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Frightened Rabbit, Ben TD, Ash, Wonderswan singles

A few single reviews I've done recently and not been arsed to post on here...

Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Can't See Land (***)
single review for the skinny

Frightened Rabbit's success is based on nothing resembling modernity: ever since the first lovesick caveman grunted a tune, his descendants have been trying to marry clear storytelling with earnest convictions without tipping into mushy sentimentality. That's an easier balance to hold when girls aren't involved, so Swim's sexless metaphor about trying new things is delivered with a suitable level-headedness. Will Frightened Rabbit swim away from their comfort zone on album number three? Their breakthrough album was a break-up album; "Call this a drowning of the past," he sings here, "she is there on the shoreline throwing stones at my back." Let's hope he's not a specialist.



Ben TD - Leaves (***)
single review for the skinny

Let's give Glasgow-based singer-songwriter Ben TD the benefit of the doubt and say that his confused lyrics in Leaves are actually purposefully garbled. "I saw you in the street picking up leaves, isn't that funny" he starts, before strangely backtracking "cos leaves are cool, but not that cool". That's exactly the kind of mealy-mouthed blabbering that lovestruck men come out with, tongue engaged while brain's away for a walk. Leaves is a very lovestruck song, but unfortunately Ben TD misses a natural opportunity to tie it up into a neat little 3-minute package because he's got a minute more of pleading to do. Trim off that excess earnestness and this is a touching ode to the stupefying power of love.

MySpace

Ash - True Love 1980 (**)
single review for the skinny

It's a long time since anyone really cared about Ash, so in a valiant attempt to halt their decline, the Northern Irish rockers have promised to release 26 singles (one every fortnight for a year) instead of a new album. It's an interesting idea aimed at maintaining the interest and attention of fans over a longer period of time, but it could fall flat if all the songs are as poor as this one, the first of the proposed 26. True Love 1980 is a New Order parody, right down to the trite lyrics and flat singing, which aren't elements of New Order's sound that anyone should attempt to replicate. With tinny synths and schmaltzy verses, True Love 1980 is more foolish than brave.



Wonderswan - Furrrpile (**)
single review for the skinny

Leeds quartet Wonderswan say on their MySpace that they formed out of "a shared love for scuzzy 90s lo-fi slacker bands." No shit! The reason everyone's gone crazy about the upcoming Pavement reunion is because it's been demonstrated for a decade now that nobody can do Pavement quite like Pavement. Furrrpile is a crushingly dull imitation, featuring overdriven out-of-tune guitars recorded in low fidelity along with a flat and witless vocal: "Throw me on the furrrpile and I'll climb inside, down in the furrrpile we've got our own styles," and so on. Slacker cool can't be manufactured.

MySpace

The Dirty Dozen - Singles Column, November 09

Compiling the Dirty Dozen is a dirty job because sometimes it involves bashing honest, hard-working bands who never upset anyone (because no-one ever listens to them). Then again, sometimes it involves bashing massively successful bands who make millions of girls greet, so that's virtually a public service. Snow Patrol's Just Say Yes (*) is as blubbery, wet and limp as a dead seal, and Gary Lightbody's pleading to the unfortunate subject of his affections is delivered with all the gusto of someone telling a child their dog died. Mind the Grange Hill cast's advice. Glasgow's Kick To Kill do a pretty good Cure impression for the first 80 seconds of Cut Me (**), but it's downhill from there due to the roughly four thousand repetitions of the shouted vocal hook. Dead Confederate's The Rat (**) is dark and gloomy, only coming to life when someone gets accused of having "stupid human for brains".

Eh? Local rockers Satellite Underground are already imagining a successful future, where they'll regularly be gigging in front of a Sea Of People (**). But you cannae pair "at least we're together" with "this time it's forever" without causing a wave of groans. Water And A Flame (**) is an over-polished melodramatic ballad, duetted between Daniel Merriweather and Adele. Ewwww! Meanwhile, 39-year old Rivers Cuomo is still writing songs about high school romances. Wheatus – sorry, I mean Weezer's (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To (***) is ridiculous, but also kinda cute.

The Horrors' Whole New Way (***) is a strange choice for a single, a bonus track on the Japanese edition of their excellent recent Krautrock-inspired LP Primary Colours, it's no standout in that context. Passion Pit's full-length is a little tough to get through, because their rainbow-brite exuberance quickly gets annoying. But on its own, you'd need a heart of stone to deny Little Secrets' (****) earnest effervescence. If songs were judged by verses, few would appreciate The Cheek's Hung Up (****). But its brilliant stomping horn-led chorus more than makes up for the flatness elsewhere. John Peel woulda loved it.

