Jarvis – Further Complications
Jarvis - Further Complications
It’s just not a very conceivable story, is it? This man playing basically the whole 1980s in an unsuccessful band, being on the dole to boot.
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The Mission District – Heartbreaker
The Mission District
If image is nine tenths of a band, then The Mission District are truly a gift for record executives looking for the freshest faces around.
Hanne Hukkelberg – Blood From A Stone
Hanne Hukkelberg - Blood From A Stone
The soft, delicate voice of Hanne Hukkelberg lures the listener into a false sense of security, as you drift into a land of snow capped hillsides and winter sun.
Swan Lake †Enemy Mine
Swan Lake
Swan Lake is the coming together of three distinct song-writing talents from the other side of the Atlantic. There’s the ultra-prolific Spencer Krug, who is also a member of Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown (he released an album with the former last year, and there’s a new Sunset Rubdown record to come in a few months, so take that procrastinators everywhere), Dan Bejar, of The New Pornographers and Destroyer, and Carey Mercer, who is content with just the one other band †Frog Eyes. Apart, they are all unique talents with idiosyncratic approaches to making music; together, they are no less unpredictable and odd, which makes for moments of brilliance that sit alongside others that don’t quite work.
Mumford & Sons – The Cave/But My Heart Told My Head
Mumford & Sons
Perhaps best-known for being in the top 15 for the BBC’s Sound Of 2009 abomination (eventual winner: Little Boots), Mumford & Sons are second place to no one. And certainly not 15th place.
Starsailor – All The Plans
Starsailor - All The Plans
If anyone has been holding their breath for the new Starsailor record, here’s some exciting news for your respiratory system.
Four years since the last, James Walsh and his compadres have emerged from their recording cocoon with a long-player which does nothing to break down social barriers but plenty to soothe your ailing record collection, rife with passion and sex and all that dangerous stuff. Starsailor are here to blandify everything!
Sorry, that is needlessly cruel and playground bullyish.
In truth, Walshy’s familiar warble striking up on opener ‘Tell Me It’s Not Over’ is a welcome sound. His voice exudes a mournful quality which makes the fool of expressionless vocalists like Julian Casablancas or Bob Dylan – adding exuberant expression to the simplest of lyrics, and marking Starsailor out from their contemporaries.
‘Boy In Waiting’ starts up like ‘Unchained Melody’ and offers an over-appreciation of sleighbells, but by the time ‘The Thames’ kicks in, there’s a real sniff of rock in the air. A twangy guitar that would make Duane Eddy blush, awash with James’ melancholy, “Is love just a big mistake/Just a risk that we all take/Trying to keep the blues away” – as a track, it is really strong, but there’s unfortunately nothing that makes it a possible single release.
The title track boasts some of the delicious flavour of their 2001 debut Love Is Here, the band’s strongest record, while ‘Hurts Too Much’ is the ‘Alcoholic’ of this outing, jampacked with loss and heartache, explaining, “We all get burned sometimes”.
The joke of this all is that bands like Starsailor and Embrace laid the hefty foundations in emotional rock, which made it possible for young pups like Keane and Snow Patrol to scamper in and appropriate it for themselves, so now the old guard have to fight for their position.
Speaking of which, it would be remiss not to point out that Starsailor have been taking notes at the Keane series of lectures on ‘The Gravity of Piano’, adding portent and knowing to the first bars of ‘Tell Me It’s Not Over’ with pounded ivories.
The woozy, boozy piano of ‘Change My Mind’ is all their own, as is the miserable ‘Stars And Stripes’ – more’s the pity because lyrically it’s a bit of a horror, invoking patriotism gone awry, “Stars and stripes won’t keep you warm at night/Keep those evil empires from your door’”. … Continue Reading
The Saturdays announce first UK tour
The Saturdays
Girl band The Saturdays have released details of their first headline UK tour, which is taking place this summer.
Tommy Ludgate – Sweet Release
Tommy Ludgate
“I’m fed up with my own company/quite fed up with this extreme monotony”. These words could so easily describe my own feelings after listening to this song, for ‘Sweet Release’ has all the artistic merits of a Craig David B-side.
VV Brown: a bit of a rant
“What a lot of people don’t realise sometimes is that sometimes people are on the grind for years and years and years and people get different opportunities at different times…”
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