More highly recommended new and underground music from The Popscener.
Today's hotshots: Everybody was in the French Resistance...Now!
Any work featuring the considerable talents of Art Brut's Eddie Argos - the indie Stephen Fry - has a better than average chance of tickling the ribs whilst stimulating the ears, and this new side-project, imaginatively entitled Everybody was in the French Resistance...Now! doesn't disappoint. This effort is less garage rock and more baroque pop, and may feature the lumbering frontman's most energetic vocal yet, whilst losing none of his usual acerbic wordplay and dry charm. All of which would have made a late charge for the TOTP appearance Argos so craves a possibility had the show not been defunct for almost four years...oh well.
More highly recommended new and underground music from The Popscener.
Today's hotshots: Surfer Blood
Despite a name which appears to point to some sort of anti aquatic-sports based death metal, luckily Surfer Blood are a far less scary proposition. Instead, the Florida natives present a fairly novel take on the emerging (and soon to be omnipresent) 'nu-wave' surf-rock thing, mixing 70s/80s power-pop a la Cheap Trick with the usual chirruping guitar work, doo-wop melodies and songs about, erm, surfing.
*** Digestible run-downs of this week’s new releases, including track recommendations from THE POPSCENER***
From the sublime to the ridiculous this week...
Soft Pack - The Soft Pack
Cheering me up from the get-go isn’t a bad route to currying favour, so the fact that The Soft Pack bursts into life with a throwaway guitar chord and a relentless hi-hat hardly hinders its prospects for a positive review. Whilst nothing else quite touches opener ‘C’mon’ for pitch-perfect honing of Replacement-esque recklessness, plenty (‘Answer To Yourself’, ‘Move Along’) come close, as a breakneck half hour of breathless bliss surfs its way to crest of 2010’s garage-rock wave. Released in June and it would’ve been the sound of the Summer – a joyfully lively, well-crafted and coherent effort.
Choice Cuts: ‘C’mon’, ‘Answer To Yourself’, ‘Move Along’, ‘More or Less’
8.5/10
Los Campesinos - Romance Is Boring
The Cardiff band have always been a favourite with the fanzines, but their third coming seems to have provoked a muted response this time round; a raised eyebrow replacing wide-eyed enthusiasm. If I were a betting man, I’d suggest this was because they’re still trading in the same currency that won their debut a coterie of admires – Romance is Boring duly offers up the usual painful mix of shy, rambling emo platitudes and a propensity for being extroverted about their social and emotional impotence, backed with familiarly punky indie-pop. Again, the hits typically revolve around the more breathless beats (‘There Are Listed Buildings’), while the misses (‘Straight in at 101’) afford singer Gareth the kind of excruciating airspace that his grating vocals certainly don’t deserve. Par for the course, then.
Taking some time out from their day jobs in Supergrass, Turn Ons sees Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffney tackling a series of new wave, post-punk and rock classics likely to appear on any self-respecting indie band’s influences list. The predictability of the track listing is largely mirrored by the finished article – that is, it sounds like Supergrass and the songs largely speak for themselves. Even so, super-charged versions of Roxy Music’s ‘Love Is A Drug’ and Gang of Four’s ‘Damaged Goods’ sound great, as does the hammed up glam version of the Kinks’ ‘Big Sky’. Meanwhile, the whispy, atmospheric take on ‘Up the Junction’ is crap, whilst the majority are as agreeably irrelevant as the concept itself.
Choice Cuts: ‘Love Is A Drug’, ‘Big Sky’
6/10
Ocean Colour Scene - Saturday
Having owned the obligatory copy and cheerfully appreciated the four good songs of ‘Moseley Shoals’, I was under the impression that these Britpop behemoths had long since met their demise, but apparently this is their 7th record since their 1996 breakthrough. Apparently the sound hasn’t changed much, meaning there’s more sub-Who melodies, sub-Weller vocals, and the odd Beatles off-cut (‘What’s Mine is Yours’) thrown in. In actuality, some of it isn’t half bad – the bar room stomp of ‘Mrs Maylie’ in particular is worth a listen – but there’s no ‘Day We Caught the Train’ to ease the sense that it’s all painfully inconsequential. ‘100 Floors of Perception’ maybe, but evidently not a single one that deals in brutal honesty.
Choice Cuts: ‘What's Mine Is Yours’, ‘Mrs Maylie’
5.5/10
Midlake - The Courage Of Others
After four full spins – including one where I sat, listened, researched the lyrics and read about the band’s background – I still can’t formulate any opinion on The Courage of Others beyond that in which my bile runneth over. Perhaps I’m cold and dead inside; perhaps this is unrepentantly boring, nondescript shit that’s too tedious even to classify as indulgent, despite wearing an air of misplaced self-importance. This one doesn’t even qualify as the Fleetwood Cack of their last effort – worse, this time it’s the Eagles if Don Henley had sung in a yawning monotone and never written a pop song. By the time the mildly energised folky psychedelia of ‘The Horn’ arrives, you won’t be sure if it’s genuinely listenable or someone has applied some polish to the turd. Just awful.
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