Mornington Crescent - all 51 acts for Camden Crawl 2006 reviewed

Going to the Camden Crawl ("most salubrious"... is that really the image they want?) and being confronted with a long list of bands playing that I'd mostly never heard anything by, the only obvious and sensible thing to do was to listen to (and review) every single one of them.
The results will hopefully be useful even to those not going as an overview of lots of new music, from the brilliant to the terrifying. Includes 7 who are actually recommended!

Thoughts in summary:

Recommended listening: Absentee, Captain, Fields, Guillemots, GoodBooks, The Pipettes, The Spinto Band.
Worth checking out: 65DaysOfStatic, Howling Bells, The Maccabees, Morning Runner, NeatPeople, New Rhodes, Pink Grease, The Slits, Sway.
Could be worse: The Automatic, Dogs, Klaxons, Plan B, Switches, V//Formation.
Forgotten them already: 747s, The Automatic, CORD, Humanzi, Mumm-Ra, The OnOffs, The Rogers Sisters, The Rumble Strips, Shit Disco
Avoid: Cazals, The Delilahs, Elle Milano, ¡Forward, Russia!, Larrikin Love, Les Incompetents, The Marshals, The Mitchell Brothers, Paolo Nutini, The Pistolas, The Rifles, S. Rock Levinson, The Sunshine Underground, Wolfmother.
Avoid at all costs: The Fratellis, The Holloways, Louie, The Paddingtons.


Website
Myspace
Admittedly unimpressive live when I saw them supporting Architecture In Helsinki, I'm willing to give Absentee the benefit of the doubt and blame it on awful sound because, so far, their records are really really good. Singer Dan Michaelson has a remarkable deep voice which perfectly matches the dry, world-weary wit of alt-country tinged songs like Something To Bang and A Body In A Car Somewhere, and elsewhere they can even be surprisingly light and uplifting. Recommended listening.


Akira The Don
Website
AKA Adam Anonymous of Playlouder fame, who has previously stated an intention to be 'the rap Morrissey'. Indie-friendly rap with Verve samples and songs about Rick Witter, it's more likable by far when being funny than when trying too hard to make a point (Genocide Is Coming To The USA) but while decently put together (this is some way away from Goldie Lookin' Chain) seems rather uninspiring. Forgotten him already.




Website
Myspace
One of those bands that I've heard of quite a bit but never quite been bothered to actually listen to before, put of by a presumption from other coverage of their music being worthily intellectual and uninvolving stuff. And there may be some truth there, but their visceral sound, a kind of post-rock with added clattering electronic beats, actually makes for much more enjoyment and less chin-scratching than I imagined. Not quite a convert yet, but rethinking prejudices just a little. Worth checking out.



Website
Myspace
Never heard of these before at all, apparently currently supporting Jack White's The Raconteurs. On the basis of the two songs on their Myspace, they play inoffensively upbeat but forgettable retro-rock, reminding on Set Me Free especially of The Zutons' slower and less good songs. Forgotten them already.


The Aliens
Myspace
Containing a couple of ex-members of The Beta Band, debut single Robot Man's funk does remind of them in a couple of places. It also sounds like it was knocked out in a few minutes which leads to both its initital charm and its outstaying of its welcome. Perhaps explains the lack of a proper website too. Forgotten them already.



Website
Myspace
Shouty Welsh pop-rock widely tipped for success this year, Raoul made the top 40 recently just about and their number of songs which are also catchy as anything suggests they'll soon improve on that. Nothing to excite me much though and People In Planes are doing the same thing better (and are winningly listed as an influence!). Could be worse.


Captain
Myspace
I forgot that I had already heard of Captain but I think that must be more due to the name than any fault at all on their part. Sounding somewhere roughly between Delays and The Crimea, they play sunny, harmonic pop with just a hint of darkness and noise to keep things interesting. Recommended listening.



Website
Myspace
I think I'm going to get very tired of this kind of thing by the end of 50 bands - utterly unoriginal and lumpen retro-rock which reminds of The Ordinary Boys before they decided to try ska. Learning that they've supported Babyshambles and The Paddingtons comes as no surprise at all. Credit to them for making all their songs to date available for free on their site, though. Avoid.



Website
Myspace
Listenable but middling indie with a very slight hint of glam. Signed to Island, which suggests that they learnt nothing at all from last years Cherryfalls debacle. Forgotten them already.



Website
Myspace
Three girls from the wonderfully named Zug, Switzerland, unfortunately I've already covered everything that sets them apart. More painfully average retro. Avoid.



Website
Similarly to The Automatic, I find it much easier to see why they're one of the bigger names playing (catchier and, well, clearly better songs than most reviving a similar past) than to
actually care much for them. Could be much worse.



Website (which is on Angelfire. AWESOME.)
Myspace
Shambolic noise which certainly has plentiful enthusiasm, if not a tune in sight. Could be pretty enjoyable if they had some better lyrics to add to it (maybe a less polished Art Brut), but a bit pointless for now. Avoid.




Myspace
Bound to suffer from the fact that they are not, as it turns out, the same thing as Field Music, they do still have an impressive line in atmospheric indie with a hint of electronica. If You Fail We All...'s crystalline prettiness in particular worth checking out. Recommended listening.



Website
Myspace
Having already seen them as a support band twice, I'm already well aware that I find their frenzied, unrelenting At The Drive-In impression briefly hilarious and then deeply irritating. Slightly more tolerable on record for what it's worth, but not by much. Avoid.



Website
Myspace
A bad choice of name (although nothing compared to their song The Gutterati) as there appear to be at least two other bands sharing it. One of them have apparently now changed their name to The Lurios and are jangly and slightly forgettable, much recommended over this tuneless derivative horror though. Avoid at all costs.



Website
Myspace
Currently gaining good reviews all round for their debut single, they tie together various strands of recently popular indie into twitchily catchy, surprisingly cohesive songs, with Walk With Me and Paschendale treading a line somewhere between British Sea Power, Clor and Franz Ferdinand to much better effect than that sounds. Recommended listening.



Website
Myspace
You probably already know my views on them (AMAZING) but their imagination stands out all the more among some of the company here. If you haven't them yet then, well, why not? Recommended listening.



Website
Myspace
Just like Portishead, not in the actually being any good at all sense but in being named after their home town. Actually, their music is very slightly above average for the kind of punk revival stuff that there's far too much of here, but as for the lyrics... Well, here are some examples from Great Britain (as copied from their myspace, where they are proudly available for public display):

'So this is great britain and welcome aboard
A sinking ship thats full of shit and someone nicked the oars
A failing false economy
an anti-punk automony
OUr once unique Identity's
Been washed from our shores

In a land of hope and glory
do we really rule the waves?
The truth is a different story
We're all just a bunch of slaves'

Avoid at all costs. Unless you love The Others, I guess.



Website
Myspace
Aussie four-piece seemingly attracting PJ Harvey comparisons all round on the basis of little more than having a female singer. Much better than their name suggests, but their eerie, brooding rock never quite makes the impression it should. Good live from past experience though. Just about worth checking out.



Website
Myspace
Irish support to the likes of Hard-Fi and Dirty Pretty Things, some half decent snarling rock songs don't quite answer the question of whether we really need another Kasabian. Forgotten them already.



Website
Myspace
A messy, uncoordinated combination of post-punk, actual punk, electronica and tuneless singing which only really seems to work at the messiest moments. Potentially entertaining though I wouldn't recommend with any confidence. Could be worse.



Website
Myspace
Thoroughly enjoyable supporting Elbow in February, but that was seemingly largely due to guitar problems forcing them to fall back on violin-led folk dance, a much more attractive proposition than their usual faux-raggae and erratic Mystery Jets-meet-Libertines style. Probably best avoid.



