T In The Park Diary - Part 2

News of Saturday night's stabbing at T In the Park (TITP) won’t surprise those who've denounced the 15-year-old festival as an uncultured Ned extravaganza. But, as anyone who spent more than a minute in the presence of 80,000 revellers yesterday will testify, this is a tragic one off. Aye, a gaggle of Scots after an ale or twelve can be an intimidating proposition but the vast majority are here to get off their tits amidst a backdrop of sweet (although sometimes very sour – step forth Mr Will Young) music. And the few who're not? Well, they're the sort of cunts you get everywhere, be it Balado, Glasto or outside your local off-license.

Now, I'm not here to stick up for Geoff Ellis, DF or the Scottish booze behemoth that is Tennent's - all three are more than capable of doing so themselves with much more professionalism than I ever could - but TITP, despite its many detractors, is a welcoming, all-embracing festival devoid of snobbery and fizzing with bubbles of lager-induced character. For one appalling incident to overshadow the entire event would be a sorry and entirely unworthy way to remember what's shaping up to be another cracking weekend and, perhaps sensing the story may no longer be how many litres of alcohol they've consumed in 72 hours, today's frolickers have begun the Sabbath exactly as they finished last night: Pished.

For some reason, I'm a little more delicate; yesterday's booze-drenched hilarity is wreaking havoc on my puny excuse of a nervous system, leaving me frustratingly dehydrated in the heat of a sweat-invoking afternoon sun. So, it's with not much more than a shuffling of foot that I enter The Pet Sounds Arena to find local jingle-spurters 1990s kicking off today’s proceedings. The trio's hi-NRG power-pop appears to be flavour of the month with a soiree of checked-shirt fashionistas whose achingly nimble limbs combust to the sound of clunking guitars chopping over a rash of pitifully composed couplets (seriously, you should hear the kindergarten mutterings of ‘The Box’). Sensing this is not exactly the tantalising Sunday brunch I’d envisaged, I make a speedy retreat to Camp Media for a hangover-quelling feast of sausages, wine gums and olives.

Belly filled and sweats adequately contained, Southampton quartet The Delays are next on my agenda. Not being so clued-up on the group's forceful symphonic pleadings, I toddle along with a fellow scribe who irritably informs me their set is top-loaded with cuts from new long-player Everything’s The Rush. In all honesty it makes no odds to me, every track sounds exactly as follows: pristinely polished indie-fizz accompanied by a terse falsetto that never quite manages to touch base. All in all, it's a bit meh yet bizarrely a vast crowd of scenesters buzz about the tent like bluebottles would a freshly laid jobby. It's a curious sight indeed, but once some oh-so-cunny funt blurts out ”That's not my name” every time a pal hollers - what I presume is - his birth-name, it doesn’t take long to establish the excrement they're awaiting is head-fucking chart reprobates The Ting Tings.

Quickly deciding this basal-needs pandering scuzz-pop definitely ain’t for me, I head back to the media bubble to find a group of hacks deliberating over whether some lusciously-locked fella chatting up TV presenters is a celebrity or not. This riveting conversation concludes with one journo shamelessly showing off an uncanny knowledge of all things Friends before we form a huddle and brave the scorching (well, warm) Scottish sunshine to catch Battles at the Pet Sounds Arena. An incessant wrath of disorientating chaos, the New Yorkers’ performance perfectly encapsulates the essence of the TITP audience: utterly fucked but somehow pulling it off with guile and panache. The jitterbug machine-gunnery of ‘Atlas’ is, of course, an enraptured crowd favourite but ‘Tonto’ and ‘Tij’ feel better suited to today’s surroundings, so blistered and fragmented are their prog-styled leanings.

Glands now completely free of yesterday’s boozing, I grab my first pint before failing to impinge upon a rammed King Tut’s Stage for Vampire Weekend. Slightly disheartened, I stop kicking my heals and scoot along to The Futures Stage where New York combo Yeasayer are setting up their effervescent shop filled with tribal rhythmic treats. Having fingered my way through a distinctly mixed bag of recent live reviews I’m not expecting much but, frankly, their set is a revelation. Speckled with glorious rays of sun-soaked melodies, tracks like the dewy saunter of ‘Wait For The Summer’ and ‘2080’’s evocative séance are heart-moistening blushes of cascading drums and slinking effects that elate the spirits of the few who’ve come to greet the band’s harmonious endeavours. It’s a joyous, transcendental affair and it’s with a new found skip and a hop that I make a dash for The Relentless Tent with high hopes for DiS faves Johnny Foreigner.

After hearing the Brum-based trio before even reaching said tent, my lugholes are quickly bludgeoned by a swathe of zealous guitar and furious percussion once inside. The levels are far, far too loud and although I’m sure “JoFo blew the roof of that Mofo” (or however you kids say 'were good' these days) I pick up my pipe, slippers and Wine Gums and swiftly depart to the Pet Sounds Arena, eagerly anticipating The National’s (pictured) imminent arrival. Admittedly torn between this and Frightened Rabbit’s ill-timed set at the T-Break Stage, the second Matt Berninger’s baritonal crow flickers out over the opening notes of ‘Start A War’ all inner turmoil is appeased. A staggering showing lit up by the group’s air-tight instrumentation, these Brooklyn-born miserablists flutter heart-strings with a gorgeous ‘Baby, We’ll Be Fine’ before enveloping listening ears in the thick, macabre mist of the cacophonous ‘Fake Empire’.

As the sun plunges below the horizon after triumphant closer ‘Mr November’, the only sensible way to shake off this deep-seated sensitivity is to find Holy Fuck at the Relentless Stage and let loose (although some seem to prefer cutting loose) on the dancefloor. The quartet’s filthy-funk grooves whirr from stage while incessant, scattershot effects hop-scotch their way into the burning rubber of fleet-footed soles, demanding all bow down to the quartet’s artillery of blitzkrieg beats. It’s a hyperactive ransack of a show that cuts rug quicker than Speedy Gonzales on a carpentry course and, at just thirty minutes, sadly lasts just as long. So, with TITP’s final curtain soon set to draw, it’s decision time. Who’s it going be? Primal Scream? R.E.M.? The Prodigy? Nah, somewhat foolishly I put my money on Brian Jonestown Massacre (BJM) at the Pet Sounds Arena.

With the headliner only this morning announced, a substantial congregation arrives somehow under the impression The View are to be appearing. Thankfully they’re not, but needless to say the baying masses are nae too impressed when BJM take to the stage and a blanket strike of plastic cups once again fizzles through the air, rattling the noggin of tambourine tapper Joel Gion. Never one to swallow his words, frontman Anton Newcombe turns nasty - lambasting us as “pussies” and “cunts” – and all of a sudden things seem like they're gonna get interesting. Only they don’t. Four-thousand attendees rapidly diminish into 500 and BJM produce one of the dullest end-of-festival finales TITP has ever seen. As one disheartened punter perfectly surmises, BJM are “as bland as Salt ‘n’ Shake - sans salt” and I, like many others here, make my way home from Balado for the final time.

And that’s it: the end. It’s been a rough and often frantic weekend but I’ve survived intact and somehow rejuvenated my faith in the great British music festival, no matter the inhumane actions of a small few. So, farewell T In The Park 2008, it’s been one hell of a blast.

T In The Park Diary - Part 1

Surviving the weekend at T In The Park requires a strong heart and a sturdy liver but, judging by the multitude of urine waggling wangs that welcomes belated festival goers into Balado, such resolute functionality doesn’t extend to matters of the bladder. Quickly bypassing this full-mooned greeting of 100 shit-faced Scotsmen, I (hello!) venture forth into the Media Centre to devise some sort of structure to the next two days of ensuing chaos. Having already missed Friday's “amazing” line-up containing The Verve, The Wombats and KT Tunstall I’ve been praying Saturday's running order can muster up some sort of musical treat upon which my lugholes can feast.

