Times New Viking- Stay Awake EP (Matador)

As ever, the unique Times New Viking sound is in place on this new EP. In case you're new to this malarkey, read recorded from the next room onto a dictaphone in a storm. If you can past the lowest of lo fi feel, then there are nuggets of gold buried in the dirt.

On 'Call And Respond' an oscillating keyboard riff gets scuzzed and rolled under the simple thrash of drums and guitar. The song is ostensibly a pop song, but rolled in tar, feathered, and sent mud wrestling. Dirty pop, if you will. Although there's no Christina Aguilera in sight (thankfully).

Channeling the inner crazy, 'Pagan Eyes' lasts just over a couple of minutes, with almost the only lyrics “Pagan eyes, pagan eyes, everywhere I go there's just pagan eyes.” It is still brilliant.

A flourish of Indian music starts 'No Sympathy', before a tired sounding keyboard gets dominated by lethargic vocals and audio shrapnel conjured from the guitar. These are not criticisms, by any means. The components unite into a cohesive globule of heartbreak.

The production almost drowns out the band on 'Sick & Tyred', the vocals smothered in an extra layering of static hiss. The momentum easily carries them through to the end.

'Hate Hate Hate' whirrs past at 90 miles per hour, all wrapped up in 58 seconds of rapid drumming, shouts and chants. Seven of those precious seconds are a slowburn fade out at the end, a much needed pause for breath.

The joy of the cheap production is that it makes the listener work harder to extract the indie pop melodies they disguise so well. For a band with one guitar, one keyboard and a drummer the songs tend towards simplistic. But there is an honest greatness hidden underneath the one take fuzz of this EP.

The whole 5 track EP will only use up 11 minutes of your busy life. No excuses. Buy it, schmuck.
4.5/5

MGMT- Kids (Colombia)

MGMT, the indie band de jour, release the second best track from Oracular Spectacular. The one that was on Skins, the one all the cool kids like. Yeah, that one.

Well this is the other one, that rattles on about how you should “take only what you need from it” in crypto mythical terms. Much like MGMT themselves, with their ker-azy dress sense. But screw the scenester superiority complex, this song is grand.

The keyboards, and the sweet pop melodies grooving underneath all combine into one of the deserved crossover hits of the year. However much it has been overplayed, it still bops like a muthafucker.

The Soulwax remix on the B side sees the Belgian outfit do their usual spit and shine. 'Kids' turns from a song that works in an indie club to a song that works in any club, anywhere.

Everything is tautened and expanded, vocals pitched up an octave and the keyboards from the original turned into slinky sleazy synthesizers. Elements of the brilliant original filter through the digital haze. Although a different, glitzier beast, it almost works better than the original. Almost.
4/5

Gregory And The Hawk- 'Ghost' (Fatcat Records)

Before Noah had his whale, Gregory had his hawk. Or, as it actually is, her hawk. Because Gregory is really Meredith Godreau. Cue confused gig promoters who get a female singer songwriter, when they expected some twee folk boy. Perhaps the point, as Meredith wanted to avoid all the pigeon-holing that females receive at the hands of cynical music journalists. Like me?

Well, no. Meredith has no need to hide behind (admittedly great) monikers. 'Ghost' mixes up folksy guitars and rattling guitars, and then adds her sweet and breathy vocals on top. The swoony brass sways into the chorus, lugubrious and woozy charms on show. The song feels gentle to the touch, but the build up of instruments adds a certain solidity.

On the other side of the CD (but not really, that's tapes) comes 'Dare And Daring', where things are kept much more slow paced. Guitars form a plucked and rolling backing, but the folksy feeling combines with pop melodies into something very pretty. No need for old invisible friends, you don't need him anymore.
4/5

Absentee- 'Victory Shorts' (22/9/08 Memphis Industries)

London band Absentee claim to have been bought up on the music of the Carpenters and his honourable Barry 'nose' Manilow. Yet it is little in evidence here, on their second album.

On album opener 'Shared' they channel the spirit of slow paced desert ballads, trying to do battle with the drizzle of English autumns. No 1970s pop here. Vocalist Dan Michaelson sings in a grizzled croon that rumbles and rolls, and sounds not unlike a decent impression of Mark Lanegan. Cooed female backing vocals entwine with the baritone, a contrast that works brilliantly with the lollop of the guitars.

