Shout Out Louds - The Holloways - The Thrills - Brett Anderson
- Mooney Suzuki - The Magic Numbers - Hot Hot Heat - Athlete
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OUR ILL WILLS - Shout Out Louds
Lead singer Adam Olenius' Robert Smith-like anguished vocals mean the Cure's most streamlined pop album, 1985's The Head on the Door, is still as apt a reference point as it was for Shout Out Louds' prior album Howl Howl Gaff Gaff, although sharper hooks and emotionally richer songwriting ensure Our Ill Wills improves upon its predecessor.
Bjorn Yttling's (Peter Bjorn and John) cinematic production wouldn't be enough without a set of strong tunes. Our Ill Wills shakes with the pain of loves lost and unrequited. For all the bright synth-strings and acoustic guitar of excellent first single "Tonight I Have to Leave It", what matters most is the feeling Olenius is leaving behind: "I just want to be bothered with real love," he sighs. The album's second single, seven-minute "Impossible", finds Olenius wanting what he can't have, and not wanting nearly everything else. No amount of cheery woodblock percussion can mitigate that gnawing paradox. It's surely with some bitter irony that he imagines the now-unattainable object of his affection finding true love of her own: "I know it could happen to you," he concludes.
Olenius' sobbing vocals might grate if he spent the entire album whining about girls, so it's satisfying when the album explores other themes: a tragic accident on "Time Left for Love", tricks of memory on "Your Parents Livingroom", or calls to the police and vague worries about "when she will get her child" on "You Are Dreaming", with its indelible "don't come back to Stockholm" chorus. On "Normandie", Olenius can't escape his old flame's memory. Over tropical acoustic guitars on "South America", he gets stupidly jealous at the sudden thought she might fall for someone else "in the bright nightclub light"; it's an embarrassingly realistic male moment. Multi-instrumentalist Bebban Stenborg takes the lead for a female perspective on despair-drenched "Blue Headlights", her breathy vocals not undeserving of the inevitable comparisons to The Concrete's Bergsman.
If the songs can't all hold up to those of inspirations like the Cure, well, few can. "I haven't said too much, have I?/ There are things you should keep to yourself," Olenius frets, on a guitar-pop album full of what can sound like another person's aching secrets: a fellow traveler's pursuit of what might almost seem impossible, until it happens to you. On the strength of Our Ill Wills, Sweden looks poised to win a few more hearts, minds, and sensitive souls.
Download: Shout Out Louds - OUR ILL WILLS
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SO THIS IS GREAT BRITAIN? - The Holloways
So this is Great Britain, is it? ASBOs, Burberry headgear, empty wallets, cheesy chat-up lines in crappy night clubs, smack-addled prostitutes in Kings Cross station and drunken middle-aged men on park benches. According to The Holloways it is, and while they may not be far from the truth, Britain isn't twinned with Hades just yet.
The Holloways borrow a lot of their musical allegiances from The Clash, although in a purely second-handed manner as they are quite clearly a bi-product of The Libertines. What makes them slightly more distinctive is the vocal harmonising between Alfie Jackson and Rob Skipper, which depending on which part of the fence you sit could either bring back visions of late 70s terrace hooligans or the stilton-tinged cock-er-nee knees-ups of Chas And Dave.
What's surprising, though, is that a good half of So This Is Great Britain? is actually quite pleasant, in a jaunty, getting-ready-for-a-big-night-out sort of way. 'Two Left Feet' and 'Generator' are without doubt two of the most exciting singles - it's no surprise that these two songs stand head and shoulders above the rest of the record. Closing track 'Fuck Ups', with its story about a 40-something who lost it all and ended up a wino, actually has one or two lyrical couplets that would see the most sour-faced and fun-hating miserablist struggle not to raise a chuckle at, while 'Happiness And Penniless' and 'Most Lonely Face' also exhibit the band's competence at completely different ends of the musical spectrum, from two-minute power pop to five-minute ballads.
Although this is a fresh-faced debut record, there is a certain clumsiness in a lot of the wordplay and some would say rather too much filler. It loses a bit in the middle few tracks, but overall, well worth a listen.
Download: The Holloways - SO THIS IS GREAT BRITAIN?