Website
Myspace
Dirty Pretty Things are a much, much better Libertines tribute band. Avoid.



Website
Myspace
To be able to appreciate, or even offer comment on, all types of music would be great but with relentlessly noisy rap like this I feel way too out of my depth to actually offer a verdict at all, except to say that the remix (well, it's more of a destruction) on myspace of The Rakes' 22 Grand Job is definitely hilarious.



Website
Myspace
More sub-sub-Libertines bollocks, taking unoriginality to an extra level on Young Evil Souls with an astonishingly brazen theft of the riff from Bloc Party's Helicopter. Avoid at all costs.



Website
Myspace
Single Latchemere is more retro post-punk but manages to rise above nearly anything else of the sort here by the virtue of being very well-played and more importantly having hugely entertaining silly lyrics about a leisure centre sung in a this-is-no-joking-matter way. They don't have anything else up on Myspace to quite match it but it's nice to not have to write them off completely. Worth checking out.



Website
Myspace
The very first band on the list to not offer complete songs on their website or Myspace page (something to do with being signed to Vertigo?) which is a reason to turn against them right from the start. Missing out on more of what sounds like Mansun if they didn't have any ideas at all beyond a pale replication of their peers isn't too much of a hardship though. Avoid.



Website
Myspace
Signed to Mike Skinner's label, guest appearances don't help the feeling that it's often a poor imitation of his own stuff, with too little to say and not even said that well. Listen to Harvey Nicks and the only funny or memorable part is Sway's brief contribution, more on him in a bit though. Avoid.



Website
Myspace
Who exactly decided that they could be the next Coldplay? The album makes it sound like they could have done with a while longer before being forced down the unwilling public's throats, but actually has some very fine moments (It's Not Like Everyone's My Friend and Work among them) which amid their bluster somehow turn a certain bewildered awkwardness into an asset in a similar manner to their live shows. Worth checking out if you haven't already made up your mind.



Website
Myspace
Pleasant, tuneful indie but ultimately lacks the hooks or ideas to make too much of an impression. Forgotten them already.



Website
Myspace
'NeatPeople strike a blow against the homogeneity of the charts and the carbon copy posturing of too-cool-for-school indie boys' apparently. Er, right. Anyway, they supported The Bluetones on their last tour and anyone still following them is likely to like this a lot too - brassy, very catchy guitar pop with a lot of charm and a little style. Worth checking out.



Website
Myspace
Still somewhat of a mystery how their fantasticly breezy single You've Given Me Something That I Can't Give Back (more than a touch of The Smiths, there) managed to sneak into the top 40 in early 2005, especially considering that they've done nothing of note since and all by disappeared. Even on just the basis of that song though, probably worth checking out.



Website
Myspace
The available songs are so poorly recorded that it's almost difficult to pick out if there is any potential here but just about deserve the benefit of the doubt. Pleasingly tasteless electro-glam which flirts with chaos to no great ill effect. Worth checking out, perhaps.



Website
Myspace
Ah, I thought that that was too many half-decent acts in a row. Time for some plodding, deeply average singer-songwriter stuff. Avoid.



Website
Myspace
Bluesy, none-more-retro rock which sounds quite a lot like The Zutons without any saxophone or particularly great tunes to add much interest. Forgotten them already.



Website
Myspace
Urgh. Avoid at all costs.



Website
Myspace
Admittedly all that they are really doing to set themselves apart is to lovingly recreate a different section of music past (sugary Sixties girl-group pop) to everyone else, but having not listened to them before they actually turn out to be much better in practise than in theory - so well done it's rather irresistable. Recommended listening.



Website
Myspace
More of more of the same post-punk with nothing remarkable at all. Avoid.



Website
Myspace
Acoustic-guitar toting rapper, recently heard on xfm constructing a hypnotic track round samples of Radiohead's finest moment Pyramid Song, though I missed what the song was. More fascinating than outright enjoyable in general at the moment but might be worth keeping track of. Could be worse.



Website
Myspace
Just after The Pistolas we have The Rifles, who clearly want to be The Jam rather than Gang Of Four, but still don't bring anything much of interest to their attempts. Avoid.



Website
Myspace
Despite being named after the Rogers sisters in the band there's actually a guy in the band as well who does many of the vocals, which is a distracting start. Anyway, it's very competent but unremarkable garage rock. Forgotten them already.



Website
Myspace
See The OnOffs. Only with a bit more brass. Forgotten them aready.



Website
Myspace
They'd have to be bloody good to overcome a name like that, and they aren't really. Funky enough dance-punk but it's actually a bit too polite! Forgotten them already.



Website
Myspace
Reforming veteran punks (who, er, recently played a gig at Selfridges department store) with a large hint of reggae who I had somehow not actually heard before. The cover of Heard It Through The Grapevine in particular is great fun. Worth checking out.



Website
Myspace
More uninspiring post-punk with particularly nasty whiny vocals. This is starting to get a bit tiring, you know... Avoid.




Website
Myspace
See recent live review. Or in short: great fun, especially live. Recommended listening.



Website
Myspace
As with The Pistolas. Avoid.



Website
Myspace
Leading light of UK rap, I couldn't really tell you if there's any better but his stuff is certainly sparky and almost always very funny. Favourite line has to be the one after he is asked for an autograph by a kid: "Mum, is this how you spell Lemar?" Worth checking out.



Myspace
Powerpop which made a bad first impression thanks to, er, individual vocals but soon begins to win over through sheer catchiness. Could be worse.



Website
Myspace
Some rather lovely slow building indie which isn't quite ruined by overly angsty vocals. Reminds of The Veils, apart from the bits where they try to be the Arcade Fire, nothing quite takes off as it could though. Unless that's just the effect on listening to fifty bands. Could be worse.



Website
Myspace
Holy shit, their first song on myspace has 141,000 plays! That's more than anyone else in this whole piece probably. They may or may not all have been thinking 'This sure sounds like the Top Of The Pops theme' (the old one, they may or may haven lost track of it now). Horribly overdramatic Led Zeppelin worship, here. Avoid.

Elbow! Belle & Sebastian!

As revealed in advance on Sweeping The Nation, Leicester's Summer Sundae festival has a really excellent line-up this year, even just from what's been announced so far. Buy before the end of the month and three days will barely cost you more than a one day ticket to V, too.

Arctic Libershambles shambles

It's nice to see Guillemots getting more positive coverage on Pitchfork, because it will encourage a lot more people I know to listen to them, but does it really have to be in such a (even by their standards) totally arsey way?

'And for those who didn't buy Whatever You Say I Am, That's What I'm Not on the first day of release during lunch hour at the Oxford HMV, here are Guillemots, who are to the Arctic Libershambles what the Beta Band were to Oasis in 1998, or what Badly Drawn Boy was to Travis in 2000-- a detour away from everyday pub-rock pabulum toward something more tasteful, more adventurous.'

Presuming that they meant Oxford Street, indeed I didn't - I was there on my way to work in the morning.
Maybe it's just me, but even when I'm not being specifically told that I'm not part of the club, setting out reviews in terms of what an act is against, or what they're not, seems to be a totally overused and horrible idea.

I know that sales are low and all

But can Embrace really be heading for number one this week with their exercise in making Richard Ashcroft's new 'epics' look subtle and restrained, Nature's Law?

No Tomorrow for the singles chart?

Leaving aside the fact that Orson are number one (there have been worse, last week for instance), it's difficult to know which is worse for the Official UK Top 40, the fact that it's the lowest selling number one ever, stalling short of the 20,000 level that has previously never been plummeted beyond, or the fact that no-one seems to care, to the extent that I'm struggling to find a link which isn't to a members-only viewable forum. Instead, all attention is on the three tenors in the album chart (no, not those ones)
Of course, we were in pretty much the same situation this time last year and the introduction of downloads sorted it out, but it's difficult to see what they can do now. Even the new rule change of allowing singles to chart a week before their physical release will spread sales out more rather than increasing them by much.

