Arctic Monkeys - The View - Switches - The White Stripes - Kissaway Trail
- The Twang - Klaxons - Arcade Fire - Elliott Smith
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FAVOURITE WORST NIGHTMARE by Arctic MonkeysIn comparison to the band's debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, the album has been described as very, very fast and very, very loud, being seen as "more ambitious, heavier...and with a fiercely bright production". The band's love of classic films also influences their new style. For example, the organ at the beginning of the album's final track, "505" is taken directly from Ennio Morricone's soundtrack for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (where Angel Eyes enters before the final standoff). The album title, "Favourite Worst Nightmare", comes from the song "D is for Dangerous", the third song featured on the album. The band said they also considered naming it Lesbian Wednesdays or Gordon Brown.
"Do Me a Favour" was originally supposed to appear on the "Who the F*ck Are Arctic Monkeys?" EP, though the band kept it, possibly because they didn't want to waste it as a B-side. In an interview with NME, Nick O'Malley announced several titles including "D Is for Dangerous" and "Balaclava". The tracks "The Bakery" and "Plastic Tramp" also mentioned in the NME interview did not make it onto the album, but were later released as B-sides on the "Fluorescent Adolescent" single.
Download: Arctic Monkeys - FAVOURITE WORST NIGHTMARE
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HATS OFF TO THE BUSKERS – The ViewThey are a young, scrappy band enjoying swift success, but some would say they come too close to being a Libertines tribute band. True, the influences are there, but The View have grown into a sound of their own. It's as if grot'n'roll has been on an Albion-length recruitment march up the M6 and, two years later, wound up off its cakehole in a squat in Dundee.
Certainly 'Hats Off To The Buskers' takes the Doherty waster aesthetic and gives it a distinctly Caledonian spin, from the housing-scheme hoedown of 'Gran's For Tea' to the pig latin Rab C Nesbitt-speak of 'Wasted Little DJs' ("Astedwae ittlae ejaysdae"). On 'Wasteland', there's even the first ever recorded attempt at Scottish ska. So we're well within our rights to take one look at 'Hats Off...', see 'Whatever You Say I Am...' gone ned, type the words 'Dirty Kilty Things' and go back to sucking the rave juice out of our glowsticks, right? Well no actually.
Fittingly, for a record gatecrashing the urch-rock party near dawn, it opens with a raucous downer. 'Comin' Down' is a scabrous slice of Stooges stodge-rock more in tune with 22-20s, The Datsuns or er, Jet than their gypsydelic contemporaries such as Larrikin Love or The Holloways, only rescued from shameless retro-ism by Kyle's luscious Celtic yelp that you can imagine bellowing out a request for 12 fish suppers across a deserted tenement. But it's the glam-pop Cheeky Girl of 'Superstar Tradesman' where 'Hats Off...' really blasts off in a blaze of Undertones twangles and girlband handclaps. The tale of a young brickie swapping mortar board for fretboard and (sniff) Never Giving Up On His Dreams, it's this generation's 'Teenage Kicks' and The View's signature sentiment: "What would you do/If I asked you/To sail away with me and see some sights?" Kyle wails as only a working class Highlands teenager desperate for escape and adventure ever could. From here 'Hats Off...' freewheels for 25 minutes. 'Same Jeans' - the filthy/gorgeous stop-out - is a harmonica folk wonder, part-La's, part-Holloways, part-Babyshambles learning to play their instruments, part-Kings Of Leon going hog-bastard mental in a kebab shop ceilidh on deep-fried amphetamines. 'Don't Tell Me' and 'The Don' lollop along like Larrikin Love doing Chas & Dave; the Doherty-esque 'Skag Trendy' finds Kyle exploring Scottish junkie street life while his tonsils attempt to somersault out of his mouth; and the Kooksian 'Face For The Radio' (despite being about an ugly, Trainspotting-obsessed scrounger) lullabies us delightfully up to the rabble riot of 'Wasted Little DJs' - the brilliance of which you'll know unless you've been unconscious under a set of decks since last July. If there is any downside it’s that, bar the sweet, jazzy croon of 'Claudia', 'Hats Off...' descends into innocuous filler. 'Dance Into The Night' is bog-standard jig-pop and the ploddy 'Street Lights' could have dropped off any of the last three Oasis albums
All comparisons aside, one thing that’s very much their own, is being banned from every Travelodge in the UK, after apparently causing £7000 worth of damage to the Liverpool branch after a Primal Scream support slot at the Liverpool Academy!
