GRANDADDY Sumday (V2)
 

It’s a glorious sunny day. Blue sky stretching for miles, only occasionally punctuated by wafts of cumulus cloud. What better conditions to enjoy a new album by underrated-but-not-for-much-longer Californians, Grandaddy. Stretch out and relax as waves of guitar melody and their trademark keyboard squelch and noodling take you to another place. Perfect summer music.

And then the lyrics start to seep into your sub-consciousness. Jason Lytle is not a happy man. Like all the best mid-June days, there’s a storm brewing somewhere. You might not quite notice it in the opening track, the worthy hit single Now It’s On, but it’s there amongst the killer tune; “weathered and withering, like in the season of the old me”. Next up, I’m On Standby shows that Jason hasn’t quite done with the broken technology metaphors of 2000’s ‘The Sophtware Slump’ but from then on the anxiety creeps in.

A succession of songs about the stresses of being in a band and the rigours of touring are wrapped up neatly in deceptive packaging. The Go In The Go For It has a sweet chugga-chugga chord as Jason reaches a point of resignation and El Caminos In The West opens with a riff on the intro to Simon and Garfunkel’s Mrs Robinson before setting the despair of dislocation from home to kind of West Coast refrain that The Thrills would kill for.

Adding to Jason’s problems seems to be the fact that he appears to have lost ‘the one’. Yeah Is What We Had looks back on a past relationship with the rosiest tint of glasses and ends with the repeated plaintive cry of “in this life, will I ever see you again”. The Warming Sun borrows most of its dynamics from Mercury Rev’s The Dark Is Rising as Jason mournfully reflects “you’re in another world with another guy, who doesn’t have to cheat and never has to lie.”

If this all sounds a bit too much then it really isn’t. The casual observer will hear little more than an album liberally smeared in great harmonies, but with the kind of intelligence and pathos that should see them finally elevated alongside their obvious peers, The Flaming Lips. ‘Sumday’ is as beautiful and happy-sad a record as you’ll wish to hear all year. 

Reviewed by James S
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It’s always interesting to see how a “new” band deals with and follows up the rip roaring success of a debut album. When Elbow’s masterful “Asleep in the Back” shot from such a heartbreakingly personal fourth floor depository window back in 2001, you wondered quite how the band’s singer songwriter and Mr Melancholy-in-chief Guy Garvey would aurally assassinate listeners, thirsty for more tales of woe and love lost. Fret not though fans, Mr Garvey will always find something to be miserable about and that fact makes this, the follow up release, a wonderful and essential album indeed.

Like the album before it, “Cast of Thousands” contains the funeralesque (“Crawling With Idiot”), the everyday story over a pint (“Snooks”) and the sadly whimsical (“Flying Dream”) but it’s clear that Garvey’s songwriting has matured and been finely tuned since the World-beating debut of 2001.  The album opener and single “Ribcage” is a beautiful, forlorn and gospel tinged illustration of that development. Each verse pounds and smoulders until the chorus (“Pull my ribs apart / And let the sun inside”) hits you like the warming rays from a Mediterranean sunrise. At least it would if it was performed by anyone else but the man who looks like a brickie but has the saddest and most expressive voice since fellow Mancunian Morrissey related his own bedsit woes to us. Lyrically and conceptually the two are not a million miles apart either.

There are numerous guest appearances on “Cast of Thousands” that, despite the overall downhearted and rain-sodden misery of it all, never allow the album to become overly claustrophobic or terminally morose.  Doves, I Am Kloot, Alfie and a whole host of well-known names from the Manchester music scene all contribute gladly. Perhaps the most unusual guest appearance though is on the gently shimmering “Grace under Pressure”, which features a surprisingly uplifting mantra chanted by the crowd at the Glastonbury Festival 2002.  This makes the credit list for the album more like a festival goers telephone directory than a who’s who of Manchester musicians.

Make no mistake though, brief rays of gospel sunshine and crowd sing-alongs apart this is by no means a happy album, prompting suspicions that the Bury based band aren’t altogether comfortable with their newly found fame and fortune. The driving beat of “Just A Job” is jaunty enough but lyrically it’s heartbreaking, and the council flat lament of “Switching Off” (“Are you the only sense / The World has ever made?”) is as stunningly beautiful as it is marvellously understated. The most impressive and devastating track on the album though is the wonderfully swirling “Fugitive Motel”. On it, Garvey sobs angelically about the personal dislocation and loneliness connected with endless touring and his newly found success (“I’ll blow you a kiss / It should reach you tomorrow / as it flies from the other side of the World”) over a simple piano and swooshing string track that could only ever be Elbow. It’s instantly recognisable, utterly breathtaking a definite sign, along with the rest of the album, that Garvey and Co have finally cast off the cursed shackles of “Genesis without the guitar solos” and risen way above their foppish, bedwetting indie peers, both lyrically and musically.