Of all the Kate-Bush inspired femmes breaking this year, Mowgli's Road (****) marks Marina and The Diamonds out as the weirdest. Marina is so kooky, she cuckoos. Either a genius or a quack, we'll lean towards the former. Alex Turner is in typically graceful storytelling form on the Arctic Monkeys' Cornerstone (****). It's a perfectly measured slow pine for a lost love, but it just misses out on Single of the Month because Turner tries the most dubious rhyme of "ghost" with "toast" since Des'ree. Thin margins. Instead, the honours go to The Dead Weather's unique and baffling I Cut Like A Buffalo. Set to a reggae syncopation, singer Jack White riffs on a confusion between "choke" and "joke". "Is that you chokin'?" he hectors, "Or are you just jokin'?" It's not very funny, but when he makes a rhythmic choking sound over the breaks it sounds equally like a large animal suffocating, or a DJ scratching. Is that what "cut like a buffalo" means? No idea, but it's wonderfully eccentric.

Starless & Bible Black - Shape of the Shape

Starless and Bible Black - Shape of the Shape
album review for drowned in sound

There's a King Crimson album called Starless and Bible Black, but this Manchester-based group say that's not their inspiration: it's in fact a 1965 track by jazz pianist Stan Tracey with the same name. That's not easy to believe judging by this record: second full-length Shape of the Shape involves no piano, lots of prog signifiers, and jazz in only the broad sense that includes lounge music (so, not very jazzy jazz). Lounge acts frequently hire vaguely exotic European singers, so Starless and Bible Black have a French lady who we could luxuriously refer to as a chanteuse - Hélène Gautier. But French female singers aren't always as gorgeous-sounding as the word used to describe them, and Gautier's unremarkable voice can do little to save a record mired in impeccable mediocrity.

To briefly give it some due, Shape of the Shape is lovingly produced, every pluck of a guitar string resonating in full, every gap between sounds given time to breathe. If your dad is like my dad -- caring more about the precision and clarity of the sound reproduced through his high-end speakers than about the melodies or rhythms or whatevers of the actual composition - well, Christmas is just around the corner and Shape of the Shape has a real warmth of sound. And there are a few lovely moments, such as when an angelic chorus revitalises fourth song 'Radio Blues' as it drifts towards its close by entering really high, in contrast with the low descending bassline.

But those moments get very lonely. Everything on Shape of the Shape is mid-tempo. Mid-tempo's fine, it's necessary, but like a referee, when you notice it it's a problem. Every song features at least one instance of the UFO synth effect, landing or taking-off or swooshing across the sky, like they do. Fine, sometimes. Nearly every song starts with the slow strum of an acoustic guitar, giving the whole record a grounding in folk. Of course, that's OK, in theory. Gautier's voice is high and weedy, she hits the notes, has little character. For the most part, trying to transcribe her lyrics is like trying to transcribe Liz Fraser, because she sometimes sings in French, and sometimes just poorly enunciates. The successes aren't encouraging: "Hold me down now my mind is open / tell me how many hearts are broken / how to see family tree, treasured, lost in history." Add meaningless mush to indecipherable yawning and the vocals are clearly not a strong point. But it's hard to know what might be a strength here, production apart. There are no hooks, no memorable tunes. There's no rollicking rhythmic excitement, no dynamic shifts, no climaxes, no purges. No one-liners, no discernible stories, no themes. No risks taken, no happy accidents occuring, no disasters, no distastefulness, no surprises. Shape of the Shape is bland and instantly forgettable.

One song breaks the mould a little, the nine-minute album centrepiece 'Les Furies', which achieves a kinetic energy we might be able to describe as 'upper mid-tempo'. After three whole minutes of stereo-weaving buzz effects - like having your head shaved with different-sized clippers mowing tangled patterns - 'Les Furies' gains a chugging guitarist and a drummer with a sense of urgency. His flailing fills and rolls towards the end are the only passages where Shape of the Shape rises out of its dreamy inertia.

Vocals aside, Shape of the Shape is a good articulation of how I imagined Emerson, Lake & Palmer might sound in their quieter moments, though I'd never actually listened to them. On Spotify, I found 'From The Beginning', which pretty much nails this album in four minutes. It's what prog became after its first flurries of invention - complacent, conservative, self-satisfied, cliched - not 'progressive' at all. It's sometimes hard to condemn an album as inoffensive as Shape of the Shape, but nobody is a music fan because they love competence.

4/10

The Dirty Dozen - Singles Column, October 09

The Dirty Dozen
singles column for the skinny october 2009

Believe it or not, the Dirty Dozen isn't the dregs of the promo pile – some singles don't even earn a casual dismissal. Unfortunately, Stirling's Vegas Nights just squeeze in. They're apparently gaining support in the Far East, which is presumably why their warbling harmony vocalist seems to be trying to sing in a tonal language. Touch And Feel / It Came As No Surprise (*) suffers from more problems than I've got space to mention. It's difficult to find much right in Alley Cat (*) by overdrive-heavy power-poppers Monocle Rose either. Their boring singer requests a less-boring person to lead her astray, and its need is apparent. Meanwhile, Kid Harpoon's Back From Beyond (*) boasts all the edge and charm of a boiled potato. Despite his claim to be "still singing tunes about you", there's no discernible tune about anywhere.