The slow opening is quickly run over by the driving pop of 'Boy Did She Teach You Nothing?' on an album that varies its tone between indie and country, changing and shifting like sands in the desert. Gentle sandy moans are soon followed by the non more traditional rock of 'Pips'

When Michaelson croons “I'm willing you, to make mistakes that suit you, wouldn't have it any other way” the theme of the album emerges. Romance. Sometimes it's unrequited, as on the medical ward plod of 'The Nurses Don't Notice A Thing, where the simple poetry of lines like "the simplest feelings of love explode into the room like cowboys in saloons, I want to clap but it seems inappropriate” spills out like an old soak on too much whisky.

Sometimes it's loss, as on 'Love Has Had It's Way', where the exhaustion of the end of a relationship is captured in the lethargic feel of the track. All spectrums are covered, as the unholy practice thieving of girlfriends is covered on the aptly named 'Bitchstealer.' Sample lyric: “She wasn't yours to take, so just bring her back.”

The cowboy feel of 'Victory Shorts' continues on 'They Do It These Days', with the wobbly piano lines sounding like a saloon bar knees up. Trumpets and guitars climb onto the bar and add to the celebratory atmosphere. By the end of the song the band are proposing a rushed marriage.

One thing that grates like wire wool trousers is the need for Michaelson to sing in a southern baritone. Look at Kate Nash, Jamie Oliver, Jon Culshaw etc etc. Faking your voice annoys people, although an English baritone perhaps wouldn't fit the music so well.

The track most guilty of the crime is 'Spitting Feathers' which sounds like a washed up country singers attempt to win back his lover, with charming lines like: “Your face hasn't changed since the time I slurred.” It even has that twangy country guitar pedal effect so beloved of bootlace tie wearers everywhere.

However, it's a trivial issue, when the melodies tend to be of high quality. Apart from 'We Smash Plates', where the track drags and drags like a weary toddler, the countrified melodies and occasional brass flourished work well. Absentee have comfortably moved out of the shadow of their early Magic Numbers patronage.

The problem remains, however, of how special any of these songs are. Competence is not brilliance. As good as the songs are technically, and however well put together they are, it doesn't mean you'd choose to listen to them. Just cos you can buy flatpack, does it make it better than an antique? Would you choose Absentee, when their area of music has been covered before, and better?
3/5

Land of Talk- 'Some Are Lakes' (29/9/08 Indian)

Land Of Talk return, and someone has been feeding 'em sedatives. Gone is the punky exuberance of the debut, with the Canadians stealing valium from the medicine cabinet, all downtempo cruising rock.

It's not surprise considering the topic of 'Some Are Lakes', as it focuses on a parental relationship thwarted by cancer. Land Of Talk have gone very Rilo Kiley, before Rilo Kiley decided that changing their sound was a good idea. The melodies flow like red wine

The B side sees one of the band's earlier tracks, Summer Special rerecorded into an acoustic . The line “Look at those boys, so young, so young still piss their pants” turns from a dismissal into a lamentation of lost youth. The gentle summer vibes work well in the early October gloom, with porches and teenage girls in rocking chairs. A move from their noisy past has been pitched perfectly.
4/5

The Peth- 'The Golden Mile' (1/9/08 Strangetown)

Perhaps this review is more suited for the Heats and the Closers of this world, concerning, as it does, the man largely known as 'Sienna's ex.' If you don't understand that, then good for you, but we're talking Rhys Ifans, he who paraded his pants in front of Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. It also features Daffyd from Super Furry Animals (a band Rhys was briefly lead singer for, back in the day, fact fans), so, you know, maybe it has some musical merit too?

The opening 2 tracks of the album promise much. 'Half A Brain' starts with a slow build of synths, before breaking out into dirty electro riffs, before melding into a chorus that sounds all 70s rock. If the refrain was better, it might have worked. 'Shoot On Sight' works much better, with a strutting bassline and portentous synths creating some truly galactic rock, and easily the best track of the record. '69 Fanny Street' almost matches it, but the melodies just tip the wrong side of the derivative/brilliant seesaw.

Maybe it's the Welsh accents, or the involvement of Daffyd Ieuan, but 'Let's Go Fucking Mental' sounds a lot like Super Furry Animals, but if they were shaved of all the little lumps and bumps that make them interesting. This sets up the theme for the rest of the album, songs that ape their influences successfully, but never surpass them.

