The Rakes - 1989

(For the Record, March 17, 2009)

Close your eyes and imagine Gina Yashere.

Yes, yes, just do it.

You can only see her head, and her lips are flapping away, saying something like, "It was such a happy moment," or something equally profound, about Scott and Charlene's wedding, or the day Samantha Fox's 'Touch Me' went to number three with a bullet.

Well, Yashere was actually the star guest in I Love 1986.

What we want to see is I Love 1989. Which didn't have Yashere present, but did feature Frank Bruno, Judy Finnegan and Leslie Grantham.

Or, oh look, The Rakes. They love 1989. So much that they penned this little ditty about the wonder of the year.

Rocking in a very angular, indie sort of a way, the melodic guitar line seems to bow to Bowie's 'China Girl' and The Vapors' 'Turning Japanese' (neither of which were 1989 singles, so that could be imagined), crystal clear and chiming.

Alan Donohoe's curiously flat voice cuts through the jangle, intoning his memories of 1989; "Punks were hanging out in the park/While someone practised electric guitar" apparently.

Other people remember shell suits and home perms, but The Rakes have retained only the coolest events of the fag-end of the second worst decade since the birth of rock.

Slicing through the rose-tinted recollections, the "lala la la la" chorus smacks of radio-friendly pop brilliance, and the parting shot of "1989... It was 1989" wavers Donohoe tremulously.

I love 1989.

Favours For Sailors - Furious Sons

(Muso's Guide, March 17, 2009)

Album reviews

One can only guess at what sort of bonuses Favours For Sailors are offering to seamen.

But when their music is as upbeat and glorious as this, who cares? A mini-album from a maxi-talent, Furious Sons couldn’t help but succeed, containing as it does the best feelgood hit of the non-summer, ‘I Dreamt That I Dreamt That You Loved Me In Your Dreams’.

A gorgeous pop single, it turns out to be a sensationally good pick to trail the wonder of Favours For Sailors, perfectly reflecting as it does the poppy, sunny, essentially Weezer-ness of what it is that Favours For Sailors have to offer. Opener here, ‘Erode My Empire’, is certainly showcasing the good side of tunesmiths like Weezer before they lost it, starting out with a melodious guitar part which cannot be derailed by a hollered “BOOM!”.

An enthusiastic vocal from frontman Jon covers the disappearance of one man’s land thus; “Empires erode from the coastline in/And I’ll be left in a square metre in the middle/Probably in Nottingham”. ‘No Room At The Buffet’ is POWER POP, holding back no capital letters. The sweet harmonies are there again, something like Silver Sun from back in the day, and with a guitar part informed by J Mascis’ classic on Dinosaur Jr’s ‘Feel The Pain’, it is a standout track and no mistake.

All of Favours For Sailors’ songs seem to be over too soon - although the flipside of that is that they leave you wanting more, always an enviable position to be in. ‘The Nihilist Prays’ is just such a song - a nicely complicated musical arrangement with with requisite melodic harmonies.

On ‘Shy Times’, a skittery pop song with dance pretensions, the skill is in the vocal, paying more mind to Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci than anything else and leading to a punchy, interesting chorus. Finishing up on ‘Our Name’, Furious Sons does something quite insane for the first 20 seconds, offering a set of swollen strings for the intro sounds more suited to Kanye West’s latest single release than in this arena of tuneful indie pop.

The pomp gives way to well-judged chart-friendly pop goes some way to explaining the boy’s unusual moniker. Starting off, “I was pushed from the cliff by a jealous man and his hands” and a nice chorus line of “oh ooh oh” which gets the foot tapping, giving way to “Even your lover’s come to save you/When you’re tied to a chair doing favours for sailors”.

So now you know. Ask yourself - what favours would you do for a sailor? With music like this at stake, the answer is; pretty much anything they favour they damn well pleased.

Lilies On Mars - My Liver Hurts

(Muso's Guide, March 17, 2009)

Single review

After a tough night out, who can honestly say that their liver doesn't hurt? It's almost the mark of a success.

