Earlier on this year I successfully submitted some reviews to 'Sandman', a then online-only publication after being a free printed one had proved increasingly unworkable. Just as I hit my stride, they folded completely. Serves me right for not trying harder to get published by them 4 years previously. However, let's not go there as that was the year I lived in 'fucking' Leeds and was lucky to get out alive.
So for what it's worth, here they are - and in most cases, the only thing worse than the writing itself is the music being reviewed!
Goonies Never Say Die
In A Forest Without Trees
Opening with an atmospheric intro track, Blackpool's Goonies Never Say Die would seem well-qualified to delve within the realms of desolation, being from a town which, during the summer months may well bustle with summery life, but in the more wintery months seems to embody an unavoidable sense of bleakness. In addition to this, they must be one of few seaside based bands indebted to the post-rock aesthetic, particularly art-rock kingins such as Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky and 65daysofstatic. It's a blueprint whihc suits their suroundings well, and 'This One Took Forever' is a majestic soundscape in which evocactive synths and restrained, yet comforting basslines are merged together with cinematic chord seqences and pulstaing rhythms to form a wash of epic, tearful melancholia.
Elsewhere on the album, heart-tugging piano motifs lend weight to a poignant wall of sound which all in all wouldn't sound out-of place on Mogwai's 'Rock Action' label, whilst suggesting that vocals would add nothing to the palette which hasn't been expressed already by the rich layers of instrumentation on offer. As most tracks hit the 6-minute mark, they are given room to breathe to the point where every component is displayed and allowed the chance to shine, whilst the influence of barren, stark early Cure rears it's head on several occasions. On the downside, over 10 tracks, their general manifesto does become rather samey, and the loud-quiet dynamics of their sound are exploited to the point of impotence, which means there is never enough to let the band stand outside from a pretty generic post-rock standpoint, and ultimately contains nothing their heroes haven't surpassed. Without a unique selling point, Errors they are not.
The Hidden Revolution
Manchester Ruby Lounge
Space-rock Rochdale quartet The Hidden Revolution are on the up, and today marks the launch party and release of debut double 'A' side single 'Nightmares / Conscience'. There's a self-assured sense of prog-cinerama, and the (suspiciously uncited) Muse comparisons will doubtlessly rear their head with great regularity, yet despite their ambitious stadium-rock aesthetic, there's something frustratingly transparent and derivative about the loud-quiet dynamics, mid-tempos, gargantuan choruses and droning, chugging riffs that comprise much of their set. Singer Chris Wise is gifted with a versatile pair of lungs more than capable of a convincing Matt Bellamy falsetto, whilst his QOTSA (an influence I don't hear) / Led Zep-loving bandmates are equally proficient.
However, when they employ vaguely experimental drum loops underneath the layers of hyperbole, it all starts to resemble a bottom-of-the-food-chain 'Planet Telex', whilst the more urgent 'Conscience' is non-negotiable Muse-by-numbers. Having played a series of increasingly high-profile gigs, THR may yet both develop and bestride the towering platforms their music obviously aspires to, but in an industry growing increasingly sceptical towards generic guitar bands, perhaps being fleetingly reminiscent of Spacehog is a terminal Achilles' Heel. There's no doubting their talents, and welcome, Floyd-esque ambience is apparent in their more reflective moments, particularly during the memorable 'Nightmares' but they would do well to both expand their musical palette and explore the benefits of subtlety more regularly. As their set comes to a close to the ecstatic approval of the Ruby Lounge crowd, this writer elopes quickly having witnessed something decidedly non-revolutionary.
The Unstoppable Team
Get Back
Shades of long-forgotten Manchester rap-rock stalwarts the Dust Junkys come to the fore in this debut single from a band whose employment of an MC arouses interest. 'Get Back' is a perky number built around a determined funk element and an assured chorus. It's no masterpiece, but the band's confident gang-mentality is apparent throughout, and a liberating middle-8 is symptomatic of a promising songwriting ability. Typically Mancunian in it's self-belief, it suffers from a handful of ghetto-friendly lyrical cliches (one reviewer cited Plan B, not without reason), but it garners points for it's potential to rouse, and it's anthemic, soaring guitars. By all accounts responsible for some semi-infamous live performances, they're not the artiest proposition the city has ever offered up, but an energetic, animated one nonetheless.
EDIT: That was a bloody awful track really - I was just trying to spread the love. All 2 milligrams of it.
The one thing I submitted in 2006 is also on there, but I can't actually bear to read it, so scroll down now, if you absolutely must. This is 2006, remember.
InFlightMovie
@ Mixing Tin, Leeds
Formed in 2005 through Leeds College of Music, In Flight Movie appropriate an experimental yet accessible soundscape, assisted in no small part by keyboardist Richard's melancholic synths and subtle introductory drum loops- complimenting the chugging guitars, exhilarating drums and colossal choruses to a great degree. Note-perfect harmonies and usually unintrusive, gliding riffs conjure up a modern, clean take on indie pop, a world away from the yobbish indie rock of Kaiser Chiefs or Arctic Monkeys, but reminiscent of Keane during 'On Your Own', and if we're sticking with lazy comparisons, the now familiar pounding disco-rock beats of Bloc Party et al.
