Ah, the Treatment Rooms.  A blissful haven in an unforgiving world.  “So Sir, how do you want to feel by the end?” Tiffany purred.  ‘Warm, sensual, enveloped by an all-embracing sensation of well-being’.  Smiling sweetly as her hot breath caressed my skin, Tiffany whispered “I have just the thing, essence of Lemon Jelly”.  And so it was.   A beautiful sound.  Tender, seductive.  A gorgeous symphony of sound that washes over your aching soul like a Tuscan sunset.  If it took you a week to stop smiling after Amelie you already know what it’s like to listen to Lemon Jelly.

But it was a strange gig.  The blonde one was dry, witty, sensitive even.  His ‘Bellboy’ cry was funny (Quadrophenia, Brighton?).  Yet they rarely engaged the audience.  Okay, the lighter gag during the Chicago riff had us chuckling.  Yet it was a curiously non-visual affair.  They made a sterling effort with the lighting.  But seeing Lemon Jelly Live really came alive when you shut your eyes.  Then it was easy to feel engulfed by their beauty.  Watching these shy yet earnest musicians was distracting.  That said, the duck song and the folk guitar sample provided a stirring finale, and there was much love and mutual respect at the end.  And all said and done it was a lovely evening.  But I left wondering if the best way to enjoy Lemon Jelly is how the couple next to me did.  Cuddling.

 Reviewed by Alex S
Top | Comment on this artist or review on the Forum

 

The Loves have perfect hair, the right clothes, a great record collection, prestigious support slots (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Apples In Stereo) and an appearance at CMJ in New York: all the attributes that would get them an NME cover if they came from New York.  Because they come from slightly less far west (Cardiff to be exact) they get a fraction of the praise they deserve.  They mix the noir of the Velvet Underground with the teen pop of the Velvelettes and a dose of C86 guitar japes, and offset accusations of retro-ness with a healthy sense of humour and a direct feed into the main vein of pop music.   

The set’s a mixture of songs quick and slow, loud and soft, with hard guitars softened by organ squeaks and the occasional fashionable blues-inspired number.  It’s all great fun, like pop music used to be.  If it’s a criticism, the best songs come in a bundle mid-set.  From the wordy and witty Just Like Bobby D, through Chelsea Girl, which starts Nico-like with a female voice and ends as a punky thrash, followed by the so ‘then’ and yet so ‘now’ sound of Boom A Bang Bang Bang and finally Fucked Up, we get a swathe of the best Loves songs that the rest of the set can’t beat.  With a beer in your hand, eyes full of the vibrant Loves colours and ears full of the sweet pop tones, you wonder why they’re not teen heroes already as you tap your ruby-slippered toes and dream of the Velvets third album.

 

Set list: The Sound We Make Is…/ Little Girl Blues/ Depeche Mode/ Cool/ When My Baby Comes/ She’ll Break Your Heart/ Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!/ Just Like Bobby D/ Chelsea Girl/ Boom-A-Bang-Bang-Bang/ Fucked Up/ Rock ‘n’ Roll/ Shake Yr Bones/ Love

Reviewed by Ged M
Top | Comment on this artist or review on the Forum

 

Bristol four piece The Mighty Stars are far from the finished product but as their combined age probably adds up to little more than that of the average Mojo writer you can forgive them their lack of polish.  The vocals are a tad weak but the band are affable and cute enough to win over even the most po-faced critic. Their catchy pop with chunky bass and power chords is at its bestwith Chords style 80s mod such as opener Let’s Play There and spiky Girls Girls Girls.  A criticism which they acknowledge is that every track seems to be based around a girl’s name and some of it resembles Ash at their most insipid.  

Glasgow two piece Hassel Hound were as out of place in this 60s influenced pop bill as a Who guitarist at a kindergarten.  They sit heads bowed like a pair of schoolboys awaiting nit inspection but their guitar, keyboards and quirky vocal tape loops make for more than mere background mood music.  It’s all very Lemon Jelly-ish with cutesy tunes accompanying Pathe News style dialogues and on this showing their recorded product on Pickled Pop and Twisted Nerve is almost certainly worth checking out.  

