The Loungs - We Are The Champ

“Remember the voices you hear are only there to remind you of the time you forgot your medication” sing The Loungs on brass-filled track ‘Dig That Do’ from this, their debut album ‘We Are The Champ’. On listening to the record it seems quite likely that it is in fact the Loungs that haven’t been taking their schizophrenia medication as it is veritable melange of styles, influences and personalities.

The album begins with a wave of fizzy, joyful pop music. Opening track ‘Clancy’s Stomp’ is actually just that: a good old-fashioned stomp-a-long that could easily be lifted from a Super Furry Animals album. However, while also both fizzy and joyful, ‘Electric Lights’ highlights just how schizophrenic this band is. Kicking off like a proper rocker, it develops into a harmony and Hammond drenched slice of West Coast pop. Not content with just two personalities it turns once more, this time into a low key lament, before heading back skywards, declaring that it’s going to be a “magic night”. This case of multiple personalities is a theme that recurs throughout a remarkably restless album.

Elsewhere, ‘Get Along’ appears to be a ballad for the most part, making use of the dulcet tones of a trumpet to create mood, but as soon as you think you’ve got it pegged, the very same trumpet joins in on a Madness-style knees up that has you itching to stretch out your braces. The slightly irritatingly titled ‘Googly Moogly’ sounds like a Housemartins song (when’s the last time you heard a band you could say that about?) with its a capella intro, and is another that plays around with song structure, flitting between abrasive, growling vocals and more luscious harmonies.

Single ‘Armageddon Outta Here’, despite its equally irritating title, completes the upbeat opening to the album and is an excellent, if rather a contrary piece of bubblegum pop. The lead couplet states: “Let the planes fall from the sky, For I won’t miss you when you die”, something entirely at odds with the infectious, sugary harmonies. ‘Smile Reptile’ and ‘Throughout It All’, along with the later ‘Beatles-at-the-fairground’ of ‘All Your Love’ prove that The Loungs have a darker soul, though this is generally well-hidden behind moments such as the minute and a half of Beach Boys inspired pop that is ‘Seen My Baby Dancing’.

In fact it is only here in the final stages of the album that The Loungs actually manage to stick to one formula for a whole song – not least the gentle, ethereal closer ‘In Winter Coats’ – something that actually comes as a bit of a relief.

You can’t help feeling that ‘We Are The Champ’ is just like a kid with a short attention span. Despite the fact that only one of the 12 songs stretches past the 4 minute mark, many dart, minute to minute, from one quirk to the next. The music is, though, brimming with enthusiasm and throughout the album retains a coherent premise: fun. Perhaps understandably, since St Helens lies geographically between the two, The Loungs seem to have a mix of both the chipper eccentricities of Scouse bands like the Coral and the Zutons, and the self-assured humour of a long line of Manchester bands, a combination that certainly makes for an entertaining listen.

Maybe it’s because I’m too miserable for the cheerful pop, maybe it’s the cockiness of the thing, maybe it’s the fact the lyrics grate on me too often, maybe it’s that I still have no idea how to pronounce the band’s name, or, more likely, maybe it’s that I wish they’d just settle on one or two sounds per song instead of the average four or five, but there’s definitely something about ‘We Are The Champ’ that doesn’t quite fit for me. Nonetheless, it is an eclectic, melodic and enjoyable album of pop music that will take a good while to get bored of.

***

First published on rockfeedback.com. See it here.

Maps - It Will Find You

Maps is actually a man called James Chapman who makes music from his bedroom in Northamptonshire and following three well-received singles, ‘It Will Find You’ is the first taster of imminent album ‘We Can Create’, a particularly apt title when you consider the way he makes music.

Chapman is clearly no stranger to hard work. Somewhat perversely, his brand of ‘electronica’ is actually made entirely without the use of computers, instead consisting of a series of sounds married together and layered on top of one another on an old 16 track. A true songsmith, then.

‘It Will Find You’ is an absorbing piece of music. An atmospheric mix of sounds, beats, loops and vocals that hit one after the other, entirely captivating the listener. Above the ocean of twisted noises, dreamlike vocals rise above to form an epic, soothing chorus that puts one in mind of Moon Safari-era Air. At once dark and blissful, eerie and calming, ‘It Will Find You’ manages to tread a fine line between complex arrangement and easy listening. It harks back to the fuzzy moodiness of My Bloody Valentine while retaining the electronic wash of The Postal Service and takes on a variety of other influences along the way.

The b-sides included prove Maps’ ability to create electronic influenced pop music that leaves a lasting impression. Both ‘I Was Born Twice’ and ‘We’re Not In Kansas anymore follow the formula that ‘It Will Find You’ sets out and all three really deliver, indicating good things for the forthcoming album.

