albums - current and forthcoming releases...       page 25

 July  2003
[ Earlier reviews ]

The Mink Lungs are from Brooklyn but they’re not part of the post-punk or punk-funk scene for which Williamsburg is now so (in)famous.  Their influences are more varied: Guided By Voices, Flaming Lips, Pixies - and Peter Frampton!      

So far, so good.  The perfect surf-Pixies romp of Pugnose Apt is the best thing on the album by a long way, while Catch Me has a great, lazy summer groove (that Frampton wah wah sound underpins both this track and Starts From Scratch).  The Apples In Stereo-ish Men In Belted Sweaters is a hymn to knitwear (“they’re kinda knitty/ kinda tight fitty”) with a bouncy pa-pa-pa chorus.  However, the band is a collection of individuals who bring in their own compositions and perform them in their individual ways and it shows.  The album jumps between modes and styles; while they’re really talented to be able to throw down the authentic alt.country Sad Songs of Birds or the punk-rock Mrs Lester, there isn’t enough to link or define the sound of the Mink Lungs as anything more than fragmentary psych-pop with off-centre noodlings.   Lyrically, they are bizarre, often funny and occasionally psychotic.  On Gorilla, they manage to rhyme “gorilla” and “pillow”.  And just a mention for the angriest answerphone message ever recorded that’s tacked onto the start of Pugnose Apt.   That’s one woman you don’t want to cross!

Like Guided By Voices, they’re a talented bunch who can do so much that they don’t focus on the one thing that might set them apart.  So for every great song, there’s another irritating vocal, fragment of jazzy noodling or lyric about UFOs.  If you like variety, you’ll get that here but be prepared to search for the Boogie Nights among the Barron Knights.    

Reviewed by Ged M
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Alone at the Microphone makes a somwhat unconvincing start. Both Bad Luck and Under a Hollow Tree are lo-fi tunes that seem a little too self-content in their own lack of polish.  My brother is the Meatman ups stakes, but still leaves an aftertaste of ironic detachment as though these college boys that can't quite give themselves over to the more traditional country medium.  But just when it sounds like the album is drifting off into irredeemable notbadness, peddling decent countryfied stompers with banjo and rattlesnake flourishes, the Canadian quartet start to pull some real goodies of of the hat.

Dank is the air of death and loathing lightly hurries along and, though a little wordy, dares to sound like they mean it. Don't you is a muted folk song to a friend - like James Yorkston on mogadon. Suddenly they are in their stride, mixing up very lightly Slint influenced drifting folk tunes like You are the Vine with the warped traditonalism of Daisies and the delicately unpleasant Blood and Faeces.  By this time you're ready to forgive them the drawn out and indulgent twanging of Rum Tobacco.  Not an instant album, but worth exploring by fans of Low and Smog's similar marrying of city folks' perspectives to a bucolic musical backing.

Reviewed by Matt H
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This album was recorded on a four track cassette recorder in a member of the band’s bedroom in Portland, Oregon.  The outcome is a tinny lo-fi sound, high on atmosphere, low on effects as the 2 boys and a girl thrash through a collection of raw punky powerpop toons that finish well short of a half hour in total.  It includes the terrific single No Culture Icons though sadly nothing else quite matches the perfect Buzzcocks-esq rush of that release.  Whilst it’s still an enjoyable high speed chase it’s like being on a circular track and the route soon becomes a tad too familiar with the hyper ventilating delivery of the vocalist swamping the music with barely a second passing without his words being spat out like a jabbering horserace commentator.   

Still there’s enough evidence here that with a bit more variety and a decent production they could break out of the pack.  The band that most springs to mind is Idlewild, whose early albums were similar in sound to these fairly raw power pop punk efforts and look what they turned into.

Reviewed by Paul M
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  VARIOUS Rough Trade Shops Post Punk Vol 01 (Mute)

What’s in a name?  Not much clearly, ‘cos if you have any notion about what ‘Post Punk’ means then you might be scratching your head at the inclusion of recent tunes from the Futureheads or Roger Sisters alongside the like of Gang of Four  or the  Raincoats.  To be fair, the booklet confesses that this collection had to be called something and deadline was approaching so there’s no claim that it is meant to represent the immediate post punk….er, phase…(as it remarks, there’s loads of bands missing – Desperate Bicycles, Clock DVA etc).  So what you do get is a decent picture of the sort of thing DIY was producing following the demise of punk, a snapshot of something that happened between then and now, and a polaroid of, er, now.  It is a wonderfully diverse collection, from the post-glam post-Buzzcocks Devoto Magazine’s Definitive Gaze (I’d debate with the sleeve note’s that this band was ever influential), the bedroom electronica-pop of Young Marble Giants,  lesser remembered folk like the Shockheaded Peters (a sort of more open gay take on Hand in Glove) and World Domination Enterprises whose Asbestos Lead Asbestos was aptly covered by Carter USM (I think, the 90’s are a dim doomed memory) to the 2003 minimal home made electronica and squealy/shouty vocals of Les Georges Leningrad (wadda mean who? get with the programme).  For the nostalgia minded there is some minor classic stuff here – the Pop Group’s We’re All Prostitutes gets another outing (hey, what’s wrong with the b-side to She’s Beyond Good and Evil?).  Still, it’s slogan “Consumer Fascism” probably has even more relevance today. For me, Scritti Politti’s Skank Bloc Bologna is as great as bemusing as ever and Essential Logic’s punkjazzy Aerosal Burns is more musically off-kilter than anything Poly Styrene could come up with.