Alas, the initial outlook is bleaker than the overbearing skyline. The mid-afternoon triumvirate of Kate Nash, Will Young and Sharleen Spiteri (lovingly dubbed the 'Holy Trinity o’ Shite' by certain cynics) ain't exactly tickling this rather parched scribe's fancy and a late night finale of Rage Against The Machine smacks of nowt but cash-hungry retrospection. So, what to do, what to do? Well, after a swift half at the bar and a couple of pig-wrapped sausages (seriously, it's like Christmas come early) I scarper over to The Main Stage to find Eddy Grant kicking off proceedings with a summertime splurge of dancehall friendly reggae. It's a solid opening set - consumed by ‘Electric Avenue’’s synth-bulging gusto - but after witnessing Eddy's all-too literal take on knob-twiddling musicianship I decide to refuel with some fellow-minded hacks (i.e. alcohol ravaged ex-university chums) and head across to catch Haight-Ashbury manning an almost empty T-Break Tent.

The local trio's courteous strums and beatific harmonies are pretty enough if Sunday-morning Belle & Sebasitanism's your thing but with Mr Sun nudging his sweaty coupon through the clouds it’s painfully clear the 20 or so folk nodding appreciatively in this dank cavern are obligated only through bloodline and friendship. So, with a spring in my sneakers, I mosey the fuck on out to find myself confronted by Kate Nash whining nasally from the Main Stage to anyone who'll listen (somehow that's A LOT of folk). Two songs down, and with roughly the same number of fingers plugging the sockets that allow her screeching yelps to penetrate my brain-box, I’ve had my fill and brave the trek beyond the Bacardi Tent’s pill-head mafia in the hope that Will Young can stop the rot in the Pet Sounds Arena.

Yeah I know, what the fuck was I thinking?

Whoever believed showcasing an ex-Pop Idol winner was a good idea should be forced to write a letter of resignation in the blood of their pencil-sharpened genitals. Young is no doubt a fine vocalist in the right setting (where? Answers on a postcard please) but here he’s a novelty act; an irksome, curiosity-feeding, barrel-scraping clown. And as he patronises the crowd with token Proclaimers ditties and feeble attempts at replicating traditional Scottish dance, it’s of no surprise when a flurry of piss-filled pints begin to fly stagewards. I’m sure there’re those who’ll have enjoyed his emotion-bereft nu-soul mewing but there’s absolutely nae chance his performance could be considered a triumph, begging the question: what was the point?

While pondering this conundrum and a passing security guard’s equally relevant poser “What kind of name is the fucking Pigeon Detectives anyway?”, I decide this Holy Trinity lark's definitely not for me and skip the Texas-frontwoman-cum-Tunstall-bandwagon-jumper's set to find an utterly yawnsome Lightspeed Champion going through the motions like he’ll no doubt do at every one of the ten-thousand festivals he’s playing this summer. Trying desperately not to succumb to this water-treading snoozefest, I make my retreat to the Meeja Centre where some genius/fool has left a booze-filled bar unlocked and, more to the point, unmanned. Deciding it would be rude and - at £3.40 an on-site pint - stupid not to, a few five-fingered swallies are downed before jostling through the gates of an absolutely rammed Futures Stage where Glasvegas are about to step up to the fore.

In normal surroundings the Weegie quartet are at best humdrum indie-stargazers, at worst the diabolical cousins of fellow shit-janglers The View, but none of this matters right now because what unfolds in the confines of this bulging, sweat-soaked tent is the accumulation of every arse licking tribute you’ve ever read about a Scottish crowd. The moment the Strummer-like figure of James Allen sets foot on stage this place erupts as pure, unadulterated pandemonium: a storm of plastic glasses besieges the sky, beer-titted chests are thumped with violent pride and every brogue-strained word of ‘Daddy’s Gone’ is recited like the purple tin drinker's national anthem of choice. I have never, ever experienced anything like it and as punters from all sides threaten unequivocal violence upon me for even considering penning something derogatory about their idols, I can confirm this: Glasvegas fans are fucking mental. Shame about the band.

Finally escaping the Future Stage’s baseball capped clutches after a remarkably short set from ‘The Vegas’ I find myself in the cusp of The Twilight Sad’s even brisker showing over at the T-Break Stage. Pleasantly spacious compared to what I’d endured only minutes before, the setting’s not quite tailored to the group’s chiselling sonics and tracks like ‘Cold Days From The Birdhouse’ and ‘That Summer, At Home…’ sound limper and less intense than what’s so often experienced in more intimate climes. But this is The Twilight Sad and the prerequisite of life-affirming lyricism bound by crashing instrumentation still rings true, especially as vocalist James Graham seems intent on adopting a disposition that oozes confrontation; staring rabid-eyed at the crowd while hollering feverously about “putin’ the boot in” to his petrified prey.

With the adrenaline now pumping like a speed-freaking Dwain Chambers eying up a place on the British Olympic team, I shuffle along to the Relentless Tent in the hope that Fucked Up (pictured) are as exhilarating as their expletive-strewn moniker suggests. I’m not disappointed. Led by elasticated podge-meister Damian Abraham, the Toronto-based quintet launch into a head-fucking, sensor-crunching, ear-bleeding brawl of a set that’d be entirely unlistenable on record but is absolutely hypnotic live. Central to this bewildering brilliance is Abraham. Catapulting across stage like an uninhibited flesh-hankering beast, the bearded man-mountain demands attention through sheer girth alone before shooting out onto the 30-odd revellers below, displaying a spectacular array of gravity defying acrobatics. It’s the finest, most choleric 30 minutes of the day and as the sun begins to set on a completely intoxicated Balado my thoughts begin to focus on just who to have my final dance with tonight at T.

Enduring the opening three numbers from Rage Against The Machine’s “incredible” (so say the faction of RATM loving journos who were moshing stageside) set is more than enough for me and I trek back to the Relentless Stage praying that Fucked Up have decided to re-emerge. Unfortunately, all that remains is shrieking Canadian’s Cancer Bats, whose brand of maniacal hardcore is alluring enough to hold the attention but, ultimately, as inspiring as the sound of a leaden pole being battered continuously against the temples. So, guessing it’s time to call it a day, I saunter off through the exit’s ever-expanding sea of piss and clamber on to the relative safety of a bus back to Edinburgh. After a day like this, Christ only knows what Sunday will bring...

DiS MySpace Trail #5

Here's a little feature I wrote for Drowned In Sound recently. The real thing can be found here..

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Greetings ramblers and welcome to the latest instalment of our mighty fine MySpace Trail series. This being feature number five, we’re sure you already know the script, but just in case you somehow overlooked the last four outings of spanking social-network strolling here’s the idea:

DiS introduces you to a ream of exciting new acts via the starting point of one fairly established band, e.g. #4 saw us kicking off with iLIKETRAINS and ending up taking in the extraordinary sounds of Nottingham outfit Mint Ive.

This month we’re leading with the outstanding Frightened Rabbit (pictured, top), a band currently riding a wave of critical acclaim following their excellent April release The Midnight Organ Fight, which already looks destined to nuzzle itself within many a hack’s end-of-year hitlist.

The rules themselves are fairly simple: we jaunt from top friends to top friends on each artist’s MySpace page, eight times; where we wind up, we don’t know ‘til we get there. Exciting, huh? Oh aye, one last thing, remember to click the artist names for the necessary MySpace links. Here goes…

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Frightened Rabbit

If you’ve not heard of Selkirk-born songsmiths Frightened Rabbit by now, well, you’ve not been reading DiS over the past six months have you? DiScovered by us at the tail end of last year following the release of swooshing debut long-player Sing The Greys (review), the Fat Cat-signed quartet’s sophomore record The Midnight Organ Fight (review) has been met with a salivating fountain of ink-smudged superlatives. Stabbing together clusters of escalating rhythms and soul-searching lyricism, they’ve already become one of the UK’s must-see live acts. So much so, it would take a brave man to suggest global domination is lurking anywhere but round the next corner.

Play: ‘Fast Blood’ may be The Midnight Organ Fight's next single but ‘The Twist’’s incessant key chimes and heavy-hearted vocals are at the cornerstone of Frightened Rabbit’s sound: spine-tingling, embracive and absolutely encapsulating.

