Single Reviews
Fury
of the Headteachers - Not What It Used To Be
The third
single by Sheffield based non-Monkeys and Grace headline act, the last
single to be released before the quintet unleash their debut album on
us and what a warning shot it is. Fired point blank range into a box of
hand grenades, it'll tear your arm off as quickly as make you get up and
dance. A bit too discordant to be disco but to rhythmic to be riot, it
straddles an anxious, fraught middle ground that Fury Of The Headteachers
sound more and more comfortable strutting through.
Redjetson
- The Unravelling
We love
Try Harder. The label who gave us some Blood Red Shoes and the first Foals
release (who knew back then eh) now give us the latest single from post
rock miserablists Redjetson. I've misplaced the press release but no doubt
it reads, London million-piece write a gigantic great pair of songs that
feel a bit like rejection, a bit like the ground opening up to swallow
you whole and a bit like defiance in the face of despair. A combination
of fine musicianship and superbly accomplished songwriting. Except, a
lot more tangibly gutteral than that sounds.
The
Rapture - Pieces of the People We Love
As it happens,
I don't really care that much about The Rapture any more. They don't do
what they do better than anyone else any more. For a band I loved more
than any other for a sound that's now prevelant, they sound like they've
only just discovered it from listening to some others. Pieces Of The People
We Love isn't as good as Whoo Alright Yeah Uh Huh but it's okay and it
seems like that'll do The Rapture these days. Like your mischeviously
exciting mate who settled down way too early - lets wait for the remixes,
eh.
The
Black Ghosts - Anyway You Choose To Give It
I had no idea this was gonna be so good. Their first song, Face,
was a pretty damn average slice of synth pop rock which was kept afloat
by some absolutely mouthwatering remixes by Kissy Sell Out and Charlie
Fanclub. I figured we might have more of the same here except, Anyway
You Choose To Give it the original is actually just as good as both the
Boy-8-Bit and The Whip versions. Sleazy and synthcore as you like, its
bouncy vocal and hands in the air delivery keeps you coming back for more.
Disco
Drive - All About This
During
the period I was barred from my local indie emporium, Italians Disco Drive
played. As a testiment to my neck of the woods, it was the worse date
on their tour as dozen of kids turned up but nobody actually listened.
Which is why I have to put up with dishwater playlists in this town instead
of being treated to the type of scratchy, youthful punk disco pop of All
About This and Factory Of Minds. Probably not the best thing they'll ever
do but a damn fine start.
Grammatics
- The Shipping Forecast
This is
my third mention of Grammatics in two issues. Anyone would think I was
trying to get everyone to buy into their soon to be collosal presence.
Perhaps I'm just going for the most mentions so, when history is writing
about the early days of one of the country's best bands, I get a bit of
a namecheck. I was there, I'll say to The Guiness Book Of Rock, I always
knew. However, on the strength of round-the-houses genius like this slice
of melancholy 'n' might, you'd have to be blind not to notice. If they
keep this up, they won't be the new whoever, by the end of the
year everyone will be the new them.
Simian
Mobile Disco - It's The Beat
This is
supposed to be the crossover record although I think that means more a
crossover from The Most Lauded Producers And Remixers In Electro House
to The Public Consciousness. Don't expect guitars and guest appearances
from indie bands just yet, this is bleepy as a heart-attack ward and features
Ninja from The Go! Team, which is hardly gonna get them a slot in Mojo.
Good, because heaven knows they do this better than so many, we wouldn't
want them to compromise for anyone. An anthem for all madly grinning glo-stick
wavers everywhere.
Help
She Can't Swim - Hospital Drama
Do you
know when you hear a song you can barely stop yourself playing for months
but still can't be sure the band will keep up that level of consistency.
That's how I felt with the Committing Social Suicide EP and, true to form,
Hospital Drama doesn't hold a candle to it. It wouldn't have been one
of the better songs on the previous album and for all the directness and
teenage anger it conveys, it lacks some of the complexity or that sly
wink that made Help She Can't Swim so appealing.
iLiKETRAiNS
- Spencer Percival
There are
some bands you don't know what to expect next from. Will it be good, will
it disappoint. There are some bands who you never expect to put a foot
wrong. With Spencer Perceval, iLiKETRAiNS have once again proved how completely
they are the latter. Without the history lesson, expect epic, stretched
guitars and impending doom to the them of someone being murdered. B-side
I Am Murdered gives the other side of the story - although the other side
of the story was pretty bleak as well. Glorious.
The
KBC - Poisonous Emblem
A bit of
a disappointment to see indie label and fellow music website makers High
Voltage sending out the dreaded one song promo but oh well. Poisonous
Emblem has been released before and is on the album so really, all I needed
was a press release. If you don't already own it, haven't downloaded it
and don't own the album, this is a great song. I'd love to tell you the
b-sides or remixes made the single worth buying but hey, I don't know.
Klaxons
- Gravity's Rainbow
Another
band who really should be in touch with The Public enough to know that
one track promos are a bit of a waste of time. Again, Gravity's Rainbow
is on the album and has been released before. This version is different
enough to the original to split opinion but generally speaking it's at
least equally as good, if not better for its higher definition. As it
happens the b-side Electrickery (which I know because the single is now
on release) is worth hearing, if a little different, and the Soulwax remix
makes a good song longer, although I dunno if it's the best remix of the
track (To My Boy did a good one, way back).
Clone
Quartet - Carousel
See, once
again Tigertrap are here 'fessing up an intriguing new band. One of the
better ones (Infants being the best) on their rostrum on the strength
of this single, Irish act Clone Quartet are more indie pop with underlying
synths and bleepy moments. Not quite the slut wave to whip you into a
frenzy but with the type of tune and delivery that will have you singing
along before you even realise everyone else on the bus is looking at you.