As far as electronica goes, boundaries are not being pushed back with this release, but it is nonetheless an enchanting song. All that remains is for me to provide a bad pun about ‘finding things’ with ‘maps’. But I’m not going to do that.

****

First published on rockfeedback.com. See it here.

Islands Lost At Sea vs Softpriest - The Way We Played It Yesterday / Study Bunk Breakout

Manchester label Akoustik Anarkhy is very quickly making a bit of a name for itself. Sired from the stable that brought you The Longcut and Nine Black Alps, recent releases from bands like Autokat and The Loungs have indicated a knack for finding interesting music originating from the North West. With this more leftfield split 7” release, they do nothing to diminish their reputation.

‘The Way We Played It Yesterday’, Islands Lost At Sea’s debut offering, kicks off with an infectious bass line that immediately gets inside you. This hook and the 4/4 beat propel the song, while a variety of instruments and samples that sound like everything from the kazoo to modem noises to backing vocals by the Chipmunks launch an intricate assault on the ears. Things break down for something of an eye to the storm with mysterious vocals that sound a lot like local boy Guy Garvey, and then you’re off again on a magical carpet ride through Islands Lost At Sea’s strange world. Like a cartoon pop song might sound to the deranged, it begs repeated listens.

Softpriest (AKA Charlie Bayley) seems to inhabit an even stranger sister world to Islands Lost At Sea. A kind of future gypsy folk instrumental, ‘Study Bunk Breakout’ is another song that sounds like it has been filtered through the mind of the insane. For the most part it appears to be a succession of TV theme tunes played backwards (there’s definitely some Rainbow in there) and has moments of brilliant discordance. Arrhythmic and very odd, ‘Study Bunk Breakout’ can at times be a little disorientating and is about as far from ‘chill-out’ as electronica can be, but it is utterly innovative and is absorbing and entertaining throughout.

All in all then, another very promising AA side from the aA label.

****

First published on rockfeedback.com. See it here.

Parka - If You Wanna

It’s 2am. You’re on a sticky dance floor. One hand scatters beer everywhere from your half-crumpled plastic pint glass while the other punches the air. Like every other rock’n’roll star in the club you chant and slur along to the “Whoa-oh-oh oh oh” of the chorus while stepping on the foot of the girl behind you for the seventh time. Parka have you right where they want you.

For there can be only one purpose for ‘If You Wanna’ – to get inside your head and right down to your dancing shoes. It’s all there: the simple but effective guitar riff, the universal feel-good lyrics that urge you to “Dance if you wanna, dance if you’re gonna…Just use the music, lose all your words tonight”, the aforementioned sing-along “Whoa-oh-oh oh oh”s, and, crucially, like their compatriots The Fratellis and The View, Glasgow-based Parka seem to have mastered the art of the catchy indie chorus.

A floor-filling chorus does not a good song make however, and, despite the opening feedback and yelp, ‘If You Wanna’ lacks the true swagger of its most recent sounding-boards ‘Chelsea Dagger’ and ‘Wasted Little DJs’. Ultimately it is purely and simply decent, danceable indie music with a catchy chorus. That said, I am yet to hear it where it was designed to be played… The single comes backed by a not so sly dig at London trendies, ‘Hoxton Hair’ and the acoustic shanty ‘Closing Time’. The former is a lyrically heavy handed assault on a group of people who are already very easy to make fun of and awkwardly name checks the Old Blue Last pub and Number 25 bus. It has a similarly big chorus that this time makes use of “Ba-ba-ba-ba” noises and at time does sound a little like Feeder. The latter, though, is a stupidly infectious late night sing-along number preaching the virtues of whiskey and music. Well no arguments there, Parka. Here’s to drinking, dancing and having a damn good time.


***

First published on rockfeedback.com. See it here.

Snow Patrol - Signal Fire

Did you know that Snow Patrol’s ‘Eyes Open’ album has sold nearly 4 million copies worldwide? Not bad for the slightly tuneless indie kids I saw touring their first album sometime in 1999. Still, fingers have well and truly been pulled out, and, thanks initially in no small part to the success of Coldplay, their slightly curious world domination continues unabated. The addition of American acceptance to their UK radio and chart success has resulted in ‘Signal Fire’ being one of the lead songs from the Spiderman 3 soundtrack, giving it even more exposure than was already guaranteed by the unstoppable cogs of their corporate machine.

