical subject matter, Merseyside janglesmiths Shack are back with little fanfare and even less excitement-spawning gall. At least flipside ‘Lizzie Mallaly’ has some balls, albeit tiny, shrivelled ones.

Head Automatica – Graduation Day
If regular music listeners wince and break knobs off radios to escape Head Automatica’s woeful return, then fans of Glassjaw – with whom HA share vocalist Daryl Palumbo – will be in uncontrollable tears. The first Head Automatica record was enjoyably shallow dance-rock. This is American prom film backing even worse than the description suggests.

The Twilight Singers – I’m Ready
Greg Dulli has a rabid following with good cause. His silkily indulgent croons could be a perfumed Mark Lanegan on ultra charm offensive, but if we’re being honest, he’s yet to top ‘1965’ by former charges The Afghan Whigs. ‘I’m Ready’ doesn’t break that trend despite wielding seductive barroom-inspired lush-rock.

Ladyfuzz – Oh Marie!
Girl-fronted indie borrowing bass-lines from Radio 4 – the band not the BBC station – won’t knock this long-suffering world from its axis, although Ladyfuzz do go pleasingly mental for about 15 seconds to end ‘Oh Marie!’. We, meanwhile, still prefer the clean-shaven female hygiene route.

Stereo MCs – Sun
Will somebody get the goddamn Stereo MCs away from us? Like, maybe Jupiter. Yes, we liked ‘Connected’. We were 12. We also loved Snap and 2Unlimited. We grew ears; we grew up. So did the MCs mind, who now eschew any creditable hip-hop element in favour of baggy ballwash even Shaun Ryder would deride.

She Wants Revenge – Tear You Apart
‘Tear You Apart’? What, in the same way, say, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’? She Wants Revenge, as previously discussed on these very pages, are to originality what Russell Brand is to blokes we’d like to share a pint with. They dig Interpol and the original Interpol for non-thick people, Joy Division. Further analysis? Well if they can’t make an effort…

Switches – Message From Yuz
So, if ears don’t deceive, you deliberately misspell ‘Yous’ but don’t abbreviate ‘Message’ to ‘Msg’. What’s wrong with kids today, eh? Switches have the accidental answer: they’re all snot-nosed fuckwits with whiny voices, crappy guitars and try-hard hair. Bet Steve Lamacq loves ’em.

Richard Ashcroft – Words Just Get In The Way
Language has proved to be a particularly difficult obstacle for Ashcroft in recent times. Some advice sir: increasing sales via a kookier image doesn’t really work if your method of attack is busting into youth clubs and weeping about “helping children”. ‘Words…’ aren’t his best forte here either with more drab post-Verve-isms.

Plan B – Mama (Loves A Crackhead)
Disregard the daytime-unfriendly theme and this is the obvious melodic choice for a single from young Forest Gate strum-rap hoodlum Plan B’s decent debut LP. His ditch-the-potential-stepfather rhymes remain blunt but the harmonic chorus is an alternative universe pay-dirt ticket. Sadly, we presume his mother isn’t Kate Moss.

Sharp End First – Songs For The Betrayed
These days, the addition of a double bass drum pedal apparently automatically transforms straight metal bands into grindcore. Napalm Death would laugh heartily at SEF’s alignment with any such scene; ‘Songs For The Betrayed’ is instead a mi

sh-mash of chugging blastbeat-powered guitar abuse with melodic Funeral For A Friend breakdowns to snare 16-year-old girls.

Korova – Just Like Peter Cook
Only weighty refrain-aiding guitars prevent Korova from immediate dismissal as another set of futureless, idea-bereft UK indie-rock chancers. ‘Just Like Peter Cook’ is still depressingly uninspired for art taking its title from one of the 20th Century’s all-time great entertainment innovators.

Catherine Feeny – Hurricane Glass
KT Tunstall has a lot to answer for. Mainly making it acceptable to peddle updated Dolly Parton-bland ladyacoustica with barely tangible traces of angst. The sole saving grace for Catherine Feeny, after snoozing up a version of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’, is she’s quietly beautiful like top-notch mothers and the way you pray your girlfriend’ll look in 20 years.

Tangaroa – Day
Widdly grindsters Tangaroa are uncompromising Yorkshire lads who fancy themselves as self-proclaimed ‘metal gods’ through the course of five tracks unremarkable aside from the title of ‘Ugly People Breed Fast’. Infinitely preferable to another 20 words of indifference are labelmates ArnoCorps, a Schwarzenegger-inspired Bay Area sextet with a mean line in film taste and a midget drummer. Now that’s metal god behaviour.

Tapes ‘N Tapes – Insistor
Minneapolis quartet Tapes ‘N Tapes wear the expressions of men not entirely sure they can believe their luck as a newly signed buzz band with little ammunition other than Nashville knees-up-brushed polite guitar workouts and quirky vocal intonations. That said, they’ve enough charisma to suggest initial promise could wonderfully explode real soon.

Love Is All – Busy Doing Nothing
Press releases should ordinarily be discarded as hyperbolically-crafted wastepaper and certainly never mentioned in reviews. Yet the opening accompaniment to Love Is All’s new single rankles like racists and stupid folk: “Somewhere in Sweden there is something so exciting happening that you may not be able to understand it…” Perhaps you could go find it then, kind label employees, and stop wasting our time with too-nice-for-public-listening pop-rock yawns of Love Is All’s ilk.

Radar – Lunacy
Actually, let’s break unofficial journo rules twice in two minutes. “From Kilburn To Camden born and bred, [Radar’s] music is thick with the menace and excitement of pop’s first city”. Disappointingly, they leave out bombs, bustle and black bits up your nose and make do with lightly-skanking mono-speed monotony so snail-paced trip-hop heads would fall asleep.

Fermata – Frustrated
SoCal rockers Fermata kindly send us a DVD, which the observant may notice isn’t technically a single, but does allow us to observe their frontman whirling his dreads in slow motion. Another box-ticking bunch of bores in a universe of idiots trying to fulfil somebody else’s notion of what a best-selling band should be, then. Sorry.

31 July 2006

by Adam Anonymous

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