Luminous Frenzy - Three Cliffs Bay

Once upon a time, Frank Hutson was the guitarist in cult early 90s shoegazers The Playthings. After years as a DJ and film score composer, these days he goes by the name Frank Frenzy and now returns with this first single from his latest project Luminous Frenzy’s forthcoming second album. It seems clear where Frank’s heart lies, as ‘Three Cliffs Bay’ uses the same dreamy female vocal over dreamy swirling background as his first band did. The main difference is that that was the early 90s and this is 2007. Instead of just swirling guitars in the background, Luminous Frenzy are purveyors of a highly polished and cinematic ambient electronica.

This can be explained by reasons other than mere modernity. Luminous Frenzy is actually three people these days (expanding to eight for live shows). Along for the ride with Frank are DJ/Vocalist Luminous and DJ/Producer/Programmer Adam Thomas, providing a triumvirate of electronicists to fuel the band’s sound.

“I sit in my back garden at night and just listen. So much ambience, so beautiful. Yet sometimes, underneath, all I can hear is the constant scream of violence all around the world.”

Thus speaks the voice at the end of ‘McEmotion’, originally from the band’s debut album ‘Violence Ambience’ (2005), remixed and included as a b-side to this release. Along with the name of the band and the title of that album, it serves as something of a manifesto for how the trio approaches music making. For though it is apparently a delicate song, ‘Three Cliffs Bay’ is actually filled with an eerie malice. While the dreamlike vocals appear to soothe, they actually tell the tale of the burying of a dead body (possibly a child’s, as indicated by the line: “I hope someday I’ll return to this place to find you grown tall into a man”). The backing for this sinister tale is classic ambient stuff arranged around a hypnotic keyboard riff. Around the middle of the song, though, guitar noise builds to a near crescendo that emphasises the potentially disturbing quality of the lyrics.

As you’d expect from the contributors, ‘Three Cliffs Bay’ sounds very well produced, with Luminous’s vocal perfectly lilting in opposition to the subject matter of the words she sings and the guitar that Frank Frenzy plays. It is certainly interesting and does what it sets out to do, but it misses the arresting contrast of the spoken word in Luminous Frenzy’s previous sample-heavy work (‘Violence Ambience’ was a concept album about the clash between violence and beauty that made use of samples of real people talking about real violent events, including heroin addicts, grieving mothers and more) and after one or two listens quickly loses much of its initial intrigue.

It will be interesting to see whether the band returns to their more successful former approach on the impending album, or whether they’ll retain the more standard sound of ‘Three Cliffs Bay’. For now, though, this is a decent enough bridge.

***

First published on rockfeedback.com. See it here.

The Shakes - I Want A Better Life

Britpop revival I hear you say? There’s certainly a whiff of it in the air at the moment. As far as some – most even – are concerned this would be a disaster of Ben Sherman shirt proportions, but London-via-Lewisham’s The Shakes are not to be put off by that. Me? I like to think I’m open-minded, objective and I do believe if something’s done right it’s worth doing. Unfortunately ‘I Want A Better Life’ gets nowhere near doing it right.

Like Kaiser Chiefs they take their inspiration from the Blur rather than Oasis end of the Britpop spectrum, going for a more melodic, politically aware approach as opposed to the balls out rock of The Enemy et al. Lyrically it is an attack (I hope) on capitalism and materialism, but while this is a laudable sentiment, even glaring irony can’t hide the painfulness of lyrics such as: “I want to be your man, ‘cos you look pretty cool and you’ve got a tan”. Dylan it certainly ain’t.

The one-dimensional lyrical approach is unfortunately matched by the music. It is your run of the mill four-piece indie rock: verse verse chorus verse verse chorus guitars drums. There is a bit of keyboard and a few bleeps thrown in there for good measure and the obligatory Beatles-nod with the ‘Eleanor Rigby’ inspired chorus, but despite a slightly more interesting b-side (‘I Remember’) there is sadly very little else inspired about it.

The Shakes believe that it is harder to write a great pop song than it is to make pretentious art rock. Listening to these three minutes seems to confirm that because they certainly haven’t written a great pop song.

**

First published on www.rockfeedback.com. See it here.

Malajube - Trompe L'Oeil

Malajube are a band from the ridiculously prolific city of Montreal. The cultural melting pot that brought you, amongst others, The Dears, Stars, A Silver Mt. Zion, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Stills and of course Arcade Fire (but perversely not Of Montreal) over the last few years has yet another one up its sleeve. Do they do anything there but form bands?

However, unlike most of their better known fellow Quebecers (with the notable exception of Les Georges Leningrad) this five piece sings in French, giving me a great chance to find out just what I remember from my A-Level French. It turns out not much. While I don’t have much of a clue as to what they have to say, I can certainly have a stab at what they sound like.

Like their more esteemed city-mates Arcade Fire, they sound like a band that is really enjoying themselves. After a brief introduction, they launch into a trio of melodic but eccentric indie rock. ‘Montreal -40°C’ sounds like the Flaming Lips singing a French language cover of the Scissor Sisters, ploughing a similar furrow as the equally poppy ‘Pâte Filo’. ‘Le Crabe’ shows off more of a traditional garage rock sound but retains a certain leftfield Canadian aesthetic thanks largely to Julien Mineau’s breathy vocals. Throughout the album they serve to add another layer to songs that for the most part already have considerable depth. In fact it is surprising to note that Malajube have only 5 members since for much of the album their sound has something of the grandeur and gravity of a larger collective.

