Album review: Rilo Kiley

Rilo Kiley
Under The Blacklight

Label: Warner Bros. Records
Release date: 20th August 2007

http://www.rilokiley.com/

Rating: 4 out of 5

Under The Blacklight sees US alterna-darlings Rilo Kiley making their major label debut. Indie no more, their fourth album sees Rilo Kiley all grown up and ready to take centre stage.

Breakin' Up is a lost disco classic, complete with soaring strings and ooh-ing backing singers. The title track is a sure-fire hit, the kind of crossover track that is reminiscent of The Sundays. With its melodic similarities to Fleetwood Mac's Dreams, the excellent Dreamworld must surely have been purposely named. Dejalo channels Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine, giving the album necessary spice and zest. The country swagger of 15 sees Lewis in full Bonnie Raitt effect - brash, melodic and undeniably swinging – while Give A Little Love is the kind of ace rock pop songs that people like Sophie B Hawkins were doing in the 80s – they just don’t make enough songs like anymore, dammit.

With its classic rock stylings and country leanings, Under The Blacklight brings to mind Midlake's The Trials Of Van Occupanther and shows the same crossover potential. From the offset, Jenny Watson's voice envelops you like vintage velvet, all soft South Western tones and languorous vowels. Hers is certainly one of the best contemporary voices around, female or otherwise, and she carries Rilo Kiley upon shoulders more than strong enough to carry the weight.

- First published in the August issue of NARC. magazine

Album review: Interpol

Interpol
Our Love To Admire
Label: Parlophone
Release date: 9th July 2007

www.interpolnyc.com

Rating: 5 out of 5

If you’ve spent the last two and a half years waiting with baited breath for the third album from NYCs finest, listening to Our Love To Admire will come as something of a hallelujah moment for you, the heavens parting and jubilant seraphim descending from the clouds, manna raining down from paradise. Seriously, folks - it’s just that good.

The album opens with Pioneer To The Falls, its eerie, stalking soundscape shot through with Slavic motifs. It’s all angles and corners, like some German Expressionist film – Dr Caligari’s somnambulist crawling the jagged streets or Nosferatu curling round chimneystacks. At first it seems odd to open the album with what seems like a slow-burner but as the song progresses, you realise what a perfect choice it is; chilly, dramatic, elegant and the perfect introduction to the album.

What Interpol do best are bitter, poisonous songs of longing, possessive desire and frustration; happily, this album has them in spades. No I in Threesome and The Scale are lilting staggers through the charred ruins of decimated relationships. Wrecking Ball continues the theme and shows that the band are not all cruel façade and Teutonic posturing. It’s the kind of song you listen to in the gin-sodden early hours of the morning after a wretched break-up. Elegiac, it should make you sadder but has instead a kind of restorative effect, its shards of glacial sound piercing through like dawn light spilling through curtains.

All Fired Up sees the band mixing strident lyrics - "I got this soul/It's all fired up" - with a drumbeat that weaves in and around the guitars like a prize-fighter, daring you to drop your guard and take a shot. Paul Banks sings "I dream of you draped in wires and leaning on the brakes/As I leave you with restless liars and dealers on the take" and the tableau is complete; this noir world, with its sinister thematic drive is Interpol. It is to their eternal credit that they manage to convey a sense of conviction and authenticity where so many have tried and failed. In Mammoth, the refrain "Spare me the suspense" is the apogee of the disdainful, seen-it-all ennui that marks much of modern life.

Who Do You Think is similar to the big hits from Antics – C'mere and Slow Hands - where the whip crack of the drums spurs on the rumbling bass and firecracker guitars, Banks' lyrical phrasing simply unbeatable. A shimmering example of modern rock music at its sublime best.

Amazing too is Pace Is The Trick, a track so gloriously confident and poised that it’s easy to see Interpol up there in the leagues of world-beating stadium filling bands like U2. The difference is that through the course of their career to date, Interpol appear to have remained true to themselves, refining and honing their sound to perfection and never straying into faddishness or parody.