Endor

As their MySpace pull-tag succinctly puts it, Endor are “a simple band for simple people”. But don’t let that put you off, as the Glaswegian four-piece’s hook-bound melodies have been concocted by a detailed jigsaw of instrumentation all lovingly pieced together to create rousing streams of breezy, Celtic-tinged jangling. Following on from the release of two sterling early-days singles, the band have this year seen an already buxom fanbase swell through support slots with kindred spirits Lightspeed Champion and Semifinalists. Not quite ready to be placed in the same bracket as Broken Records or, the aforementioned Frightened Rabbit, Endor are sure to be knocking on the nation's welcoming door of indiedom by the end of 2008.

Play: ‘Fly Straight’ is a trembling, understated stomp that weeps with the traditional myopic charm of Fence luminary King Creosote.

We Were Promised Jetpacks

Despite being blessed with the sci-fi nerd’s band name of choice, Central Belt-based foursome We Were Promised Jetpacks (WWPJ) seem to have been lingering around the Scottish music scene for aeons without ever threatening to venture out from its insular safe-haven. But finally their time has come. Seething with a new found intent, their crisp, flighty choruses and sure-footed narratives are bolder and more purposeful than ever before, recalling Postcard-era jingle-poppery bludgeoned by a Smiths-like penchant for lyrical dexterity. Far removed from the sonic moroseness that’s long been a staple north of the border, WWPJ look set for lift-off in the very near future.

Play: It may only be a live recording but ‘Roll Up Your Sleeves’ is the perfect introduction to WWPJ, full of frantic guitars and scattershot percussion led by a rasping Scottish brogue.

El Padre

As much as these Myspace Trail features are intended as a careful signposted introductory pack for you to, y’know, DiScover some startling new sounds, it seems DiS has joined you in this process of blindfold learning. Aye, we’ve gotta admit, Glaswegian trio El Padre have completely slipped under our radar, yet we’re not entirely sure how. Their homemade synth-dazzled crankings are, quite frankly, a revelation; rumbling with dark layers of keys, drum-loops and guitar all smothered in Bobby Jacksonson’s fragile crow. Quite how they’ve got here is anybody’s guess (i.e. nae information’s available on t’internet and they’ve only produced one demo EP) but rest assured an excitable DiS will be doing its best to find out more in the coming months.

Play: The effects-riddled ‘Monsters In The Blue’ is a transient sprawl of synths and riff that’s as euphoric as any New Order number and just as infectious.

Ross Clark

Five steps into this eight-story MySpace Trail and a woefully unfit DiS needs to take a breather, so it’s lucky for us we’ve stumbled upon scruffbag singer/songwriter Ross Clark. Now, wistful guitar playing stool-sitters are not normally our bag, but this Glasgow-based troubadour creates wind-blowing acoustic lullabies of such striking beauty it’s impossible not to be captivated by his lonesome, fireside mew and choppy fret-picking. Already picking up a plethora of praise in the dog-eared pages of the local press, Ross’ stirring nomadic psalms rest steadily in the fissure between James Yorkston and Daniel Johnson. With a debut single out this month and an album set to follow, a bright future surely beckons for this charm-oozing romantic.

Play: ‘Anthem In Clams’’s world-weary brooding and hushed strums melt the heart with the same touching poignancy as Dylan’s Simple Twist Of Fate did all those years ago.

Y’all Is Fantasy Island

With a name like Y’all Is Fantasy Island (YIFI), the Falkirkian quartet could easily be cast aside as blinged-up hip-hop merchants by uneducated ears. Yet, theirs is a sound that is nothing of the sort. Containing melodious wreaths of doom-laden Americana, 2006’s debut album In Faceless Towns Forever and this year’s Wise Blood Industries-released Rescue Weekend have drawn a multitude of comparisons with fellow hometown misers Arab Strap. DiS can’t quite see it – there’s a definite sprite of hope residing in their gloomy paeans that’s missing from Moffat and Middleton’s self-effacing soundscapes – but what we can see is this: YIFI should be welcomed into your heart like an orphan from the cold.

Play: Perhaps not quite fitting in tandem with YIFI’s mournful predisposition, the jaunting ‘With Handclaps’ teems down with a glorious barrage of riff and drum that expands into a ragged, infectious chorus.

De Rosa

Anyone whose ears were entranced by De Rosa’s inaugural long-player, 2006’s Chemikal Underground-released Mend, will know just how criminally underrated this band are. Creators of idyllic, soaring Scot-pop, the Lanarkshire outfit’s debut was quilted with shivering anthems and withering laments, providing a refreshing antithesis to the luminous art-school froth exploding from both sides of the M8 at the time. Back in the studio to record album number two, the quartet have been posting demos from their Chem19 sessions as a teaser to its imminent release and from what DiS has heard it sounds every bit as astonishing as its predecessor. Perhaps this time someone will finally stand up and take notice.

Play: A moody blues bassline and creeping guitar fused with Marting Henry’s whispered vocal renders ‘The Sea Cup’ as, quite simply, the best thing De Rosa have recorded thus far.

Foxface

And here we are, right at the foot of step number eight and how fitting it is that this tartan-clad trail should finish with the rambunctious sound of Foxface. While the likes of The Fratellis and The View were off whoring themselves to every cubicle-dwelling A&R man who’d listen, this Glaswegian trio stuck to the age-old maxim of ‘gig, gig, gig’ – and what wonders it’s done. Sure, they’ll never be a band that coins it in financially but after a string of far-from-perfect early showings they’ve overcome their demons to emerge as one of the most rabid bands in Scotland today. Debut LP This Is What Makes Us was met with warm if not glowing reviews, but their blend of breakneck, early Sons & Daughters-esque stomps brushed against purified arable folk makes for an exhilarating live experience.

Play: The rockabilly horror-schlock of ‘Face Looks Familiar’ is a scintillating zenith that shrieks with inner-band tension.

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Over, out. Happy DiScovering, and see you for more of the same when we next hit the MySpace Trail.

ALBUM REVIEW: The Presets - Apocalypso!

“Scream if you want to go faster.”

Fuck, I hate that phrase. Ever since spending my first day of Fresher’s Week, sitting glum-pussed in a run-down shack watching hoards of fellow students dousing their livers with a luminous soiree of cocktails, it’s been a saying that transmits cringing shivers down my spine. On its own, the combination of vowels and consonants may seem relatively harmless, but those six little words are always – always - accompanied by two soul-sucking constants: a pissed up letch pitifully attempting to be hip with the kids (no matter how ironic his attempts may seem) and the spasticated sound of Neanderthalic, chart-bound techno.

Without context the above paragraph no doubt resembles the semi-intoxicated rant of an ageing, snotty-nosed hack whose idea of fun is slurping coffee on a Sunday morning while trawling through the entirety of Etta James’ back catalogue, but if you’re reading this while listening to The Presets’ Apocalypso I’d wager you know exactly where I’m coming from. See, the Aussie-born duo of Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes’ second long-player may not churn out swathes of Scooter-like filth but this is a record - both lyrically and musically - that fully embraces such incorrigible idealism.

For those accustomed only to The Presets’ through saucer-eyed floor stomper ‘Are You The One’ such accusations will come as no surprise, so bolshy was the cut of its surging, bass-hungry jib. However, the track’s long-play parent, 2005’s Beams, instilled an undercurrent of intelligence to its pulsating mainframe of industrialised electronica. Granted, some truly awful moments of delinquent-styled loin-burning were found lurking within - the innuendo laced ‘Down, Down, Down’ being a tragic nadir - but a few well-groomed instrumentals like ‘Black Mountain’ suggested record number two may serve up a distinctly more challenging selection of sonic delights.

