Maps

Jeremy Warmsley - I Promise (single)

Every time Jeremy Warmsley releases something new his style seems to
change, is he a creative genius full of thousands of ideas or just a little
indecisive? I promise is a melancholic little ditty, gentle tip-tapping drums,
acoustic guitars, plink-plonking melodies and wistful romantic lyrics. It wont set
the world on fire but it could set a few romances alight.

www.jeremywarmsley.com

Findlay Brown - Down Amongst the Dead Men (single)

Not the most interesting of Findlay Brown’s material, but this is a ‘commercial’
single after all. This is sad stuff; a haunting beauty, subtle intertwining melodies,
an amazing silky smooth voice, the makings of greatness, but not a storming
chart success.

www.findlaybrown.com

Larrikin Love - Live, Kings College: 06.06.06

Somewhere in the recent months of the live music explosion, Indie music seems to have separated into two camps, thoughtful, clever, rocking music and music to bounce around to. Larrikin Love fall squarely into the later category, the kids love them, bounding and shouting around like idiots to pretty much every song, the band can do no wrong with their odd Indie-Ska-Gipsy crossover. However hooks and structure seem hard to find in their songs, everything rumbles along in the same vein with no real clarity or memorable moments, great fun but not built to last.

www.larrikinlove.co.uk

The Voices - The Voices (album)

The Voices are not the sort of band I’d normally go for; I gather they call it ‘Shoe
-gazing’, basically lots of noise, not much structure, just repeated, building
patterns. However, there’s something about The Voices that pulls me in, firstly I
guess I’m impressed by the noise they make for a three piece, there’s also
something wonderfully calming and ethereal about the tracks on this album,
they wash over you, enveloping your senses, and forcing you to just stop and
listen. An excellent soothing antidote to the crazy and confused modern world.

www.lostinconfusion.com

At The Lake - I Made My Excuses & Left (single)

Thanks to bands like The Editors and the Departure there seems to an ever
increasing amount of bands making effects laden, sound-like-they’re-playing-in-
a-cave albums, full of big guitars and echoing vocals. So whilst At the Lake may
not be particularly original they have a damn good go at the sound, with some
excellent guitar riffs, great choruses and oodles of reverb of course!

Snowfight in the City Centre are yet another band who of late seem to be
wearing the ’big sound’ shoes.

Slow burning anthemic numbers, lots of instruments, probably a string section if
they could afford one. A little outdated and not to everyone’s taste, but not too
overindulgent, which is a good thing.

The Scare look out of it tonight, perhaps they would be a tighter band if they weren’t off their heads, but they wouldn’t be the Scare if they were sober. A big, loud, sometimes wonderful mess of heavy rock, new wave and egotistical posturing, riffs that fly around like there’s no tomorrow and a seething mass of sweaty bodies. This is pure rock and roll, it may not always be pretty, but who ever said it should be.

Apparently Jim's music has appeared all over some sort of Football
programming… Having no interest in Football, I can’t verify this. However the
title track of this single is another mellow, slightly childish bouncy offering from
Jim Noir, his unique lyrical style again fully evident and his wonderfully repetitive
but never dull melodies in full flow. Not as inspiring as his last single outing, but
still an artist doing completely his own thing and making a damn good go of it.

Strange, the 4 tracks on this Camera sampler are a little MOR for my usual tastes, but I kind of like them, in a mellow, sitting back with a bottle of beer and gently sighing kind of way. Some nice harmonies and tunes trip away with nowhere special to go, along comes another song and so it goes. In their rockier moments, Camera start to get more interesting, bring on the rock boys!

Sorry Roland Shanks, you’ve been around a while, maybe you were one of the
first to do it, but if I hear another disco-beat-rumbling-bass-line-shouty-singer
band, I’m going to scream very loudly. Maybe Roland Shanks have got more
interesting songs, in fact the B-side even hints at that fact, and I know you’re a
bunch of down to earth guys, but don’t just jump on the band wagon to try and
get into the singles chart, or (possibly) to be more precise, don’t let your label
push you onto the band wagon…