Bizarre abode

(Morning Star, Friday 16 March 2007)

ALBUM: The Horrors - Strange House
(Polydor)

IF you believe nothing else about The Horrors, you must believe that they do have a bloody strange house.

In this album, they sing about spectres of serial killers past drifting by in Jack the Ripper, violent femmes in Sheena is a Parasite and the terminally troubled Morgan in Excellent Choice, who wishes his family dead.

Like Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster before them, The Horrors are not all about making crazy eyes and butchering kittens. Rather, they take the best parts of goth and marry them with a punk rock sensibility, giving birth to a most uneasy alliance. It's a bit like pantomime, but with an underlying stench of dread and, well, horror.

The cacophonous result which springs forth from these art school boys makes their debut one of the records of the year.

All the same, Strange House is a cool place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.

John Simpson - Man of the World

(My Weekly magazine, 3 March 2007)

She's got balls

(Morning Star, Friday 02 March 2007)

ALBUM: Charlotte Hatherley - The Deep Blue
(Little Sister)

CHARLOTTE Hatherley may have left a pop-punk trio of men in Ash, but make no mistake about it - she's the one with the testosterone.

Her kick-arse attitude aside, the video for The Deep Blue's first single offering I Want You To Know shows a beat 'em up Charl in fighting form with more muscles than Madonna.

But don't let the fact that she could punch your lights out cold force you into enjoying this record.

If you've any sense, you'll decide that this is one of the poppiest, rockiest, ballsiest, sweetest, coolest, hottest female artiste records to hit the shelves on musical merit alone.

The high point is the single. Lower points are apparent in some of the dodgier lyrics. But laying themselves bare is what these pop stars are all about, so just be prepared for it - and dive in.

THE DRAYTONES – FOREVER ON

(AU magazine March 2007)

(1965 Records)

A London-based Anglo-Argentinian trio with a penchant for jazz and two feet firmly in 1965 –year and label – The Draytones hail from the same stable as The View.
This alone should trigger the ‘scene’ warning loud and clear, but The Draytones’ sound is mercifully different from the Dundonian noiseniks.
In fact, the best word for this first album is ‘schizophrenic’, taking in as it does influences of garage rock, Babyshambles and even Jungle Book-style jazz on ‘Trafalgar Square’.
First single, ‘Keep Loving Me’ pushes some rock buttons, but the differences between the songs – from acoustic ‘Out Of This World’ to the soft-shoe ‘Trafalgar Square’ - translate as a distinct lack of cohesion.
With the varied influences they’re pulling together, it’s less than clear if the band are leaders or followers, but the latter seems a safer bet.

The return of rave

(Morning Star, Friday 09 February 2007)

LIVE: Klaxons/CSS/Sunshine Underground/New Young Pony Club, Sheffield Octagon

KIRSTIE MAY investigates the new rave phenomenon that's infecting dancefloors all over Britain this year.

The occurrence of the "new rave" phenomenon is ostensibly a terrifying event for those who remember old rave and, more specifically, for those who love music.

Who could celebrate the days of glowsticks and oversized dummies, surgical masks and hoodies?

There was an age when music lacked smarts and, crucially, heart.

With New Young Pony Club, one wonders if there's one member of the band who identifies with new rave.

Wearing their new romantic heart on their sleeves, they have the whiff of Duran Duran fronted by Tracey Emin.

But track Get Dancey is a surefire floorfiller and the overall set gives a pleasant glow to the unsuspecting crowd, most of whom are too young to remember anything before 1996.

But they're certainly not too young to realise that the Sunshine Underground are a bunch of chancers, tossing off a substandard set of dirges wherein the cowbell - yes, cowbell - is king.

Singer Craig Wellington, from Leeds, wears a menacing Top Man hoodie and has an arrogant persona- that's cribbed from Liam Gallagher. Piffle.

CSS are a band who revel in fun. Coming on draped in black sheets to the all too familiar strains of 1993 hit No Limits by Dutch chart-botherers 2Unlimited, singer Lovefoxxx discards her attire to eventually reveal the marginally less unsettling lilac lycra bodysuit which forms her second skin.

The Brazilians race through a set culled from their successful debut album and the underagers and ageing ravers alike find nowt at fault here, as Lovefoxx bounds like a demonic Jane Fonda, all flailing limbs and exuberance.