(available for 7 days from date of post)
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TEENAGER - The Thrills
Like barmen at your favourite Ibiza cocktail dive, The Thrills are back; familiar, comforting and with a couple of years' worth of new stories to tell. Conor's lovelorn croak is as adorable as ever, Daniel Ryan's guitars twangle dreamily, Kevin Horan's keyboards have finally been proved by DNA testing to be descended from the piano that Brian Wilson wrote 'California Girls' on, and there's still a banjo player hunkered around a bonfire in some distant corner of the studio. No alarms, no surprises - 'Teenager' is simply more wonderful, bittersweet laze-pop of a hue at which The Thrills have become grand masters. 'The Midnight Choir' adds backwards guitars and a classical harpsichord tint that's almost Meat Loafian, the barrelling pop aceness of 'This Year' seems to have hijacked Bob Dylan's touring harmonica truck and 'I'm So Sorry' couldn't be more 'Born To Run' if it got itself a motorbike and a job in a New Jersey steelworks.
Where The Thrills have moved on is lyrically. Debut album 'So Much For The City' was a musical Rough Guide to the coastal resorts of southern California and 'Let's Bottle Bohemia' was a stained sepia image of a forgotten urban Dublin; 'Teenager', as the title suggests, finds Conor lost in the reveries of his youth. It starts celebratory - jaunty pop janglers 'I Came All This Way' and single 'Nothing Changes Round Here' are full of "backseat fumblings" and lurid first-time confessions. But by the end of the record Conor's in far more mournful a mood, repeatedly sighing "I envy your youth" through the maudlin 'Should've Known Better' and yearning for lost teenage kicks in the torch song title track - "You remember being beautiful?/Regrets, regrets, regrets!". It smacks of glories faded and high times sorrowfully remembered, yet its mother album tells a different story, of a band striding confidently into countryfied maturity at the peak of their powers. And you know what? A little faith, a bit of luck and maybe a Keane support tour and this really could be The Thrills' year.
Download: The Thrills - TEENAGER
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BRETT ANDERSON - Brett Anderson
Just as Cosmo tells women everywhere that it is natural for men to experience a drastic decline in their sex drive as a consequence of aging, this is basically also what Brett Anderson tells me with the release of his first solo record. Granted, in the pantheon of Britpop-era sex gods (there's a scary visual), the Suede frontman seemed the most impotent of the bunch; witness his now-famous quip about being a bisexual who'd never had a homosexual experience. Nonetheless, there was a time where Anderson's sexuality was his main currency, and it was powerful enough-- even in its messiness-- to provide the charge for two, maybe even three, great albums.
Issued on the heels of Anderson and former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler's underwhelming reunion album as the Tears, this eponymous record marks the singer's first solo release, and demonstrates handily why its taken him this long to do something on his own.
Aside from a lot of filler and a few genuinely horrendous/hilarious missteps ("The More We Possess the Less We Own Ourselves" makes Anne Geddes look like a master of nuance), a few things here are worth sampling. Despite a characteristically silly lyric, "The Infinite Kiss" does a reasonable job recalling the epic, lovelorn thing that used to be Suede's stock in trade; "One Lazy Morning" is a sweet enough Sunday-morning ballad; and opening track and lead single "Love Is Dead" constitutes a nice little comeback moment. "Nothing ever flows in my life," sighs Anderson. It's clear he should stick to writing songs with Butler, but on his own he's not half bad.
Download: Brett Anderson - BRETT ANDERSON
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HAVE MERCY - Mooney Suzuki
After a recent stretch that has included lineup changes, an ill-fated stab at major-label success and the folding of their most recent label, the Mooney Suzuki could have been forgiven for throwing up their hands and crying "Uncle!"
Instead, the New York garage-rockers emerge, bloodied but unbowed, with "Have Mercy." The Mooney's last album, 2004's "Alive & Amplified," was a too-slick affair (courtesy of Avril Lavigne's old production team The Matrix) that garnered little more than derision. "Have Mercy," by contrast, is an honest, humble, rootsy record that shows the band maturing. Opener "99%" sounds like the Black Crowes gone garage and much of the album ("Ashes," "This Broke Heart Of Mine") hews to that simpler sound. New sonic flourishes for the band, such as flute on "Adam and Eve," sound lived-in, not show-offy. Meanwhile, on the glockenspiel-aided "Rock 'n' Roller Girl," singer Sammy James Jr. notes, "We may be growing older" - an admission that would never have appeared on an earlier Mooney Suzuki album.