Yet rather than turning their creative talents on to full beam, it seems the Sydney Music School drop-outs have dimmed the lights even further with the release of Apocalypso. Awash with diluted beats and token ‘80s synths, everything here – from the sub-par Green Velvet-like romp ‘Kicking And Screaming’ to the fist-pumping surge of ‘Together’ - feels like an attempt to muster approval from the weekend-living, brain-frozen pillheads who frequent Pete Tong-curated festivals. For sure, it’s a brutal, hyper-paced affair, tempered with moments of unaffected bombast (in particular the rampaging ‘My People’, single review) that lend themselves to the embracive unity of clubland, but the record’s instincts are so basal it appears evolution is the last thing from the minds of The Presets.

Unsurprisingly, a spate of lascivious lyricism is central to much of Apocalypso’s hip-grinding output, with Hamilton promising “Baby, tonight the world belongs to you and I” like a brazen, credit-happy playboy during ’This Boy’s In Love’'s key-scattered dropkick. Worse still is horror-schlock squeal ’Talk Like That’, a track that finds our love-hungry frontman attempting to wriggle into his prey’s undergarments with bricklike subtlety, slavering “My how you’ve grown, I think I’ll call you on the telephone and tell you all the things that I’ve been missing” atop vampire organ chimes and an elasticised, throbbing bassline that's monumentally let down by such primitive wordplay.

Despite such wormlike mutterings it’s Apocalypso’s linearity that disappoints most. Track’s like ‘Eucalyptus’ and ‘Yippiyo-Ay’ set off as springy, funk-laden bed-hoppers - splicing together glitch-riddled effects and Hamilton’s regal vocal to create intriguing cuts of jerking, piston-charged electro - only to be stripped bare midway to re-build as one final, dramatic crescendo. It’s without doubt a formula designed for the dancefloor and one that works immaculately in a live setting but at home, with only a mug of kettle-boiled caffeine to stimulate the senses, this euphoria-inducing trick leads only to pent-up infuriation that eventually reaches its way to the eject button.

Closing number ‘Anywhere’ at least attempts to furrow the record forward, streaming out minimal surges of electronica that exudes the gothic doomsaying of Depeche Mode peppered with LCD Soundsystem’s more ambient excursions. But as Hamilton lecherously bellows out “Deeper, I know you want it / Faster, I know you want it” over a flurry of transient synths my spine begins to shiver and that all too familiar cringe immerses itself across my body. The Presets may not have demanded I scream this time but, judging by what Apocalypso has to offer, I'm pretty sure it's coming.

Rating: 5/10
Out 29 June through

ALBUM REVIEW: The Loose Salutes - Tuned To Love

With the sun resting high above the skyline and sweat-beads trickling down the line-burrowed foreheads of early-morning commuters, now seems like the perfect time for The Loose Salute to release their debut long-player Tuned To Love. That’s not to say the Cornwall-based quintet’s predilection for sweetly coined country twanging couldn’t prosper in more temperate seasons, but the record’s feel-good glow is entirely in keeping with the carefree lounging of an early summer’s eve, iced cocktail in hand while a contented bluster of inane chitter-chatter flows long into the night.

Contrived by ex-Mojave 3 sticksman Ian McCutcheon and the breathlessly toned Laura Bilson, The Loose Salute draw parallels with much maligned tune-churners The Magic Numbers, brandishing reams of melancholic, self-examining vignettes over blushing melodic tempos. But whereas the sibling-spawned quartet’s soaring ditties are firmly of the major-key, there’s an ever-present feel of scuffling understatement to Tuned To Love that’s occasionally as endearing as a bubble-gum blowing toddler, but more often feebler than a coffin-dodging geriatric.

Permeated with chirpy glockenspiel twinkles and carousel-twirling keys, opening number ‘Death Club’ initially sets off as a fuller-bodied The Boy Least Likely To, bristling to the cowboy-like saunter of harmonies and banjo while McCutcheon coos reminiscently over days of yore. Brittle and melodious, it’s a dew-soaked spine-tingler that should pace-make for the wealth of paddling-pool janglery to come. Disappointingly, what prevails is a more whimsical, disposable proposition, weighed down by stop-start jitters of flagging self-confidence and swathes of preposterous, stomach-churning lyricism.

The problem is that very little here sticks. Tracks like the mundane ‘Photographs and Tickets’ and the stagnant ‘Why’d We Fight?’ bypass attention spans like a mascara-adorning teen would a family trip to the Lake District, and as the record progresses it becomes increasingly apparent that such instances of banality are almost all accosted by Bilson’s wilful purr. Undoubtedly blessed with a smouldering set of pipes, her Nashville-aping vocal borders constantly on the puerile, particularly during the woeful ‘Turn The Radio Up’ as she dispassionately declares “I’ll drive you right out of my mind” to a fella who – judging by the languid amalgamation of guitar, bass and piano – would have bought her the motor himself just to escape the tune’s lumbering tedium.

When McCutcheon takes the reins a rich picturebook splendour radiates from the vivid word-plays of the muted ‘Ballad Of The Dumb Angel’ and ‘The Mutineer’’s woozy, ethereal floating, while the title track’s barn-stomping blues finds him crowing like a cherry cola-slurping Dylan as a runaway train of steel-guitar and organ keys hurries alongside. Yet despite such crisply composed endeavours, The Loose Salute all too often dawdle in the mundane, seemingly unsure as to how to navigate themselves on the road to the simple, ebullient songsmithery they crave to create.

Sure, there are moments of blue-sky soaring beauty tucked away in this collection of fey, pop-country cuts but, perhaps mirroring the inconsistencies of a typical British summer, Tuned To Love is very much a disappointing damp squib.

Rating: 4/10

Out now through Heavenly

Back in business...

Blimey, it’s been a while since I’ve bothered to type anything into these here pages so I’m assuming I’ve lost any reader who once frequented this shambolic excuse for a blog. Anyway, I’m like, y’know, whatever…

So I’ve been away from these shores for a while only to return to discover that football is on television constantly and that there really is fuck all music about right now. Well, that’s not strictly true, there are numerous records/bands I've
enjoyed immensely (see the Subtle and Times New Viking reviews below) but for the most part the musique I’ve been sent recently has been of a pretty low standard (you wait for two of my next three reviews to turn up and you’ll see what I mean).

But not to dwell on the negatives, I’ve posted some of my most recent articles underneath and, as way of an apology for being AWOL for so long, I thought I’d rattle off some blurbage about a few of the bands who've tickled my fancy of late...

El Guincho
Okay so this guy is a genius whose sense of grandiose melodics is comparable to Animal Collective’s Panda Bear. His debut album Alegranza! is a kaleidoscopic swarm of Latino rhythms and floor-stomping beat-splicing that lifts you into a giddy, unapologetic haze of euphoria. It’s truly a wonderful, bottomless pit of a record and one that’s become the perfect remedy to the pressure that is my working week.

Dananananakroyd
So the name has to be sung and it’s a bitch to write but these Glaswegian screech-merchants have made a cracking debut EP in the shape of Sissy Hits. For some reason I feel like they’ve been about for aeons but they’re only now breaking into the spotlight. A squinty-eyed, jittery beast of an EP, Sissy Hits reminds me a little of early Manics only with a lot more flair and far, far less pretension.

The Cool Kids
An editor suggested I've become more hip-hop orientated these days but to be honest I’ve always enjoyed it, there’s just not been much that’s intrigued me of late – that is until now. The Cool Kids EP scrawls genius beats against Olympic sprinting rhymes that veer headlong into your conscious. As they say themselves, there’s a bit of the Beasties to their sound but if you dig deep enough traces of Ugly Duckling's feel good glow emanate under each idiosyncratic cut.

The Ruby Suns
For a more detailed description see my review down below but this band are staggering, simple as that. Their new record Sea Lion displays all the intricacies of Animal Collective meshed together with the Beach Boys’ harmonic splendour. Believe me, you need to see this band live.

Ulysses Campbell
This is an odd one. For some reason I found Ulysses Campbell's debut LP Color It All dwelling inside my I-Pod yet have absolutely no idea where it’s come from. Nonetheless it's a good 'un and despite the inaccurate spelling of the word ‘colour’, this is a down-trodden slice of harpsichordal, bedroom bound pop that proves itself just as affecting as any of the above groups pristinely polished offerings. Oh, it’s also free to download on his Myspace by all accounts.