In the savage pound of their drums and the brownstone elegance of their melodies, Interpol are NYC through and through. In current single The Heinrich Maneuvre, Banks sings "How are things on the West Coast?"; it’s clear that his lover couldn’t be further away. The "West Coast" is California – silicone, sunshine and The American Dream. Interpol, pale and interesting, prefer to skulk in city shadows, stoking dark dystopian fantasies and fondling their sordid obsessions.

I just wish I could stay there with them.

Album review: Immaculate Machines

Immaculate Machine
Fables
Label: Mint Records
Release date: July 9th 2007

Website: www.immaculatemachine.com

Rating: 4 out of 5

In recent years, Canada has proved to be a fertile spawning ground for quality alternative music: Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene and The New Pornographers to name but a few. Add to this hallowed pantheon, Immaculate Machine. Formed in 2002, Immaculate Machine are three indie pop kids blessed with an ear for melody and a penchant for catchy hooks.

The album opens with Jarhand, a frenetic indie pop confection of joyous jangly guitars and the catchiest refrain you’ll hear this year; it's just summer in a bottle. Oh, and it also features special guest backing singers in the form of Alex 'Franz' Kapranos and The Cribs.

Dear Confessor's insistent drumbeats and repetitive refrain that "maps will show us where we’re going/ all they are is just the boring facts" will have you pogo-ing around with a great big smile on your face. Old Flame is The Long Blondes meets The Research meets Human League. At times overwrought, but bordering on the edge of electro-pop genius, it rises to a dramatic crescendo, bursting into a flaming Muse-esque tornado of guitars.

But it's not all fodder for the indie disco dancefloor; Roman Statues is an elegant and delicate concoction. Here, as on many of the other tracks, Brooke Gallupe, Kathryn Calder and Luke Lozlowski share vocal duties to great effect. The haunting Northeastern Wind is desolate and ravaging – four minutes and thirty-one seconds of raw sadness and naked longing. Listening to Blinding Light is literally like bathing in warm floods of white light – soothing and clean, like something holy.

Fables is the band’s third album, but is the first that they haven’t released independently. It's an intricate music box of an album, with songs that you'll instantly love and songs that will worm their way into your heart over time. Take a chance; Immaculate Machine are worth it.

Album review: The Maccabees

The Maccabees
Colour It In
Release date: May 7th 2007
Label: Fiction Records
Website: http://www.themaccabees.co.uk/

Rating: 4 out of 5

Let's not beat around the bush – this is essentially noughties new-wave indie. You've heard a lot of stuff like it, but that's no reason to write The Maccabees off. Singer Orlando Weeks' quirky vocal delivery may take some getting used to – it’s a bit Dexy's Midnight Runners – but persevere and you’ll soon uncover a voice that is robust, tender and richly emotive.

About Your Dress and Precious Time are great songs – catchy, inventive and with bags of energy and flair. O.A.V.I.P. is quite Smiths-y, with an addictive backbeat and a great vocal performance from Weeks. Lego is high-octane emotion, urging you on and daring you not to love it.

First Love is a pure rush of endorphins, perfectly capturing the delightful mania and frenzy of unfettered lust/love. Latchmere is a delight - a quintessential British pop song, harking back to days spent at the leisure pool, larking about and generally getting up to no good. It's the tinge of existential sadness that elevates the song above the humdrum: "Came out of the changing room and absolutely fuck all had changed/ So I’ll stay in your lanes". The album closes with the skiffle-shrug of Toothpaste Kisses, a whimsical and lovely song that sets the heart a-flutter.

Showing more than enough promise to be getting on with, The Maccabees have the charm and the talent to win over even the hardest indie heart.