The sound particularly comes into it's own during the second song tonight 'Cassbah', which is held together by an addictive Grandaddy-esque sweet piano motif, allowing space for the odd raucous clattering passage of the chorus and swirling guitar patterns. It's progressive in a necessary way, creating a gangway for all five members to show off their individual styles. A couple of mid-set ballads sag a little, including the aforementioned overlong 'On Your Own', but InFlightMovie excel when they pump up the rhythms towards the end with the urgent 'Fracture' and the digitally enhanced tight melodic pop of 'Tell Me When' - tonight's most radio friendly track. In a playing field often riddled with indie-rock clones, bonus points to InFlightMovie for at least attempting to hint at what accessible alternative pop should sound like in 2006- futuristic and clean, with a swirling poignancy at it's core. A little less bluster (particularly in the guitar department) and more high octane ambience, alongside a tad less self indulgency in running time, and In Flight Movie are a mouth watering proposition.
EDIT: What was I thinking? I didn't even like them! Only joking.
So there you have it. I really need to get my 26 year old reception-dwelling, navel gazing, over-masturbatory arse in gear I think!
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
GWENDOLINE SPITROAST IN ACTIVITY SHOCKER
BLUR
MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS ARENA
Friday June 26 2009
After a series of intimate gigs chosen for the nostalgic weight of their locations, Blur make the step-up to the MEN Arena tonight, prior to heading off to Glastonbury and London. After a prematurely-dated Klaxons set bereft of any new material whatsoever, the four-piece begin their show as they began their career back in 1990, with the dreamy if naïve ‘She’s So High’, an unremarkable baggy homage which betrayed little of the invention to come over the next decade. Instantly following with ‘Girls and Boys’, the track which arguably kicked the Britpop movement into fifth gear, it’s a hits-heavy set, with scant room for obscurity - although the devastating ‘Trimm Trabb’ and immensely funky ‘Oily Water’ (part of three consecutive choices from the underrated ’Modern Life Is Rubbish’) are amongst the less well-known highlights. It’s a pretty conservative yet effective setlist, with many tracks grouped together according to their particular era, and more single-led than the recent compilation would have us believe. Predictably, the crowd reserve their most ecstatic levels of enthusiasm for yob-rock staples such as the hollow ‘Country House’ (preceded by a rather ambiguous observation/analogy on the death of Michael Jackson) and a breakneck run through ‘Parklife’ with special guest Phil Daniels intact but, other than an overlong rendition of the arguably plodding ‘Tender’, it’s a tight, thrilling show, and a constant goosebump-inducing moment to gaze down onto the stage and see Graham Coxon finally completing the jigsaw once again, adding spine-tingling melancholia to a previously Coxon-free ‘Out of Time’ or roly-polying through ‘Popscene’, delivered as if by particularly ferocious twenty-somethings. Closing with the immense warmth of ‘For Tomorrow’, and ‘The Universal’ - a track now impossible to disassociate from British Gas marketing campaigns - it remains to be seen what their plans are after these summer dates, and it seems somehow strange to see Damon Albarn intoxicated on verse-chorus-verse indie nostalgia after the massive eclecticism of his numerous side projects, but if they were to carry on where they left off at the start of the decade, a new album would be more than welcome, if not that then simply more dates with a larger focus on fan favourites would suffice. The public anticipation (or great relief after rumour-upon-rumour) directed towards the reunion reminds us that not one single chart-bothering band has emerged with one iota of the timelessness, natural giftedness, invention, wit and poignancy of Albarns’ combo during the largely piss-weak, polished, diluted, shallow, backwards and scenester-friendly 2000s UK guitar scene.
It has also been pleasing to note the instantaneous vanishing of the Kaiser Chiefs since the announcement of these gigs.
MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS ARENA
Friday June 26 2009
After a series of intimate gigs chosen for the nostalgic weight of their locations, Blur make the step-up to the MEN Arena tonight, prior to heading off to Glastonbury and London. After a prematurely-dated Klaxons set bereft of any new material whatsoever, the four-piece begin their show as they began their career back in 1990, with the dreamy if naïve ‘She’s So High’, an unremarkable baggy homage which betrayed little of the invention to come over the next decade. Instantly following with ‘Girls and Boys’, the track which arguably kicked the Britpop movement into fifth gear, it’s a hits-heavy set, with scant room for obscurity - although the devastating ‘Trimm Trabb’ and immensely funky ‘Oily Water’ (part of three consecutive choices from the underrated ’Modern Life Is Rubbish’) are amongst the less well-known highlights. It’s a pretty conservative yet effective setlist, with many tracks grouped together according to their particular era, and more single-led than the recent compilation would have us believe. Predictably, the crowd reserve their most ecstatic levels of enthusiasm for yob-rock staples such as the hollow ‘Country House’ (preceded by a rather ambiguous observation/analogy on the death of Michael Jackson) and a breakneck run through ‘Parklife’ with special guest Phil Daniels intact but, other than an overlong rendition of the arguably plodding ‘Tender’, it’s a tight, thrilling show, and a constant goosebump-inducing moment to gaze down onto the stage and see Graham Coxon finally completing the jigsaw once again, adding spine-tingling melancholia to a previously Coxon-free ‘Out of Time’ or roly-polying through ‘Popscene’, delivered as if by particularly ferocious twenty-somethings. Closing with the immense warmth of ‘For Tomorrow’, and ‘The Universal’ - a track now impossible to disassociate from British Gas marketing campaigns - it remains to be seen what their plans are after these summer dates, and it seems somehow strange to see Damon Albarn intoxicated on verse-chorus-verse indie nostalgia after the massive eclecticism of his numerous side projects, but if they were to carry on where they left off at the start of the decade, a new album would be more than welcome, if not that then simply more dates with a larger focus on fan favourites would suffice. The public anticipation (or great relief after rumour-upon-rumour) directed towards the reunion reminds us that not one single chart-bothering band has emerged with one iota of the timelessness, natural giftedness, invention, wit and poignancy of Albarns’ combo during the largely piss-weak, polished, diluted, shallow, backwards and scenester-friendly 2000s UK guitar scene.
It has also been pleasing to note the instantaneous vanishing of the Kaiser Chiefs since the announcement of these gigs.
More false promises!
No, I'm really back this time! This is actually the only thing I'm good at therefore it makes sense to try and build up some momentum. The imminent piece was actually accepted and uploaded by someone, would you believe.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Back For Good
Hey kids, time to exhume blogging duties. Now I'm actually submitting stuff to certain publications I'm hoping the worst of the writer's block is over. I've seen a fair few gigs recently and enjoyed venturing down musical paths that I had previously shied away from, so let's get the ball rolling...
WET PAINT
Channel M Studios
Manchester
29th January 2009
Comprising 60% of Absentee, and James Wignall of Economy Wolf, Wet Paint visit Channel M's Manchester studios at short notice this afternoon, replacing the 'tired' Of Montreal, who gig at the Academy in the evening. Currently touring with Bloc Party, the four-piece make a convincing, introspective clatter, seemingly inspired by the best bits of the late 80's / early 90's slacker movement, and embody very little in the way of traditional British guitar music, channeling generous amounts of Pavement and Dinosaur Jr into their sound rather than nodding to any cliched UK lineage of Kinks and Smiths, although some raw Coxon-esque fretwork is evident in several of their tunes this afternoon, although it's more 'Coffee and TV' than 'Country House'.
Tweaking their usual setlist for this pre-recorded TV performance, Wet Paint offer up half a dozen slices of vulnerable, scuzzy lo-fi, incorporating guitars that clang and shimmer in equal measure, solemn yet impassioned basslines, and moshpit friendly drumming. Vocals are buried shyly in the mix but singer Babak Ganjei is more than capable of a cathartic Cobain throaty growl as well as a Malkmus drawl when required.
Wet Paint may never achieve blanket radio play and promotion but with their understated, DIY image and college rock sound they are a kind reminder of when the alternative music scene offered shelter for the outsider rather than empty credibility for the scenester.
WET PAINT
Channel M Studios
Manchester
29th January 2009
Comprising 60% of Absentee, and James Wignall of Economy Wolf, Wet Paint visit Channel M's Manchester studios at short notice this afternoon, replacing the 'tired' Of Montreal, who gig at the Academy in the evening. Currently touring with Bloc Party, the four-piece make a convincing, introspective clatter, seemingly inspired by the best bits of the late 80's / early 90's slacker movement, and embody very little in the way of traditional British guitar music, channeling generous amounts of Pavement and Dinosaur Jr into their sound rather than nodding to any cliched UK lineage of Kinks and Smiths, although some raw Coxon-esque fretwork is evident in several of their tunes this afternoon, although it's more 'Coffee and TV' than 'Country House'.
Tweaking their usual setlist for this pre-recorded TV performance, Wet Paint offer up half a dozen slices of vulnerable, scuzzy lo-fi, incorporating guitars that clang and shimmer in equal measure, solemn yet impassioned basslines, and moshpit friendly drumming. Vocals are buried shyly in the mix but singer Babak Ganjei is more than capable of a cathartic Cobain throaty growl as well as a Malkmus drawl when required.
Wet Paint may never achieve blanket radio play and promotion but with their understated, DIY image and college rock sound they are a kind reminder of when the alternative music scene offered shelter for the outsider rather than empty credibility for the scenester.
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