Wolfmother - Love Train
When Wolfmother's Debut 12" e.p. sneaked on to the shelves in 2004 in almost went unnoticed.
(The copy I bought was lurking in the ambient downtempo section of a high street store I'd never been in before.)

Since then the word has spread that Wolfmother Rock! Like Led Zeppelin playing through Black Sabbath's equipment with Deep Purple's keyboard player in session. This track, the band's fourth release from the self titled debut LP, is no exception. Keeping the flag flying for seventies styled retro, this fusion of heavy rock fuzz, groovy riffs, bongo drumming and funky church

organs doesn't take us anywhere we haven't been before but it certainly does take the scenic route.

What makes Wolfmother stand out from the crowd is the fact that the bass player can play, unlike many half arsed rock/indie acts who have maybe a semi-decent songwriter with a couple of his mates along for the ride, banging away at the back. This band manages to get all the bits of the song in the right place, a minute of heavy riffing and then straight into a big, slow, sweet sounding guitar break which drops into a psychedelic prog synth freakout, quick chorus and back to the guitar solo and bang, it's gone, finished, 2.30mins and it's over before you could possibly get bored.

I don't really know who this music is supposed to appeal to as it's too much like big dumb rock for the indie kids and it's a little too soft for the real metal fans. The album gets quite folky in parts. If you haven't already worked it out, I'm a little bit biased as Wolfmother were my top band of last year. I've seen them live twice and already have the album and all the singles, it took quite a few listens to get into the vocals as Andrew Stockdale can be a bit squeeky at times, although on this track he manages to pull of a pretty good Jack White impersonation, and it's certainly had more plays than the uninspiring raconteurs single. Overall I'd say this is an excellent track but don't bother with the single, just get the album.

Review by Andy Jesse
www.wolfmother.com

Richard Hawley - Hotel Room
Hawley’s honeyed bleakness is not what I had expected. He sings like a charcoal-soft silhouette, a lone figure against a faded backdrop of broken down but once glamorous things, like golden hula palm trees bleached as old tins. He sounds like a man whose voice has stopped pushing to be heard, who knows there is another way to do things. His vocals seem to perform a huge jumble of functions: they are frostingly, emotionlessly warm yet icily embracing and nourishing. They contain both gloom and tenderness. Combined with the scent of stale alcohol and unfamiliar furnishings in sorry rooms, they fill “Hotel Room”. This track has an unmistakeably ‘aged’ feel, and yet there is something else beneath it all, something that makes me feel nostalgic and in

love with the past. I can’t always understand why it isn’t corny, how it manages to be so emotive and appealing. Perhaps with these tracks he is holding up to us the things that our generation seems to have lost, like romance, dreaminess, simplicity and the ability to confess and be truthful. His music is brilliantly textured and more layers are revealed through the other tracks on this release. There are strings, 50s sounding guitars, spaced out 80s drums, and those lusty, deadpan, soaring, resonant vocals. Hawley has created something special here, but it’s hard to define exactly what or how. It’s disappearing even now, after many listens, like the sad coughing of a shadowy flame just as it’s blown out.

Review by Lindsey Kent
www.richardhawley.co.uk

Breed 77 - Blind
Less-than-thrilling Latino-flecked metal ‘thrills’ from Metal Hammer’s Best British Act nominees Breed 77… Apparently their new material shows a distinct progression from their 2004 breakthrough album ‘Cultura’ which sold a staggering 30,000 copies. As I’m not overly familiar with their previous output I can only speculate wildly – speculate that the arrival of (gulp) Creed’s producer has polished away the all-important viscera and grit. Unremarkable, sure, but kids dig this stuff. 30,000 listeners can’t be wrong… 5/10

Review by Tom Leins
www.breed77.net

Iain Archer - Soleil
Flowing like sunspots under closed, warmed eyelids, Soleil is a heady memory rush of summer spontaneity. Archer’s sharp and emotive voice streams through spun layers of music like sunbeams through leaves; his lyrics roll out like sharp strips of negatives, true and clear. Soleil is a rushing rear view window to the past, a shimmering nostalgia trip and one that works in perfect harmony with track two: “Canal Song”. Juxtaposed like this they represent that commonest of all takes on life, but perhaps the hardest to accept: that bitter and sweet, happiness and melancholy exist side by side; that we need one to have the other. “Canal Song” is about being let go, and letting go, of accepting that some things are unchangeable. Both guitar and drums seem to be

providing a journey’s rhythm, or else they are the blood that flows from Archer into this track, the blood that also keeps it pushing onwards beneath his beautifully drowsy vocals. His songs contain flawlessly constructed images, emotion filled and open for all to experience. They are perfect spirals of a private kind of music which should be kept curled tight inside your ear.

Review by Lindsey Kent
www.iainarcher.com

Godlike & Electric - EP
Those with an inside line to all the industry gossip will know who this is but I'll not lie to you, I had to be told. The dark, stalking bassline and sparks of disco electricity that zip through the first track on this unmarked single (all you get is the phrase "godlike & electric" written in felt-tip on label) sound too accomplished and dripping in dancefloor sleaze from Paris to Munich to be by a newcomer but the trademarks don't lend themselves to easy guesses. The b-side doesn't help, laconic and silky, New Yorkian in its way but just as easily born in London. When music sounds this good, though, who cares who made it as long as it keeps coming.

For those desperate to know, it's by Bent apparently but I'll be jiggered if I'd have ever guessed that.

Review by Aidienn Ellison

The Clerks - The Dissidents
“The Dissidents” is great at being an indie bop number and should be used as one at the earliest possible opportunity. A tiger-y little beat thumps along from word go, there are sneering vocals and an insistent, urgent sounding chorus about dissidents which is nice as everyone loves a non-conformist, even one that is a naughty Clerks-fooling con artist. To top this off, there's fantastic chanting of what sounds like "bish bosh smash it up", and some thrilling female howling perfectly layered into the background. It's pretty passion stirring and good for a few listens, but just a little bit disposable. And the least said about the risible "Still", the better.

Review by Lindsey Kent
www.the-clerks.com

Das Wanderlust - The Orange Shop
Coming in two varieties, a polite version and a rude as version, it's when this Middlesbrough quartet sing I think you're so fucking amazing in that midly unhinged vocal style over primary school keyboards and giddymaking, colour-splattered, playground pop you realise it's not just rude as, it's also MINT. Which is how they refer to things in this part of the world. Those who've seen them live will know they've also got even more deranged wonders in their big red plastic lunchbox too.

Review by Aidienn Ellison
www.daswanderlust.co.uk

Swipe - Mercy Me
Swipe singer James Chant is good mates with Manic Street Preachers front-man James Dean Bradfield and even appeared on Top of the Pops with him before its recent demise. However, Swipe’s sound is musically miles away from the big-lunged rock anthemics of JDB and the Manics. Instead, Swipe sound like The Cure being gently manhandled by The Postal Service. Ok, but a little bit too detached and toothless for its own good. 6/10

Review by Tom Leins
www.myspace.com/swipesongs

Sound Team - Born to Please
This Texan sextet aren't afraid to write fuck off great big songs. While they're more accessible now than they were when I first encountered them they still tower over other acts with the stride of a musical behemoth. Something about the way the bass shudders through the very techtonics of the planet and the vocals boom at you from what much be the biggest mouth in music. All of which belies the subties of melancholy offered by the, uh, fifty guitars and the way the enter song makes you sway despite being big enough to level your house. An impressive return from the young band and one that bodes well for the album.

Review by Aidienn Ellison
www.soundteam.net