The Picture Show (19/03)

(irregular video feature returns, click on the pics for audiovisual goodness)


Impossible to begrudge another single from 'Demon Days' when it leads to a video as stunning as this. Yes, it starts off as Feel Good Inc, but keep watching...


Laundrette-themed fun for the second single from 'The Life Pursuit' makes up for it not being White Collar Boy.


This new band's forthcoming excellent and slightly sleazy alt-country rock song gets a video to suit.

The Bluetones at Highbury Garage (15/03/06)

It's now just over ten years since The Bluetones' debut album 'Expecting To Fly' knocked Oasis' '(What's The Story) Morning Glory?' off number one in the album chart, at least for a week. With so many of their moderately successful, don't-mention-the-B-word peers now having fallen by the wayside (Cast, Sleeper, Kula Shaker, Dodgy, Shed Seven, anyone? Even Ocean Colour Scene have started losing members) it's a wonder that they're still here at all, but they've just signed another three album deal and appear to be happy with existence in their own secluded world a long way from the zeitgeist.

Tonight Mark Morriss (as charming and almost as young-looking as ever) can say "four months has gone by quickly, hasn't it?", confident in the knowledge that the majority here were at Shepherd's Bush Empire in October too. Hey, half of them were probably there in 1996 too. Not that this is a crowd who are just here for a nostalgic trip through the old hits.
2003's number 40 smash Never Going Nowhere is met with obvious total love and last year's self-released, internet-only single Serenity Now creates pogoing mayhem. They decide to play a set consisting half and half of A-sides and B-sides (to fit in with their forthcoming boxset) and it's actually difficult to tell from the ecstatic reaction which are which at times. Finally, just for tonight, If... is officially the best song in the world ever.
I could try to objectively review this and why it is that they still inspire such loyalty but frankly I'm way too busy at the front singing along to every word and having the time of my life.



(usual Ada-thanks for photos)

Feel Good Edit

I know that it's easy to get into posting every time that a band appears on the live lounge, but it's well worth heading over to Untouched By Work Or Duty for the latest cover, I think, as Editors' version of Feel Good Inc is really rather gorgeous and the best cover from it for ages. Although they leave out the rap.

The Crimea at King's College (14/03/06)

Coming on to a tape of screaming babies, playing in front of a slightly strange picture
()
and bathed in red light and smoke for most of the performance, The Crimea's dark live image is often at odds with their music, not least blissful, wide-eyed set closer (and recent top 40 single) Lottery Winners On Acid and the loving cover of Fleetwood Mac's Everywhere which precedes it.
Some of the album tracks, and the surprisingly prevalent other songs played, are already well suited to drama though, with Someone's Crying rescued from it's dirge-like recorded form by singer Davey Macmanus' frenzied intensity which he also puts to thrilling use on Opposite Ends, climbing into the crowd to rant at closer quarters. Not quite everything works so well.
Put-on attempts at madness in song introductions go particularly badly and a few songs (Girl Just Died, for instance) tread dangerously close to adolescent emo and come off the worse for it. The contradictions present though, instead of a set full of giddy Lottery Winners-alikes, are actually a large part of what makes them stand out and makes the close seem all the more wonderful.



(Thanks again to Ada for photos!)

The Hot Puppies

It’s always nice to be pleasantly surprised by a support band that you’ve never heard of before, and that was very much the case last night at The Crimea’s show at King’s College Union (a review of which is coming later).
The Hot Puppies brought to mind at times a slightly less manic Sons And Daughters, or a much better Little Flames, with Becky Newman’s powerful voice and some dramatic keyboard adding to spiky, energetic songs which were impressively inventive for a new band in the crowded retro-indie scene. There was even a Theremin used a couple of times which always helps.

Two demos from their site don’t quite convey the fun of the live show but are recommended regardless:

The Hot Puppies -The Party
The Hot Puppies -The Drowsing Nymph

Come back to Camden

Apologies once again to those well outside London...
The first 40 or so bands have been announced for Camden Crawl 2006, with just under half featuring 'The' in their name and a slightly surprising amount of hip-hop. It's somewhat lacking in big names at the moment (although Guillemots are playing so who cares?) but those will probably be added later. That list, then:

• Absentee
• Akira The Don
• The Aliens
• The Automatic
• Cazals
• The Delilahs
• Dogs
• Elle Milano
• Fields
• iForward Russia!
• The Fratellis
• Good Books
• Guillemots
• The Holloways
• Howling Bells
• Humanzi
• Lethal Bizzle
• Louie
• The Maccabees
• The Marshals
• The Mitchell Brothers
• Morning Runner
• Paolo Nutuni
• The On Offs
• The Paddingtons
• The Pipettes
• The Pistolas
• Plan B
• The Rifles
• The Rogers Sisters
• Rumble Strips
• Shit Disco
• S Rock Levinson
• The Spinto Band
• The Sunshine Underground
• Sway
• Switches
• Wolfmother

In other London not-really-a-festival-is-it news, Dirty Pretty Things have been added to Hyde Park's Wireless on the Strokes/Super Furry Animals/Belle & Sebastian day, a pretty great lineup although it seems inevitable that at least two of them will be playing at the same time.

Another indie band makes it to the BBC News pages

Four Day Hombre uniquely funded by the public. Becoming aligned with Marillion is probably not the intended result.

TVC14

E4's Album Chart Show is a mysterious beast which has already seen itself shifted around the schedule, now following Popworld (which fits in the sense that both are programs with music even if they share little else in common). It may take its name from it but the album chart is nearly a week old by the time the program goes out on Saturday and gets barely a cursory glance within. Plus acts actually appearing are related but only on the basis that they could or did release an album at such point in time.
Although I might have guessed, I didn't know all of this a couple of weeks ago when I went to the filming of the first one. In fact, lured by its being free and nearby, I didn't even know who has playing, so although I can think of better things to do than repeatedly cheer in loud, fake bursts it turned out to be far from a disappointment, ¾ acts being enjoyable.

• The Rifles played a few almost indistinguishable and instantly forgettable songs and left me thinking that everyone in the country who wants to be in a shoddy Libertines-alike band must not only be in one but be signed by now.
• Delays played Long Time Coming, current single Valentine and forthcoming single Hideaway and were more impressive, not that that was hard. Greg Gilbert sounds ferocious live, at the expense of some of the more delicate parts of their songs but suiting the synth pulse of Valentine very well. Incidentally, it's kind of fascinating how they've been adopted by the pop fans of Stylus, Popjustice, Into The Groove et al just as their indie press has largely dried up.
• Editors create so good a replication of their sound and so little else that it's difficult to know what to still say about them, apart from that as impressive as All Sparks is it's surely about time that they stopped releasing singles, left 'The Back Room' well alone and got on with recording their next album.
• Last were Sugababes, a move which despite frequent assurances that this would be '100% live, no karaoke!' resulted in about half those present going home early. More fool them as despite a disappointing lack of past hits (due to subsequent lineup changes?) Red Dress' strut was a fine way to end the evening. And they even smiled.

Guillemots at Islington Bar Academy (23/02/06)

The biggest problem here was that no more than a few rows of the crowd could see overly self-deprecating frontman Fyfe Dangerfield thanks to the Academy's low stage and the fact that, surrounded by a bank of keyboards which were regularly used for a brilliant range of weird noises, he sat down for almost the whole set.
This was probably the main reason for less than rapt attention from many as it surely couldn't have been the songs, which sounded even more unfailingly incredible and cynicism-removing than last time, with main set closer Sao Paolo in particular seeming to last 15 minutes without ever being less than awe-inspiring. An a capella, standing-on-a-chair Blue Will Still Be Blue (shown above) did find silence, through its simple beauty as well as much as actually being able to see, but it's the moments when they throw everything at a song which are the most amazing, Go Away's manic ending the best example. I left wondering why I bought tickets to one of their two forthcoming King's College shows.