Reviewed by Paul M
Top | Comment on this artist or review on the Forum

 

The boys and girls in this venue, who all sport equally bad haircuts, are here to position themselves where they can get a top-drawer view of a certain Karen O. I’m not one to start a fight and push and barge, so I have to settle for a view which leaves me stuck behind a giant speaker on a raised platform near the bar. I’m not fussed; I think I can see a bit of her thigh! 

So it’s really a crowd of perverts who are ogling Karen O as she bends over a lot and gyrates around conveniently located pillars on the stage. Well, that’s what I thought before I arrived, but it appears there’s more to The Yeah Yeah Yeahs than Karen O’s sex appeal (but not much more). The crowd pleasing tracks are songs from the debut EP such as the sensational ‘Art Star’ that comes complete with the terrific ‘Do-Do-Do’-ing from Karen O that a crowd can’t help but join in with. The new songs are accompanied with some frantic but controlled drumming and some sterling guitar riffs that really do need to be heard live. The cynic in me says that they’ll not perform as well on a studio album, but I say, they’re quite splendid. The encore showed a band with confidence and a band that you’d really struggle to despise. The main factor though was that it was fun, I didn’t hear anybody moaning nor any disappointed faces.

Few have better stage presence than a snarling Karen O. Who else has people craning their necks around corners to see somebody as they march on the spot in a dark corner of the stage whilst stretching their torn fishnets until they might well ping and go flying in to an eager and hungry audience? You dare not blink just in case you miss something. She only loses the crowd for a moment as she makes the classic error of saying ‘Notting-HAM’, but of course nobody can stay mad at her for such a trivial mistake. Who’d have thought I didn’t even like them much before my appearance on the night, I’m converted, I enjoyed feeling dirty.

Reviewed by Richard C
Top | Comment on this artist or review on the Forum

 

 

Head banging, sweat soaking, riiff makin', old school rock and roll. Right, that's that review done then.  The Datsuns do nothing new, cutting edge or avant-garde, but they do do hard edged 1970's Gibson Les Paul and Marshall stacked rock, and it's hard not to be drawn into their bizarre retro world. They are bound to be critised on one hand by the chin stroking brigade who still think that wearing black and worshipping Ian Curtis means they know more about music than the great unwashed public, and lorded by the denim clad greasy haired 40 something’s who will say they are the best thing since 1974. Well in some respects they are both right. Yes they are extremely predictable, and almost a comic book pastiche of everything that alternative music isn't, but also they are great at what they do. Yes, long haired head banging air guitar looks (and frankly is) stupid, but the sight of 3 skinny New Zealanders in tight jeans with legs akimbo and heads down giving it large riff action is strangely entertaining and dare I say it reassuring in a world where music has suddenly forgotten about having fun and is taking itself way too seriously. Comparisons will obviously been drawn to Led Zep, AC-DC et-al, but that's because they are doing now nothing different to what every rock and roll band has done for the last 30 years, but as stated earlier they do it well, and don't take themselves the slightest bit seriously. If you enjoyed the album, then you'd absolutely love them live, but one is left thinking that 45 minutes of them would probably be enough for any mere mortal this side of somebody who wishes that Monsters of Rock at Donnington was every weekend.

 

It would be hard to pick out too many real highlights, as most of the songs are as different to the previous effort in but title alone, but the truly magnificent MF From Hell is the shining star in their locker of rock, and defies anybody to honestly say this style of music can reach heights of greatness without descending to prog rock levels of lunacy. One things for certain, there won't be any 3 foot high models of Stonehenge in their set, that's for sure.

 

In an evening of throwbacks ( for The Thrills read Waterboys, Interpol read Joy Division and Polyphonic Spree read Sgt. Pepper), why should anybody criticise The Datsuns for rehashing something that's already been done? They Rock baby, and that's all that matters, so dig out those tight Levi’s, converse all-stars, white t-shirts and stop washing your hair for a month and jump aboard the best thing in rock and roll since, oh......1974. Forget what anybody says, it is cool to enjoy music that is totally un-cool, as long as you can appreciate the joke that is.