Download: The View – HATS OFF TO THE BUSKERS
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HEART TUNED TO D.E.A.D. - SwitchesIn a nutshell, jaunty, multi-influenced, retro, modern. Que? This the Switches' first album, and cheekily rips off the title from the Super Furry Animals' Bass Tuned to D.E.A.D., but as they say, imitation is often the sincerest form of flattery. The Surrey Uni grads have already had singles from the album in the charts - Drama Queen and Lay Down the Law - with the latter having been slightly polished since the single.
Whilst not a tribute or even a kitsch album, there is certainly a theme running through it that owes a lot to 90s Britpop and 70s glamrock, coupled with the usual more mellow, 'heartfelt' kind of tracks.
The band's influences, from 10cc, David Bowie, Muse, The Beach Boys, Supergrass, Beck, Super Furry Animals, Marc Bolan and more, means that the album offers a trainspotter notepad's worth of opportunities to tick off references throughout. From the glamrock in Coming Down, through to Testify, which sounds like Beck has crashed the studio during recording, each track seems to hark back to an earlier era. Yet while Message From Yuz could have been a smash hit in the 90s, overall the band steers clear of going down that whole Scissor Sisters or The Darkness route by keeping to a retro sound that is, as with Lay Down the Law, nevertheless a modern track.
Heart Tuned to D.E.A.D. has a good mix of the radio-play and indie disco friendly singles along with the more mellow numbers, so it's likely to garner some attention for the band in the coming months. If you think you can handle twelve musical trips down memory lane without cringing, you'll find an album heaving with good tunes and good times - it's worth it. A stylistically schizophrenic debut…
Download: Switches – HEART TUNED TO D.E.A.D.
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ICKY THUMP – White StripesThe title is Northern, the songs are Scottish, the cover is Cockney... the result is incredible.
That much, of course, is evident from the title track, which by now you're surely familiar with? Prefixed by an ominous synthesizer march that sounds as if it's being played by a man with stumps instead of hands, 'Icky Thump' is, from the off, a downright weird song. Formed from a stream-of-consciousness verse about hangovers, redheaded señoritas and white America ("Nothing better to do?/Why don't you kick yourself out?/You're an immigrant too") clumsily welded onto a Jimmy Page riff of leviathan proportion - which appears to have no idea what it's doing or why it's there - it's not the most obvious single you'll ever hear, but it gradually wins you round, to the point where you'll find yourself actually looking forward to the bit that sounds like a Dalek committing suicide, instead of having to pop two Valium to cope with the insanity of it all.
Much of what follows is like this - and we haven't even started on the backwards bagpipes yet. But 'Icky Thump''s little idiosyncracies never get in the way of the actual songs, which, predictably enough, are brilliant. 'You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)' is a case in point, showcasing White's peculiar knack of writing songs so instantly and maddeningly familiar, you have to check twice to make sure someone didn't already beat him to it. A plea from Jack to a female friend to get out of a failing relationship, declaring that "Until you see that you deserve better/I'm gonna lay right in to you", it's unabashedly commercial country rock, powered by almighty stabs of Hammond organ and a chorus you'll learn word-for-word before you even get there. You'll understand when you hear it.
Then there's '300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues', which starts off quietly and meditatively with Jack "getting hard on myself/In my easy chair", and ruminating how "I'm breaking my teeth off/Trying to bite my lip/There's all kinds of redheaded women/That I ain't supposed to kiss" over a taut, folky guitar riff, before the distortion pedal makes its appearance around the two-and-a-half-minute mark, and everything goes apeshit. From here, things get... well, interesting. 'Conquest', an old and largely forgotten song by the dead and largely forgotten Corky Robbins (it was briefly popularised in the '50s by country singer Patti Page), is re-imagined as a furious heavy metal flamenco duel, all screaming mariachi horns, and hollering, Tarzan-esque calls of "COAANQUEEST!". It's certifiable, but it's also pretty effing amazing, especially when Meg starts the galloping tribal chase that drives the verse's tale of a serial seducer having the tables turned on him. 'Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn' meanwhile, is Jack's love letter to his ancestral Scottish homeland. Amid a haze of bagpipes (not actually as annoying as you might think), handclaps and li-de-li'ing, he plucks a lovelorn lament to the thistle from his mandolin. It's an oddity, but it's one that sucks you in before morphing into 'St Andrew (This Battle Is In The Air)', a song which is surely a contender for the weirdest thing The White Stripes have ever recorded. Against a background of psychedelic bagpipes, Meg's frantic, spoken-word oration - "I'm not in my home/Where are the angels?/St Andrew, I've been true/The children are crying" - is a Celtic mindfuck reminiscent of The Velvet Underground's 'Heroin' being played backwards by a pipe band. 'Rag And Bone' is the best of the (none too shabby) following bunch, a darkly comical ditty that recasts Jack and Meg as wandering rag-and-bone collectors, based around a relentless blues riff and the pair's back-and-forth bonhomie. The wild-eyed, primordial 'Catch Hell Blues' isn't far behind and 'Little Cream Soda' is no slouch, either.