Lisa Dply Masia and Marina Cristofalo are two lovely young Italian ladies who have seen fit to write a whole song about such an hepatic concern.

OK, so that’s a lie. It’s not about that at all.

Who knows what it’s about - there’s not much of a clue as a subtle, mid-tempo drumbeat ushers in a simple guitar line with a minor twist.

The female vocal arrives with an ethereal beauty and something ghostly to boot. “You make me sick,” it goes, before a girlish lullaby “La la la” takes over.

All the while, the guitar gets brasher and more in control, but by contrast, the vocal is even more like a child’s, “Listen to me/My little friend/You found me/Now let me free”.

The vocal is spooky and unnerving, but not more so than the accompanying video.]

Opening on a shot of the moon, the shot shifts and closes in on what seems to be a ragdoll.

The ragdoll stands and wanders through what looks like a toy scrapyard, pausing to look at a bear with an eye missing and ambling desolately through this place of horror.

The ragdoll stares at the moon, thousands of miles out of reach, and then happens upon a moth. Fluttering and flying, the ragdoll is mesmerised by the creature, and take it upon her hand, befriending it.

Unfortunately, it is shortlived, as the next scene sees ragdoll Red Riding-like with moth wings sewn to her back, and the moth struggling for survival having had its body rent asunder.

The ragdoll ends her tale attempting to take flight with her ill-gotten wings, the giant moon filling the shot and her hopes.
Creepy and unusual as the video is, the song matches it, building to a crescendo as the hideous act takes place.

It truly is a jaundiced view of the world.

BM LINX - Kids On Fire

(For The Record, March 15, 2009)

Single review

Another day, another effortlessly cool NYC beat combo. Is there some sort of factory churning them out at such a rate, so exquisitely formed and without flaw?

Well, obviously not, because these BM LINX musicians spring to attention thanks to the efforts of Brit producer Alan Moulder whose breathtaking CV includes work with Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine.

Take that, Yankees.

'Kids On Fire' starts as if with a sonic boom, all fur flying and exclamation. A relentless beat plunges the ear straight into indie dance territory, but this is no old retread - exhilarating to the last.

Vocalist Tony Diodore spits the lyrics with a venom which braces, and the charisma positively leaps from the speakers with each note. It's hard to pick out the actual poetry on show here - why the kids are on fire is actually anybody's guess - but with Diodore's great vocal invoking Dandy Warhols howler Courtney Taylor, the whole thing packs a terrific punch.

The relentless electro beeps give birth to a chugging behemoth of cool, sounding for all the world like a Men, Women and Children-meets-The Rapture love-in - meaty, heavy and not to be messed with.

The second track on the single is more of the same, a grimy underground dance hit with a penchant for synths. Lovely indeed.

Starsailor - All The Plans

(Muso's Guide, March 13, 2009)

Album review

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’”.

By and large, Starsailor - more so than Embrace - display a skill at ‘this sort of thing’, and in Walsh, they have some of the most interesting and creative vocal work around, this year or any year.

But it all seems just a little bit limp, and there’s nothing on display here that will make you a fan if you weren’t already, you can breathe easy on that.

War Child - Heroes

(Muso's Guide, March 11, 2009)

Album reviews

Everyone should buy Heroes. This isn’t an end-of-review spoiler, or a statement that affirms the bringing together of musical heavyweights such as Rufus Wainwright and Elbow can only go well. The main reason to buy Heroes is War Child, the charity behind the record.

Wait! Keep reading! The music bit comes soon! But this is important too! You should know that 66% of people who die in conflict are children, and War Child is a 16-year-old attempt to help protect them. No guilt-tripping, honest, but that surely has to be the best reason you’ve heard this year for parting with a tenner.

So, to the music… Heroes pulls no punches from the off, starting out with Beck and a version of Bob Dylan’s ‘Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat’. A mist of fuzz rock guitar and a familiar Hansen vocal suffice to prove that Beck doing Dylan sounds a lot more like Beck than Dylan. Roxy Music may be upset to find that Scissor Sisters have buggered up ‘Do The Strand’ beyond recognition. Shrill and soulless, it is what can only be termed the ‘Comfortably Numb’ effect, and leaves Roxy fans gasping for breath with insult.