(thanks to Ada for the photos!)

Living for the ironic cover version

Yep, Sugababes have followed their Arctic Monkeys cover with one of Hard-Fi's Living For The Weekend. I'm not sure exactly what it is that makes me seek this kind of thing so eagerly, given that I will rarely listen more than a few times, but there's a certain fascination in any liked or very familiar song being rethought however half-arsedly, especially if it's by someone that I like too. This one isn't too bad as they go.

No Lisa Left

Lisa Brown, a band I've talked about a fair bit here, are no more, but rather than a dramatic split this is merely a name change to the not especially less awkward Snowfight In The City Centre. This seems a bit late after already getting a fair bit of coverage for their debut single as Lisa Brown but best of luck to them!

Pretty Things

First up, My Latest Novel's album turns out to be even more brilliant than expected. m3 have a great summary complete with a few songs to try out.

Secondly, I saw Dirty Pretty Things yesterday (It was big news in the Evening Standard today: "Courtney Love snubs showbiz party to hang out at a sweaty student bar with troubled Pete Doherty and see his friend's band"!), they managed to be really rather impressive despite turning up an hour and a half late. This was due to Carl being ill apparently, and judging from the picture to the NME story on it he was clearly suffering from something:

One plus one plus one plus one etc.

An interesting idea for a charity compilation album, scheduled for September if all goes according to plan. Fifty acts each record a song exactly one minute long - even if they're rubbish there won't be too much to suffer through!
The biggest names signed up so far are The Crimea and The Electric Soft Parade. Brakes will surely follow, right?

Death Cab For Cutie at Astoria (01/03/06)

Nevermind the two girls loudly conversing through Death Cab For Cutie's whole set, who in astonishing adherance to stereotype can be heard excitedly saying 'this is the one from The OC!', it's the Evening Standard which really ruins tonight.
Admittedly the lack of crowd interaction beyond 'Thanks, guys!', and a lack of visual excitement which includes Ben Gibbard actually facing away whenever he plays piano doesn't help matters. For all the lack of show they are very polished and occasionally inspired musically though. Crowd pleasers A Movie Script Ending, The New Year and Sound Of Settling are all pop gems given an extra loose dimension and melodramatic Styrofoam Plates becomes a cathartic rock workout which removes any thoughts of its silliness. Even last year's slightly underwhelming album 'Plans' is cherry-picked from very well, with Marching Bands Of Manhattan sparkling and an acoustic I Will Follow You Into The Dark the gorgeous, lump-in-throat highlight of the night.
Overall, it's a good show, and its only having read a review in the Evening Standard of last night's show which praised the way in which they ended the set with Transatlanticism, surely their finest moment, which turns the lack of it tonight from a shame into a crushing disappointment which they just weren't quite good enough to overcome.

Just spotted

Camden Crawl 2006 tickets now on sale.
Just over twenty quid, so five more than last year, with no sign yet of which bands are playing, might be worth a go as it will hopefully have a pretty good lineup though.

Radiohead sell out

Or rather, V festival has, in about three hours. This must have been helped by the lack of Glastonbury this year, but three hours is less time than it took Glastonbury to a mere three years ago, as all festivals continue to sell their tickets ever faster each year. Maybe an increase in awareness and even more people with broadband as well as in the popularity of live music has something to do with this. Thanks go to mahoney for helping me to get tickets on Monday, by the way.

Anyway, just how big a coup is getting Radiohead to play? Is it going to attract new people and change the prevailing perception of V as not being for real music fans, which has persisted despite impressive line-ups and expansion in recent years (although the stages at Chelmsford are way too close together)?

Let's see what well known Radiohead fansite ateaseweb thinks...

''95% of the crowd > "Aren't Radiohead those miserable bastards who just moan all the time? I going to watch Jamiraquai on the other stage." "
"V isn't really kids. It's the festival for old fools who chose a stereo based on what looks good in the lounge next to their new leather sofa."
"Chavs will be at the festival. That's a given."

Final Fantasy II

Yes, much more exciting than Advent Children, violinist and singer-songwriter extraordinaire Owen Pallett (number 20 in our Albums Of 2005) is back in May with a new album (rather horribly titled 'He Poos Clouds') and a UK tour. Wonder if he'll play his cover of This Modern Love again?

A quick note

Sorry for the lack of updates this week, but I'm having a busy week with work coupled with going to three gigs in three days. More about Elbow, Editors and Guillemots when I get a chance to write, probably next week.

Universal Audio

The dear, departed Delagados are to release a definitive double-CD collection of all their Peel session tracks, tracklisting:

• Lazarwalker
• Blackwell
• I've Only Just Started To Breathe
  
• Primary Alternative
  
• Under Canvas Under Wraps
  
• 4th Channel
  
• Teen Elf
  
• Sucrose
  
• Everything Goes Around The Water
• The Arcane Model
• Pull The Wires From The Wall
  
• Mauron Chanson
  
• Repeat Failure
  
• Don't Stop
  
• Blackpool
• The Weaker Argument Defeats The Stronger
  
• No Danger
• Make Your Move
  
• Accused Of Stealing
  
• Aye Today
  
• Mr Blue Sky
  
• California Uber Alles
  
• Matthew & Son
  
• Last Rose Of Summer
  
• I Fought The Angels
  
• Ballad Of Accounting
  
• Is This All That I Came For?
• Everybody Come Down
  

A few of these have appeared as B-sides or on this, but exciting stuff nonetheless.

In other big collection of stuff by a band who formed in the mid-90s news, The Bluetones will, slightly, bafflingly, release 'A Rough Outline', a 3CD collection of all of their singles and B-sides on March 20th. Surely most people who find out about this and are interested in them already have every single track on this?
(like, erm, me)

2005 worse than 2004: Official

The Brits, covered in a rather haphazard manner during ad breaks and after it finished:

• Chris Evans somehow manages to make his comments to Boy George go down EVEN WORSE than Harry Hill's attempt at humour.
• Coldplay having got so good at arena shows that they can even make an album track the best performace yet is almost overshadowed by the disaster that is Chris Martin's hair.
• Kanye West surely isn't actually the first rapper ever to say good things about gay people, Boy George?
  
• Putting James Blunt's Best Pop Act victory first was surely designed to ensure that things could only get better from there on in.
• At least, if it wasn't for his ultra-smug performance of You're Beautiful being in front of a backdrop of him half naked and kissing swimming girls. Who could have thought that it could be made more repulsive?
• Jack Johnson - a man who released his first album five years ago - wins Best International Breakthrough
• Presenting Arctic Monkeys' non-attendence despite their inevitable Best British Breakthrough win as some kind of principled stand against The Man is nonsesne, they just had a tour scheduled and imagine the protests if they'd cancelled it. Sitting around while having someone else read out their speech is either a better attempt or just trying too hard, not sure.
  
• Kelly Clarkson's performance of Since U Been Gone lends rather more to the screeching racket theory of its merits than the incredible pop song one, but is an awful lot of fun regardless. Or maybe that's just the anyone-but-Blunt effect talking.
• Best British single is the most distressing category of all, especially being introduced with a spiel about the 'sheer quality of songs in the past year'. Shayne Ward, James Blunt, and a thirty-year old song which is still apparently 'featuring Peter Kay' - I thought that they'd got rid of the Best Video award? - and the nomination for Sugababes is almost more depressing as a reminder of their absence elsewhere. Girls Aloud being left out of Best Pop Act can just about be defended as they hardly had the most mega-successful year, but what more could Sugababes have had to manage to get picked above Blunt and Melua? Also, Goldfrapp must have cause for complaint...
• KT Tunstall's performance in not boring shocker! It may be some kind of black and white stripey nightmare, but it's definitely not boring.
• They have Jack Johnson performing? Really? I could barely even remember what it was like while it was happening.
  