Late
of the Pier - Space & The Wood
The hype
machine is bubbling away on overtime for this Nottingham electropop band
and on the strength of this single I can see why, even if I'm not really
convinced it's quite the one that will launch them. A-side Space And The
Wood is a heavy-set, synth pop affair that's a little ponderous to be
an anthem, with a sweet if overly-retrogressive 80's style hook. B-side
Heartbeat, Flicker, Line is a much niftier beast, which, while maybe still
not scene-leader, shows the band in much more pro-active, standout form.
Foals
- Hummer
Speaking
of The Next Big Thing (as everyone always is), one band who definitely
deserve it are Foals. Their first single on Transgressive after a much
more plaintive debut on Try Harder, Hummer, (along with b-side Astronauts
And All), bleeps its way through uptempo indie disco, punk funk, math
rock, post hardcore, slut wave and anglepop, with chanting, hooky choruses,
call and response, and just about Everything you could want from a song.
Previous form shows this is no one off and if there was any justice in
the world dancefloors everywhere would be igniting to the sound of the
Oxford quintet.
Union
of Knives - Evil Has Never
To be honest,
this was released ages ago but I couldn't get my hands on it cuz nobody
wanted to actually sell it to me. Fools. As one of those bands who don't
seem to be able to put much of a foot wrong, there's no shock in the news
that this re-mixed version of Evil Has Never is, for all its additional
meatiness and brevity, still an excellent example of dark, swirling electronic
melodrama while b-side Big Heart Breaking is yet another string in the
now heavy bow of this fine band.
Samsa
- To Conquer
A Leeds-based trio who seem to turn up on all the
Leeds originated indie compilations (which is most of them, at the moment)
and always managed to siphon off some of the limelight, even from the
bigger names on the disc. This single sees them take centre stage again
after a few years of sharing the bill but they've lost none of their impetus.
To Conquer is a fine statement of strafing, melancholic indie which builds
to a satisfying climax. Can't imagine anyone keeping them quiet much longer.
GoodBooks
- The Illness
Weighing in at a reassuring four tracks, The Illness
- presumably the last single prior to the release of their greatly anticipated
debut album - is GoodBooks' fourth single. Showing the invention and wry
smile songwriting that the band seemed to have been born with, this single
packs a more direct indie-pop blast. Coupled with a disarmingly wide ranging
selection of sounds provided by the b-sides, it once again proves that
Kent's finest have somewhat unlimited access to a pretty potent supply
of some pop elixir. Lucky boys.
Maps
- It Will Find You
You'd expect some bias from a magazine called Maps for an
artist called Maps. Which is a shame because I loved Maps before I even
knew Maps existed. This is probably his best single since the debut Start
Something, all that time ago, and is the last release before his imminent
album (available early from Puregroove). It's chilling and morose while
underpinned by those towering, glittered string samples and stuttering
production. The single package also features two lovely b-sides and the
most wonderful remix by Mock & Toof. Collect 'em all.
Let's
Wrestle - Song For Abba Tribute Band
For a label created by a shop whose name is Puregroove
and who specialise somewhat in electro 12"s, Marquis Cha Cha's dedication
to quirky indie guitar bands and garage rock acts is as endearing as it
is baffling. Let's Wrestle are by far the quirkiest of the indie acts
and if I'm honest I can't quite figure them out. They're sloppy and miserable
sounding but you guess that's the point. You get the impression there's
an American art-indie market out there for them but, alas, I'm not it.
Shame. We quite like the second b-side though, about Husker Dü
Hush
The Many (Heed The Few) - Song Of a Page
I can't quite place the geographic origins of Song
Of A Page. The la-la-la refrain sounds like something dragged up from
a New Orleans bayou, dripping with swampy Tennessee blues mud. Yet for
these immediate resonances, the creepy atmospherics of the song impressively
evoke distant echoes of everything from metal to folk, each strain of
music coming at you from a slightly different direction. Clearly no mean
feat, although it may well have been more irresistable had the song tied
all these disperate elements up somewhat by its conclusion.
65daysofstatic
- Don't Go Down to Sorrow
Not a band
we'd expect to throw up a beat-box hip hop ho down as their latest single
and, we can say with full conviction, this isn't. Instead, fans of click-y,
bleep-y post rock can rest safe in the knowledge it's main proponent are
still pulling twinkling guitars, angry chords and crashing cymbals backwards
through static and broken radio waves to make haunting but substantial
slabs of glitchy, aggressive, exploratory rock.
The
Maccabees - Precious Time
Somewhat
more in the vain of First Love, one of the finest moments of 2006, Precious
Time is a lilting slice of melifluent art wave beauty. The boys' trademark
multidirectional songwriting showcased as the songs builds and falls,
sweeps and side-steps to shimmering effect. The type of song that could
lull a loved one to sleep in its arms or spin around you like a young
child, wide-eyed on the dancefloor at a wedding reception while the grown
ups talk of other things, less important than the moment you're living
in right now.
goFASTER>>
- She Starts Monday
It's easy
to dismiss the makers of catchy, cartoon indie pop. Not so goFASTER>>.
Not only do they have a quirky name, they also throw all manner of sharp
objects into an otherwise easily digested blend of chirpy casiotones and
wickedly fun choruses. The two minute clashing outro, the muted drug references,
the slight wall of sound stylings, the skiff timings, all thrown into
the mix of what would've probably been a pretty successful sing-a-long
romp anyway. It's pop, Jim, but with more nouse.
All reviews by Aidienn Ellison
