17 March 2008
Rob McCrae
Foals, Supergrass, Elle Milano, Shocking Pinks. Sparkadia, Exit Calm, My Federation, Chuck Prophet, Passneger, Born Ruffians, Various Production vs. Dave Cloud
"It’s as close to perfect as the man leaning into you at the bus stop."
Foals – CassiusNot overtly dissimilar to geometric single 'Hummer' with the chopped out keyboard riff and the barked out chorus. It’s all concise and speedy like they’re worried the hype will suddenly end which, on this basis, it will.
Supergrass - Bad Blood
Return to foot stomping form for the Supergrass antiques who have dotted their albums with blistering songs like this for years to the collective shrug of headphone wearers across the country. A cannonball from start to finish.
Elle Milano – Meanwhile In Hollywood
They may be singing about Hollywood but it seems to be seeping from a market town in middle England so denying themselves anything glowingly positive. If Just Jack was smashed over the head then this would be the subsequent result of his songwriting skills.
Shocking Pinks – Emily
Storytelling vocals with a growling bass and on the flip side a picnic spread of remixes, by the likes of Nathan Fake, all of which stretch the candlelit style of Shocking Pinks into another enticing realm. Impressive, like the first time you heard Pulp.
Sparkadia – Too Much To Do
Go lucky pop hooks delivered by a singer who was born into sunshine and has spent the in between years sipping at it through a long straw. So deliciously happy it’s not for the furrowed brow crowd.
Exit Calm – Higher Learning
Not often you hear band embracing the early nineties space rock panoramas of The Verve or the desert strafing guitar work of Spacemen 3 but Exit Calm deliver it like a fax. It’s as close to perfect as the man leaning into you at the bus stop.
My Federation – Don’t Want To Die
Maybe when they constructed this song they thought they could get away with a witless chorus and this would be enough to get the lighters aloft and the kids punching the air like High School Musical 3 had just been announced.
Chuck Prophet – Would You Love Me?
Nine albums in and Chuck still has the voice that sounds like it could accompany songs of rueful nostalgia from now until the end of timepieces. A few lyrical banana skins aside this is a hearty, noble release from a man who you’d expect to have strong arms to lift you up (like Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing).
Passenger – Table For One
An utterly depressing paean, about the legion of drinkers who hunch in pubs drinking on their own, and a delivery which is a split end away from being an epitaph at a funeral in a world’s biggest tearjerker starring Mandy Moore.
Born Russians – Hummingbird
Freshly squeezed from the Warp label who garland the band with the bashful words of a new father and then ruin it al by saying that they will directly appeal mainly to “the Skins generation…” Idiots. That is if they don’t mind the production sounding like it was recorded inside a bucket.
Various Production vs. Dave Cloud
Dave Cloud, a stalwart of the Nashville scene for over 25 years, sounds like a slowed down George Clinton residing in his own particular den of iniquity exhaling some mad deranged story about someone called Puff Rider which could easily just be a hallucination put to music.
Comments
Other Singles...
Elsewhere On The Site
NEW NOISES
- Birds Of Avalon
- Duels
- White Lies
- The Night Marchers
- Royal Treatment Plant
- Headlights
- Outl4w
- The Deathset
NEW ALBUMS
- Canadians - A Sky With No Stars
- Drive-By Argument - Drive-By Argument
- The Mountain Movers - We've Walked In Hell And There Is Life After Death
- Brigade - Come Morning We Fight
- Cursed - III-Architects of Troubled Sleep
- Life Of Agony - Ugly/Soul Searching Sun
- Martha Wainwright - I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too
- Nuggets - 07 May 2008
LIVE
- dEUS - 16 Apr 2008
- Long Blondes - 21 Apr 2008
- Mystery Jets - 24 Apr 2008
- City And Colour - 10 Apr 2008
- Misery Signals - 6 Apr 2008
- Poison The Well - 11 Apr 2008
- The Death Set - 12 Apr 2008
- Every Time I Die - 5 Apr 2008
stan said on March 18th 2008 [report abuse]
the elle milano review made we spit my coffee out. i have committed that phrase to memory and am going to use it more.