This is unmissable sadness but with real and genuine substance and, although the credits for this album may run to a cast of thousands, its conception, wordplay and masterful construction only took one sad brickie look-a-like ill at ease with sucess and one very broken heart. Beautiful. (Thanks to Andy and Guy)

Reviewed by Dave B
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“Mas Cambios” – more changes.  The title comes from signs on the New York Transit System but could equally apply to the whole world of Düne.  They hung (and hang) around with the ‘anti-folk’ movement, that collection of heart-on-their-sleeve low-fi emotional troubadours, and sounded like Leonard Cohen had gatecrashed the Velvet Underground’s picnic.  While various anti-folkers still play on the album, now it feels like Herman Düne are a few stops on, writing songs not just for their mates but ones that are universal and accessible, though no less individualistic. 

The album is the sound of a long sigh, filled with loss and longing.  It’s the best resurrection of the romantic poets Keats, Byron and Shelley since Dylan in the 60s.  Their romanticism is off-kilter, as in In The Summer Camp and they express the controlling, paranoid nature of romance in the otherwise singalong Show Me The Roof: “I wish I could watch over your naps…/ installing myself in/like a huge fucked up comforting software/ taking over anything that could make you worry”.  They quote Daniel Johnson on the sleeve that “love is for losers”.  It might mean that only losers fall in love, which seems echoed by Red Blue Eyes: “my breed is a melancholy one/ I’m skinny and slow with a hairy chest”.  Yet that song has the opposite message that love is best appreciated by those who have and lose it.  It lists the things the writer loves and has a fatalistic attitude to loss that is entirely positive: “I love it when night falls on Hoboken/ it’ll fall again/ truer word was never spoken”.  In my humble opinion, it’s the best thing they’ve ever written and among the very best things I’ve heard this year. 

Musically, it’s powerful without needing to be especially loud.  The Silvertone guitars produce a warm buzzing while the recorders, ukulele and toy instruments add charming low-fi touches.  Neman’s drums and percussion are unobtrusive but essential, adding light and shade.   On A Sunny Sunny Cold Cold Day is full of reverb with off-beat lyrics (they write very well but there’s an attractive quirkiness if you study the words because English isn’t their first language).  The Static Comes From My Broken Down Heart is a simple country sound with a tone of sweet melancholy, helped by Laura Hoch’s sympathetic backing vocals.  My Friends Killed My Folks is a noir thriller, nervous and edgy while At Your Luau is quick and bongo-tastic, full of braggadocio and regret.  

The album is a collection of jewels, a mini-masterpiece of melody, humour and playfulness as well as a comforting melancholy that connects on an emotional level with the listener.   “Mas Cambios” is the way of the world; make it your own personal motto too.

Reviewed by Ged M
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Since arriving to great critical acclaim a good ten years ago, the Tindersticks have quietly, but firmly established themsleves as reliable purveyors of literate, mournful pop music.  From that time they have gradually been working in some genuine Soul into their genuine soulfulness. Picking up that thread both until the morning comes and sweet memory have Stuart Staples singing higher and clearer than ever and in remarkably positive mood. Lush strings and "doo doo doo" backing voclas adorn the terrific trying to find a home.  He even wanders fully into Gainsbourg territory, duetting with Lhasa de Sela on sometimes it hurts and give it the full Lee Hazelwood treatment with the banjo plucking, positively jaunty just a dog.  However there's some real back to basics Tindersticks here too, not least the title track and the likes of say goodbye to the city with the strings stabbing in over a meandering horn.  4.48 psychosis too harks back to the early albums - with a Staples monologue muttering over gently clattering guitar.  So not exactly ringing the changes, but if you know them already then you'll not be disappointed.  If not, and you've got a yen for some elegant, lushly arranged, melancholy then look no further.

Reviewed by Matt H
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Jeff Lewis is not a drug dealer. Got that? It seems that the biggest solo success story to emerge from the New York antifolk scene has been misunderstood. The title track of his last album, ‘The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane’, comically detailed the hellish effects of mind-altering drugs on poor Jeff and yet he still gets bombarded with requests for the stuff. Only one thing to do then; write another equally grin-inducing song, No LSD Tonight to set the record straight.

