Reviews

UK Stylus Pressure by Graeme McGinty

November 2005

The very latest in new UK vinyl releases

by Graeme McGinty
Well, first reviews then. You’ll have to put up with any rantings until I get into the swing of it. It’s been a great year for singles. Absolutely cracking. So before writing reviews in full I thought it worth briefly mentioning some singles that I’ve enjoyed over the summer. I won’t rate them as they are recommendations, so take it as read they would be high scorers. These are basically songs that I take out with me if I’m playing records at parties/club nights (crowd pleasers!). If you want to find out more about them, it’s web search time! So in no order:

Kasabian “Club Foot”, Kaiser Chiefs “I Predict A Riot”, Super Furry Animals “Laser Beam”, Hard Fi “Hard to Beat”, Maximo Park “Going Missing”, The Editors “Blood”, The Duke Spirit “Cuts Across The Land”, The Cribs “Hey Scenester”, 22-20’s “Such A Fool”, Twin Freaks “Really Love You”, Fisherspooner “Just Let Go”,The Subways “Rock And Roll Queen”, El Presidente “Rocket”, My Chemical Romance “Helena”, Dogs “Selfish Ways”, The paddingtons “50 to a £”, Oceansize “Heaven Alive”.

Time for some reviews my fine friends.

New Rhodes – ‘From The Beginning’

Label: Moshi
Web: www.newrhodes.com
Release: 15-8-05
Rating:

More energetic than their last single, ”You’ve given me something that I can’t give back”, and still showing some great writing. A great catchy chorus with some transistory jangly guitars. The song builds well but seems to lose steam towards the end. I saw this lot live recently and they turned in a good performance, it wasn’t a headline gig but they still owned the stage. There isn’t that hard/shambolic edge that a lot of new bands seem to have, however this sets them aside from others, good production and musical skill is nothing to be ashamed of!

The Warlocks – ‘Come Save Us’

Label: mute
Web: www.thewarlocks.com
Release: 22-8-05
Rating:

Nice big drums and space echo vocals, what more does a stoner need? It’s got that 70’s space rock sound, complete with reedy vox organ. Although stoner music, it does seems somewhat darker. Darker, or just browner. The vocals are aggressive, which makes you pay attention above the wall of noise echoing in what sounds like a big ass room, which seems to get bigger as the song progresses. The screaming in the voice makes it impossible to draw similarities with other soundscape bands. The music is simplistic but to its advantage, nailing you right in the pit of your guts, they don’t feel the need to complicate things with BRMC intro’s and complex brass and string arrangements. Dirty.

King Biscuit Time – ‘C I AM 15’

Label: No Style Records
Release: 3-10-05
Rating:

The B side of this single stands up on it’s on merits, even though it is a remix. So that’s got to be a good thing. The A side takes some acidy synth noises and mixes it with some laid back acoustic strumming and a borderline dance hall beat. It features the singer who was recently with The Beta Band, his very distinctive voice makes it impossible to ignore his previous bands back catalogue. But this does not hinder the song. With out his mellow tones the song would no doubt start to grind. The last part of the song hands over to Topcat which completes the transition to dance hall, complete with tight Dub delays on the vocals, and a political rant it proves the flexibility of the song writers.

Rotating Leslie – ‘No requests’

Label: Independent release
Web: www.rotatingleslie.co.uk
Rating:

4/5 rating? Surely it must be a great song? OK, it’s not a piece of pop history, but for an unsigned band to produce something as great as this, on a limited budget one would assume, it is worth a high score for effort! Why are these guys not signed?! Another band unashamed of writing great catchy choruses. The song builds like all decent indie should. The vocals are almost like some of the scouse wave of bands from the early 90’s, a real performance, rather than another grunting shouting band. More accomplished musician ship on show, with huge potential on show. With this as an early entry their next releases should prove if they’ve got staying power.

Ladytron – ‘Destroy Everything You Touch’

Label: Island
Web: www.ladytron.com
Release: 19-9-05
Rating:

An established band with an established sound. A dance floor song with a four to floor drive, it’s clichéd in places, with obvious drop outs and breaks. But these tricks have worked for Depeche mode for decades, and songs in the spirit of the pioneers of the sound still work. The vocals are airy and pure sounding, but don’t sound flippant, instead they work well with the source material, making it feel like the lyrics were written rather than just chucked in for melody. Let’s hear it for indie dance sing alongs! The good thing about this type of tune is that you won’t see some wanker trying to play it badly on an acoustic guitar at a festival. Or lets hope that’s the case.

Boy Kill Boy – ‘Civil Sin’

Label: Universal Island
Web: www.boykillboy.com
Release: 19/9/05
Rating:

Free sticker! You don’t get that with your new fangled Compact Discs. Unashamedly rock, in all its former and new found glory. It’s got the time signature changes, that classic UK metal survived on through 80’s on, its got rousing synth strings and arpeggio keyboard lines, and bloody catchy choruses. The intro has got the style of some early muse records, but at this stage the band don’t seem to have quite the same level of control. This does give the track a raw as-a-skate-injury edge, that makes it, for me, more enjoyable. I don’t want to use the word anthemic, but as I’ve just used it seems to make no odds to say that the track is very much the afore mentioned word. The track would sit well on any indie mix tape (which is the scientific way to tell if it’s good or not), although you wouldn’t want it to sit next to bands like My Chemical Romance, although there are similarities in sound, Boy Kill Boy are at least 70% less goth. Look forward to seeing them live next month.