Critics’ choice TV On The Radio make a good fist of disturbing Bowie’s old bones with an electronica-heavy version of the titular ‘Heroes’, which owes more to Talking Heads than the Thin White Duke, as per most of their output. On the plus side, Franz Ferdinand taking on the angular might of Blondie’s ‘Call Me’ is a wet dream for anyone who hoped for a world where the perfect artrock splice might occur. Alex Kapranos approaches the whole thing with the air of a man who knows camp becomes him, and it does.

Or there’s Peaches pulling on her Iggy Pop suit for a right rumpus with the unfeasibly filthy ‘Search And Destroy’, smearing her scent on it like a stray cat. The accomplishment of the album is, on balance, fair. It offers a great opportunity to hear some irrefutably interesting music, and that is what being a fan is about. But regardless of what it sounds like, there can be no argument against buying this record at this time. Do it for the kids.

Lady Of The Sunshine - Smoking Gun

(Muso's Guide, March 11, 2009)

Album reviews

Fresh from the tender A Book Like This album recorded with his sister Julia, Aussie Angus Stone shows once again that there isn’t a musical style that he cannot turn his hand to.
On opener ‘Silver Revolver’ - rest assured, the predilection for firearms titles ends here - the guitar speaks volumes, while the slightly dispassionate vocal fails to ignite. Presently, a poppier side to the track makes itself known, but the self-flagellating nature of the lyrics - “All I’ve ever been to myself is my own enemy” - makes for a heavy listen.

From there to ‘Home Sweet Home’, Angus morphs casually into a sort of Jack Johnson/Jason Mraz hybrid, and all would seem to be lost - until ‘White Rose Parade’.

Bizarrely, considering the the high points of A Book Like This, Lady Of The Sunshine’s strength lies, not in the gentle guitar strumming which he made his own on the familial hit from the year, but in the sort of bluesy, rocky tracks of which ‘White Rose Parade’ is the jewel.

Rocking in gently - think Bon Jovi circa ‘Midnight In Chelsea’ as opposed to Lemmy - the bluesier side of Angus really builds up, and the whole thing quite pleasantly rollicks along, sort of like Mark Owen singing for the White Stripes.

‘Jack Nimble’ shows Angus contemplating the darker side of life, where the character catches his wife “messing with another man/He got his gun and shot them down”. The mention of the nursery rhyme character invokes Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’, and there’s some pretty heavy guitar distortion which renders the whole thing very dramatic indeed.

The slightly schizophrenic ‘King Black Magic’, brings both sides of the Stone coin together, sort of like Turin Brakes getting down with a jagged antisocial buzz saw of a tune, but even on this one track, it’s clear where Angus’ strength lies.

When Angus does it right, he damn near kicks off a rock revolution; the title track crashes in out of a feedback wilderness, with a yowling vocal that would make Jon Spencer Blues Explosion proud.
But without Julia’s intriguing vocal to lift the acoustic numbers, some of the gentler tracks like ‘Anna’ wind up being little more than gentle little hiccups, momentary diversions, without any real staying power.

Perhaps Lady Of The Sunshine is a mere dalliance for this talented singer songwriter. If we’re lucky, Angus will see the rock direction as more than that, and return to the scene of the Smoking Gun very soon.

Fucked Up - Year Of The Rat

(Muso's Guide, March 10, 2009)

Single reviews

A timely release from some very calendar-conscious youngsters, ‘Year Of The Rat’ is here to mark our liberation from the year of the rat, which crashed to its ending on January 25.
Despite being saddled with an altogether offensive and distracting moniker, Fucked Up are more than just needless expletives.

Canadian, but hardcore, so not at all dull, ‘Year Of The Rat’ sees the sextet firstly easing their way atmospherically into an 11-minute guitar and percussion-driven freak out.