ALBUM REVIEW: The Heart Strings - Try Fly Blue Sky

Everyone loves a spot of goody two shoes indie-pop jangling, right? Nah, me neither. But, try as I might, I just can’t bring myself to hate it. There’s nothing remotely inspiring about a flush of glockenspiel and brass floating feyly across some namby-pamby sub-GCSE poetry about dunking Jammy Dodgers into mugs of lukewarm Earl Grey yet, at the same tine, there’s little particularly offensive about it. Which is perhaps the most infuriating thing of all: such sterile sonic monotony does absolutely fuck-all to provoke opinion one way or the other.

Strangely, in the release of Try Fly Blue Sky it seems The Heart Strings are determined to prove themselves the quintessential embodiment of this uninspiring, insipid ‘meh’ mongering. A dashing, summertime splash of good time melodics, London-based twins Todd and Max Roache’s inaugural long-player fully embraces cooing pop-pukers The Feeling’s teeth-rotting candy-isms yet attempts to shoogle out of such incorrigible unhipness by styling itself on the pristine multi-layered preening of Sufjan Stevens and Stars.

Immaculately sheened by Midlake and Guillemots producer Julian Simmons, Try Fly Blue Sky is bulging with dreamy, sky-reaching soundscapes all dipped in an Enid Blyton-esque sense of escapism. Slow-burning tracks like ‘General Sherman’ and ‘Pedalo’ ooze a heavenly, child-like simplicity that’s cutesy and alluring in its own charming manner but so heavily sprinkled with xylophone chimes and parping brass are both it begins to feel like overcompensation for the stale, taste-bereft cake that lies underneath.

With couplets like “And thus began a summer camp sonnet / she saw a boy who would soon be a bee in her teenage bonnet” it’s impossible not to squirm throughout the whispering ‘Nina and Her Very Long Hair’, despite whatever virtues its escalating flutter of keys may exhale. Similarly embedded with corduroy-clad teen-tweeisms, the likes of ‘Cannonball Stan’ and opener ‘Kids’ continue this vein of daintily composed arrangements that swoop away the heart, leaving behind a sickly taste of winsome romanticism with their love-struck tales of kryptonite-pilfering and gleeful human cannonballs.

A moment of genuine tenderness resides in ‘He Wanted To Flay And He Flew’’s luscious, string laden jauntiness but the drib-drab la-la-la-ing of ‘Her New Disasters’ curtails this attempt at over-throwing the clutches of maudlin indie-popdom with a stream of stagnant, token lyricism best suited to the love-letters of a hormone-crazed fifteen year old. And herein lies Try Fly Blue Sky’s overwhelming flaw: every whimsical ditty floats along without ever calling attention to itself. It may not be intentional but The Heart Strings’ ever-present sanguinity is the only thing here that actually does create an opinion.

Rating: 4/10

Out now through some record label i havent written down an quite honestly I can't be bothered looking for...

LIVE REVIEW: Times New Viking @ Studio 24, Fri 23 May

Having spent an evening in the presence of shit-shivering screech-merchants Times New Viking I’m no longer sure quite how I feel. What would have passed off as normal, pitch perfect hearing has been bludgeoned to a dilapidated pulp by relentless throbs of seething white sonics, ensuring every sound my aching brainbox digests is accompanied by an insatiable, omnipresent ring. Yet I consider myself one of the fortunate few - Christ knows what those camped by the front are enduring after surviving the eardrum perforating siege that exploded from the stage tonight.

So was it worth it? Given the potential implications for long-term sensorial damage, an audiologist’s assessment would probably conclude no, but having been shaken to my spinal core by a dazzling thunderstorm of drum, guitar and keys for forty minutes it would be difficult to answer anything else but one big, fuck off, yes.

Bound by a decidedly shaky patchwork of bricks and mortar, the dimly lit cavern of Studio 24 is perhaps not the safest of settings for such an oscillating spectacle of sound, and as the Ohio-born trio take to the floor, the gathering hordes look distinctly uneasy amidst these brittle surroundings. Of course, they have every right to worry, because what unfolds is a pneumatic air strike of noise intent on drilling everything before it into the ground as shards of shattered bone.

Immediately penetrating temples with a Krakatau-like combustion of decibels, the group charge into their melody-strewn brand of dirtbag punk-scuzzery like a searing hot poker lusting after the acrid smell of burning flesh. Few pleasantries are exchanged between turbo-boosting air-slicers like the rambunctious ‘(My Head)’ or the fuzz-flurried ‘The Early 80s’, but then again I don’t suppose you’re likely to discuss the picturesque splendour of Edinburgh Castle when you’re throttling your prey to within an inch of its life.

As intent as they are on sprinting through this riotous sneer of a set, the group are clearly keen to show-boat their rapid-fire abilities. Drummer Adam Elliot is a hair-flailing beast of a percussionist, pounding his skins like an amphetamine-frazzled Tasmanian devil as he somehow spews out a croak of indecipherable vocals into his mic. But for all Elliot’s hi-NRG endeavours its Beth Murphy’s un-tameable limb contortions and pirouetting keys that steal the show; transforming feedback-dazed cutlets like ‘The Apt’ and ‘Faces On Fire’ into rainbow-blotted dashes of translucent melody, albeit with a rather abrasive, head-severing edge.

And this, in the most basic of marketing terms, is Times New Viking’s unique selling point: underneath the brazen mesh of rattle and drone lies a warm-hearted interior glazed with coatings of unaffected pop splendour. For some, the ringing may never quite cease but as tonight’s crowd ventures out onto Auld Reekie’s streets all thoughts of hearing aids are far from those hedge-draggled minds. After all, one man’s noise is another man’s nous, no matter what your audiologist may say.

Rating: 8/10

ALBUM REVIEW: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Sunday At Devil Dirt

Some people have all the luck. You know the ones I mean; the sort of folk who stride through life safe in the knowledge that Lady Fortune will prescribe yet another dose of opportunity upon which their dreams can be realised. It’s said that such fortuity favours the brave, yet when things like this and especially this happen it becomes increasingly difficult to believe that luck is anything other than a prerequisite of the privileged.It would be easy then to argue that mouse-shy Isobel Campbell is one of the luck-struck few.

Having been part of cultish twee-mongers Belle & Sebastian during, what was arguably, their most prodigious years, the Glaswegian-born songstress’ career nosedived on the release of her poorly received debut solo album (discounting two distinctly ‘meh’ Gentle Waves LPs) Amorino, leaving Campbell’s decision to flee Stuart Murdoch’s flock of bedtime reading jingle-janglers looking like a disastrous spot of self-aggrandised folly.

But then, as luck would have it, Campbell hit gold. By coaxing gravel-pit grizzly Mark Lanegan into collaborating on smoke-stained long-player Ballad Of The Broken Seas (review), the reticent cooer was transformed from corduroy-clad pin-up girl to ravishing, blues-smudged chanteuse. A devilish, fiery-eyed record exuding arresting tales of love, lust and loss, it was a remarkable juxtaposition of sandpaper and silk or, as many a hack would eagerly deduce, beauty and beast. Musically, Ballad… may not have been an entirely satisfying affair, but the stark contrast of Campbell’s sheenful purr brushed against Lanegan’s baritonal growl produced one of 2006’s most intriguing records.

Fast-forward two years and the unlikely Mercury Prize-nominated duo are once again caught in a smouldering embrace – but this time the element of surprise has disappointingly vanished. Album number two, Sunday At Devil Dirt, is comparable to the rekindling of an old flame; filled with memories of good times gone yet lacking the spark of fresh, unexplored pastures. Again penned almost entirely by Campbell before tweaked to fit Lanegan’s whisky-guzzled grumbling, there’s a distinct element of ‘seen it, done it, milking it’ to every rootsy, airsome shanty and, although executed with exemplary grace, it seems there’s not quite enough fuel left to stoke the fires of desire once more.