• The Best Rock Award (see Best Live and Best Group... really, Kaiser Chiefs didn't so much win three awards as the same award three times) is apparently voted for by Kerrang! viewers. Perhaps the fact that Hard-Fi are as rockas it gets explains how Kerrang! has managed to almost catch up with the NME on sales again.
• Green Day win Best International album. Despite the fact that their album was not even nominated after its release last year! The rule of allowing anything from the last 18 (instead of 12) months was supposedly designed to allow inclusion of 'sleeper' albums like, well, Jame Blunt's, but 'American Idiot' went straight to number one and was surely known to all at the time of last year's nomination. Coupled with U2 being nominated for a second year running, the rule just seems to be designed to allow an even greater level of conservatism, as if only selling a few hundred thousand copies just isn't enough to prove your worth, and if no-one has done well enough they can always drag up last year's (although, hey, they did nominate the Arcade Fire!) It's a theme throughout the night as the likes of Lemar and Natasha Bedingfield are nominated or even win depite having done fuck-all in the past year.
  
• The kids they have on to sing look like they're having fun, but the Gorillaz performance is decidely underwhelming, particularly after the brilliant show put on for them at the Grammys.
• Ditto to Kanye West earlier, but to a much lesser extent... playing a medley and cutting off Diamonds From Sierra Leone halfway through is a great move as there's no need for much of it past forevereverevereverever, but even the seemingly neverending parade of girls and a rather good vocal performance for Gold Digger can't make up for the lack of Jamie Foxx and/or marching bands.
  
• Coldplay fuel millions of split rumour stories. Again. Yawn.
• Maybe it is like 1996 all over again - Paul Weller's being rewarded!

So there we have it. Awful hosting, not especially great speeches, some enjoyable performances and they did an ok job in general of rewarding what did well in the past year, which after all is pretty much all it's ever been about. The big negatives are the reliance on overly stale releases and the progressing sheer homogenisation of it - having got rid of Best Dance, they seem to be intent on killing Best Pop too and eliminating anything Radio 2/Q unfriendly in general. Perhaps this is just a reflection of the way the music world in general is going, though.

Glamorous Indie Rock'n'Roll

So, we will be doing a big Brits post tomorrow (like everyone else) although it must be said already that James Blunt winning Best Pop may even outdo Joss Stone winning Best Urban last year in comic awfulness.
But anyway, in the meantime there are other awards going on - nominations for the Shortlist New Pantheon prize have been announced (from the link, scroll down quite a lot, there's also a Patrick Wolf story along the way). Basically a rough attempt at a US equivalent of the Mercury Music Prize (although it's not restricted to US albums, preventing a repeat of the Antony & The Johnsons arguments), they are as follows:

Animal Collective - 'Feels'


Antony and the Johnsons - 'I am a Bird Now'


Fiona Apple - 'Extraordinary Machine'


Arcade Fire - 'Funeral'


Bloc Party - 'Silent Alarm'


Death Cab for Cutie - 'Plans'


The Decemberists - 'Picaresque'


Kings of Leon - 'Aha Shake Heartbreak'


M.I.A. - 'Arular'


Sufjan Stevens - 'Illinois'


I like more than half of these albums a lot but Pitchfork sum up its biggest flaw pretty well themselves - 'Looks a lot like Pitchfork's year-end list, doesn't it?'. The only way it could be any more predictable would be if Clap Your Hands Say Yeah hadn't somehow been misinterpreted as Kings Of Leon. And the idea of only including albums which have sold less than 500,000 copies (roughly equivalent to 100,000 in UK terms I think, which I'm sure that Bloc Party and even the Arcade Fire have easily surpassed here by now) is kind of noble but in practise, it's hard not to think, very wrong.
I may have been, erm, strongly disappointed when Joss Stone was nominated for the Mercury but, given that no-one really gives it that much credit as a rank of quality, the presence of the likes of Hard-Fi, Kaiser Chiefs and Coldplay (although surely three times was unnecessary in their case) lends the award its only real point.
Plenty of people who hadn't heard of The Go! Team, never mind Seth Lakeman or Polar Bear, tuned in to find out if one of the better known acts would win and at least some of them must have heard something that they liked - I know that that's how I found out about The Delgados a few years back, and the latter two I had never heard of before their nominations despite counting myself at least fairly knowledgable on new British music.
Perhaps its a misconception as to the level of public awareness of some of the nominees (after all, from the internet music world it would be easy to get the impression that M.I.A. is really successful) but it seems like there is barely any such split between the Pantheon nominees, with no mainstream acts or complete unknowns, just the usual indie acts, leaving them doomed to be talked about by people like me who are already familiar with all the nominees and probably past the stage of massive enthusiasm for them. Case in point.

The ha ha call

Thanks to Sweeping The Nation for bringing this latest Pete Doherty story to our attention. It may not even really originate from the ex-KLFers in question but is very funny nonetheless.

Valentine's gifts

Sorry if they seem to come up more often than not here, but there is a good reason now... Guillemots have a new EP, Of The Night, available here for free, with a new song by each band member. This includes Bad Boyfriend, two minutes of frightningly good electro-pop 'originally intended as a cash pony for the Black Eyed Peas' surrounded by 7 minutes of stuff which is, well, just plain frightening, and Aristazabal's gorgeous lead vocal debut By The Water.

Be warned that these are only currently available in WMA format with unusually horrid restrictions preventing you doing anything with the files but listening on the computer, although this should hopefully be resolved soon!

Well, crap

The series of Teenage Cancer Trust gigs at the Albert Hall for this year have been announced, including The Cure, Goldfrapp, Judas Priest and Razorlight.



Most enticing, though, is the date on 29th March, featuring Bloc Party, Biffy Clyro (who now haven't released anything for a whole year - is it a record?) and Mystery Jets. I like all of them a lot but the closest that I have come to seeing any of them so far was Russell Lissack's guest spot at Stars in December when he stood so far off to the side of the stage that I couldn't see him most of the time anyway.

Only problem is that I already have tickets for my favourite new band Guillemots on that day. But they are playing two days at King's College, so, my campaign to find someone who has tickets for Guillemots on the 30th March and wants to swap starts here! Any takers?

Ah, indie in-jokes, how I love thee

Wild Horses, B-side to The Research's new single Lonely Hearts Still Beat The Same is frankly rather ruined by being sung far more terribly than usual, but it does include the line:

'She said that she had a brother who listened to ¡Forward Russia!, I thought she had everything'

Science + music = confusion

Recent research into the influence that others have on people's music tastes (they found that when their test subjects could see that songs by unknown bands were widely downloaded already they were more likely to do so themselves - well duh, and that they were likely to rate them higher as well - hmm) has produced a range of different interpretations from 'people like what they're told to' to 'this is why crap like Britney is successful' to 'this is good news for new bands trying to get noticed on the internet'.

They do tend to have something in common, though.

And just as Smash Hits finishes, too

Popworld is to end, or rather is to lose Simon Amstell (and Miquita Oliver), but it's difficult to see much difference. Only a relatively ort time after I discovered its unique way with humour too.

Mysterious ways

The most puzzling thing about U2's multiple Grammy wins (they stopped Coldplay from winning anything etc. etc.) is not that they won so many, but that they didn't do so last year, when they only won awards for Vertigo, depite their album being released before the 2005 nominations. Was this a deliberate move to avoid having to actually leave them out this year?
Meanwhile 'How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb' is also in the running for a Brit for Best International Album for the second year running, making its November release look like a brilliant move.

edit: I've been usefully informed (as I probably should have researched anyway) that the deadline for nominations is a while before they are announced and happened to fall between the single and album releases. Which just favours the idea of it being brilliant marketing I guess.

