Nuggets - 21 December 2007

by New-Noise

Michael Hensley, The Playing Favourites

"Their genial pop-rock could have featured on the soundtrack to films like Empire Records or mediocre youth orientated rom-coms"

The Playing Favourites - I Remember When I Was Pretty
By Nadeem Ali
The Playing Favorites sound like they belong back in the 1990s. Their genial pop-rock could have featured on the soundtrack to films like Empire Records or mediocre youth orientated rom-coms. This shouldn’t be too considering the presence of Summercamp’s Tim Cullen. Summercamp were on of the better 90s pop-rockers. The rest of The Playing Favorites is filled members of various pop-punk bands, now older and more interested in writing solid tunes. ‘I Remember When I Was Pretty’ is an annoyingly inconsistent record that ranges from the mundane to the magical. The brief ‘Futuring’ is a delicate little respite from the more solid numbers that surround it. ‘Leaving Town’ and ‘Drug Hugger’ are sparky power-pop diamonds. The Playing Favorites are a welcome escape from these callously modernist times.

Michael Hensley – Fire Behind Me
By Matt Hell
Looking like an angry ultra-camp Matt Damon is not a crime. NN checked. Now there will be those of you who think that it should be and who can blame you? But, as weird as it may seem, there’s a good reason why it shouldn’t be. In prison Michael probably wouldn’t be able to get hold of bucket loads of synthesised sounds, craft them together, run his voice through the equivalent of a dozen whales’ mouths of filters and produce slick and groovy pop-dance music. There’s something reminiscent of ‘Disco’ era Pet Shop Boys about ‘Fire Behind Me’, a cultured sculpted quality to the songs with lashings of cool, of its times but cutting through them.

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