Reviewed by Micky K
Top | Comment on this artist or review on the Forum

And so on to the tour manager’s logistical nightmare that is The Polyphonic Spree.  Sources differ on how many of the buggers there are but tonight there were 22, including leader and vocalist Tim DeLaughter, small choir, keyboards, brass, flute and harp (inaudible).  The Spree don’t do songs, they perform musical pieces with minimal lyrics.  Musically they’re a cross between The Flaming Lips, Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles and Godspell, delivering sunny symphonic pop-rock.  Visually they’re a white-robed hippy commune bouncing around on invisible trampolines.  They opened as per the album with Section 1, with its mantra of ‘Have a day, celebrate, soon you'll find the answer/Holiday, hide away, soon you'll find the wonder’.  Like many of their ‘pieces’ this was all intro and outro with no middle.  Some pieces are too long for the own good and don’t sustain interest, but mostly they build up nicely both sonically and in terms of freaking out, the band full of the sheer joy of music and life.  This was rousing, uplifting stuff and the audience was easily won over.  In fact, judging by the emptying balconies during The Datsuns’ set, The Spree were a lot of people’s highlight of the evening.

Reviewed by Graham S
Top | Comment on this artist or review on the Forum

The Thrills were anything but thrilling.  Hyped beyond their level, they’re nothing to write home about.  Their tunes are polite country-rock and by-the-numbers soul with clichéd lyrics, weak, uncommitted vocals and a mistaken belief they’re a Californian pop group (they have the nerve to incorporate the first two lines of ‘The Monkees Theme’ into a song, thereby damning themselves by comparison).  The addition of a Polyphonic Spree brass section improves the soulful tones of One Horse Town but Santa Cruz (You’re Not So Far) is a set of poses looking for a song.  These ingredients, correctly mixed, might have produced a hybrid Dexys, half soul rebels, half Celtic soul brothers.  But all we get is a pleasant showband, far too easy on the ear to make a point. 

Last time we saw Interpol, they sounded great but looked static.  Tonight, from the opener Untitled onwards, they combined stagecraft with a great set of songs.  On a four-band bill, Interpol’s set comprises the best of ‘Turn On The Bright Lights’.  Roland is a punky ‘Puppet On A String’ soundalike.  Obstacle One is a rousing and mighty sounding festival of chiming guitars and sombre vocals while PDA is the closest thing to a wall of sound.   Say Hello To The Angels is the only misfire, its Smithian devotion to ‘What Difference Does It Make’ at odds with the more subtle adoption of 80s gothic rock.  The sound is excellent throughout, showcasing drummer Sam Fogarino’s excellent rolls and fills - no simple skins beater, him.  Carlos D is, as ever, entertaining to watch, his Hooky bass lines emphasised by his ankle level bass playing.  Movement, looks, songs – Interpol right now have it all.

 Reviewed by Ged M
Top | Comment on this artist or review on the Forum

 

Bloody London – turn up to a gig at 8 o’clock and you’ve already missed the first act.  Mind you if the fact that they were below the Mull Historical Society is anything to go by I’ll not be shedding too many tears.  Not that they’re a bad band – a nice enough bunch of indie stalwarts, who look like a bunch of Young Farmers and have a solid tunefulness that probably appeals to the more adventurous end of that market.  Apparently they’ve sold a truckload, people must really be missing Aztec Camera.

After a Flumps filled interlude, the Polyphonic Spree are introduced by Frank Skinner shuffling on stage, admitting to blagging free tickets and claiming that tonight will all be about love.  He’s wrong, the Spree, it turns out, are all about JOY!  Live their sound is far fuller than the relatively anaemic album – delivering all you could have hoped for and more.  The sheer energy and enthusiasm of the assembled masses onstage can’t help but transmit to the bouncing crowd – the front rows resplendent in their new robes, tossed out in between acts.  For a load of Texans the music has a distinctly anglophile feel – simple Kinks-like hooks layered over a wall of sound built from brass and guitar, flute and drums, theremin and choir.  The set is heavy on the singles and tunes, polyphonic musical meanderings kept tightly roped in and not allowed to break the mood.  Even the gap before the encore is filled for some reason with their concurrent appearance on Graham Norton, before the masses return to regale us with a leaping version of Bowie’s Five Years, complete with the trombonist making a Cramps like mountaineering foray up the stacks.  If all the robes and hordes strike you as a gimmick, you’re probably right – the Spree are certainly consummate showmen.  But it’s a damn fine show and it’s difficult to know whether we or they enjoyed ourselves more.  They’re back again later in the year and you’re unlikely to have more fun at a gig all summer.