'Icky Thump' is brilliant, there's no way around that. We've come to expect nothing less from The White Stripes, but it still sends a jolt down the spine when you hear them at the very apex of their abilities. Some might consider this record a little too eclectic, zipping as it does between genres and styles like a red-and-white magpie, but it'll take a monumental effort by any of the new bands on the scene to knock out something as good as this when they’ve reached their sixth album and are stumped for ideas.
Download: White Stripes – ICKY THUMP
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THE KISSAWAY TRAIL – The Kissaway TrailLast year, the consistently excellent Bella Union label gave us Howling Bells and Midlake. Now, we get their treasure of 2007. Named as one of NME's 10 favourite new bands at the 2007 South By Southwest festival in Austin, The Kissaway Trail are an all-male five-piece from Odense, Denmark who have a penchant for wearing pink cravats onstage - never a bad thing. They also make a savagely beautiful noise that recalls The Flaming Lips on the joyous pop of 'La La Song' and the late, lamented Grandaddy on 'Tracy'. And the most obvious comparison is saved 'til last, but The Kissaway Trail really do evoke the spirit of Arcade Fire at times, especially on the savagely beautiful 'Smother + Evil = Hurt', which is the equal of anything on 'Neon Bible'. If you're a fan of that record, you'd do well to check out these great Danes.
Download: The Kissaway Trail – THE KISSAWAY TRAIL
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LOVE IT WHEN I FEEL LIKE THIS – The TwangThe Brummy lads are a misunderstood band. Tagged as an outfit pitched somewhere between The Beano's Bash Street Kids and the cast of Scum, you can't help feeling that if they'd hailed from, say, Tunbridge Wells, nobody would have bothered sharing tales involving the misuse of samurai swords. Perhaps it's the irritating, unjust and oft-peddled myth that the working classes are incapable of being able to transgress the denomination of oik. Yeah, co-singer Martin Saunders may have only recently quit his job as a packer in Solihull's HP Sauce factory, and yes, Etheridge might not be Dostoevsky, but consider the lead-off single 'Wide Awake' and its refrain of "And the sun's gone down and I'd love it to rise/Lets me know that I've survived" - you'd be hard pushed to say that this is a band devoid of ambition, let alone soul.
And it's where the band play up their intelligence, their romantic streak - heck, their soppiness - that 'Love It When I Feel Like This' excels. Take the single 'Either Way', for example, it is one of the greatest love songs ever written. It sounds like the Streets remixing the Roses, and Etheridge's broad Brummie "I loov yowww" is one of the most aorta-swelling moments delivered within the context of a pop song.
Likewise, the magnificent 'Push The Ghosts' - a chest-swelling ode to friendship and unquenchable optimism - is equipped with a verse that's genuinely edgy, and a verse that is scrumptiously uplifting.
Yet, sadly, 'Love It When I Feel Like This' is a record as flawed as it is fabulous. It has to be said that there's at least three songs that are utter dogshit - 'Loosely Dancing' is essentially a frivolous, looped chorus tainted with the misjudged use of a parping harmonica; 'Cloudy Room' would be a bad song no matter how many twists and turns of cod reggae are tagged on the end; and 'The Neighbour' reaffirms the worst excesses of the band's faux thuggishness outlined previously. It's a song about beating up a nuisance neighbour. Coming from the man who pours his heart out on excellent jangly Smiths-styled ballad 'Two Lovers' (witness Etheridge's dewy vocal and experience your spine shake), well, it's pathetic.
Fundamentally, the problem is this: 'Love It...' is a record constructed by confused auteurs. It's a record not worth being called a cunt for, but certainly worth a rummage. The moments on this album, when they are true to themselves, are scrumptious - a collection of songs to believe in, and it's depressing that the crud that surrounds these moments suggests that, in the transition from bright new hopes to the band baring fruit before us, The Twang have not only lost much of what made them special, but an actual grasp on who they truly are. They may think playing the role of larging-it geezers will catapult them to the upper echelons of rock infamy, but no one is looking for thugs, just hugs.