As what was known in the old days as an ‘A side’, ‘Year Of The Rat’ is staunchly inaccessible, but tremendously exciting for it, a testosterone-heavy, axe-smothered, drum-engorged epic, with harmonious guitar sounds falling somewhere between Blind Melon and … And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead.

Anyway, that’s all good stuff, but there’s an elephant in the middle of this review which needs to be addressed: Fucked Up vocalist Pink Eyes. Not to imply Pink Eyes is an elephant, although clearly an elephant would have more of a grasp of a tuneful vocal, even an elephant who takes up the mic in a hardcore band.

Suffice it to say, you either enjoy the torturous screaming/shouting/anger noise thing, or you’re over 15 years old.

Although it’s been mooted that lyrically ‘Year Of The Rat’ is primarily concerned with political statements and overthrowing the shackles of modern society’s all-pervasive ills, the vocal is unfortunately so mangled so as to prohibit identification of actual subject matter, save for the end quote of a man referring to how the secretary of state told him once “You’d better be prepared to pull the trigger”.

One would assume more Condoleezza Rice than Hillary Clinton because these young beatniks like going head-to-head with cold-blooded Republicans considerably more than with fluffy-wuffy Democrats, regardless of which side will be guaranteed a soundtrack of the devil’s own music in the blazing hereafter.

Musically adept and criminally rocking, there’s a small part of Fucked Up who should be very proud of what they’ve achieved with ‘Year Of The Rat’. Let’s hope they club together for the other part to get some singing lessons.

BLACK LIPS - 200 MILLION THOUSAND

(Choon online, March 9, 2009)

Album review

As far as mythology goes, the Black Lips have one of the greatest rock’n'roll tales of the modern era. A band that was brought together by circumstance, has been plagued by controversy and death, and still managed to produce five excellent studio albums. That’s quite something.

Opening track - rabble-rousing rocker ‘Take My Heart’ - sees the Atlanta, Georgia quartet channelling the best work of Jagger, all guttural vocal yowls and the best sort of rock - tinged with rockabilly rhythms and characterised by twanging guitar.

On the doo-wop dalliance of ‘Drugs’, the band are on tuneful form, with singer Cole Alexander invoking the Ramones’ shambolic vocal style, and sounding for all the world like a gang of hoary old punks instead of the bright-eyed youngsters they are. ‘Starting Over’ , meanwhile, offers shades of Exile On Main Street’s ‘Tumbling Dice’ - all swagger and posturing.

The Black Lips do tend to sound like a band 30 years out of date, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a sense of humour. On ‘Trapped In A Basement’, they have a wry edge - “I’m trapped in a basement and my food is running out” - but the ghostly female backing vocal and mournful guitar make it a real horror of a tack, imbued with despair.

‘Short Fuse’ has a jagged guitar part that would make any artrocker swoon, from Television to Franz Ferdinand, while ‘I’ll Be With You’ turns into a slower tempo romance record.

The spirit of the 50s and 60s is strong in the Lips, which all goes to make some breathtaking records, with humour and heart, but, wonderfully, the ability to rock. It’s one thing carving out the rock’n'roll myth on a personal basis, but making the music is something else again. Black Lips have been judged first and foremost for their accomplished recorded output, and that’s what could make this band truly legendary.

Still fresh the second time

(Muso's Guide, Friday 6 March, 2009)

FROM the very first chiming chords of Men In Prison and folk singer-songwriter Jackie Leven's trademark Scottish burr, the magic of this record cannot be denied - even though it is almost a decade since its original release.

Winter is the first in a series of double albums entitled The Haunted Year from Leven, originally released earlier in his illustrious career but dusted off now to be enjoyed anew.

The delicious eight-track Men In Prison still sounds fresh, recorded live in Bergen Men's Prison in Norway only adding to its depth. The wonder of Leven is profound here, with songs like An Extremely Violent Man pressing all the most emotive buttons.

Munich Blues, from a live performance 2002 in the southern German city, shines throughout, but the particular poignancy of I Saw My Love Walk Into The Clouds proves that Leven's work is blessed with a multilayered genius which only blooms and blossoms with repeated listens.