Humour suits Jeff Lewis like nul points suited Jemini. Sharp lines abound throughout, from the faux-autobiographical Back When I Was Four (“back when I was 63, the public rediscovered me“) to the cautionary tale of records contracts, Don’t Let The Record Label Take You Out To Lunch (“every drop of soup has got to be recouped”).

To mark him down purely as a novelty tunesmith would do a huge disservice though. Alphabet soaks his deceptively upbeat hippy notions with a gorgeous, haunting viola refrain and the lilting Sea Song is a nice, nautical number with dolphin calls that drifts serenely into an ocean of calm. It doesn’t quite work throughout however. Gold is a stream of consciousness, set to a constantly repeated four line verse and tune structure, that teeters on a tightrope between mesmeric and mundane. Texas and Zaster are both throwaway though thankfully brief.

These minor faults can easily be forgiven though by the magnificent Arrow, with it’s Moldy Peaches rhyming over a Nick Drake guitar pluck that stealthily grows to a thunderous climax, and I Saw A Hippy Girl On 8^th Avenue, as Jeff fondly remembers his own tie-dyed days. “It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even identify with Phish fans any more” he sings ruefully. That may be so but ‘It’s The Ones Who’ve Cracked That The Light Shines Through’ shows once again that he can still identify with all the warmth, wit and joyful talent we’ve come to expect.

Reviewed by James S
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Broadcast’s six track EP is a mix of songs that, though mostly exclusive to this release, act as a taster for the new album ‘HaHa Sound’ due later in the summer.  The sound of Pendulum is warm, pulsing and accessible, Trish Keenan’s voice and the sixties Star Trek transporter effects giving it a feel simultaneously futuristic and retro.  Small Song IV and Still Feels Like Tears sway to the rhythms of jerky guitars and resonant synths, reminiscent of Angelo Badalamenti’s score for Twin Peaks, while instrumentals One Hour Empire and Violent Playground are fierce, almost jazzy soundscapes.  The EP concludes with Minus Two, a collaboration with The Birmingham Electro Acoustic Sound Theatre at Birmingham University, which is all cut-ups and samples, some melodic, some clashing.  In the end, the EP’s a success for the way it mixes indie pop and experimental electronica, the technological and the organic, into a whole that’s inviting to fans of both genres.       

Reviewed by Ged M
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Being one of the most unique and original bands on the music scene at the moment, you’d expect Mew to have a suitably unique title for their debut album. Which of course, they do. ‘Frengers’ is not some weird culinary delight from their native Denmark, but the word for people who are ‘Not Quite Friends, But Not Quite Strangers’. Pffftt. Of course we knew that. Ahem.

Now that you’ve added a new word to your vernacular, it’s time to add a new CD to your collection. Frengers is an astounding debut offering from the Danes, who’ve had numerous (unwarranted) comparisons to bands such as Mercury Rev and Sigur Ros, yet they remain original enough to stand alone. Former single Am I Wry? No brings a superb opening to proceedings, its strangely catchy arrangement and clever lyrics making it one of the most radio-friendly songs on the album.

Snow Brigade could almost have come from Smiths/Bunnymen/Cure-era 80’s, having a darker, heavier feel to it, before the momentum is brought to a slight halt with the beautiful Symmetry, one of two duets between girlishly-voiced lead singer Jonas Bjerre and Becky Jarrett (the other being the other-worldly Her Voice Is Beyond Her Years with ‘Little Star’ Stina Nordenstam).

Other tracks of worth include mid-tempo ballad She Came Home For Christmas, the dream-like Eight Flew Over, One Was Destroyed and She Spider, which, like a lot of tracks here, begins almost like a lullaby before launching into a euphoric, ear-bursting chorus.

The aptly-titled Comforting Sounds draws a suitable close to Frengers, the nine-minute long slow-burner which could easily be the soundtrack to that dream you had when you were sixteen. It builds beautifully into what is essentially the best track on an album which, as a whole, gives the impression of being made simply from the sheer love of music. Mew’s off-kilter arrangements and straightforward lyrics will remind you of that person you pass in the street every day and nod to, wishing you could get to know them better, but not quite knowing how to. A frenger, if you will.

