albums - current and forthcoming releases...                                page 14

Earlier Reviews | see previous reviews page (#13)

THE EIGHTIES MATCHBOX B-LINE DISASTER Horse of the Dog (No Death Records)
 

Brighton’s Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster trade the South Coast for the Deep South for a display of intense and insane swamp rock with Deliverance-voiced howling over the top.  It’s enough to make you fear for their cousins.  All seems confirmed as they open with the recent single Celebrate Your Mother, a celebration in fact of incest, played with a manic, unhinged fervour.   The album is short (only one track breaks 3 minutes) and perfectly formed, with slightly acid-tinged psychedelia, a blend of Cramps-style primal rhythms, Beefheartian dark blues and the Birthday Party’s gothic inbred madness.   On Whack of Shit, the band play a percussive Birthday Party rhythm underneath the shadow of a showtune while Guy McKnight wails like a creek dweller spotting a lily-while tubby city boy.  The wonderful Psychosis Safari is a hat-doffing Cramps tune with Guy doing his best Jello Biafra impression.  Play it loud and feel your IQ leaking away. Giant Bones is another wacko tune - “kill me momma, kill me now” – punky and powerful and as excitable as Jim Morrison about the dark side of the force but thankfully with about the same real menace.  Morning Has Broken has overheating effects-heavy guitars, drums with chain gang rhythms and steadily hyperventilating vocals.  Only Presidential Wave is slower and longer, with Lux Interior vocals over a steadily throbbing beat which develops into a broody, serial killer sort of tune.  

The Disasters, as they’ve probably no wish to be called, have hit upon the perfect album length: 25 minutes.  No song overstays its welcome and the album’s too short to grow tired of.  The impression is of a band in a hurry; every song is full of snarling guitars and spit-furious vocals but the overall effect is cathartic rather than threatening.  As the feedback fades out on track ten, you’re left winded but grinning.  (www.eightiesmatchbox.com)

Review by Ged
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If you enjoyed Come Get It - I Got It, as I did, you're in for a real treat.  This is the first full outing for Holmes live-project-cum-alter-ego The Free Association.  Last spring we were teased with a few glimpses of them, scattered amongst some supremely skilful remixes.  This album is all original stuff, and it's a corker.   If that release passed you by, then shame on you - you missed an electrifying blend of bluesy soul, rare groove, funk, brought bang up to date with some deft sampling work.  A heady cocktail, to which Belfast-born Holmes now adds a shot of dynamite.

We lead off with Don't Rhyme No Mo, an aural kick up the pants, from rapper Sean Reveron's "let's do it" exhortation at the start, through a firestorm of stomping beats, sax parps, and funky flutes.  This is going to kick arse live - and it seems dates are being scheduled this autumn.
I'm there already.  A slight shift down in tempo leads to I Wish I Had A Wooden Heart, Petra Jean Phillipson's effortless vocals providing a perfect foil to the deep, dark and dirty  bassline, before Sean returns and we descend in to a nightmarish world of sinister strings and half-crazed rap on Le Baggage.

If there's a single criticism you could level at the album, it's that the initial fire and energy of the first couple of tracks fades out a little, and a more laid-back tone takes hold - that some of the promise of the first couple of tracks isn't quite delivered.  Maybe we're being teased - maybe they're keeping their powder dry for their live dates. Whatever, with such talented vocalists on board, it'd be rude not to give them something more expansive to play with.    The album's a tribute to Holmes' formidable talent, and given that the whole thing was laid down in ten days, frankly amazing.  Can't wait to see them live.
 

Review by Simon
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Ironically, many of the songs hint at hope, even if out of desperation. These include the wonderful single Coming in From the Cold but for the majority of the album the comfort comes from the darkness and the pleasure from the pain.  The simple Badly Drawn Boy like arrangement of All You Need is Hate sounds almost frivolous alongside Alun Woodward’s dismissals of charity and the care of your mother.  The smart wordplay coupled with the orchestral arrangements and quality tunes make this an even better album than its Mercury prize nominated predecessor.  All in all, miserably compulsive listening.

