In 1983 ‘The Young Ones’ was funny, fresh and anarchic. The ‘Comic Strip Presents…’ was perhaps even better. In fact in some ways it seemed Rik Mayall, Peter Richardson, Ade Edmondson and Nigel Planer could do no wrong. But they could, or so it soon transpired. They could take what was a faintly grittier Spinal Tap, an extended joke about lavatories, a new found confidence with the UK music chart courtesy of two cheesy no.1 singles (‘Living Doll’ and ‘Hole Continue Reading
There are but four of The Earlies, and conventionally so, but there is the feeling that they amount to much more than that. The reality is that this debut album of multi-faceted croaky psychedelic pop was indeed crafted by many hands – a flute here, an oboe just there – weighing in with as many as 11 bodies live, but that’s not quite what we mean, although it does give the record a convincing vastness. The band were founded largely, Continue Reading
Take that! And that, and that, and that, and that, and that and that! And that! In quick succession, hard, repeatedly. And thus you already understand every last one of the 33 minutes on The Futureheads’ debut album. Only of course the name is a misnomer, nothing futuristic about them at all, the contents of their skulls or any other part of their juddering hyperactive bodies for that matter. But The Retroheads is a rubbish name. No prizes for guessing Continue Reading
Last time The Thermals made an album they hardly upset the order of things. Barely created a through-draft, threw it down in about four and a half seconds onto a reel of tape no higher quality than a dusty old ball of string. It was the grubbiest, zestiest, most lo-fi punk record released last year, probably. And buried somewhere amongst the static were some of the most untainted pop head-rushes we’d heard since Green Day started throwing bite-size strops, or Continue Reading
Courting as it does the coiffure and razzle of the catwalk and the fabulous glamour of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy emporium, there simply couldn’t have been a more fitting title. But ‘Cruising Attitude’ does far more than tip winks and doff references to cruising speeds and to the lavish fancies of a shag-pile business class (even if the unashamedly kitsch album cover suggests otherwise). It’s cool and it’s slick yes, but the record’s smooth and easy tempos extend well beyond the remits of artifice Continue Reading
Isaac Brock is the deadbeat bum across the street wearing three jackets and an insane smile, dancing under the beating sun for quarters and warm beer, as the local kids point and jibe and ponder just how exactly a misshape like that gets a girlfriend. He’s also the intoxicating drifter gazed at adoringly by his girlfriend who can’t fathom why on earth those infuriating little shits across the way find him such an object of ridicule. This is a record Continue Reading
If a ‘quirky approach’ was the only prerequisite for musical greatness then folks like The Barron Knights, Weird Al“ Yankovic and Timmy Mallett would have been monopolising the shortlists for Mercury, Brit, Grammy and Billboard awards for years. But the sad truth of the matter is, it isn’t. Only in politics can the spurious and the absurd provide any clear substitute for cultural worth; a statement more than ably supported by the electoral jape that was the formal inauguartion of Continue Reading
With the exception of the totally unremarkable, ‘What Do I Have To Do?’, the gently alternative and Eels-like ‘The Exorcist’ (which would have been one of the few real ‘gems’ on the album had it actually broken out of some kind of orbit) and ‘Pretty One’ The Kicks ‘new’ album ‘Hello Hong Kong’ is actually a re-vamped and re-issued version of an album the band released in 2000 under the name ‘Ashtray Babyhead’. The album’s wilful, even, flag-waving derivativeness divided Continue Reading
Released through Southern Fried records on 28th June, A Man Called Adam’s eagerly awaited retrospective ‘All My Favourite’ through sees eight new tracks deliciously interwoven with a dozen or so tracks from the old memory cards. Why no formal new release? Who knows? Those of cynical enough might suggest that Sally and Steve just didn’t have enough material to warrant it. Those of us with kinder hearts may just be satisfied in having the best of both worlds – old Continue Reading
We’ll often catch ourselves concluding that Band A has gone and made the same album all over again. But more often than not we don’t mean that, we’re only making excuses on their behalf. What we mean to say is that Band A has rehashed Album Z without the X Factor, become a flaky imitation of themselves, the songs aren’t a fraction of what they were and we won’t be listening to Album Z when Album Y will do just Continue Reading