That’s not to say Sunday At Devil Dirt is an unmitigated catastrophe. Any record that contains the lachrymose presence of Lanegan and the smoky wafts of bromidic tone he exhales cannot fail to intrigue. But from the first brittle notes of ‘Seafaring Song’ it’s apparent that the enveloping captivation of Ballad… has disappeared, replaced with a stale, minor-key haze of strum and string while Campbell lingers sultrily in the background of Lanegan’s dilapidated crow. And it’s in this opening number’s formation where …Devil Dirt’s main problem derives.

For much of the proceeding 40-odd minutes Campbell appears so innately aware of her brutish accomplice’s ability to draw crowds she’s consigned herself to bit-part wing-woman. Tracks such as the sluggish ‘Salvation’ and gloom-laden ‘Something To Believe’ lack the sleight of touch her wistful mew provides, leaving what could be two heart-rousing duets to kick their heels in the dust-bitten rabble of Lanegan’s less than invigorated, bass-heavy growl. For sure, there are times when the ex-Screaming Trees frontman is an esteemed vocal exhilarant – adding an unequivocal snarl to ‘Back Burner’’s demanding voodoo-blues or the equally ravaged ‘The Raven’ – but, with Campbell’s main input confined to breezy harmonies, the likes of ‘Trouble’ and ‘Keep Me In Mind Sweetheart’ feel lonesome and bare-boned amidst a spate of perfunctorily arranged country laments.

When Campbell finally gets to have her say the results are heavenly: ‘Shot Gun Blues’ is a simmering bar-room rankle of steel guitar and vixen-like pleading while the tombstone bound ‘Who Built The Road’ writhes over a windswept tundra of melancholic chimes and eerie string arrangement. Yet such peaks too often succumb to Lanegan’s limelight-hogging, culminating in the beard-stroking boredom of closer ’Sally don’t You Cry’, a track that exits on such a whimper of humdrum couplets it could well have been scribed by a Johnny Cash-aping ten year old.

With Campbell’s second solo LP, 2006’s Milkwhite Sheets, barely garnering a crumb of acclaim in the pages of the unforgiving music press, it’s of no surprise to find her pulling out the stops with a double dose of prize-catch Lanegan. Yet, judging by the standards set on this less than sparkling offering, her lucky charm may be her eventual undoing.

Rating: 5/10

Out now through V2

ALBUM REVIEW: Eugene Francis Jnr - The Golden Beatle

If the merciless playground of secondary school taught its young male apprentices anything it was this: snivelling saps never get the girls. Aye sure, those tender strokes and understanding sighs may have fleetingly wooed the lasses whose hearts were shattered by Big Todd’s insatiable knicker-hopping but the moment another troublesome, tattoo-pressed reprobate came along all such romantic endeavours were dropped quicker than a post-teen boyband with a penchant for bum-fluff and a misguided desire to be "taken seriously".

Luckily, once Todd et al’s faux jailbird-isms took a distinctly more realistic turn – aided by the help of a few metallic bars and that worryingly frayed soap on a rope – those scrawny, muscle-less arms became an altogether more appealing proposition. Yet, for many, the scars of those school day denials still ache and a sense of charred self-preservation has muscled its way into the caring words and cradling hugs, giving the ladies a bit of brute to accompany that much maligned sensitivity. It’s just a shame no one told Eugene Francis Jnr.

The Welshman’s debut solo LP The Golden Beatle is immersed in the kind of wishy-washy balladry that had Alan McGee denouncing Coldplay as heinous batch of bladder-bursting mattress soakers – only worse. Much, much worse. Every track here is riddled with weepy love-struck lyricism that has hip-joined young couples clinging to one another at the end of a cosy wine-filled eve; eyes bulging with tears and heads full of nothing but insipid, box-ticking melody all pristinely packaged and despatched with all the careful intention of a sample bound bowel movement.

To give Francis his dues, his intentions are unflappable from the off. Opener ‘Savour’ finds him proclaiming “I’ll savour the day when I met you and I never will neglect you” to his feline of choice as a stream of spacious, downtrodden folk wails mournfully below his crystal clear tones. More frantic of pace, follow up ‘The Beginners’ continues this outwardly amorous ambition, with the Welsh-born troubadour declaring “I'll tell you one thing, I love you more than her” as he holds on to his missus, Pritt Stick-like, “every day”. And that’s the moment you feel it - a menacing gloop of vomit lodging deep within the back of your throat, threatening to project itself gusher-like into the world outside.

Admittedly, ‘Kites’ and ‘Turned Around’ are blessed with a star-lit subtlety that would blend effortlessly into the bleeding-hearted country-isms of Lightspeed Champion or The Thrills. But so whiney and cliché-riddled is the premise behind the soap-box standing ‘My Own Pollution’ and ‘I’m Macculate’’s relentless, stomach churning stodge that Francis’ open-soul mewings seem intent on hoodwinking weakened listeners into cherishing each tear-jerking lament as moments against which relationship ‘stages’ can be plotted.

But don’t be fooled, The Golden Beatle is nothing of the sort – it’s music that should be avoided at all costs, especially if you’re in the first few months of coupledom. This isn’t so much a soundtrack for love but a lip-service paying accessory to it; the sort of record that weepy romantics pick up to idealise where they should be going rather than enjoying what they’ve got now. So, if you’re tempted, just think back to those cold, lonely schoolyard days and remember this: sometimes it pays to be a wee bit mean.

Rating: 3/10

Out now through Legion

ALBUM REVIEW: Subtle- ExitingARM

As concepts go, the trilogy is simple to grasp: beginning, middle, end. No problem, right? But executing this sequence with unrelenting consistency has proven to be a cantankerous, almost ungraspable, achievement for even the most supremely gifted over the ages. Aye, The Godfather parts I and II were glimmering masterpieces but instalment number III was, well, excruciating at best. The same can be said of such prestigious triumvirates as (the original) Star Wars and The Lord Of The Rings, not to mention Crocodile Dundee’s bile-stirring cinematic threesome. (C’mon, how many of you actually endured 2001’s Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles?)

See, the problem with the trilogy is that after a promising beginning and an invigorating mid-section, the finale almost always (bar a few notable exceptions – hello, The Bourne Ultimatum) tails off, devoid of ideas and creative motivation. It’s like an end of season kick-about between two teams with nothing to play for, all ready for a tan-topping trip to the Bahamas (if your mob is unfortunate enough to play in the SPL’s 'Bottom 6' you’ll know exactly what I mean). In cruder terms, a trilogy’s final fling could be compared to the last few tugs of an ageing cow’s teat, i.e. unbearably over-milked.

With this in mind, it’s perhaps best to greet Subtle’s third full-offering, ExitingARM with a wavering handshake of trepidation. Adam Drucker (aka Doesone) and his quintet of abstract hip-hop-electro-indie-pop pioneers’ previous two outings, the wonderful A New White (9/10 review) and the quite extraordinary follow-up For Hero: For Fool (10/10 review), documented the trials and tribulations of Drucker’s fiery-locked alter-ego ‘Hour Hero Yes’ as he looked to escape the enslaving clutches of the ‘Ungods’ by injecting meaning and life into the banal sanguinity of generic pop.

The music was as surreal as the narrative – acerbic skewered beats rinking and dinking between luscious shards of melody – and my god did it work. These were sounds that embedded themselves deep within the skull and zigzagged their way through a maze of grey matter; sounds that transcended beyond genre, beyond gender, beyond words. It didn’t matter which multi-fractioned tribe you belonged to, in those two records Subtle served up a delectable smorgasbord upon which even the most pernickety palate could dine.

And what of this, the third and final instalment of Hour Hero Yes’s battle against sonic oppression? Is it to be a limp anti-climax that has wandering minds recalling its predecessors shuddering brilliance or a startling curtain-closer that invokes cries of “Bravo” or “Encore”?

Well, what ExitingARM initially lacks is instantaneity. The title track’s transient synth throbbing feels decidedly muffled, as if molly-coddled in cotton wool before being shunted out into the world naked and wholly under prepared for the brutality to come. Make no mistake, this is not the battle ready, P-Funk smothered Subtle of ‘A Tale Of Apes pt 1’; there’s a jittery intrepidness seeping from the introductory gambit’s ethereal floating that trickles almost seamlessly into the hazy crackle of ‘Day Dangerous’, drawing the first parallels with TV On The Radio’s equally gauze-laden Return To Cookie Mountain.