'Turbotank' recalls Oasis at their bloated worst, chugging away , a rusty old schooner patched and worn out. The lyrics recall the Gallaghers primary school platitudes with lines like “Zero hero, leading me astray, cos you love me, yeah yeah yeah.” Ifans may be able to act up a storm (ie his Peter Cook take) but get him to sit down with pen and paper, and shit spills out. Witness “talk to me cos I don't understand ya, talk to me from your sunset veranda” that opens Sunset Verandah. The only thing that can be said in that song's favour is that the keyboards in the back of the picture sound a little bit like 'Baba O'Riley' by the Who.

The songs are filled with cavernous guitars, foot firmly pressed on epic, but it just feels like you're listening to the songs through the drug haze that 'The Golden Mile' was clearly recorded through. It's all trying to bring to mind 'Screamadelica', but it all to often conjures up memories of the tedium of slow paced Britpop at its worst, and the lack of ideas inherent in British rock n roll.

One song that manages to bring the fun is 'Last Man Standing', with the great couplets of “If I only had my crackpipe, it just might have kept me sane, instead of picking up the toaster, and toasting half my brain.” The song appears an ode to Ifans's well documented wastrel ways, but the driving riffs and joyous atmosphere don't fail to bring a smile.

“Everything I do you hate it, break me down to almost nothing.” Cough Sienna, cough. “Every day I think about you.” These kind of lines, found on 'Stonefinger', might stuff more evidence into the bag marked 'Rhys Ifans is getting over his ex in a very public way' but the songs seem to suggest more a need to act the rock n roll star. The 'greats' of Britrock are summoned, for better or worse, and as catharsis, who knows, this project probably works. As artistic statement, as something of value outside tabloid interest, it probably doesn't.
2/5

Glasvegas- 'Glasvegas' (Sony BMG 8/9/08)

The Jesus And Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Spector, the Ronettes etc etc. The influences are written on sleeves, threaded through the tracks, ever present. Glasvegas sound like little else current, but a lot else olden.

This hyped debut opens positively, the big drumbeats and 'whoas' of the background combine with the 'couldn't be more Scottish if it was wearing tartan and eating a battered Mars bar' vocal stylings of singer James Allan on 'Flowers And Football Tops', creating what is at its noir heart, a good pop song.

'Geraldine' maintains the quality, its almost stadium-esque guitars mixing perfectly with an ode of love to “the angel on your shoulder.” The down key nature of 'It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry' almost makes it better, with the 50s influences very much to the fore on a more sombre track.

The terrace chant of 'Go Square Go' bounces along on its apparently meaningless repetition of the title, before descending further into the hooligan anthem, with Allan driving the crowd to a frenzy with his “here we fucking go.” I'm not going anywhere. Sorry.

One plus, or minus, is the clearly defined Glasvegas sound. The 50s inspired guitars, mixed with the reverb and echo of Phil Spector, create a certain sound that no one does any more. The minus is that, despite carving their own niche into the rock, they only have one niche. 'Polmont On My Mind' is evidence of this, dawdling along, turning up the guitars for another big chorus, and clicking on the reverb pedal, with all the passion of a prostitute and a lonesome businessman.

It just makes you all the more grateful when 'Daddy's Gone' makes its entrance. Do any more words need be expended further eulogising this track? Probably not.

Whatever the motives of it, 'Stabbed' just feels like a cheap cash in on tabloid hysteria. It may be relevant to many people's lives, but you just know that if it had been done by on Brass Eye, you'd be laughing, despite the tragedy of the words. The classical piano backing just adds to the heightened sense of ridicule.

'S.A.D Light' makes a nursery rhyme reference, much like 'Flowers And Football Tops', but this time using 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. A lack of ideas, or just continuing the childhood references that linger around, of absent fathers, football, and social workers? The simple drumbeat that opens the track is soon overtaken by the broken croons, but remains steady throughout, a concrete foundation. Sadly, little of interest is built on it, just a few breeze blocks.

'Ice Cream Van' is the true let down of the album, the vocals lost in its own echo chamber. It feels like its had its tethers cut, and has started floating through the clouds. It feels distant, remote, and nothing happens in the whole 5 minutes. As an album closer it fails. As a track it fails.

Sadly, Glasvegas don't quite match their Alan McGee spurred hype. Too often the track is one paced and one dimensional. Outside of the blandness of the closer, there is as little variety in style as an emo convention. When they really slot the melodies together, it sparks and spits like little else. Unfortunately, there are just a few too many misfires to make this the classic it could have been.
3.5/5