Finally we hit a second star, and it's for – gulp – Airdrie screamo. Flood Of Red's Home Run (**) makes a ridiculous melodrama out of driech skies, but at least there's some energy and good drumming in it. The Xcerts' drummer is having a ball on Nightschool (**) too, but their epically earnest pop is hard to distinguish from a clutch of other tear duct-teasing bands. Irish quintet The Brothers Movement combine BRMC's sleazy swagger, the Verve's woozy swagger, and Oasis's boozy swagger, into one swaggeriffic package. Standing Still (**) has caused this band to miss the boat by a good 7 or 8 years.

Stirling returns in the form of Jack Butler's Surgery 1984 (***), which steps the competition up a level via the simple method of slowly building towards a climactic explosion. It's the first great moment of the D12 so far, and herky-jerky b-side This Soul Accelerates is pretty good too. The name Bonobo rings a bell – Wikipedia says they are also known as Pygmy Chimpanzees – disambiguation fail! Apparently, this ape-like Ninja Tune producer specialises in the kind of lounge grooves that got stuffed onto a billion chillout compilations around about the time The Brothers Movement are familiar with. An album's worth might be tiresome, but The Keeper (***) is pretty smooth on its own. Wild Beasts are doing rather well for themselves, despite their singer shrieking throughout All The King's Men (***). But he hits the notes, so like in Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights, the agile vocal melody becomes a big part of the appeal.

Take It (****) by Auld Reekie's Action Group is a real low rider, built of rhythm upon rhythm upon riff upon rhythm. It's moody and dark, and almost danceable, and while it never fully takes flight there's a lot to appreciate in their approach to songcraft. The Nextmen's Round of Applause (****) is the only hip-hop track in this month's D12 – a laid-back party jam based on a couple of New Orleans funk samples. It's flippant, but fun. Same same but different is Virgil Howe's Someday (****), which uses soft hip-hop beats and a brief vocal sample with trippy guitar lines and atmospherics to construct an enchanting single of the month.

Nick Cave @ Picture House, 13 Oct

An Evening with Nick Cave (****)
HMV Picture House, Edinburgh, 13 October 2009

live review for the skinny

One of the first rules of writing, in any sector, is to write about what you know; so one great challenge all novelists face is to create characters and stories that don't betray too much of themselves. The title character of Nick Cave's new second novel, The Death of Bunny Munro, is a violent, "sexually incontinent" degenerate, an alcoholic travelling salesman with scant regard for anyone but himself. And what is Nick Cave doing here? Travelling the country selling his book, of course. When he perches on a chair to bombastically roar an early passage from the book, in which Bunny gets obscenely horny whilst cruising through Brighton listening to Kylie Minogue's Spinning Around, you wonder just what other parts of Bunny's character or narrative are borrowed from the Brighton-dwelling, former Kylie-duetting author's own life. Just sayin'.

Tonight's performance is part book reading, part gig, part Q&A; though in reality, the brief Q&A sections dissolve quite quickly as no-ones got any decent questions. With only multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis and guitarist Martyn P. Casey for support, each song is played more carefully than usual, Cave's usual theatricality muted by the greater need for precise playing. The all-seated crowd don't care; everyone's an acolyte in here, laughing uproariously at every tossed-out quip; "but you're beautiful!" a man shouts when Cave asks for the stage lights to be dimmed slightly. Tonight's setlist features three songs from this writer's favourite Cave LP The Good Son, plus assorted career highlights like "Into My Arms", "Red Right Hand", "Babe, You Turn Me On", and "The Mercy Seat". And the book? Well, it seems a touch over-written, but I ordered it as soon as I got home anyway. He's a good salesman.

Hockey - Mind Chaos

Hockey - Mind Chaos (**)
album review for the skinny

Showing some admirable self-awareness, Oregon's Hockey use the first song on their first album to pre-empt what they know is going to be a recurring criticism of their band: singer Ben Grubin's extravagantly affected vocal style. "Look out, cos I'm just too fake for the world, oh you know it's just a game to me" he squeals, yells, and coos, but that confession doesn't make his flagrant oversinging any more palatable. I'd say it was a shame, but it's a USP they'll work to their advantage in some quarters: if you catch yourself thinking Brandon Flowers has got himself rather over-excited, or that Razorlight have got much funkier, you're probably listening to Hockey on Radio One. There's a few good ideas here -- the lilting backing vocals on third track Learn To Lose are particularly nice -- but they're outweighed by repeated resort to modern rock cliche; and everything's overshadowed by Grubin's histrionics on the mic.