Reviewed by Matt H
Top | Comment on this artist or review on the Forum

The Sleepy Jackson / Beatglider (London, Barfly) 

Like most of the crowd, we’d come to check out the much hyped ‘new psychedelic Vines’.  Like most hype, we found that the reality didn’t match the story.  For a start, The Sleepy Jackson doesn’t yet have a real identity.  There are country and psychedelic elements although neither tag really fits the band.  Some of their songs are brilliant, catchy George Harrison melody showers; some are harsher guitar-fests owing more to Dinosaur Jr and Pixies; and then some are Luke Steele’s self-indulgent bluesy dirges.  There’s little consistency of approach. 

 

They’re a physical band too; Justin Burford and Luke Steele work out their rage banging into each other, mikestands regularly topple into the crowd and drummer Mal Clark impresses us all by playing his kit from within, sitting on one drum to bash the facing ones.  The potential of The Sleepy Jackson is certainly obvious, but there are moments of badger-arsed roughness that ought to be worn smooth before anyone declares another Ayers Rock Revolution.  

 

Reviewed by Ged M
Top | Comment on this artist or review on the Forum

Essex based Beatglider’s name makes them sound like a shoegazing band and to a certain extent they are.  A few of the tracks are tuneful yet mushed in that Ride style and introspective and thoughtful like the House of Love but they are more than just another South East England bunch of early 90s inspired floppy fringes thanks to the wonderful warm keyboards.   These give the band an Americana feel, remincent at their best of the country tinged Tyde or when slowed down, the melodic ballads of Beachwood Sparks.  Definitely worth a viewing.

Reviewed by Paul M
Top | Comment on this artist or review on the Forum

 

The first night of NME’s showcases. To start we kick off with some fine music from newcomers Hope Of The States, who dress in US black civil war jackets, similar to Brighton’s British Sea Power.  They are a six piece with three guitar players, keyboards and violin player.  Vocally OK but musically they really knew how to rock out with sonic soundscapes that sounded like an updated version of my beloved Slowdive. Next up was the first of two three-pieces.  The 22-20s impressed James from Starsailor but not me.  They were very primitive Stooges-ish rock’n’roll, at times sluggish, at times a bit countryish, lyrically better but just loud without much in there for my ears.  

 

The next three piece, Nada Surf, record for Heavenly Records and thought they could rock out but apart from the singer Matthew Caws’s Bono style vocal, they were very musically safe and didn’t really challenge the senses.  They were well received but most of tonight’s crowd probably only go to gigs if the writers in NME say they’re good, poor bastards.  Make up your own minds.  So onto tonight’s headliners, Starsailor.  It’s been a while since they graced a London stage and they have a huge following for some reason.  I like them but they do get a lot of stick and if you can’t afford their t-shirts inside, there are always 20 cheaper bootleg versions outside, and I mean about 20 different ones too. 

 

The set is kicked off by an intro tape of two songs by guess who? Starsailor, very strange. Over an 85-minute set we get five new songs, of which only one is great, and three great covers.  For me, the album ‘Love is Here’ is a mere tribute to Tim Buckley.  When James comes back minus band for the first encore to give us a heartbreaking medley of Neil Young’s The Needle and the Damage Done, Starsailor’s Lullaby and U2’s Where the Streets Have No Name it gives me faith in this band.  Joined by the rest of the band, James plays All or Nothing, covered by them on an NME charity album, before delivering their one and only truly great song, their anthem Good Souls.  A good band but please work harder at your art, guys. 

Reviewed by Tony S
Top | Comment on this artist or review on the Forum