Reviewed by Lauren M
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Great twosomes in rock include Jack and Meg White, VV and Hotel from the Kills and, er, Sonny and Cher.  Now add Ippy Shake and ‘Keith from Philadelphia’ to the list.  Their debut six track self-titled EP is full of fierce tunes, beating rhythms and edgy attitudes but you can’t pigeonhole them into any one genre.  Time Killer is fierce garage rock, all frenetic guitars and feverish percussion, with a hard-as-nails vocal.  Sensation (or the way Ippy sings it “su-su-su-su-su-sen-say-shen!”) is a Stonesy, bluesy, intensely sexual rhythm infested with Sonic Youth-type fireworks.  Leading Me On is a quick, punky number, softened by the “pa-pa-pa” chorus, while He’s The Devil (But I Love Him So) closes the EP with a supercool hymn to guys in bands – like the Shangri-Las if they slept around a lot.  

There are times when it feels vaguely Kills-like, but only if Hotel and VV were less absorbed by each other to admit others into their band.  Ippy Shake and Kevin are given powerful support by Dino from The Beatings on bass and Ed Wood (Warm Jets) on drums.  Ippy, who sings on 5 of the tracks, has a faintly Alison Mosshart sounding voice but adds a pretty tough Kim Gordon ‘so-impress-me’ tone to it.  It’s an EP of breathtaking brilliance, requiring you to press ‘repeat play’ as soon as it ends and proving that the independent rock music ‘scene’ is as fresh and vibrant and alive as ever.   

Reviewed by Ged M
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Gillian Welch's last album - Time (The Revelator) - was the culmination of a series of excellent, back-to-basics country music created with her collaborator David Rawlings.  It was simply the finest piece of genuinely country-, rather than folk-, sounding "alt.country" since the Palace Brothers' There is no-one what will take care of you.  This latest sees her hooking up with a major label - most likely on the back of her contributions to the "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack rather than the magnificent Time  - and an extended cast of musicians.  Nevertheless, she's hardly gone for the full Nashville sound, and the extra musicians don't get in the way of the simplicity of the music.  Interestingly, in I Had A Real Good Mother and Father, she chooses to interpret the same traditional tune also reprised on the aforementioned Palace album.  The new songs scarcely sound more modern, Welch's voice ranging from a laid back country drawl on Look at Miss Ohio, to a full, but delicate tunefulness on One Little Song.  The pace of the banjo, guitar and harmonica back tunes never increases past an amble, even on the more upbeat (whisper it) electric-guitared Neil Youngesque Wrecking Ball.  Which makes it a perfect album for kicking back lazily on a long slow summer's evening. The indie kids likely to be reading this might do better to start with the slightly edgier Time. But if you're feeling braver, forget your prejudices - this is after all about as far from Shania Twain as you can get. 

Reviewed by Matt H
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Though midwifed by Jack White (producer) and Brendan Benson (engineer), it’s not a very Detroit-sounding record; rather the art-punk here has more in common with New York or London.  It’s particularly not a Detroit record as it has no lead guitar; Whirlwind Heat lost their guitarist some time back and never replaced him.  So the album is intensely rhythmic, often quite jerky, with tectonic plates of rumbling bass and squealing synths clashing in an earthquake of furious sound. 

Orange is edgy and tense with frantic bass and crashing percussion.  Not for the first time, David Swanson’s vocals sound affected and a touch camp as he sings “this is a good day to die…this is a good day to whine”.  Tan is full of amazing Wire-like repetition, with chirping synth.  Green has a great first half, a street poem to a “dumpster slut”, but then becomes more cabaret.  Purple has an amazing fuzzy heaviness with a rare concession to melody in the chorus.  Other tracks have a future in psychological warfare: Black is Led Zeppelin meets Napalm Death, all swathes of bass and crushing percussion while Red is just brutal. 

For an album where every song is named after a colour, it lacks the sort of ‘colour’ that a guitars brings and one or two songs - Red, Blue - sound like someone forgot to finish the track.  It’s fine in small doses but, over a distance, Whirlwind Heat leave me cold.

Reviewed by Ged M
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The Ex-Models are yet another post-punk influenced band from New York.  It’s all very angular, like an early Talking Heads, Wire or Devo, funked up with any semblance of a tune ripped out and replaced by a wall of screeching guitars, buzzing saws and clunking keys.  Where Devo succeeded by delivering amusing nonsense about spuds, mongaloids and a world only they could inhabit, ex Models emit yelped indecipherable utterings like tourettes afflicted robots.  And if anyone tries to take their advice on track 1 and attempts to “Fuck to the Music” it’s unlikely they’d hit too many G-spots.  Still as a consolation at only 20 minutes for 13 tracks the silliness doesn’t last long. 

Reviewed by Paul M
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