Album review: Editors

Editors
An End Has A Start

Label: Kitchenware Records
Release date: 26th June 2007
Website: http://www.editorsofficial.com/

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Following the resounding success of The Back Room, Editors return with their sophomore album An End Has A Start. Clearly out to consolidate their success and make a statement, album-opener and lead single Smokers Outside The Hospital Door sets the stage with thunderous and ominous-sounding drums, a powerful and commanding statement of intent. The sound is good, but the sentiment a touch banal: "The saddest thing that I've ever seen was smokers outside the hospital door".

The title track, An End Has A Start, is exhilarating and triumphant. Singer Tom Smith’s voice has developed a steeliness that gives his deep, melancholic voice a certain maturity. "You came on your own – That’s how you'll leave," he sings; fatalistic and fantastic in equal measures. The best songs walk this tightrope of existential angst and the giddy euphoria, a dichotomy of sound that somehow creates something that is more than its constituents.

Bones is the kind of (get ready for it) "up-tempo neo-Goth New New Wave" rock for which Editors are most feted. Keening guitar and drums that sound like cardiac arrhythmia, all set against the articulate vocalisation of heartbreak and pain.

When Anger Shows is just plain boring: "I just need you to tell me it's ok". It’s just the kind of thing they play on US teen dramas to accompany scenes of relationship breakdown – too trite, too unoriginal. Push Your Head Towards The Air is Editors' "Fix You" or "Chasing Cars" – a cinemascope anti-ballad of epic proportions and sonic soundscapes. But, unlike the Coldplay and Snow Patrol tracks, PYHTTA is actually good, wringing out desolation and sadness with sincerity and a refreshing lack of artifice.

So, is it a great record? Undoubtedly, Editors are a talented bunch but it’s their curse that they are doomed to be forever mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Keane, Snow Patrol and Coldplay. Editors, you can tell, long to be up there with Joy Division, Echo and The Bunnymen, The Smiths and Interpol. When placed in this illustrious company they fail to live up to their promise, all too often plumping for safe middle ground and the comfort of neutrality.

Despite the fact that their intrinsic darkness and erudition gives them an allure that other bands lack, Editors fail to truly capitalise upon the very traits that set them apart from their peers. Their daring and inventiveness does occasionally shine through, particularly on the title track and songs like Escape The Nest and The Racing Rats. Confident, venomous and razor-sharp, they prove that Editors really only hit their stride when dabbling in the dark and playing in the shadows.
Editors are a band that got too big, too quickly; they should have been left to struggle on the sidelines for a bit. Let bitterness and rancour curdle their spirits a little, I say. All that viciousness and bile may be bad for the heart but dammit, it makes for great songwriting.

Video: Fionn Regan - 'Be Good Or Be Gone"

One cold and snowy night last February, I found myself in the auditorium of The Store, a small, bohemian cafe-cum-arts venue in Dipton, County Durham. Far from a 'normal' music venue, The Store hosts intimate gatherings where lesser known folkies and comedians tread the boards for a select group, comprising mainly locals and a smattering of out-of-towners. Sitting in a chair in the darkened hall, clutching a bottle of red wine and staring at the stage, I was transfixed by the musician we had travelled through blizzard and snow drift to see.

Fionn Regan is a true delight, an utterly amazing guitarist and gifted lyricist, evoking the ghost of Nick Drake in the magical dance of his fingers across guitar string. A singer-songwriter a world away from the dreary keening wails of the likes of James Blunt, Regan inhabits a world of rabbits and lost books and darkening woods. If you haven't got it already, I suggest you get yourself over to Amazon and buy his debut long-player, The End of History. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

To give you a small taster, here's the video for Be Good Or Be Gone, one of the singles off the album.

Album review: The Long Blondes

The Long Blondes
Someone To Drive You Home

Label: Rough Trade
Release Date: 6th November 2006
Website: www.thelongblondes.co.uk

5 out of 5

After a year of being steadily hyped as Britain’s Best Unsigned Band™, someone’s gone and given Sheffield’s The Long Blondes a deal. And that someone? Only Rough Trade – the label that brought us The Smiths, The Libertines and The Strokes. Rare company indeed.