Review by Paul
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I have to admit I was a little nervous about this one. When “I Should Coco” arrived in the heady days of Britpop, Supergrass immediately became one of my favourite bands. They seemed so effervescent, so full of energy, and while their style was nothing original, that album still stands up today, unlike the work of, oh I don’t know, Ocean Colour Scene. Likewise “In It For The Money”. A little more mature, but still containing brilliant songs that still bring a smile to the face. (“Richard III”, “Sun Hits The Sky”). However, by the third album, Gaz, Mickey and Danny seemed to be in trouble. Despite the singles “Moving” and “Pumping On Your Stereo” being up to the usual standard, they seemed to have lost their enthusiasm and the tunes went in one ear and came straight out of the other. They couldn’t even be arsed to think of an album title.  Thankfully, “Life On Other Planets” has rectified that. Admitting that half the problem with the third album was that they produced it themselves, they’ve roped in the producer of Beck’s “Midnite Vultures”, Tony Hoffer. They did the right thing: Hoffer’s knob-twiddling has added some freshness to a format that was sounding stale.

Opening, and closing, with what sounds rather like a carnival in space, the first half of “Life On Other Planets” is excellent. The trio, now with Gaz’s brother Rob joining them full time, have taken some of the greatest guitar pop from the sixties and seventies and made them their own. “Rush Hour Soul” sounds like “Crosstown Traffic”, “Seen The Light” sounds like Marc Bolan preening his way through a glam classic. These songs, among others, show that the boys have taken the enthusiastic performances of “I Should Coco” and combined them with the songwriting skills of “In It For The Money”. Its like that third album never happened. 

First single, “Never Done Nothing Like That Before”, shows the boys, now grown up, can give those young upstarts The Vines and The Hives a run for their money at playing garage rock. “Grace” sounds like The Beatles circa 1968, which can only be considered a compliment, and the last two songs, “Prophet 15” and “Run”, perhaps give some signifier as to where the band are headed next, Hoffer’s work on “Run” in particular giving the boys a new direction. This song wouldn’t sound out of place on an Air album, which, considering Hoffer has worked with Air, isn’t a huge stretch of the imagination.

With the futures of Blur and Pulp looking a little shaky, it’s reassuring to see Supergrass returning to form.

Review by Rob Barker
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Look out Dave Grohl, the Foo Fighters just may have some competition. Californian 4 piece Audiovent have produced a debut album that could quite easily stand alongside There is Nothing Left To Lose. There's plenty of pop music underneath the rock laden riffs of "Dirty Knights...' and for once this isn't a bad thing. I'm not saying this is a rock-lite release, in fact at times there's enough heavy hammering to keep even the most denim clad desperado happy, but there's subtlety in the playing which elevates it above the normal 4/4 standard metalism. Superbly produced by The La's producer Gavin MacKillop, he has allowed the vocals and harmonies to hover in the mix without being drowned in the guitars, and everything sounds like it's in the right place. That may sound like a obvious statement to make, but so many rock releases recently have relied on poking the hooks right out in front of the music. It's an easy trick to highlight the thing that sets a band out from its contemporaries, but it often leads to making the songs sound samey, and ultimately makes an album a hard slog to get through. This is one criticism that can't be levelled here. This is one set of songs that you listen to, and sounds like it passes in 15 minutes not 45, which to this observer is a good thing.

Songs sang with passion have nothing without soul. This collection actually has soul in abundance without sounding forced or twee. Audiovent have the ability to switched from full on rock and roll to acoustic smoothness without it sounding contrived. Where in most cases you feel that you have to endure listening to slower more melodic tracks on a rock and roll album, here we find a band more than confident in their own musical ability to switch between sub-genres.

There's a lot of musical references in here, from full on power chord city of Soundgarden on "Looking Down" to Nirvana during their most introspective moments during "Stalker" and "Back and Forth", back to balls out rock frenzy that Faith No More would be happy with on "Underwater Silence". Current single "The Energy" is a prime cut opener and sets the stall out nicely for a well paced album. Closer "When I Drown" is all piano, cellos and close harmonies that evoke the sound of Everclear, and is the perfect way to bring an album of such diversity to an end.