They're not totally grown up and serious, though: James spends six minutes celebrating booze on the twangy "Good Ol' Alcohol," possibly the best song the Supersuckers never wrote. For one of the best bands in the neo-garage scene, "Have Mercy" is a welcome return to form.
Download: Mooney Suzuki - HAVE MERCY
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THOSE THE BROKES - Magic Numbers
In Those The Brokes, you'll hear several solid-to-excellent songs that extend the rootsy trajectory of the Magic Numbers' fine first outing, making up in winsome intensity what they lack as far as edginess or sex appeal.
First UK single "Take a Chance" encourages us to risk our pride for love. The burnished harmonies of the group's two sibling pairs-- Trinidad natives Romeo and Michele Stodart along with London-born duo Angela and Sean Gannon-- make it easy to overlook any risks the cheery power-pop arrangement declines to take itself. Despite the apparent obviousness of the title, "This Is A Song" is a song against itself-- as broken-hearted as it is upbeat and catchy. ("Don't wanna hear it," comes a backing vocal.) The questioning "Let Somebody In" and comparatively muscular "You Never Had It" each glide by on the kind of inchoate magic that in more credulous days used to be called "soul".
Notwithstanding the good tunes, this release remains a modest record. There are too many fillers amongst the pearls. "Keep It in the Pocket", started life as a 2005 B-side; its breezy enthusiasm exhibits confidence if not transcendence, but it hails from a previous life. On 'Those the Brokes', the Magic Numbers have yet to shape their middlebrow yearning into a masterpiece on par with those of influences the Mamas and the Papas or the Band. Let's hope Astralwerks keeps letting them try.
Download: Magic Numbers - THOSE THE BROKES
(available for 7 days from date of post)
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HAPPINESS LTD - Hot Hot Heat
In 2002, Hot Hot Hot Heat's 'Make Up The Breakdown' bounded into the world's lap like a giddy terrier, but 2005's 'Elevator' stalled. On their fifth album, partly produced by Green Day and MCR Midas-toucher Rob Cavallo, the message is clear: pop is back. Big hooks and cresting balladry are shamelessly in-season ('Outta Heart') and call-and-response choruses are bigger than ever ('Give Up?'). The trademark tempo jiggery remains and it's all threaded together with airy production that underlines rather than overwhelms. And while there's nothing here as incendiary as 'Bandages', there remains a sense of flow that previous albums have lacked. Hot Hot Heat are not the freewheeling scamps they once were. Thankfully, rather than mature into 'serious' musicians, they've rejuvenated themselves with the elixir of a purer pop.
Download: Hot Hot Heat - HAPPINESS LTD
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BEYOND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD - Athlete
Let's be fair, ‘Beyond The Neighbourhood’ is not an instant classic; it’s far from perfect. Starting off with a tone-setting but somewhat ill-advised piece of ambient acoustic electronica, the record soon segues into lead single ‘Hurricane’, an uptempo improvement on the formula of previous LP ‘Tourist’, which leans more toward Bloc Party than Embrace. ‘Tokyo’ is where Athlete go angular – got to sell this record to the Franz Ferdinand fans too, after all.
‘Airport Disco’ resorts to drippy lyrics about a "beautiful world" and is closer in tone to their previous record, albeit with the ambient electronic sheen the rest of this album has been given. ‘The Outsiders’ is the only real turkey here, but it does provide the only laugh of the set; anyone who thinks Athlete have are in any way outsiders has been listening to far too much XFM. The songwriting is solid throughout, and is nowhere near as cloying as some of the more sentimental moments on ‘Tourist’ – generally, ‘Beyond The Neighbourhood’ shows a lot of promise. However it’s hard to shake the feeling that this band are a bit too opportunistic, and a little too willing to mimic the zeitgeist. I saw them live at South by Southwest in Austin, TX. None of their gear had arrived, so they begged and borrowed from many of the other bands and even the BBC production unit. And despite the unfamiliarity of the instruments, they were on fine form. Watching them with me were Snow Patrol, Doves and Tom McRae - not a bad pedigree of fans. I'm not sure they've yet managed to capture on disc, the raw energy that their live shows have. If they can discover their own voices for album number four, and still keep the quality of the tunes high, then they could produce something really special.
Download: Athlete - BEYOND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
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