Musically, they continue to tread familiar ground (Martha Wainwright collaborations aside) and ‘Signal Fire’ is a typically U2 aping, slow burning anthem in the vein of their two biggest hits to date ‘Run’ and ‘Chasing Cars’. It would be easy to dismiss this song as watered down chart rubbish, but it is actually not that bad a song. Despite the typically maudlin verse and different sections of the song sounding a little fractured, the guitar that builds, almost post-rock style into the anthemic chorus actually really works. Lyrically it is run-of-the-mill troubled love song stuff (“There you are just standing right in front of me, All this fear falls away and you leave me naked, Hold me close ‘cos I need you to lead me to safety”) but careers have been made and sustained with worse (stand up, Chris Martin).

Terrible song it is not, but what it definitely is – from Gary Lightbody’s unmistakable Irish twang through to the typically neutral universality of the title – is a Snow Patrol song. Without wanting to be presumptuous, I am guessing that this very fact will mean that not many people reading this review will take any interest in it, listen to it or give it much of a chance. And that is how it should be – there is a hell of a lot of more interesting, innovative, committed and, well, considerably better music being made right now. But as far as chart-dominating sugar-coated indie-rock that must exist in this modern music industry, there is a lot worse around than this.

For ‘Signal Fire’ is a perfectly acceptable and inoffensive slice of mainstream rock. In the genre of big, morose, yearning anthems (depending on your taste: for “morose” read miserable, for “yearning” read whining and for “big” read overproduced) Snow Patrol have got it pretty much bang on and have proven that they have more up their sleeve than pretenders like Athlete. Whether you are interested in this kind of music or not, or whether I give it one star or five, doesn’t really matter. It will be rammed down the throat of the mainstream radio listener and will sell copies by the bucket-load. The fact of the matter is, there will always be music like Snow Patrol and this certainly isn’t the worst they could do.

***

First published on rockfeedback.com. See it here.

Midlake - Roscoe

After a rather successful 2006, Midlake launch their assault on 2007 with another release from ‘The Trials Of Van Occupanther’. One of Bella Union’s enviable roster of acts (including: Explosions In The Sky, The Kissaway Trail, The Dears, Dirty Three… the list goes on) all and sundry queued up to lavish praise on their second album last year. With critical success assured, the Texans seem ready to hammer it home with the re-release of one of their finer tracks.


Existing fans of the band will already be familiar with ‘Roscoe’, the striking opening track of the album that sees Midlake at their most Neil Young-sounding. Lyrically it rambles about the process behind fixing a roof (from the mountaineers cutting the timber to when the rain comes and the leaks are fixed) amongst other things, but in a wider context it is a hymn to the lost innocence of rural America. The pastoral ideal of a “neat village” is now “full of chemicals” and those mountaineers are now “all mixed up with no-one to stay with”. The song also speaks of a childish wondering about how it would have been to be born in another time (1891 to be precise) “building homes out of wood and stone”, adding a further layer to the nostalgic, anti-modern feel of the song.


The pastoral lyrics are backed up by an appropriately lo-fi folk-inspired indie-rock song, with a driving, Grandaddy-esque, rhythm section behind Tim Smith’s wistful vocals. A smattering of minor explosions of guitar and keyboard effects bubble under the surface of the song, and the layered vocal with added falsetto of the chorus perfectly encapsulates the feeling of yearning relayed throughout.


Apparently Midlake have been somewhat of a hit with the dance fraternity too, as not only is singer Tim Smith to feature on the Chemical Brothers’ forthcoming album, but this release comes backed with (count ‘em) five remixes. Justin Robertson’s Balearic House and ‘Club Dub’ mixes are probably best kept within the walls of said club (with the majority of Midlake’s fan base firmly the other side of the wall), while Cassettes Won’t Listen’s electronica is too leftfield, and has too much going on to give any real pleasure to the casual listener. Jody den Broeder’s progressive house mix actually manages to turn the original Americana into a decent dance track, but one can’t help reflecting with some irony on the contrast between the subject matter of what is essentially a folk song – that of celebrating a more innocent, traditional time – and the synthetic, progressive, electronic nature of these remixes. The Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve (AKA Erol Alkan and Richard Norris) remix is the only one of the five to really do something interesting with ‘Roscoe’. With dampened piano, backwards loops, and emphasising the chanting quality of the song, the duo turn it into something the 21st Century Thom Yorke would be proud of.


‘Roscoe’ is a very good song from a very, very good album and if you don’t own either it’s about time you did. As usual, the accompanying remixes are something of a patchy bunch and the nature of different genres of dance music means that very few will appreciate all of them. You never know though, the next time you are in a Balearic House club you might just hear the strains of a classic American folk song creeping through behind the beats…

****

First published on rockfeedback.com. See it here.