Reviews

Everything’s in its right place. But then it would be wouldn’t it, it’s screwed down. And The Rain Band don’t have a screwdriver. We have no evidence to say they’d know how to use it even if they did. This debut album only goes on to confirm what’s already been hinted at with their preceding singles and gigs. And that is that although they approach their victim (Manchester’s revered and danceable musical output of the ‘80s) with bulbous adrenaline coursing Continue Reading

“And we don’t give a fuck if it rains!” bawls Dan Glendinning over the billowing and actually-really-sodding-anthemic chorus of ‘100% Proof’. And face it, when there’s bound to be the odd Travis comparison it’s worthwhile having your defence sorted from the off. However, it’s not always been strummed serenity for Dan, who was last seen impersonating Eddie Veddar in the thinking man’s grungers Headswim, snapped up by Sony in the mid-90s during the scramble for a Brit response to Seattle’s Continue Reading

There continues to be no shortage of shiny new retro punksters rolling off both the major and indie label conveyor-belts like kids just out of nappies and straight onto e-numbers, cheap liquor and the payroll of MTV2. So you probably wouldn’t be the only one out there craving a simple raucous cacophony of 3-chord idiocy that sounded like it was recorded onto the back of a cornflake packet in half the time it takes to listen back to it. And Continue Reading

With phrases like ‘back-to-basics’ and ‘old skool’ being ferried around as quickly as ‘weapons of mass destruction’ it’s a wonder that anyone has been doing anything but in the last 3 years. But let’s end the squibbling right here: the closest these girlz come to ‘old skool’ hip-hop is the downloading they’ve been doing free from WinMX. So yeah, the claims are excessive but then so are the unshakable grooves and tunes these girls are capable of spitting up. The Continue Reading

East Coast, West Coast, Clarkesville, Tennessee, Clarkesville, Birmingham. You simply don’t know where you’re at sometimes, and for all it’s glorious Technicolor philanderings, and widescreen drama neither does ‘The Half Chapter’. And yet, in spite of all this the album is still a freakish, if maudlin’ pleasure. Tall, blond and regrettably hansom, Michael Clarke has produced a debut that whilst nodding pleasingly in all the right directions – The Flaming Lips, Richard Ashcroft, Royskopp – it also pays lip service Continue Reading

Most Americans must surely now be aware that ‘Fanny’ in Britain is to girls what ‘Todger’ is to boys, and so it’s perhaps doubly ironic that Fanny Pack have entered our lives with the wedge-shaped innuendo of ‘Cameltoe’ as their anthem. Ironic or intentional? Who knows? Who cares? Let’s tell it like it is. We’re all adults here; we’re talking pussies right? V-shaped for victory or heart-shaped for horny. We are not and never were talking about the wraparound devices Continue Reading

Last year these boys had the massive hit that was their own doppleganger reworking of Prince’s ‘I Would Die For U’. This year it looks like they may have to suffer a more ignominous fate with the lesser reworking of Detroit Emerald’s ‘Feel The Need In Me’. Clearly still enamoured by the spangly, star shaped glitteriness of the Chemical Brothers’ ‘Star Guitar’, the Space Cowboys dish up some more of the same. Only this time, it just really doesn’t get going; Continue Reading

All bands are tribute bands, essentially. And I suppose that in that case the only thing that separates one tribute band from the next is whether they’re ever likely to have their own tribute band, or fleet thereof, paying direct and shoddily named tributes to them. The Thrills will never, or should never, have their own tribute band (The Thrill-seekers, or The Trills? Anyone? No?). We’re not denying them the odd medley from a hapless Irish street-side busker, or even Continue Reading

The novelty value of Liam Lynch’s unexpected hit, ‘United States of Whatever’ may have been immense and have all but redirected any subsequent efforts to every bargain bin in town, regardless of merit, but listen up; beneath the heavy irony and the ‘loose canon’ mentality of the ‘Fake Songs’ beats a heart of genuine gold; albeit of the ‘fool’s’ variety. Brought to the attention of S-Curve Records by the Beatle-icious, Ringo Starr and his Pumpinkhead Records partner, Mark Hudson, Liam Continue Reading

Named in tribute to the Brian Eno produced New York rock scene compilation from 1978, ‘No New York’ (featuring 4 tracks each from the bands James Chance & The Contortions, Teenage Jesus And The Jerks Mars and D.N.A) comes ‘Yes New York’, and pretty predictably, it’s very, very good. Kicking off with a largely token but not unappealing live slice of The Strokes performing ‘New York City Cops’ in Iceland (the place as opposed to the exceptionally convenient Frozen Foods Continue Reading