It’s from this multi-layered hive of instrumentation and exquisite verb-spouting though where ExitingARM begins to flourish. ‘The No’ is first to exhilarate, with Drucker ripping through abstract verses like “a sceptic can be grown in no time, from the treated torso of anyone torn in two” as a swathe of brain-fucking riffs and basslines rattle across nerve-ends before landing as a cockle-warming choral soothe that reassures listeners “when you crash you’ll know where your plane is”. And thank Christ for that, because in the acid-jazz warp of synths, beat and verse found lurking in the eerily mechanical ‘Hallow Hollered’ you’ll need to know these things, so disorientating are the rhythm patterns expelling their way from the speakers and swamping confused, dumfounded mindsets.

Although Drucker’s rampant lyrical persuasiveness halts to almost pedestrian levels during the languid hymnal sun-setting of ‘The Crow’, he’s quickly resuscitated by the electro-jolt of ‘Unlikely Rock Shock’’s vociferous Juno wibbling. A pivotal moment that serves as the starting point for a more demented direction to this already maniacal affair, it’s an axis-swivelling, percussion-fuelled screwdriver full of luscious harmonies and dissipating breaks and bleeps that infect accommodating limbs in a manner Albarn and his dastardly crew of cartoonised tunesmiths could only ever dream of.

Yet the chaos ensuing from ‘Take To Take’’s android tribalism and ‘Gonebones’’ beat-laden incongruence is somehow even more breathless. The former comes alive with a drainpipe-rattling backbone of drum ‘n’ bass that builds into an organ-strewn marshland spitting out relentless sprawls of affected, temple-chiselling vocal, while the latter's ever-exploding melodic minefield somehow embraces eastern European polka and finds Drucker rolling off a verbose stream that surges so furiously it threatens to burst both riverbanks and eardrums alike. It’s a brace of unhinged mastery and one that guides this record into the realms of essential listening, if only to experience such frantic, vivid sounds being contorted as something cohesive, something miraculous.

One slight afforded to ExitingARM is that ambient numbers such as ‘Providence’ or the aforementioned ‘The Crow’ perhaps lack the intrigue of their denser co-habitants. But these snipes will no doubt erode as this - not unlike Why?’s peerless Alopecia (review) - is without question an album to discover over time; one so awash with subtle (sorry) nuances it could take weeks, months, or even years to excavate the entirety of its bulging musical trajectory. And, if certain other trilogies are anything to go by, such timescales could prove rather handy while you await a prequel’s arrival with baited breath.
Rating: 8/10
Out 26 May through Lex Records

LIVE REVIEW: The Ruby Suns, The Drunken Unicorn, Atlanta, 14 Aptil

Awesome - everything’s "totally freaking awesome" in this country. From my pronunciation of humdrum words like “aluminium” and “tomato” to the relentless flash floods that plough their way through an already tornado-decimated Atlanta, there’s seemingly nothing over here that can’t be described glowingly in those seven little letters.

Emanating from the gleekit backwaters of Scotland, such unflappable enthusiasm comes as much of a surprise to this sour-faced hack – it’s almost as perplexing as the single orange slice found floating in my pint of Erdinger upon arriving four days ago – but as I enter the almost un-locatable scuzz-hole of The Drunken Unicorn my eyes are met by something far removed from such jaw-gaping effusiveness.

A measly 29 folk have converged to witness the extraordinary sonic spectrum of The Ruby Suns tonight – that’s right, less than 30 punters have turned up to witness a band whose sophomore (sorry, but I'm in America so it's acceptable, isn't it?) album Sea Lion scored 8.3 on Pitchfork and mighty fine 8 here on these very pages. Christ, and they say Edinburgh's lacking in its support of quality music. If this is the best American crowds have to offer then its nae wonder so many stateside acts choose to adopt the UK shores as their surrogate homeland.

Such sparse, smoke-filled surroundings do not seem like the most fitting of venues in which the New Zealand-based trio will thrive tonight but as a cacophonous swell of seashell-bellowed harmonies and shuddering tribal rhythms oscillates through the rafters and into the plugged-up lugholes below, this meagre attendance quickly erodes from thought.

This is a truly remarkable set, breathless of pace and enchanting of aura. The effects board adventurism of button-cute duo Amee Robinson and Imogen Taylor are a playful backbone of waterfall melodies and jinking synth sirening that lounge out canopy-like over ‘There Are Birds’’ magnificent sun-blushed splendour. But, for all their rosy-cheeked endeavours, it’s Ryan McPhun’s multi-instrumental athleticism that pilfers the attention of pin-holed peepers tonight.

A Catherine Wheel of limbs and locks, the be-shorted frontman’s combustible percussion pounds and affected guitar spindling are a mesmerising combination, riddled with energy and bustling with ingenuity. The slow burned, sometime languid, trickling found in Sea Lion rarely rears its head here as McPhun unleashes his raw, unbridled skin-pummelling over ‘Ole Rinka’’s opening chimes. He is a man possessed; eyes peeled and skin tautened as bones pound the floor with the relentlessness of a middle distance runner pulling out of the slipstream and accelerating to victory. And what a victory it is.

Every patchworked trinket is infused with a joyous sense of urgency that steam-rolls stage-side cynics into an ebullient playground where simple fireside jaunting melodies are created by a hexagonal labyrinth of musicianship. The likes of ‘Oh Mojave’ and ‘Tane Mahuta’ are astonishing moments of Hawaiian-esque blustering, recalling the spider-webbed weavery of Animal Collective’s Here Comes The Indian yet frothing with an ease of listening that incites harmonious head bobbing rather than the appreciative chin-stroking that typifies many acts as precocious of instrument.

And that’s what makes the group such a mesmerising live proposition – this is not just live music, it’s music that’s alive; alive like the sound of waves crashing against the shore and rain dancing on the earth and, as the last sprinkle of sumptuous melody gushes into the airwaves, it’s music that’s alive to a triumphant, prolonged applause that greets the band’s exit from stage. There may have been jack-shit here to witness this staggering showing but as the lights go up and the ‘crowd’ disperses there’s absolutely no denying it: tonight, The Ruby Suns were absolutely awesome.
Rating: 9/10

ALBUM REVIEW: Diamanda Galás - Guilty, Guilty Guilty

When Franklin D Roosevelt announced “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” he'd clearly never been subjected to the Warlockian annunciations of Diamanda Galás. If he had, you can bet your bottom dollar his inaugural address to the American nation would have been a helluva less optimistic affair.

Rampaging of tone and terrifying of scale, the San Diego-raised warbler has released 16 supernatural séances over the course of her 26-year-long recording career, garnering such back-handed accolades as “Lizard Queen” and “life sucking” from petrified hacks. And album number 17, Guilty Guilty Guilty, does little to readdress the zombified persona this 52 year old has revelled in since her screeching, scented-sleeved debut single ‘The Litanies of Satan’ was unleashed upon an unsuspecting music buying public back in 1982.

Abound with gothic reinterpretations of classic song writings by the likes of Edith Piaf and Ralph Stanley, this exhilarating collection of avant-garde horror-jazz furrows itself deep within the pits of churning, nauseated stomachs whilst slowly unleashing a swill of disarming sonic poison into the bloodstream. From the first predatory strike of ivory keys that jitters out from the O.V. Wright-penned ‘8 Men And 4 Women’, it’s clear this is going to be a tumultuous journey, with Galás' acidic growl dislodging comfort zones in a midden of acrobatic shrill.

To describe Galás’ astonishing rasp in mere words is, quite frankly, undoable – these are a set of lungs that demand to be heard, deserve to be explored. By mimicking the age-old ‘speaking in tongues’ technique Glossolalia – a Christian practice of reciting fluent speech in inaudible, intelligible utterances – this demonised damsel transforms jazz bar staple ‘Autumn Leaves’ into a macabre vaudevillian opus that quick-steps from slooping Simone-like blues to a writhing hellfire of burning, inconsolable heartbreak.