As a band of six, CSS really do fill out the stage and the arrival of Klaxons, a pitiful fourpiece, is a bit of a letdown.

But, with the magnetic stylings of singer Jamie Reynolds, the crowd quickly forgets all that came before.

To the untrained ear, their track The Bouncer would seem to have rave - the proper, no-brainer, old-school kind - stamped right through it like Blackpool rock.

Some wag in the crowd even throws one of the old-style Altern-8 face masks on the stage, which the guitarist toys with before deciding against it.

From Atlantis to Interzone is surely a lost dance classic of the early 1990s, packing a euphoric punch that any self-respecting noughties hitmakers should eschew at once.

Klaxons' trick, though, is to marry a set of harder dance with the sweet renderings of their own sounds - like current radio-friendly unit-shifter Golden Skans.

And that's how they disarm their audience, it seems, by wrongfooting their ear.

For every Four Horsemen of 2012 or Magick, stuffed full of rave goodness, there's a heartfelt plea from these four misfits, such as their glorious cover of Not Over Yet.

Klaxons are heralded by "those in the know" as the new rave figureheads who flew the coop before it took proper hold.

Well, whether they're pigeonholing themselves or not, they are heading up this bill, but, for them, labels are irrelevant - they're making tunes for music lovers.

No talent from new kids of rock

(Morning Star, Friday 09 February 2007)

LIVE: NME Indie Rock Tour, Sheffield Octagon

A SHOW featuring the newest rock kids on the block was always going to be bedlam. The event of the indie calendar, the NME Indie Rock tour, rolled into town with a kerfuffle and plenty of hairy boys, as Mumm-ra, The Horrors, The Automatic and The View came up against each other in Sheffield.

Unfortunately, Mumm-ra are about as uninspiring as a young band have any right to be. The single What Would Steve Do is pleasant enough, but there's a craving for innovation in the crowd here that just can't be sated by these Bexhill-on-Sea upstarts.

Next up, The Horrors show themselves to be a pale imitation of the goth bands that they so fervently wish to emulate, but their raft of vicious, spat-through songs and bouffant hairdos by art school prancing ponies actually works.

When Faris Rotter sings, it's easy to imagine that he hates himself as much as he deserves, and that's sort of endearing.

Single Sheena is a Parasite makes the impact here and the stories of riots ensuing at their shows seem all too accurate when the thrashing well and truly kicks off.

Welsh one-hit wonders The Automatic are a victory of the catchy chorus. Despite their gimmick of having two vocalists - one shouting incomprehensibly, one trilling tunefully - aligning them all too closely to Linkin Park, they have anchored themselves in the public consciousness with the infuriatingly singable Monster, which has every audience member in paroxysms of joy here.

But the rest of their efforts are, unfortunately, lacklustre, filtered-down versions.

Headliners The View (pictured) are this year's surprise hit - surprise, because there's no earthly way that these buffoons should have a recording contract, much less be allowed to peddle their sub-Oasis drivel to the honest music fans of Britain.

The event of Scouse-accented Kyle Falconer's puberty still appears to be some way off, but he and his band of miscreants are somehow dodging schooldays with nauseating Britpop rubbish such as current hit Same Jeans.

As trends go, it's been a long time since the NME set them. But, with the "talent" on show here tonight, it's clear that they're doing their damnedest to run their own once good name into the ground.

Second-rate indie stomper

(Morning Star, Friday 12 January 2007)

ALBUM: The View - Hats Off to the Buskers
(1965 Records)

THE View are not the latest "best new band in Britain," as touted by many in the music press.

Their sneers and snotty attidude are a stone's throw from such rock luminaries as Lil' Chris off Rock School and their Britpop-by-numbers leaves them far short of many contemporaries.

From the depths of 1995, they've made the most of their limited talents on this second-rate indie stomper of a record - they've half-inched both sound and swagger from such working-class scamps as Arctic Monkeys, but they just don't have the charisma to make it stick.

Superstar Tradesmen, a cynical, biting attack on the working people of their rundown hometown Dundee, has garnered the band a reputation, but, the truth is, their "punk" posing is straight out of the NME, their ethos wrenched from the newly media-savvy world of record company execs trawling MySpace.com for the next big thing.

Elsewhere, on the raucous Street Lights and single Wasted Little DJs, there's not a bad effort at guitar rock karaoke and no-one could blame The View for trying to escape from the misery of Dryburgh through the medium of music.