One thing that does come across is that in the post punk era there was a turning away from the 4/4 three chord thrashings, that came to caricature punk, to more funky basslines and searing/scratchy guitar. Perhaps the claim that Gang of Four have so much to answer for the current crop of New York disco-punk (oh, I don’t know what it’s bloody called this week!) is true although you can hear this idea being thrashed out in the sounds of bands at the time.   

It’s 2xCD and 22 tracks and the boys at the Rough Trade Shop  have collectively raided their record collections and memories (and current sales stock) to come up with a pretty good collection altogether.  Now, send in your nominations for Vol 02.  Can we have Metal Urbain’s Paris Maquis please?

For info and full track listing go to http://www.mutelibtech.com/rtshops/index.html

Reviewed by Kev O
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Twenty-two tracks, or 80 minutes, of blistering Motor City garage rock, recorded live in a brewery and on this evidence, this is one outfit you could trust to organise your proverbial piss-up.  The live atmosphere means it’s no frills music from such bands as The Hentchmen, The Paybacks, Outrageous Cherry, Bantam Rooster and the ideas-less Electric Six (rehashing a line from the Sweatmaster song on I’m a Demon).  The Sights come out with a pure 60s noise, managing to turn Don’t Want You Back into a three parter, incorporating the Small Faces Watcha Gonna Do About It, while the Volebeats offer up some prime Beatles-ish Merseybeat on It’s Alright.  The Velvet Underground stylings of Slumber Party throw a different breed of shrimp on this particularly barbie while The Come Ons and Ko and the Knockouts dilute the pure testosterone rush with sweeter, soulful girlpop.  As ever, the Dirtbombs sweep the awards with their dirty fuzzed up guitars and insane dissonance on Can’t Stop Thinking About It while Shake!!Shiveree has a 50s manic porno sound, tickled by Mick Collins canyon-deep voice.  It’s not an essential purchase (unlike the Dirtbombs) but as a taster or if you want that party mood, you can’t go far wrong.

Reviewed by Ged M
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In the mid 80s there was probably no band reviled as much amongst the musical know-it-alls and snorebore snobs as Simple Minds.  Producers of bland anthemic pop rock they were the band that your mate who wasn’t really into music liked.  They filled stadiums of lighter waving knobs and had top ten albums by the bucket load. So what are they doing getting a mention in this musically, pure organ? Aah well that’s because Simple Minds were not always worthy of despise. In the late seventies and up until about 1981 they were producing wonderfully intense mini keyboard epics; dark and brooding and yet wonderfully sweet. It wasn’t pop but it should have been immensely popular. It was Low era Bowie, Suicide, Kraftwerk… It was at the forefront of the futurism movement along with the pre-Dare Human League,  preceding the Some Bizarre bands and way before the synth chartpop of the new romantics. And in Chelsea Girl they wrote a timeless song so lush and sweet it should have come with a warning from the British Dental Association.

As the 80s kicked in the sound became more goth glam, more accessible but still interesting (the American, Love Song) and then it all went pear shaped with the first of the radio lite pap that they made their name and money from.  The last four tracks on this album are from that era, Promised You A Miracle being the most famous.  Still with this aural reminder of the early years we can forgive and forget the horrors that followed.   

Reviewed by Paul M
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Journalistic bugbears no. 8: receiving a record by a band that you didn’t bother watching at a recent gig because you were too busy chatting to your mates in the bar and discovering it’s really bloody good. Well, more fool me for missing Schwervon!

Comprising of NYC’s leading antifolk couple, Major Matt Mason and Nan Tucker, theirs is a simple blend of lo-fi garage rock indie that endears itself immediately with its naivety, charm and refusal to play by the traditional rules of high production values and effort. Mason has a slightly nasal intonation located somewhere between Michael Stipe and Calvin Johnson whilst Tucker exudes flickers of Liz Phair’s mix of bottle and brittleness but together they compliment each other like booze and fags. Simple as that.

From the moment that Tucker cries “at my very best, I can act my worst”, like an early PJ Harvey relocated on the Lower East Side, during opener American Girl you’re hooked in. Okay, so the next song, Dinner, has possibly the least rock and roll sentiment ever (“sex on the table is not very stable, let’s make dinner tonight”) but it highlights a theme of simple pleasures. It does occasionally go a bit too far though, such as on Twin Donut, a dirgy sub-riot grrl ode to the doughy delicacy.  It’s a minor gripe however. Holy Cat sees Tucker doing her finest impression of Lisa Germano at her most fragile and Shwervon! Is living proof that more bands should do eponymous songs rather than albums. They even rumble through the early-Sixties Trashmen classic Surfin’ Bird, joining a list of luminaries like the Ramones and the Cramps in doing so. It may not be big or indeed necessarily clever but ‘Quick Frozen…’ is definitely a cracker. Now, if they could just come over and play another show, I’ll make the effort to watch them. I’ve learnt my lesson, honest.