The obvious stand out in this aurally challenging compilation of tear-stained love songs is the overwhelming reaper-like reprise of Stanley’s ‘O Death’. Beginning with Galás’ incoherent tombstone-cut bawl, it emerges as a Waits-esque guzzle of bloodthirsty tankard swilling, ravaged by deft Dirty South keys and a harrowing underpass of pin-dropped silence that’s punctured intermittently by the occasional whoop of appreciation from a jaw-agape audience.

And it's this which makes Guilty Guilty Guilty such a remarkable feat – much of its content is recorded as live. Yet, in these times of multi-layered production, the thought of each staggering, pitch-perfect cut being concocted in just one take seems like an incomprehensible, noggin-crunching proposition. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we should truly fear. Not fear itself but the brilliant, shrieking holler of one Diamanda Galás.

Rating: 7/10

Out now on Mute

ALBUM REVIEW: Tindersticks - The Hungry Saw

Since my first introduction to the cavernous splendour of Tindersticks - 1997's gorgeously hushed Curtains - the world has changed dramatically. Terrorism's become the athlete's foot of a globalised society, New Labour's regressed from the voice of the everyday man to a whimper which represents only the silver-spooned few, and Britney… well, let’s just say that that once-delicate seed has blossomed into a overly pollinated flower that’s slowly beginning to wilt in the Heat, or whatever shit-stirring gossip rag it is that barricades the shelves of your local newsagent.

But for all the seismic cultural shifts that have transpired over the past 11 years it's reassuring to know that two constant elements have remained intact: the Earth's still spinning on its axis despite its inhabitant's best endeavours and, the king of the sombre psalm, Stuart Staples is continuing to bellow out a stream of doom-harbouring canticles. Yet the question has to be posed: in these turbulent times of modernity, where every lovelorn troubadour gushes out matters of the heart like a wonky faucet in a rat-infested squat, is there really any place for the Nottingham-born grouch’s ensemble of tear-jerking tunesmiths?

The simple answer is yes.

Spawned in the belly of Staples’ Le Chien Chanceux studio in France, new record The Hungry Saw is an understated (what else?) return to the fore. If the hiatus since 2003’s breathtaking Waiting For The Moon - ignoring Staples’ three solo offerings, which included the trembling soul-plucking of 2006’s beautiful Leaving Song - left a black hole of sorrow lingering in your heavy heart then this, the band’s seventh long-player, will slowly reignite those empathetic fires that fizzled out after the last spellbinding notes of the album's closer, ‘Running Wild’, faded from your ear sockets.

For the freshly enticed, there really is nothing like a new Tindersticks record – of course, the irony is that there really is everything like a new Tindersticks record. Because, as long-standing devotees of the group will already know, deviations between albums are as rare as a plate of steak tartare served up in a Parisian restaurant. Sure, a greater depth of miserablism may dwell under every eagerly opened sleeve but the group’s innate aural essence always persists, i.e. lilting, nocturnal soundscapes embedded in the mire of Staples’ brooding, baritonal mumble. The Hungry Saw is no exception.

The record’s introductory offering - snappily entitled ‘Intro’ - is a crawling instrumental, deep-seated in creepy ivory keys and tepid glockenspiel bound together by bleak clouds of sadness that eventually cascade into the loungey bassline of ‘Yesterdays Tomorrows’. A guitar clanking fallow of roomy atmospherics, the track builds from Staples’ inimitable croon (bar this, obviously) into a swell of brass and flute that sets the melancholic tone for the ten introverted gems to come.

Undoubtedly a master apologist at heart, Staples is perhaps not the most willing expresser of sorrow to those he's wronged, with tracks like ‘The Other Side Of The World’ and the sumptuous ‘Mother Dear’ spent untangling the frayed knots of irredeemable loss amidst a barren backdrop of windswept strings. But this crestfallen sense of hopelessness is what makes The Hungry Saw such an engaging, endearing record. Every gloomy paean feels as though it’s been written for the sole purpose of your forgiveness, like a collection of melodic repentance in which Staples derives comfort from the knowledge that someone, somewhere will nuzzle him into the crux of their bosom and tell him everything is okay, that it wasn’t his fault.

Like many a Tindersticks offering there are few standouts amidst a steady tide of immaculately arranged and tenderly caressed compositions but so lug-pricking are the title track and ‘All The Love’ it’s difficult not to wallow in the shimmering resplendence of both via a few clicks of the Repeat button. The former is a sway of speckled country guitar and washboard percussion that exudes a terse lyrical reflection akin to the biblical mutterings of a The Boatman’s Call-era Cave, whilst the latter's pensive, drowning lament clings mercifully to the steadfast pillar of Staples’ baited breath vocal.

The one slight that could be pinned on the The Hungry Saw is that there’s very little here that couldn’t slot seamlessly into any of the group’s output over the last 16 years. But then, that’s surely not the point: this is a Tindersticks record and, much like our world orbiting the sun, it’s something that can be unequivocally relied upon to produce the goods. And thank heavens for that because (begins lighting pipe before sitting back on well-cushioned rocking chair) in this day and age there’s not much out there you can safely put your money on.

Rating: 7/10

Out now on Beggars Banquet

Album Review: Dave Cloud & The Gospel Of Pwer - Pleasure Before Business

As a performing artist whose career’s spanned over quarter of a century, Dave Cloud’s probably earned the right to the title ‘Psychedelic Shaman’. With his band The Gospel Of Power, the Nashville dwelling mainstay has consistently blurted out a tirade of deranged blues stomps since the release of 1999's seminal offering Songs I Will Always Sing and, with a debut title buried in such bold intent, it’s unsurprising to find new release Pleasure Before Business embedded once again with his unflappable penchant for acid-infused bedlam.

Owing much to the unhinged surrealism of Captain Beefheart, this assortment of originally penned numbers and screwball covers is a far less accolade-garnering affair than his ragged, reverb-friendly pillars of yore. Setting the scene with ‘You Don’t Need Sex’’s driven atomic chords, the tumultuous swirl of low-mixed guitar and scrunched drums retreats in to the kind of mangled ‘70s swamp ‘n’ roll that soundtracks ‘tales from the street’ B movies and has back-catalogue pillaging vultures like David Holmes salivating at the jowls whilst hurriedly over-coming the hurdle of copyright infringement.

Unconsciously made up of two distinct parts, side A is a linear sprawl of middling bass-rattlers that injects jaywalking Hammond organs and Cloud’s, Andre 3000-esque, drawl into the voodoo-centric, pre-coital courtships of ‘Hey (You’re Beautiful)’ and ‘Orgy’ without ever managing to fully engage the senses of the listener, so predictable and basal do they become. Side B, however, finds Cloud chartering more dishevelled territories and, with it, the album transcends as an enterprising warble of writhing over-dubs and lunatic, mouth-frothing rhythms.

Often unintelligible and seemingly directionless, tracks containing the Transylvanian horror-schlock of ‘Rock Video’ and ‘50 Dollar’’s mescaline induced drone prove a refreshing, attention-bothering antidote to the token Blues-isms of the record’s opening gambits. Riddled with primitive tribalism and a diseased sense of vengeance, Cloud’s ragged snarl besieges Resnick and Levine’s ‘Yummy Yummy Yummy’, skewing its bubblegum-popping playfulness into a jungle of rabid acoustic strums. Whilst his inane professions over Yvonne Elliman’s Bee Gees-drafted hit ‘If I Can’t Have You’ result in a curtain-closer so draped in frenzied, vociferous feedback it sets his place in the queue to the pantheon of deranged, psycho-babbling experimentalists inhabited by the likes of Zappa and Barrett.

A first half burdened by humdrum mediocrity may diminish the overall effect of Pleasure Before Business but, in the brawling strides of its finishing flourish, this ‘Psychedelic Shaman’ just about shows he has the talent to persevere for another 25 years.

Rating: 5/10

Out now on Fire Records