So, the stakes are high for The Long Blondes. They have the look, the archly alluring lead singer and they certainly talk the retro talk, all Oxfam chic and Friday nights spent drinking Babycham at the Roxy. But are they just Pulp 2.0 or something a bit more?

'Lust In The Movies' opens with the screech of feedback and pounding tribal drums – no fey indie fops here! (Non) Blonde-in-Chief Kate Jackson wades in with strident, strong vocals – much improved over months spent touring and recording – sounding very reminiscent of Patti Smith and Elastica’s Justine Frischman. With an infectious BIS-like chorus of "Edie Sedgewick, Anna Karenina, Arlene Dahl / I just want to be a sweetheart", this is a tragic tale of being an outsider, of viewing a world of bright lights and sophistication and of being utterly removed from that world you so desire to join. When Jackson sings, "So never try to tell me it's a pleasure being alone / All I have here with me are the records and the books that I own", bedsit dreamers the world over sigh in tortured agreement.

'Once And Never Again' is a piece of pure pop genius, proving that the band has a real knack for writing catchy, hook-laden pop. This is a kitchen sink drama worthy of Jarvis himself, with a deliciously addictive guitar hook that drags you onto the dance floor and makes you bop like a bobbysoxer. "19/You’re only 19 for God’s sake/You don’t need a boyfriend": one of the best singles I’ve heard for years.

The rest of the album yields gem after gem. 'Only Lovers Left Alive' is a disco frenzy, recalling the darker side of Pulp while 'In The Company Of Women' and 'Giddy Stratospheres' are rhythmical guitar-based dance music in top form, reminiscent of Blondie at their peak.

The Long Blondes display their art school credentials on 'Madame Ray', with a resoundingly funky drumbeat and pulsating synth, laid over lyrics that reference 20th Century Dadaist photography. 'Swallow Tattoo' and 'Weekend Without Makeup' are both infinitely quotable modern love songs, displaying a witty erudition that blows The Arctic Monkeys out of the water: "You've left me fashioning a double bed and acting like some kind of fifties housewife".

You tell him, sister!

Album review: Husky Rescue

Husky Rescue
Ghost Is Not Real

Record Label: Catskills Records
Website: www.husky-rescue.com

Released: 29th January 2007

5 out of 5

Put aside your preconceptions about twee Scandinavian indie pop and listen up. Finland’s Husky Rescue make the kind of epic emotional indie normally associated with bands such as Coldplay and Snow Patrol.

No! Wait! Come back! I didn’t mean to scare you off!

Unfashionable as it may be to admit, grandiose, ambitious indie does have a place in the pantheon of modern music, particularly in the hands of bands like Husky Rescue. This kind of richly textured, widescreen rock music is usually fuelled, and often ruined, by testosterone and overwrought ego – vis Bono, Springsteen et al. In Husky Rescue, this is tempered by the presence of lead singer Reeta-Leena Korhola, a woman possessed of a voice of such singular beauty, it’s like living fire trapped in ice.

A sort-of collective of the Herman Düne/Broken Social Scene variety, Husky Rescue’s main-man Marko Nyberg put the band together to create lush, driving cinematic soundscapes and intimate emotional melodies. And, as songs like 'Nightless Night' and 'My Home Ghost attest, Husky Rescue are as adept in the former as they are in the latter. This is the sound of a band at the top of their game. They’re so damn brilliant, it would be churlish of us not to just lie down and submit, letting their glistening sonic waves wash over, baptising us in their beauty.

It’d be remiss of me not to mention Nina Persson of the Cardigans, and Victoria Bergsman [formerly] of The Concretes, both of whom are valid musical touchstones when describing Korhona’s vocal style. However, the similarities probably owe much to their shared Scandinavian heritage than anything else. It is Korhona who, along with their sheer musical brilliance, elevates Husky Rescue to such sublime heights and positions them as one of the bright stars in the ascendant Scandi-indie galaxy.