Rarely do I have the opportunity hear a debut album from a band which actually makes me think that they have the potential to go on to great things. With "Dirty Knights...." I believe I have had the chance to hear a band that could possibly be massive. To call it emo-rock would be doing it a dis-service. If somebody played this to me, I'd be rushing down to HMV to get my own copy, and I advise you to do exactly that. Maybe not the new Nevermind or Superunknown, but easily dove-tailed between the two.

Review by Micky Bananas
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OF MONTREAL  Aldhils Arboretum (Track and Field)
 

What do we know about of Montreal?  They’ve released about six albums, though this is their first proper release in the UK.  Some of those have been – gasp! - concept albums.  They moonlight in other bands like Great Lakes and Marshmallow Coast.  And judging by Kevin Barnes’ lyrics and David Barnes’ artwork, they don’t see the world like anyone else.  

of Montreal are poppy like the Beatles circa Sergeant Pepper, harmonic like the Beach Boys, psychedelic and whimsical like Syd Barrett, often all within the same song.   Songs are sharply drawn vignettes, beautifully observed but all slightly out of kilter and offering a surreal take on life.  Time signatures change mid-song leaving you slightly disoriented.  It’s pop music with a slightly bitter tang.   Doing Nothing is fresh sounding Monkees, very melodic with fluttering guitars but with enough twists to suggest that the band aren’t following a pop formula.  Or try Jennifer Louise: full of melody, with perfect harmonies, but lyrically it’s a stalker’s tale of unrequited love for a cousin (coming from Athens, Georgia you’d have thought they knew better).  Pancakes for One is pure 60s pop the way the DBs used to interpret it: guitars jangling the senses, melodies soothing them and gorgeous harmonies served up like lashings of comfort food. Old People in the Cemetery is blackly humorous but moving too: “old people…unprepared to come to terms/with the fact that we’re all food for worms/ do they think a prayer could make a difference now?”.  It’s tuneful and melodic with a calypso beat happy tone and a string section reminding us of the grave situation.  Isn’t It Nice is a song of praise for country life, melodic and superficially hearty but evolving into a sinister warning about the people you meet there: “Larry, our alcoholic neighbour, at 10am asking for a ride to the liquor store” and “cranky elderly lady who accuses us of burning down her barn”.  And however rhythmic and poppy Death Dance of Omipapas and Sons for You is, and it is, that title alone puts it in the “ma, they’ve been at the mushrooms again” box.  There’s a knowing innocence about all this and, while the whimsy can be a little strong at times, the range of pop styles, and the intelligence that applies them, makes this worthwhile listening.  You might not get all of it first time, but you’ll want to keep listening till you do.  (More info: www.ofmontreal.net)

Reviewed by Ged
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a new morning sounds/feels like a continuation on from 1999’s Head Music, offering a mature radio-too-friendly indie middle-of-the-roadness, with sophisticated production, easy rhythms, and the odd acoustic number (morning, the oceans between us).  Lyrically and thematically, however, things remain the same. Brett still focuses on the young glamourous misfits trying, or failing, to build romantic lives amongst the urban decay of “broken phones” and “streets where the creeps all prey”. But sometimes Brett’s worldview can seem anachronistic - “you can feel like you’re in Dynasty” may not mean much to the young glamourous misfits of today.  Suedeland remains a timeless and yet curiously timebound world.

Musically this is still identifiably Suede with few surprises.  Some songs are superbly catchy. Such as the single positivity, a super saccharine pop pill - a possible pastiche of bland pop optimism - washed down with rising sing-along-a-chorus; the harmonica filled obsessions harkens back to Bowie’s Low era; and the classic Suede Butleresque-guitar-wiggling of beautiful loser, which has a killer chorus and an odd Oasis sounding middle eight with Brett doing a Liam sneer – titter ye not.  But some of the tracks are weak by Suede standards - lonely girls and streetlife are disappointing rather than bad, with the former being an excuse for a litany of girls’ names and one line descriptors which amounts to little, and the latter a rushed unrefined rifferama.