Good news

It looks like Iko's album 'I Am Zero' (#7 in my Favourite albums of 2005) will finally get a proper UK release soon. With added bonus tracks too!

The Picture Show (05/02)

Pink - Stupid Girls
Pink returns with a scattergun attack on as many people as possible in a bid to get noticed. The song is a bit of the mess but the video veers between funny and embarrassing impressively. From the album 'I'm Not Dead' which is the subject of Popjustice's latest album art masterclass.



Mystery Jets - The Boy Who Ran Away
Mystery Jets release the final single before debut album 'Making Dens', this time owing more than usual to The Futureheads.



Polysics - Mr. Roboto
This one is not new at all, but demands viewing anyway. Japanese electro-rock complete with dancing/fighting Transformers, this is the really funny video this week.

Something awful

Well, the songs that is, as Talent In A Previous Life's 100 Actual Worst Records Ever gets underway in earnest. I expect to like many of them, but it will be as fun as ever regardless.

Liam Frost at Water Rats (31/01/06)

There is something about one man with an acoustic guitar standing in front of a crowd and playing to absolute rapturous silence which can make almost any song sound stunning. After a self-effacing and awkward introduction Liam Frost (whose Mancunian-accented vocals have a bite which brings to mind I Am Kloot numerous times) begins by achieving this with his very first song, Shall We Dance?, which possesses an intense, dramatic swing to it far beyond the Fretwells and Tunstalls of this world, despite occasional assaults of unneeded harmonica (which dog a few other songs tonight too).
Rather than attempt this feat for a whole set, he brings out a five-piece band, The Slowdown Family, who seem very professional and accomplished but for a couple of songs seem to undermine Frost's efforts by being a little too assured for his songs of insecurity. As the set goes on he visibly grows in confidence, sharing jokes with the crowd and band members, and their endearing alt-folk comes into its own, with a thunderous finale of The Mourners Of St. Paul's as he brings out an electric guitar for the first time particlalrly impressive.
The serious problem which makes them appear enjoyable but inessential though is that of overfamiliarity. Not only are folky singer-songwriters so common but direct influences are all too apparent - three seperate songs are too close to Bright Eyes' 'I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning' for comfort.

In some ways support band Lisa Brown don't step too far from their main stated influences either - New Order and Doves are much in evidence - but turn them into such sweet, glittery pop that not even an awful sound setup and a short set can do much to stop them. What's That Sound is more forceful than on record but still pure disco fun and new songs are uniformly even better than old. Hopefully they'll play a headlining date down here soon.

New shin porn; Decemberists spoon

For London-area fans of US indie-pop unable or unwilling to get to Camber Sands for ATP, Koko in Camden is clearly the place to be this May, as Spoon, The New Pornographers, The Decemberists and The Shins all play warm up shows there within a week of each other (the firs two in a two-for-the-price-of-one type thing!)

Covers all round

First, Starsailor cover Sugababes' Push The Button (it's at the bottom)
Then Arctic Monkeys cover Girls Aloud's Love Machine.
Next Sugababes will release a cover of Arctic Monkeys' I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor.

With any luck we will see the Girls Aloud cover of Four To The Floor within months!*

*note: this won't actually happen.

Four Day Hombre at Islington Bar Academy (26/01/06)

It's been a long road for Four Day Hombre - not just in the sense that this is the end of their tour (and they seem visibly relieved) but also that it has been five years since they released their first EP. A month before their debut album release in the tiny, packed, Bar Academy, playing upstairs from Taking Back Sunday, it's fairly obvious why everything might finally right for them now.
Rather than suffering from being worn out, they seem relaxed and confident and are gently witty between songs in front of a very appreciative, if none too animated, crowd. And what songs they are - it's easy at first to make obvious comparisons with Radiohead, Elbow (in the excellent rolling trip-hop-like beats especially) and even Coldplay (Simon Wainwright's sparingly employed falsetto) but they are expansive beyond any of them, with almost all songs seeming to take on a life of their own, flowing gracefully and inventively to places unrecognisable from where they begin and never quite allowing you to get a firm grasp on them.
Extremely fine singles The First Word Is The Hardest (here ended via a mutation into a very pretty cover of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill) and 1000 Bulbs don't even stand out as highlights and while throughout one fault is a lack of anything instantly memorable, in the encore they even prove to have a more immediate side which will be more likely to win over new fans too.

Now It's Off

January always seems to be a big month for bands losing members or splitting, and now sadly joining others including Ash, British Sea Power, Minuteman and the 22-20s are Grandaddy.

After a number of very small scale releases like 'Complex Party Come Along Theories' which barely made it out of their home in (can't-believe-it's-a-real-town-name) Modesto, California, they released fitfully brilliant full-scale debut album 'Under The Western Freeway' in 1997. It featured the mix of bloopy keyboards, beautifully fragile songs and obsessions with isolation, technology and its decay (see lost spaceman narrative Everything Beautiful Is Far Away) which were later to come together perfectly for 2000's widely adored 'The Sophtware Slump', beginning and closing with defining moments He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot and So You'll Aim Towards The Sky. It was a very hard album to live up to, and 2003's 'Sumday' recieved a mixed reaction, having some fine moments but losing a lot of the depth and individuality of the past. They will release a final album, 'The Return Of The Fambly Cat' in May, but will not tour again.

For those yet to listen, Tote's Umbrellas have a few songs to download although it's biased a little towards the newer stuff.

And twice in a couple of weeks seemed funny

Pete Doherty arrested for second time today

We're off to see Four Day Hombre now, review to come in next couple of days, maybe even with photos.

The Feeling at Metro (23/01/06)

'Our manager told us to make sure we say that you can text to get a live download of this song sent to you!'

The Feeling's lack of any pretence that it isn't a business that they're involved in could at a stretch be seen as refreshing. Coupled with a polite and likable but resolutely uncharismatic presence though, it means that any magic here has to come completely from their songs.

Luckily for them debut single Fill My Little World (introduced with a reassurance that it will be rereleased some time) is exactly the kind of joyous blast of a song that would forgive far worse, and already sounds like it can barely be contained in the tiny cramped Metro. They even have two or three more songs (I Love It When You Call Me and Join With Us for instance) which are practically its match, packed with enough brilliant hooks and harmonies to make you forget not only any notions of cool but also lingering thoughts that they sound a bit like The Darkness with the metal taken out.

When they slow things down though, as on next single Sewn, these begin to take hold and while never unpleasant, it's unremarkable stuff, and clearly not making much of an impression - when they leave there isn't even enough noise to inspire an encore, and while this might in part be down to people being busy pointing out to their friends that Sophie Ellis-Bextor is in the front of the crowd or singer Dan Gillespie's complaints of illness, it does suggest a band who aren't quite yet the complete article being pushed forwards regardless.

Pop stars

Every time that you think it's not going to get any more extreme, it does. Yesterday alone: 118,501 Arctic Monkeys albums sold.
Interestingly this also brings to light the current holder of the record for biggest first week sales of a debut album (over 300,000). It's this one:

The Picture Show (21/01)

Especially as our digital TV offers a service for watching videos on demand and is impressively often and thoroughly updated, I find myself getting my first impressions of a lot of new songs complete with their videos. This feature will highlight a few of them each week.
(Apologies for any format problems with the online versions)


Delays - Valentine
First up is Delays, with the first single from new album 'You See Colours'. It follows on well from the hypnotic electro-pop-rock of stopgap release Lost In A Melody, but the video is quite something else. Stunningly hideous may be the best way to describe it, but it has to be seen to be believed.