Reviewed by James S
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Rooney are five skinny, good looking Californian blokes, the West Coast equivalent to the Strokes but with better hair and jackets.  Their debut album takes a cue from 80s power pop plus flashes of 60s verve to serve up 13 tracks (2 bonus tracks on the UK issue and 2 videos) of fast, sunny, melodic pop music, with the most anthemic choruses since Embrace.   

The finest track on the album demonstrates all that’s good about them.  Stay Away has a super-summery riff and the sort of lovelorn teenage lyrics that ought to be pumping out of your wireless (no digital radio for this music) on your way to the beach every day this summer.  It’s a song for which a “repeat to infinity” button ought to be invented.   If It Were Up To Me is an ultra poppy, ultra happy, Weezer-like song with the great line “your mother likes my smile/and your father likes my lifestyle”.   Sorry Sorry has a Blondie-beat while Daisy Duke has this hyperkinetic chugging power that detonates into a hip-popping, addictive anthem of a chorus. 

Their 60s influences come out on Blueside, which gets its bluesy power from the Kinks and the Nazz while Popstars is like a Nazz ballad, ground out with power chords and a complex, poetic, powerful chorus and possibly the most intriguing lyrics (“you’re nothing but a bitch on strings/ you’ll be back milking cows before you cash the cheque”).  If I have a criticism, it’s that the album veers dangerously close to slickness at times.  As befits an album produced by Keith Forsey (and Brian Reeves), it has a perfect crystal sound, even though, on I’m Shakin’, it sounds just too damn polished.   But generally, the force of the songs wins out; that sense of melody trumps any notion of radio-friendly AOR.  Right now, the Strokes are distracted by celebrity from making music; Kings of Leon have too much facial hair to be serious contenders; and someone should tell the Thrills that they’re not even American.  Rooney might just step in with a challenge: pretty boys who rock. 

Reviewed by Ged M
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The second mini album of songs from young Mancunian singer-songwriter continues the approach of the former collection. Seven charming home-made demos from a shy twenty-something who ould very well be on the verge of greatness.

“The Nitwit Jive” kicks things off with an instrumental that wouldn’t sound out of place on Pink Floyd’s “Piper At The Gates Of Dawn” or “Saucerful Of Secrets”, all raw guitar and keyboard sounds. “Be My How” and “Dream Song” capture the serene calm and direct emotion of Nick Drake or early Badly Drawn Boy, who is in many ways Smiths mentor.

“I Met Myself In A Bar” is so good it has the familiarity of a song you’ve known and loved for years, with lyrics as funny as “Song To Delia Smith” but without the novelty song feel. This collection is less commercial as the last one due to the instrumentation being rawer, but as far as I’m concerned this is a good thing. Lets try and hold on to Smith for as long as we can before he hits the big time. It’ll be sooner than you think.

Reviewed by Rob B
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The omens were good for Mower. Signed to Transcopic, also home to resolutely lo-fi types Graham Coxon and Billy Childish but produced by Stephen Street, responsible for masterly works by The Smiths and Blur amongst others, this should be a cracking record.  Unfortunately that’s a ‘should be’ in the same sense that Big Brother should be more interesting this year or that George Bush should be shot i.e. wishful thinking but just not the case. The problems are multiple. Singer Matt Motte carries a tune like Tim Henman carries British hopes of a men’s singles winner at Wimbledon; a promising start but collapsing hopelessly when attempting anything difficult. No amount of over-excited yowling will persuade anyone to bracket him alongside The Darkness. Instead, at times, you get the eye-watering, buttock-clenching image of a man trapping his scrotum in a zip midway through an enema.

The lyrics fare no better. No Right No Reason is the kind of sixth-form anti-war politics that Guardian-reading geography teachers would vote for in a school battle-of-the-bands. The worst crime committed here though is the frequency with which Motte fills space by merely repeating words ad nauseam, with the worst offenders being the excruciating It’s Going To Be A Long Night and No One Is Royalty and its “blah, blah, blah, blah” chorus over the sound of cunting morris dancers.  And the music? Mower attempt to emulate the mix-and-match eclecticism of current masters The Coral, with stools of blustery, anthemic rock, folky pop and jaunty percussive indie that they gracelessly fall right between. In fairness, it’s not always so bad. Rest In Peace is a passable impression of a Ray Davies song and Sun Sun Sun is a feelgood bit of the summer but it’s strangely fitting that the best song here, God Is On My Side, is the hidden track, bursting forth energetically after five minutes of a grandfather clock ticking. I shit you not.

At the end of it all, you can’t help but think that Mower may have pre-empted some of their reviews when they chose to call this album ‘People Are Cruel’. They’d better get used to it.

Reviewed by James S
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