In short, this is a good, rather than great, Suede album.  Certainly it won’t dis-suede old fans; it might even per-suede some new ones.

Review by Kev
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This is a collection, but not of greatest hits, though the quality is so good you’ll want to return to them.  The album collects songs not on the ‘Great Lakes’ album but released in various other formats, mostly in the US.  As most of these formats were singles or compilations, the hook-rating of the songs is very high.  Great Lakes are associated with the Elephant 6 camp so you know roughly what to expect: wayward psychedelia, sixties garage pop laden with hooks and smothered in melody, married to a modern pop sensibility but rather quirky and off-centre.   Although a couple of tracks are fillers, most are substantial and lovely pop numbers.  Ever So Over is a full Beach Boys production, stately and elegant, with Jamey Huggins’ languid voice massaged by mournful viola and harmonica.  It’s nearly 5 minutes of slow burning melody gently emerging from the tightly layered track.   Sister City in contrast is all guitar riffs and feedback, shorter and more direct but just as melodic and instantly infectious.  There are three covers, all of which fit perfectly into the Great Lakes pure-pop universe, being linked by their melodic edge and catchy tunes.  Mike Nesmith’s Some of Shelley’s Blues is pop-heavy country-rock.  The Bee Gees’ Morning of My Life is very simple and sweet and builds in sound as the verses get progressively more surreal.   Their cover of The Zombies’ This Will Be Our Year is wonderfully melodic with a pretty sentiment delivered perhaps even better than on ‘Odessey and Oracle’.  There’s a lovely use of horns and strings and the whole thing sounds pretty timeless.  The first two minutes of Conquistadors are amazing West Coast pop, kicking off like T-Rex meets a country-rock Byrds, with stunning piano fills.  It’s hookier than a family wedding at the New Order bassist’s house.  Guitars then go off like someone dropped a lit match in a box of fireworks and it ends in a bit of a guitar/piano wigout but just for a while we’re planting the flag on planet pop and everything is gorgeous.   There are lots of external events to remind you that it can be a pretty shitty world sometimes so it’s good that Great Lakes are there to stroke your brow and show you some of the finer things in life.

Reviewed by Ged
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Firstly, let's set the record straight. Demolition is not the follow up to last year's alt-country crossover success Gold, as we've been so stringently advised. Apparently it was inspired by his friend Alanis Moanis- sorry, Morrisette (if the stories are true, he went straight from one of her gigs to the studio to record the demos which make up this very album). Sweet Jesus, that doesn't bode well. However, it ain't half as bad as it could have been with that awful accompanying tagline.  The question most people have been asking about this album is whether it's more like Adams' outstanding solo debut Heartbreaker or the more rock-orientated Gold- indeed, opening track Nuclear could have been lifted from Gold, but don't let this fool you- Demolition, as a whole, tends to sway more to the hardcore country-ish leanings of Heartbreaker. Are you following? Do keep up. In simple terms, it ain't like the rockier second one, it's more like the country-ish first one. Yes, I could have just said that in the first place, but it's much more fun this way!

The majority of the tracks on Demolition are indeed acoustic love songs- the weepy You Will Always Be The Same- which is the La Cienega Just Smiled of Demolition (there had to be one)- a soft, folky ballad which sees Adams' twangy vocals accompanied by a lush cello background. Most of the album is good quality stuff, but Adams does hit a few bum notes- Desire is pretty unremarkable, as is the eloquently titled Tennessee Sucks, which, bizarrely sounds fairly jazz-y at times. However, the sluggish tracks are more than compensated for with the uptempo Starting To Hurt. The rockier stuff is certainly better; I feel it's where Adams' finds himself, and besides, it's songs like this, like Firecracker and New York, New York which made him so bloody successful anyway.  The standout track is definitely the beautiful Tomorrow, which features (country legend in her own right) Gillian Welch on backing vocals and former Adams collaborator David Rawlings on guitar. Absolute top-notch stuff. Then we're back in thigh-slapping country again with Chin Up, Cheer Up, before retreating back into ballad-land with the melancholy Jesus (Don't Touch My Baby).