The Research - Lonely Hearts Still Beat The Same
Rather cuter all round is this Catchphrase-featuring video, for the fourth single from forthcoming debut 'Breaking Up'. Awww.



Four Day Hombre - The First Word Is The Hardest
Finally, a video which is one of the most peculiarly powerful I've seen for ages - it doesn't make much sense, is a little pretentious and spends too long showing the singer, yet it somehow still leaves me dumbstruck and adds a lot to the (already impressive) song too.

A bit of an advert

Next Monday, moved a week from its original planned date, Domino will release an album by a band who just six months ago were almost completely unknown to the general public and are now getting ridiculous levels of attention. The band in question take any number of common British guitar band clichés and influences and somehow manage to revitalise them all into something special, completely new and of their own, aided by a lyricist who effortlessly turns the mundanities of everyday life into witty and thrilling songs.
You may already have seen adverts for the album, but it looks like this.

Whilst we're on Domino, another band of theirs have just done a Girls Aloud cover which works quite well, at least until they start laughing:

Arctic Monkeys - Love Machine

For a load more radio session goodies try AltShiftMusic's recent post.

And the midweek answer is...

Probably. Arctic Monkeys are not far ahead of Notorious BIG at number one and while it should be likely for them to be overtaken, that's what everyone said last time.
Meanwhile Belle & Sebastian might just get their biggest yet with Funny Little Frog, and in the album charts Hard-Fi are just beating Editors to number one with their similarly 6-month old (and heavily reduced in many places) album.
This leaves them with a little bit of a dilemna, having already reached the desperately re-releasing old singles stage of their album campaign before finally being widely noticed - do they fail to take any more advantage of an upsurge in interest or carry on releasing yet more singles, putting off a second album even further and risking alienating longer-term fans?

Better Do Better it is.

Something to watch

Inspired by a comment on one of the reviews of Heartbeats here, here is that advert which everyone apparently loves and has elevated José Gonzáles to the top 10. Although it's never been on TV when I've been watching.

Heard about your band brake-up

Yes, Eamon has left British Sea Power.

Meanwhile having discovered that Beyonce's new single is actually a decent pop song and not another awful ballad, and with Shane Wayrd still going strong we eagerly await tomorrow's midweeks to see if Arctic Monkeys can can trigger another round of articles about getting to number one by the power of the interweb alone.

New year, new bands #1

Guillemots



Who?: Anglo-Scots-Brazilian-Canadian quartet with, apparently, names like Aristazabal Hawkes and Fyfe Dangerfield (respectively adorable bassist and even more adorable singer). They play music which makes jazz-pop actually sound like a great idea, with parping saxophones and busy experimentalism kept in balance by glorious swooning choruses and everything shot through with a sense of innocently magical wonder which just doesn't come around very often.

Progress so far: Their debut EP on Fantastic Plastic (former home of Buffseeds and Ikara Colt), I Saw Such Things In My Sleep, sold out far too quickly for my liking and fetches around 40 quid on ebay these days. Helped by supports for Rufus Wainwright and a mention on The Culture Show, the follow-up Trains to Brazil might well have made the top 40 if it wasn't ineligible due to a sticker included in the single. An album is currently being worked on and the only note of caution personally is that the last new band I was this excited about was Hope Of The States, and things didn't go too well at that stage there...

Website: http://www.guillemots.com

Listen to (click to download):

New year, new bands #2

Lisa Brown



Who?: Misleadingly named Manchester band, first heard in mid-2004 playing delicate, dreamily uplifting songs which still had a certain urgency and immediacy to them. Apparently favourites of Elbow's Guy Garvey, although for once I only found that out afterwards...

Progress so far: Things have gone slightly slowly for them since, but they have expanded their range to include incredibly cute synth-disco and finally released a single, What's That Sound, showing off that side of the band in December 2005.

Website: http://www.lisabrown.net/

Listen to:
Hey I Really Love You

Resigned from life

Slightly inevitable news reaches us that Minuteman have split. Led by Matt Jones, former keyboard player for Ultrasound, they released one album of glam-prog-pop in 2002, which included singles 5000 Minutes Of Pain and Big Boy, memorably rereleased because ITV started regularly using about five seconds of it on The Premiership. They had played gigs intermittently since but a second album was looking increasingly unlikely.

New year, new bands #3

My Latest Novel



Who?: Scottish five piece playing ambitious, sweet and unsurprisingly literate indie, incorporating poetry and sweeping drama with occasional nods to The Delgados and yes, ok, Belle And Sebastian.

Progress so far: They've supported Stars and released one single on Bella Union, with an even stronger one The Reputation Of Ross Francis to follow next month and an album, 'Wolves', to be released on March 6.

Website: http://www.mylatestnovel.com

Listen to: (click to download)

New year, new bands #4

Jeniferever



Who? Swedish four-piece who make very long songs of rather stunning brittle beauty and have a marginally better grasp of the English language for songwriting than Mew.

Progress so far? Several tours including a couple of the UK (including a date at Margate last year!) and a couple of (very long, naturally) EPs. They have now been signed to DrownedInSound recordings, of Martha Wainwright and, briefly, Kaiser Chiefs fame, and release their debut album 'Choose A Bright Morning' in March. Can't wait.

Website: http://www.jeniferever.com/

Listen (click to download):

New year, new bands #5

Battle



Who? Four-piece post-punkers who formed at university in Canterbury (hurrah!) and previously got some minor attention under other names, mainly Killing Moon. Bloc Party are the most obvious recent reference point, but there is a certain raw desperation and hunger in the music and lyrics which is something else completely. Very good live, too.

Progress so far: A couple of singles have been released: Isabelle/Stay The Same on Fierce Panda and the rather brilliant Demons on Transgressive, with another, Tendency, to come in March and an album currently being recorded.

Website: http://www.thisisbattle.com/

Listen (click for download):

New year, new bands #6

iLiKETRAiNS



Who? Leeds post-rock quintet who are infinitely better than their name. Post-rock not in the sense of ten-minute instrumentals and no real songs though, but that of a slightly unconventonal take on things (somehow writing movingly about Bobby Fischer and historical railway politics) and skyscraping guitars, strings and epicness all round, not completely unlike a less try-hard Hope Of The States.

Progress so far: A couple of limited edition vinyl singles, Before The Curtains Close and A Rook House For Bobby, have sold out very fast indeed, and new material is being worked on at the moment.

Website: http://www.iliketrains.co.uk/

Listen: (click for download)

A belated link

...to the results of Sweeping The Nation's poll of UK bloggers for their favourite albums released in the UK in 2005. The winner is not especially surprising (and quite deserving, methinks) but some of the others are pretty interesting.

Click here

I guess this means...

Ten people buy Ordinary Boys album

New year, new bands #7

I'm hedging my bets somewhat less this year and merely writing about 7 new bands (one each day this week with any luck) who I expect big things for and/or really like.

First up...

The Feeling



Who? Their biog's description of them as 'the new gods of cool MOR' and explanation of how there's no need to be ashamed of liking non-credible music any more is perhaps a little too knowing and self-defeating. Their songs show no such self-consciousness though and are breathtakingly immediate, sounding not unlike a supercharged version of Keane's best moments (with added guitars of course). If this doesn't sound a good idea, you may be one of many annoyed by the end of the year... oh, and apparently one of them is married to Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Progress so far: Well, they have a majot label contract with Island and a suitably flashy website. Their only release so far was the single Fill My Little World, which didn't trouble the charts but does seem to have now sold out.