In fact, with that in mind, The View deserve snaps for effort - remember that and drop them a few coppers when they proffer their Burberry caps in your direction in the City Square.

But the decision to mix the lyrical poetry of Dodgy with the adopted swagger of Rick Witter is really a poor one.

The View's debut is overhyped and undercooked, which is probably why they've taken their hats off to the buskers - they know that's where they'll be themselves within the year.

A new direction

(Morning Star, Friday 12 January 2007)

ALBUM: The Good, The Bad and The Queen - The Good, The Bad and The Queen
(Parlophone)

THERE'S a prevalent marine theme on the debut release from Damon Albarn's latest outfit.

From the "ship across the estuary" on opener History Song, Albarn, along with The Clash's legendary Paul Simonon, Tony Allen (Africa 70/Fela Kuti) and Simon Tong (The Verve), lead listeners through a tempestuous oceanic landscape.

It's a refreshing take on modern life, but the relentless reinforcement, from "seas in our minds" on A Soldier's Tale to Nature Springs, the gentle swell of metaphors slowly begins to drown the subtleties of what is a truly beautiful record.

High points are Herculean, which is understated but unfeasibly strong, and Green Fields. The latter is a slightly clumsy socio-political comment on the state - and wars - that we're in, referencing tidal waves and the "bad man's dream," but it is doubtless a tour de force from a man better known for monkeying around.

From a lifetime's work with Blur, a band keen to espouse the virtues of London, this release is really a compendium of the true tales of Albion, awash not only with literary imagery but chillingly perfect vocal harmonies and a melancholy which none but the most optimistic of fans could have believed Albarn capable of since the Gorillaz warfare of 2001.

New ravers

(Morning Star, Friday 19 January 2007)

ALBUM: The Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
(Polydor)

WHETHER or not the so-called nu-rave scene is an NME construct is, in actuality, a bit like the argument on whether or not there is racism in the s'leb Big Brother house - completely irrelevant now. What we are left to deal with is the international fallout. Or, in nu-rave's case, the Klaxons.

So, do the flag-wavers for 1992 stand proud without the crutch of a "scene" to hold them up? Truthfully, they really do.

The dreamy mid-80s pop of single Golden Skans sits surprisingly well beside the frankly terrifying Atlantis to Interzone, which is a bit like being beaten round the head by MDMA-abusing youths with glowsticks. But, you know, in a good way.

The high point, somewhat sadly, comes in the form of a cover. The version here of Planet Perfecto's It's Not Over Yet is, frankly, astonishing, imbued, as it is, with all the longing and loss of the original. With added rave beats.

Although the debate will continue to rage across the globe, let us put it to rest now - The Klaxons have made an astoundingly good debut.

New Spanish flavour

(Morning Star, Friday 01 December 2006)

LIVE: Robrigo y Gabriela, Waterfront Hall, Belfast

LIKE banjo-based popular music-covering act Hayseed Dixie, Rodrigo y Gabriela take what may be termed "traditional" music and make it all modern, like - for the kids.

Comparisons to flamenco are denounced vociferously by the duo, but there is a degree of the classic Spanish guitar sound to their music.

Rodrigo y Gabriela's story is admittedly enthralling - two young Mexicans left their thrash-metal guitar background and made some cash playing low-key acoustic versions of Anthrax, Slayer et al in the foyers of posh hotels.

Now based in Dublin, the last few years have seen them move from gifted buskers into the realm of sell-out guitar artistes.

Rodrigo is a guitarist of immense skill, leading the audience through what are notionally their own compositions, but which do sound a little like the soundtrack from A Place in the Sun.

Followed swiftly by a set of rock covers, bringing in everything from Metallica to the White Stripes, he reacts well to the excitable crowd and really enjoys acting the star.

Gabriela is a quieter performer, but her talent is nonetheless breathtaking, keeping fierce rhythm with her knuckles on the guitar that she clutches, a controlled foil to Rodrigo's vivacious flair.

The show is given an extra dimension by the cameras positioned in close range to the pair, shooting blown-up black and white images onto the back screen and bringing an intimacy to a sell-out show which makes the experience all the more vital.

Approach Rodrigo y Gabriela with caution, sure - their new take on old songs may strike some as a gimmick, but the truth is that their talent makes an instant fan of anyone lucky enough to see these two up close and personal.