- first published in NARC. magazine

Video: Maximo Park "Our Velocity"

The 'Park are back with a new single and it's a humdinger. What's up with Paul Smith's hat though? The man's obsessed with dubious headwear.

No Direction, Period.

Album review: Serena Maneesh

Serena-Maneesh
Serena-Maneesh

Label: Playlouderrecordings
Release date: 26/06/06

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

So, my monthly Review CD package arrived in the post and I, eager to erase the memory of last month’s Every Move A Picture-debacle, ripped open the JiffyBag, praying for something good, something exciting, some rare proof that not everyone was mired in the morass of 80s nostalgia (how long before there’s a Phil Collins revival, people? HOW LONG???).

Pulling out the lone CD within, I found myself confronted with a black and purple cover, with the esoteric inscription Serena-Maneesh. In all honesty, it looks like a Goth album. My heart sank.

However, as your trusted NARC reviewer, I have pledged to keep an open mind and review albums honestly, even if they look like dire Industric Gothic revivalists. I dutifully whacked the CD into the player, pressed “play”, and steeled myself for a brutal aural assault.

But… but…

It’s not Goth! It’s good! Better than that, it’s GREAT!

Serena-Maneesh, I discover through Internet sleuthing, are a sprawling mass of musicians, predominantly Norwegian, who “emerge from the womb as something wholly new and all of their own” (courtesy of their not-at-all gushing press release).

Intro track Drain Cosmetics is all psychedelic drums and trippy guitars, with half-whispered lyrics, a sublime intertwining of male and female vocals. Somewhere between Velvet Underground, Royal Trux and Ride – the link they all share is a sort of blissed-out, opiate-induced lushness.

Selina’s Melodie Fountain combines Pixies-style guitars with the dreamy vocals, creating a thrilling soundscape, all whooshing guitars and thumping, racing rhythm section.

Candlelighted is beautiful and delicate, reminiscent of Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins, ethereal, beguiling and compelling. A side note for you pop-pockers out there: Sufjan Stevens guests on this track - playing the flute!

Don’t Come Down Here also echoes the dreamier side of Corgan and Co – it’s the perfect song for summer evenings, for lying in warm grass, kissing lovers.

But it’s not all dimmed candlelight, incense and hazy sunsets. Beehiver II kicks in like a rebel motorcycle gang, hepped up on Blue Bombers and careening around winding mountain roads at night, moonlight glinting off oiled leathers.

The insistent drumbeat reminds me of the Velvet Underground’s Heroin – in fact, this track is like the archetypal drug-rush: euphoria, chaos and incipient threat, all in the same, freak-out instant.

My only criticism is for the naff 6th-Form-Angst style of their titles. I mean, really: Her Name Is Suicide, Your Blood In Mine, Drain Cosmetics? All hopelessly crap song names, betraying the fact that, by and large, pretty darn good songs lurk behind.

In a world still obsessed with Strokesian cool and New Wave angularity, Serena-Manesh stand out for miles.

Granted, they haven’t reinvented the wheel or discovered a fantastically new and groovy time signature, but they’ve mined an entirely different vein for their influences and have produced more than an album – they’ve crafted a beautiful sonic landscape and invited us in.

Album Review: The Raconteurs, Broken Boy Soldiers

Here's my album review, printed in May's NARC. magazine:

The Raconteurs
Broken Boy Soldiers
Released 15th May
Label : XL Recordings
5 out of 5

From the opening drumbeat of Steady As She Goes to the slow burn-out of Blue Veins, The Raconteurs album is a rollicking rock ‘n’ roll delight. The indie-tastic combo of Jack White, Brendan Benson and The Greenhornes’ Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler, have really hit the paydirt here.