Demolition is a, overall, a solid, enjoyable album, but he's going to need something far stronger to follow up the success of Gold.

Review by Neon
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SCHNEIDER  TM  Zoomer (City Slang)
 

This is Schneider TM, real name Dirk Dresselhaus, second full-length album and the follow up to 1998's 'Moist'. Previous to that, he appeared in several German indie rock bands on rhythm section.

'Zoomer' mixes radio friendly tunes with enough electronic blips and pops to make you want to check that your mobile phone isn't ringing. There are some good tunes and it's clear that's where Dirk's heart was when recording this album. The understated opener of 'reality check' uses vocoder harmonies over up-tempo beats. The multi-tracked harmonies of 'Frogtoise' nod in the
direction of The Beach Boys while telling the tale of dissection. 'Abyss' is   probably the catchiest of all the tracks, with it's underlining repeated keyboard parts and Beck-like vocals that you'll find humming to yourself in the supermarket.  In the later tracks Dirk turns to his electronic tools more than his vocals. The distorted noises of '999' hints towards Death in Vegas, bringing the album to a climax before the calming last track of 'Cuba TM'.

A good listen if your into Tortoise and Stereolab and the CD cover even has curved corners - nice!

Review by Ken Tuckie
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Sweden’s own Blindside are stuck in a bit of a dilemma. From the opening crunch of "Caught A Glimpse" it is obvious that they want to be heavy and hard, yet by the second track "Pitiful" they show their nod towards the nobody understands me brigade. Oh fickle fate, how you mock me! Coming from a desperately dance inspired gene pool that is Scandinavia, it must be hard to be taken seriously as a rock and roll band. They have obviously pinned their colours well and truly to the American main stream rock pole, and will be judged accordingly. To be honest, there's an undercurrent of Kiss during tracks like "Sleepwalking" that can't be hidden behind powerchords and production, and the Soundgarden path is one that has been trodden many a time by up and coming bands. Even down to "Cute Boring Love" the spectre of Ozzy is there, looming heavily over the singers shoulder.

This is not to say that it's a bad album, just that they still need time to develop a style and musical direction of their own. On merit, they do it very well, but it does sound way too easy for them. They have chosen to sing in English, obviously to appeal to a wider target audience than singing in their native language, and this leads to slightly predictive lyrics. There's no what the hell is he talking about moments to be heard, and personally I like to think at a bit more depth when analyzing what a band is going on about. How many times can a singer say "sorry" in an album without it sounding like a throwaway line? It's a dark set of lyrics, but sometimes the I hate myself and what I did direction gets diluted when there's nothing to offset it against. Ultimately, black looks grey when there's no white to compare it with.

Blindside could easily fill the void between the full on hate of Slipknot and Mudvane, and the power pop rock of Metalica if given enough rope by their label. This is a more than adequate debut, but one can only think that there's still a lot more in their locker given the chance. "Midnight" is a classic example of this. Turn down the guitars and think more about the melodies and a great track emerges. There's something here that should be nurtured, and hopefully they will get the opportunity to do so. By no means an essential purchase, this is Blindsides "Pablo Honey" - an album that shows where they are now and not what they could become. In 10 years time they will listen to it and say look what we turned into. Don't write them of just yet, Silence is only the opening salvo of a long battle.

Review by Micky Bananas
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It’s been a while – in fact it’s been a very long while - since Suicide produced any new material. I’ll save the history lesson however as Alan Vega and Marty Rev are not concerned with development but continue to be pre-occupied with repetition and dark melodrama (witness titles like Televised Execution and Dachau, Disney, Disco).   

Suicide have kept to the formula of flatly linear rhythms (provided by Rev) with narrated, sometimes hysterically dramatic, vocalisations (from Vega) which used to get them bottled off stage by inpatient punk audiences 25 years ago. Don’t expect a chorus or even a denoument with these guys.  What you hear is what you get in about the first 10 to 20 seconds. Sure, they may have updated the sounds to the 90s with scratching, sampled drum loops and the odd bit of FX but that’s about it.  And perhaps it is because the tunes are now enslaved to modern drum patterns and rhythms that they sound less dramatic than before.  There’s no Cheree, Cheree or Frankie Teardrop or (alas) Dream Baby Dream here. 