Download: The Twang – LOVE IT WHEN I FEEL LIKE THIS
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MYTHS OF THE NEAR FUTURE - KlaxonsThe singles that built Klaxons' rep overseas, re-recorded here in slightly more cluttered form, make no shortage of dancefloor gestures. The chorus of Klaxons' two-part, falsetto-sweetened "Gravity's Rainbow" belies its high Pynchon brow, instead popping some pills that !!! (chk, chk, chk) forgot to leave in Giuliani's schoolhouse only for Bloc Party to pick up after their recent Washington Heights stop.
On "Atlantis to Interzone", the literal "klaxon" warning bleats that give the song its "nu-rave" cachet. "Golden Skans", which alludes to the album's eponymous story collection by British author J.G. Ballard, floats on keyboards not at all ill-suited for future stadium rocking shows. Fact is, Klaxons are turning techno cognoscenti onto UK indie rock much more than vice versa. Klaxons' lyrical pretensions, alas, can be a reminder why the best house and trance music often emphasizes atmosphere over meaning. Jamie Reynolds % co. prefer to sing of Cyclopes, unicorns, and seven-volume Marcel Proust masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu, in addition to many other literary references.
Myths is a reminder that although the UK rock press relationship with dance music can be Byzantine, hyberbolic, and endlessly offputting, plenty of young UK bands continue to record fine pop songs.
Download: Klaxons - MYTHS OF THE NEAR FUTURE
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NEON BIBLE by Arcade FireSharing its title with a John Kennedy Toole novel, the Arcade Fire's second album is markedly different from its more cloistered predecessor. On Neon Bible, the band looks outward not inward; their concerns more worldly than familial, and their sound more malevolent than cathartic. Angry, embittered, and paranoid, but often generously empathetic in their points of view, they target the government, the church, the military, the entertainment industry, and even the basest instincts of the common man. With Neon Bible, the Arcade Fire have streamlined the raw, large sound of it's predecessor Funeral into something that achieves the same magnitudinous scale through by more economical means. Propelled by inventive guitar work and steady drums, the group pares back anything that might curb the controlled forward thrust of songs like "Black Mirror", "Keep the Car Running", or "The Well and the Lighthouse". These songs don't erupt, but gradually crescendo and intensify. Unlike the cathartic Funeral, Neon Bible operates on spring-loaded tension and measured release. As such, it could strike some listeners as a disappointing follow-up, but the record's mix of newfound discipline and passion will likely imbue it with a long shelf-life.
These changes aren't drastic, but they are significant. The influences most commonly associated with Funeral were David Byrne and Bowie, but on Neon Bible, it's early Springsteen who appears not only in the wordy songs and aggressive shuffle, but in the compression of so many styles and sounds into one messy, exciting burst. Even "No Cars Go", which originally appeared on their self-titled debut EP, sounds more powerful here than it did in its previous incarnation. As stand-alone tracks, these songs don't make much sense, which partly explains why those early leaks were so uninspiring.
Download: Arcade Fire - NEON BIBLE
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NEW MOON – Elliott SmithBefore his untimely death in 2003 there were moments when Elliott Smith seriously looked like becoming the Neil Young of his generation. Nowadays it feels rather like he's been hard done by. Is it wrong to suspect that had he looked a bit more like Jeff Buckley and rather less like a particularly unhappy lumberjack things would be different?
Elliott Smith gave the impression of having become famous by mistake, that he was just too precious for this cruel world and the very titles of the songs here on New Moon add to this feeling. "Miss Misery" "Fear City," "See How Things Are Hard," and my particular favourite "Going Nowhere," come alarmingly close to being a parody of the sensitive singer songwriter. There are no 'hello sky, hello sunshine' songs here.
However if the titles are depressing the music definitely isn't. The vibe may be fragile and sensitive but the overall feeling is one of melancholy rather than misery, which is a whole different experience. His deceptively delicate voice hovers somewhere between Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's and has a very real power which stays with you long after the songs are over.
However New Moon is a collection for people who are fans already. These songs may have been recorded during his peak years in the mid to late nineties but frankly the albums Either/Or and Xo, recorded at the same period, are far better and if you aren't aware of Smith's work start there. For the already initiated though, New Moon is a delight which can only add to the growing legend of a special talent.
Download: Elliott Smith – NEW MOON
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