Website: http://www.thefeeling.com

Listen: (click for download)

New year, new bands - 20 for 05 and how they did

At the end of 2004 I made a CD for friends with songs by 20 bands who hadn't released albums yet, with their inclusion based on if I liked them and (very importantly) if their website had easily downloadable songs as much as if they had any chance of success. OK, that is partly just an excuse for the large number of all-round failures here, but it's very interesting to look at what happened to them all. The tracklisting was as follows:

Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot See Sound Of 2005 piece.
The Departure - Be My Enemy I made fun of The Dead 60s for a rerelease of a number 30 single making the same place again, but the rerelease of The Departure's debut All Mapped Out actually managed to make 3 places lower. A big failure, suffering from the start from a general perception of artifice even more than The Bravery did, as well as the fact that their album was decent but unspectacular.
Bloc Party - Helicopter See Sound Of 2005 piece.
The Boxer Rebellion - Code Red I came across them in 2003 when they won a competition to play the Glastonbury new bands tent, beating Keane in the process. Their atmospheric Cooper Temple Clause like rock found a slightly unlikely home on Poptones, who did at least release an album, Exits (more than some bands here managed) which puzzlingly failed to include either this or their previous single. They are apparently already at work on a second album.
Saint Rose - Call For Calm Dramatic, slightly shoegazey indie and brilliant live, their website triumphantly announced a major label deal towards the end of last year, but now doesn't even exist. A bit of searching around finds that they are now The Bright Space.
Fans Of Kate - Tape 23 A keyboard-driven power pop band with a brilliant live set full of great and immediate songs, I'm genuinely surprised that they weren't more of a success in 2005. They've lost a member but are currently recording an album hopefully due for release before summer.
Arctic Monkeys - Scummy Now called When The Sun Goes Down, this is their next single. I don't think that I could have imagined at the time, having heard this one song on a CD from a friend and seen the occasional mention of them on messageboards, that it will be a surprise if it isn't number one, but there was a certain obvious spark here.
Vib Gyor - Church Bell Prog-indie discovered on the same CD, they have one of those names which sounds cool til you work out where it comes from. Not much mainstream attention here yet but they have supposedly been called 'a heavenly hybrid of Coldplay and Sigur Ros' by Entertainment Weekly in the US. Mmm. Can be heard on Myspace.
Mellowdrone - Fashionably Uninvited American and slightly electronic take on new wave, they haven't got anywhere yet but have an album 'The Box' coming out in a couple of months and sound like this.
Mystery Jets - On My Feet The most odd song they've put out so far, full of chanting and generally offbeat. More commercial (and Coral-like) songs like Alas Agnes and relentless publicity have managed to push them to the edge of the top 40, although whether they get any further and if their album is any good may depend on whether they manage to balance the two styles well.
HAL - Worry About The Wind Possibly their biggest problem was the massive gap of about a year between the release of this sweet, breezy single and the next one. Either that or The Thrills going out of fashion. Whichever, their album failed to make much of an impression in any sense, but Play The Hits was another great single.
Cranebuilders - So What Could I Do Nowhere at all on the commercial radar despite Elbow connections (supported them, on their label, Guy offers backing vocals throughout) but they did at least get a really good album full of haunting songs like this released.
Cherryfalls - In Your Arms Again A bit of a cautionary tale for new bands this one - they were signed to Island and released two fairly impressive singles in 2004, predictably slightly like later Coldplay but with a certain added force (some loud guitars and Standing Watching did contain the line 'I want to find you, I want to fuck you up') and supported Feeder, gradually becoming more known. They then in March 2005 released the astonishingly drippy My Drug, which sounded like it was written by a focus group and put anyone else's supposed critical grabs at success (Athlete, Snow Patrol) in perspective... and it did worse than Standing Watching did. At this point Island of course dropped them, before actually releasing their promising but inconsistent album 'Winter/Winter' but after sending out promos of it to the press.
At the moment they are trying to recreate themselves and confusion reigns - they may or may not be named The New York Fund. Or Ten City Run.
Mirima - Twister Mirima might still wish that they were Cherryfalls, though, as their site descriptions are starting to appear increasingly desperate.
Grand Transmitter - Under The Wheel Released one excellent EP of Muse/Buckley-like angst rock on Morning Runner's original label and have now seemingly vanished. The link to their official site from the label one goes here. Ulp.
Engineers - Come In Out Of The Rain They achieved surprisingly good reviews on the likes of Pitchfork but despite the NME's best efforts shoegazing never took off again here. Personally their album was one of the biggest disappointments of the whole year, failing to build on the promise of some gorgeous singles and managing to almost all go at a crawl but still achieve no atmosphere, until a fantastic final song which made the rest of it seem all the more limp in comparison. Oh well.
Pioneers - Slow Down Similar in sound as well as name, a mini-album was recently released and a full album may emerge sometime this year - perhaps they'll do a better job.
Pellumair - Iris One of three bands on here to no longer exist, which is quite a success rate! They split just before releasing their debut album of hazy acoustica 'Summer Storm', which is something which some other bands should have considered doing in the past, perhaps...
Morning Runner - Oceans Checked out on a the basis of a mention as Parlophone's priority for the year, this simple and beautiful piano song turned out to be unrepresentative of their sound in general, and they seemingly spent the year being forced down the throats of the public (Seemingly millions of support slots, most notably for Coldplay) to only a little avail. It's not difficult to see why, especially after Starsailor adopted a similar sound to almost as bad a response, but they have enough fine moments (second single Work the best example) to suggest that they might eventually win over a few more.
Lisa Brown - Picture House See forthcoming feature on new bands for 2006!

New year, new bands - (an honest) mistake

Lots of people are at the moment trying to predict the bands which will be success stories this year (well done to anyone sticking their neck out and going for Arctic Monkeys) which we will be doing shortly.
Some are also looking back at their predictions for 2005, including the BBC with a review of their Sound of 2005 roundup of 'music pundits' views here.

Yes, The Bravery were top. It seems like longer than a year ago that they were achieving a top 5 album and top 10 single, so quickly did they fall - the inability of the followup singles to even make the top 40 was comically remarkable, and they've been notably absent from any end-of-year lists.
Bloc Party never quite made the breakthrough into real stardom, not helped by a general perception of them as being boring and/or miserable in interviews, but did sell consistently well and just about dodged a huge backlash.
Kano did manage one more top 40 single than The Bravery, but his album went largely unnoticed. UK hip-hop chosen in these doesn't seem to fare well in general, in fact.
The Game was indeed a success although didn't seem to achieve a public perception much beyond being an extension of the 50 Cent brand.
Kaiser Chiefs managed the fourth best selling album of the year, so choosing them could be seen as a success if it wasn't for the fact that by the time the poll was published I Predict A Riot had already been a hit once (rules from the previous year dictating that acts shouldn't already have had a top 40 hit being diluted to exclude only those with top 20 ones - maybe this year they will go the whole way and include Arctic Monkeys...) and Oh My God was picking up airplay widely, and yet they were still only fifth.
KT Tunstall was a slightly more surprising success, perhaps, with Black Horse And The Cherry Tree seeing to suggest a slightly different proposition to her later more successful singles and a gradual buildup of momentum throughout the year to also reach the top 10 bestselling albums of the year.
The Dead 60s' Riot Radio reached number 30 back in October 2004 before the poll, and on its rerelease just under a year later reached... number 30. So well done there. Admittedly they did have some marginally bigger hits, but with album sales lukewarm and Hard-Fi doing a similar thing to better effect all round they were far from a success story.
The Dears, not actually at all new at the time having released their second album in North America in 2003 and the UK in 2004, look an even more puzzling choice when compared with the success of non-included fellow Canadians the Arcade Fire, who were picking up a lot more critical support already at the time and who had a really great year. 'Funeral' is now on sale in Tesco(!)
Tom Vek also never really got anywhere, with singles charting at 45, 60 and 59.
The Magic Numbers, in contrast, have achieved impressively massive album sales as well as generally good reviews, and having not even released a full-scale single at the time are behind only KT Tunstall in this list as a prediction of chart success which wasn't already happening.