Album opener Steady As She Goes is a modern rock ‘n’ roll classic, with an insanely catchy hook, irresistible bassline, and whispers of the ghost of Louie Louie. Hands is another triumphant track, with scrolling guitars and a solid rhythm section.

Brandan Benson brings a real pop sensibility to this track, tempering Jack White’s impressive guitar-work with a really Beatles-esque melody. The same Beatles sound comes up in the slightly-psychedelic sounding Intimate Secretary (I also reckon it’s also got a smidge of Small Faces in it, but that might just be me).

Great songs aside (and how often can you say that?), the real stars here are the voices. Jack White and Brendan Benson make a fantastic team, their singing styles totally compliment each other. Benson is an underrated gem, with a gorgeous satiny voice that slides over White’s like honey. For proof, look no further than Together, a beautiful paean to love found and love lost, sure to soundtrack a million hipster heartbreaks.

Back in March, The Raconteurs played a sold-out gig at Northumbria University and were in scorchingly fine form. In fact, Jack White looked he was having a whale of a time, in sharp contrast with the aloof, surly figure who played to thousands at Glastonbury in 2005.

When White cries "I’m done ripping myself off" in the album’s title track, you can’t help but suspect that he’s sounding a death-knell for the White Stripes; even more Stripes-ey tracks like Level are transformed by the presence of a full band.

The question is, having voluntarily freed himself of minimalism of the 'Stripes, will Jack White want to return to those restricted aesthetics? Do we want him to? Spare a thought for poor Meg White who, upon hearing this fantastic album, must surely be keeping one eye on the "Drummers Wanted" column.

Live Review: Soledad Brothers, The Cluny, 24/02/06

It’s 10pm on February 24th 2006 and in a roadhouse somewhere in the hinterlands of North America, a roomful of rootin’ tootin good ole boys are playing Bingo and drinking coffee. The refrigerators are still full of ice cold Bud, and the bottles of Jack Daniel’s remain corked on the shelves, glinting sadly in the neon light of a Coors sign. Seems the house band packed up months ago, headed for more, erm, Northern climes…

Meanwhile, in a pub in Newcastle, things are decidedly different. The joint’s well and truly jumping, packed to the proverbial rafters with people. There’s drinkin’ and smokin’ and dancin’ – people are bopping and jiving as if possessed by the very spirit of Rock n Roll itself. There’s hootin’ and hollerin’ – Lord have mercy, there’s even a little bit of huggin’ and kissin’ going on!

On the small, cramped stage, the band is banging out good-time tunes as if their lives depended on it. Drenched in sweat, grinning from ear to ear, Soledad Brothers own this crowd – and they know it!

Dismissing them as just another band in the Detroit Blues contingent does them a disservice. They’re a million miles away from The Von Bondies’ posing or the whiff of art school-rock that often taints Ver Stripes. There’s no pretension here; this is music played for the sheer fun of it.

Soledad Brothers are a tight outfit, impressively dapper in that particularly American Retro way. They make one hell of a racket, fusing together blues, Rock n’ Roll and soul to produce a euphoric mix.

Favourites like Cage That Tiger and Gimme Back My Wig inspire a crowd sing-a-long while recent tracks like Good Feeling also get a great reception. Ben Swank pounds the hell out of his drums and guitarist/vocalist Johnny Walker’s shirt gets progressively wetter throughout the night until it’s positively sweat-sodden. And, just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, Oliver Henry whips out a huge, gleaming tenor sax and the room just erupts in a frenzy of arms, legs and flying plastic cups!

You’ve gotta admit, there’s something sexy about a sweaty, rugged-looking man with a sax (no horn jokes, please).

Soledad Brothers gave us an all-too fleeting glimpse into America’s blues-rock heartland and, if only for one night, we were right there, sippin’ on bourbon in our very own honky tonk!

Farewell Lime Street, hello Highway 61!

http://www.soledadbrothers.com