13 August 2008
Rob McCrae
Bloc Party, 6 Day Riot, The Sketch, Shimon & Nixon, Alan Braxe ft Killa Kella & Fallon, Midnight Juggenauts, Go:Audio, The Sea, The Ryes, Get Well Soon, Mark Morriss, Jeremy Warmsley, AFD Shift, The Music
"The band has hooks, the kind of catchy insistent songs that you’d still enjoy coming out of the tinny speakers in a pub toilet."
Bloc Party – MercuryBloc Party tend to eschew the winning formula preferring to pinball around genres like a pub drunk in mid rant but despite the lyrics sticking to Kele’s formulative years again, the template this time, cut up repetitive vocals and a nonsense chorus, works surprisingly well.
6 Day Riot – Bring On The Waves
Cock an ear to the delicate country meadow voice of the lead singer and immediately you picture her floating like a beautiful wraith in the centre of some violins and folky guitar, strumming like a human dandelion with finger picking skills.
The Sketch – Best Kid In Town
Pop punk is very digestible with sounds are so uncomplicated that even a gurgling baby would find it easy to piece together its durr blueprint. This mediocre example sounds like the set closer for the band fourth on the bill on an under-populated Vans tour.
Shimon & Nixon – Sexy Beast
Professors decreed that Drum & Bass officially resides in a time capsule marked late nineties but some new advances in science have bought us this contemporary version, showcased sublimely by Shimon & Nixon. A more subdued affair with less of the relentless floor quaking intensity of old but with appreciably new nuances as a result.
Alan Braxe ft Killa Kella & Fallon – Nightwatcher (Show Me)
Legendary producer Alan Braxe attempts to fuse together a power diva vocal (courtesy of Fallon) and then suture it into Killa Kella’s beatbox skills while he pushes up faders (or whatever producers do). It’s like two songs together showing how they can make an unholy mess.
Midnight Juggenauts – Into The Galaxy
Thundering over the oceans from Australia with their hybrid of syncopated vocals and omnipresent keyboards, like Klaxons but not so self referential and offensively literal, this is still a solid block of repetitive disappointment and a severe step backwards from previous releases.
Go:Audio – She Left Me
Shadowboxing everyone else in the ring marked worst ever band names, pop pogos Go:Audio sound like they’re auditioning for the next teenagers in peril film, but this time their pitching for the song on the end credits when the usher is disconsolately spooning up popcorn into a bin bag.
The Sea – Don’t You Want Me
Despite boasting a male vocalist part of this single resembles the female singer from Republica and her vocal exercises overlapping with the staccato guitar, an audio experience that would get really annoying if you had to listen to it on a loop on a long coach journey.
The Ryes – How Come Loretta
The band has hooks, the kind of catchy insistent songs that you’d still enjoy coming out of the tinny speakers in a pub toilet. However it really reeks of Capital FM or some middle of the road death station where there are strict easy listening boundaries and taste has been all but flushed away.
Get Well Soon – If This Hat Is Missing…
If you can ignore the infinitely regrettable choice of band name (does this band all have decision making brain injuries?) the result intersperses between a funereal Tindersticks delivery spoken by your most miserable friend or to those eager to get on with karaoke at a Leonard Cohen convention. Overall very good.
Mark Morriss – Lay Low
Britpop throwback and ex Bluetones front man tosses away all the backchat of a band and opts for a stripped down acoustic guitar and sad, lonely vocal maligning some misfortune that’s causing him to keep his head down and stare at his shoes. Pleasant but depressing.
Jeremy Warmsley – Lose My Cool
Jeremy sounds phenomenally unconvinced about losing his cool like he’s exhausted all other possible avenues and this will have to do. Fortunately for such a prodigious collaborator he pulls himself out of his laissez faire inertia and produces something with a listenable life span.
AFD Shift – Listen Then Leave
There are some impressive swirling guitars on this track, like the kind you imagine being played on the top of an oil rig as a helicopter circles above. The vocals are a bit hairy, like they’re balancing on the brink of falling into death metal but can’t decide whether this will bring them riches and women.
The Music – The Spike
The Music used to be locked into a psychedelic trance with singer Rob Harvey scrunching his face up to sing while the entire of the North threw up their pies in celebration. That was five years ago. This sounds exactly the same and for that it deserves some piecemeal applause.
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