However, when it works it works well and there are at least two outstanding tracks here. Misery Train, which starting off with the refrain of “Train, train…” confirms the nod to Elvis P’s Mystery Train (ok, it’s the Carter Family if we’re going to be THAT trainspotterish, choo choo), and is a slow motion track carrying Vega’s funereal lyrics “I buried my brother today” whilst the tempo mimics the slow clattering of train wheels.  The other is Wrong Decision which benefits from an emphatic rhythm and inspired out-of-place S-Express disco type orchestra stabs and Vega choking out “Mom’s not breathing, huh!”.  Death on the dance floor indeed.

In the end, few surprises. And that will please the old fans. 

Review by Kev
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Wherein Manchester’s wayward little folk-electronica label “ran” by Damon Gough and Andy Votel ask a selection of their artists to perform a song about an animal. A simple idea, yet one that any of the big money labels would designate as madness. Thank goodness for Twisted Nerve, then. These themed compilations are one of Twisted Nerve’s specialities, and give the label and the people on it a chance to show off their playful, eccentric side. Except most Twisted Nerve releases are playful and eccentric anyway. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Mr. Votel kicks off the proceedings with “The Polar Bear Attacks”, as shown on the sleeve. This song is best described as, erm a polar bear attacking people. Still waiting for that solo album Andy. Meanwhile, Dave Tyack’s DOT present a mournful Mogwai-like composition dedicated to what its like to be a horse, entitled, simply, “Horses”.

The cheekily-titled “Ape Shit”, a collaboration between Votel and Tyack, conjures up the image of a group of apes running wild in the jungle and then coming across a load of percussion instruments and proceeding to bang the living daylights out of them. The theme to 70’s sitcom “Butterflies”, “Love Is Like A Butterfly” is resurrected by Misty Dixon. The perfect song for Jane Weaver to show off her style, but possibly too twee for some.  Damon Gough perhaps takes the chance to piss around too far. A tune originally intended for “The Hour Of Bewilderbeast”, “Trumpton” is resurrected as “Push Me/Pull Me”, a moving tale about the Badly Drawn One’s love for his llama. Not many people would dare to quote Joe Dolce  (What’s-a-matter-you, hey!) and Paul Whitehouse (Easy, peezy, lemon, squeezy, cheesy peas) in the same song. Whether anyone should is up to debate. Wonder what Morrissey would think of ex-Smiths bass player Andy Rourke playing on this?

This release is certainly not going to be to everyone’s taste, but it does show that in Supreme Vagabond Craftsman we perhaps have the next Badly Drawn Boy (“ALF Is Gonna Rock You” – great title). It also displays the talents of Dave Tyack, “Penguin Parade” in particular standing out as a beautiful piece of ambient electronic music. This man deserves more attention, and lets hope his disappearance is not permanent.

Review by Rob Barker
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The debut album from Montreal band Pulse Ultra shows there's much to be said about formative influences. Through out virtually it's entire length, you end up coming to the conclusion that System of a Down have a lot to answer for. If you were to put the Headspace CD into the Toxicity box in error, you'd be hard pressed to notice the mistake as this piece of work is almost a facsimile of the underground classic, in both it's sound, composition and delivery.

From the guitar sound to the vocal style it's not difficult to tell that Pulse Ultra have been on an extensive tour with S of a D. Lyrically it's fairly straight angst and anger, sang with suitable venom and passion, and you can hear in the introspective words just how much of a harrowing period the band went through during the recording process.

There are many a fancy guitar hook and clever lick in the mix, and it's sonically easy to listen to for such a heavy sounding album. Standing out above the rest "Never the Culpit" with it's vocal chorus hook, and "Void" which is a marvelous tune which if released as a single could break them to a UK audience. The metal edge is turned down and the singer’s vocals are allowed to soar, allowing the listener to realise just how good he really is. A song good enough to grace any bands album.

By far the most outstanding thing about this collection of tunes is the superb quality of drumming on every track. From heavy pounding and triplets, to the off beats and fills on show here, in Maxx Zinno they have discovered a gem of a musician capable of playing anything that the band throws at him, and knowledgeable enough to realise that with drumming it's often what you don't play being as important as what you do.

So in conclusion, if you enjoyed Toxicity you will certainly not be disappointed to have this in your collection. A fine debut effort that shows true potential, but also shows that they aren't a riff laden one trick pony. So next year when you're wandering round Reading Festival on Rock Sunday don't be surprised to see lots of Pulse Ultra T-shirts, but at least this time you'll know who the hell they are, and you can impress your mates with your insightful knowledge of nu-music. Aren't we good to you!

  Review by Micky Bananas
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A label sampler is like sticking your hand in a bag of snakes and seeing which one bites first and there are one or two poisonous ones in here.  If the compilation had started with Figurine’s naïve, twee My First UFO (sample dialogue: “a clear starry night/not a humanoid in sight”) you’d have scrambled for the eject; thankfully it kicks off with Saloon’s brilliant Free Fall, available here on CD for the first time after being released on 7” on Track and Field.  It’s insistently progressive, with smouldering vocals and just the right amount of synthy effects.  The CD brings out what a busy and layered single it really is.  The Sinking Ships are The Bangles Mark 2, and their 60s power pop is built around a naggingly effective riff and handclaps.  Boyracer, Mus and Color Filter are all worth hearing as the range of music moves from indie pop to female-fronted soft rock to alt.country and even skirts jazz! 

The album reveals Darla’s fascination with Factory Records.  Sadly, most of the four Manchester cuts are Factory seconds: the reformed Crispy Ambulance sound like Happy Mondays where previously they aped Joy Division; Stockholm Monsters are The Pale Fountains with whiny Northern vocals and Ludus are Orange Juice in their funk-pop phase. But credit for including Cath Carroll’s sophisticated loungecore Moves Like You in full 6:38 length.  This late-period Factory is coolly elegant; if Audrey Hepburn had fancied a second career as a singer (and hadn’t been dead at the time) she’d have sung this song. 

Like all compilations there’s good and bad but Saloon and Cath Carroll (not to mention it’s mid-priced) might be enough of an inducement to accept Darla’s latest treat.   

Review by Ged
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The summer may well be over now, but Matinee Records recently released this compilation album to keep the summer well and truly alive.  Indie-pop artists are often mocked. Abused by the press for generally consisting of overly fey people who are clinging to a dying scene and should bugger off taking their cheap acoustic guitars and floppy hair with them. The scene isn’t dead, it’s just hidden itself away the public, but look hard enough and you’ll find that it’s still very much alive. There was a short re-emergence of 60’s style pop tunes thanks to the likes of Belle & Sebastian, but it’s been kicked aside by an equally interesting return of rock ‘n’ roll.

You should know what to expect from this release, the influences are glaringly obvious. The Beatles and The Byrds wouldn’t complain about any of this lot (I don’t know this really, I could well be lying). Airport Girl and Slipslide have the classic indie sound wrapped up, while bands such as the Would-Be-Goods and Pipas offer a more interesting upbeat sound. Sportique are usually better known for rather tedious punk-pop tunes, but this time they’ve dabbled with a sound that recalls Galaxie 500 and is accompanied by a splendid organ (most likely replicated by a Casio Keyboard).  Before pop became a dirty word bands like The Liberty Ship and Kosmonaut would have been praised for their model 60’s-pop tunes. It’s not all jaunty pop tunes though, Lovejoy and Harper Lee supply the slower numbers to ease us all in to the autumn. However, The Windmills and The Pines give people reasons to complain. They churn out overly sentimental songs that appear to have been designed so people can ignore them. Without a noticeable hook or interesting vocal melody they bring up the tedious and dire end of the record.

They’ll all continue release their limited edition (500 only) multi-coloured 7” vinyl singles with pictures of green meadows on the sleeve and not care that only twelve people have actually bought a copy. They’ll all be written about in unread fanzines and they’ll most certainly all carry on supplying us with simple catchy pop tunes. They are all troopers, the lot of them.  I’d like to be congratulated on not mentioning Sarah Records once in this review.

Review by Richard
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Note to the ed - I'm too busy listening to the album to bother to write anything down.  Just rearrange a few adjectives: raw, visceral, vital, alive, powerful, exciting, sweaty, sexy, essential.  Tell the kids it's from the mighty Artrocker collective so it's by fans for fans.  Let 'em know it's got 22 tracks and not a clunker or an outtake among them - the cream of international garage rock, collected in the most rock 'n' roll city in the world.  Mention The Hives, the Pattern, the Datsuns, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Beatings, the Von Bondies...look can I get back to the record?  Oh, and tell them to make their own discoveries but to keep their ears peeled for the maniac guitars and psychotic piano of The Divine Brown, the lunatic mayhem of the Flaming Sideburns or the Yardbirds stomp of the Mooney Suzuki's I'm Not Talking.  Not bad for a recycled jazz toon! 

Look, just tell the kidz to stop reading, smoking, masturbating, whatever, and bugger off and buy their own copies - it's only mid-priced so they can afford to miss one fix at least.  We all need new blood so go get yourselves transfused!    www.artrocker.com

Review by Ged
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It’s pretty frantic throughout with hi-energy punk funk opener Our Town setting the pace that most of the rest happily follow.  Plucking odd tracks out and playing them randomly alongside more traditional guitar music they sound quite refreshing in 2002 but as an album it can make for pretty hard work as the funky basslines and chopped guitars hold constant centre stage.  That’s not to say it doesn’t have its moments; Single Eyes Wide Open is part Should I Stay or Should I Go and part Talking Heads’ I Zimbra and Save Your City has an early New Order feel to it.  An interesting album, just one I personally would prefer to dip into than endure all in one sitting.

Review by Paul
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Picture the scene. Simian are sat around a table at Monkey World Entertainment Headquarters when their manager walks into the room. "Right, guys, we’ve got a problem to address. We all know that last year’s debut (Chemistry Is What We Are) didn’t exactly set the world alight. So what we’re going to do is make a mediocre follow up. Let’s call it We Are Your Friends. We’ll open with a track called "La Breeze" and fool the masses into thinking it’s a good song by having a cool Spanish guitar intro. But really, it’ll have the same kind of rhythm as Bob The Builder or some other cheesy kids programme. We’ll harmonise a bit and make the lyrics as crap as possible. It’ll so work! No, really lads, it will. Lads? Lads?"

La Breeze is a prime example of the absurdity of this album. Like most of the other tracks, it’s repetitive, it’s boring, it’s bland. They describe themselves as "electronically enhanced psychedelic folk", and whilst Never Be Alone is choc-a-bloc with bleepy-bloopy noises and Helpless has squidgy-squodgy sounds, they do it so badly. It doesn’t work at all.  However, there is hope, with songs like Skin which is one of the albums stronger songs musically, but still lyrically poor: "I need your touch/I ain’t asking much/ Give me your mind/ Give me your life". Oh, please. Believe me, I’m rolling my eyes. In Between is rather good, with intelligent drumming and a slight hip-hop beat. But by this stage, the songs seem to be merging into each other. It’s hard to distinguish them and that’s the main problem with We Are Your Friends. It’s much, much too samey. And so, near the end, we come to the best track on the whole album, without a doubt. Brilliant harmonies against a funereal background, complete with eerie sound effects make She’s In Mind instantly memorable. It’s reminiscent of a 1950’s horror film and it makes me quite sad that Simian can’t make albums as good as this one song. They have the potential, but are mournfully wasting it and this is clearly illustrated on closing track End of The Day; with the return of the bleepy crap. It’s not as repetitive as others but it’s still quite painful.

We Are Your Friends never succeeds in pushing past the average mark, apart from one or two songs, and at that, they’re still quite average. If only they reduced their electronica influence, even just slightly, they’d be tolerable. We Are Your Friends could be a grower for some people, but I for one, am certainly not prepared to hang around to find out. 

Review by Neon
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