This North American lo-fi indie rock sound is hammered home with ‘La Monogamie’s quiet/loud Modest Mouse sound, but, having got your attention through the tried and tested method of pop melodies up front, the middle of the album is where Malajube do their experimenting. ‘Ton Plat Favori’ is a bouncy keyboard led bar room sing a long and ‘La Russe’ is 2 minutes of crazy rap/spoken word/100 miles an hour vocals backed by unsettling trance keyboards.

It is previous single ‘Fille A Plumes’, though, that is undoubtedly the centrepiece of the album. Effects-drenched vocals shout and soar over industrial drums, heavy guitars and synth, flitting between the blissed out and angry. ‘Casse-cou’ too displays a similar musical schizophrenia, contrasting lullaby with nightmare, and in the course of these two songs we get a glimpse of what Malajube sound like when they get it just right. The album ends on a rather damper note, though, as both ‘Étienne D’Août’ and ‘St Fortunat’ are more predictable, decent, lo-fi ballads, the former with conventional sweeping strings.

‘Trompe L’oeil’ is a perfectly pleasant, somewhat enjoyable listen, particularly given the relative paucity of French language bands. Despite a rather inauspicious start and finish to the album, the middle develops into something really interesting, with both ‘Fille A Plumes’ and ‘Casse-cou’ really standing out. At their most upbeat they have the same quirky indie guitar pop sensibility as The Flaming Lips or Super Furry Animals, while at the other end of the spectrum they hint at the experimentalism of a Sonic Youth. However, they just don’t quite manage to convincigly pull off either and with the amount of bands around that sound a bit like them, Malajube just don’t do enough to stand out.

***

First published on www.rockfeedback.com. See it here.

The Little Flames - Isobella

Before listening to this single, the thing that most people know about The Little Flames is that they are mates with the Arctic Monkeys. Alex Turner et al have given several leg ups to the band, including covering their previous single ‘Put Your Dukes Up, John’ as a b-side, having them as a support act and joining them on stage to perform said song. It seems the Liverpudlians newcomers have decided to repay them by recording some sort of tribute to their friends, as this song does sound rather like a watered-down, female fronted Monkeys song.

The guitar intro really could have been lifted from ‘Whatever People Say…’ and it is something of a surprise when it is a woman that sings the opening line. Truthfully, it is not a bad song, with similar indie guitar popness as ‘Sun Hits The Sky’ era Supergrass, but neither does it have a great deal to mark it out as anything other than average. Eva Peterson’s vocals are perfectly good and the chorus is suitably catchy, but then so are a lot of vocals and so are a lot of choruses. In the world of post-Monkeys pop music, a lot of bands are influenced by them and a lot of bands just sound like they want to be them. Unfortunately, with this song, The Little Flames just don’t do enough to suggest they are not they latter.

I’m not suggesting that this band does not have the individual talent to carve out a career for themselves – they are after all signed to Deltasonic and Alan Wills does have a habit of signing up bands with a knack for a pop song – but they should probably follow this golden rule: if you’re going to draw attention to your more famous, more talented friends, try not to release a single that sounds so much like you’re trying to be them. Oh, and don’t back the song with an identical instrumental version, which removes the only thing that sets you apart (the vocals) and just further highlights the similarity of the music. The thing I still know after listening to this single is that The Little flames are mates with the Arctic Monkeys

**

First published on www.rockfeedback.com. See it here.

Battles - Atlas

Erm… OK. I’m not really sure what to do here. I’ve just submitted a review for which I gave 5 stars, only to then listen to a piece of music that completely blows it out of the water. Can I give this one 6? The easy part of reviewing this song is that it’s clearly absolutely brilliant. There’s no agonising over that. The far more difficult part of reviewing this song is how to begin to describe how it sounds or explain just why it is that brilliant. Here goes…

First, the facts. Following 2006’s series of EPs, the New York based, critically acclaimed and unbearably cool Battles release this single as a preview of their hugely anticipated debut album ‘Mirrors’. Loosely placed in the Math Rock genre, this band, with this single particularly, defy the limitations of labels and pigeonholes. One label of note, though, is Warp. For Battles are the latest in a long line of pioneering bands to put out records through this most influential of innovative music purveyors

Second, the song. The process of listening to ‘Atlas’ is a bit like the song itself: hundreds of individual components, of abstract thoughts, all twist and turn and merge together to make a whole that seems to make sense, but you’re not quite sure why. Like the soundtrack to a futuristic robot horse race, it kicks off with thundering drums before the android-on-helium commentary kicks in. This is the first time Battles have used vocals on their records, but to actually call them that is slightly misleading as their otherworldliness allows them to retain the Battles twisted leftfield aesthetic. The song then spirals onwards and upwards with blips and bips and bleeps and bass layered over the relentless beat of those robot hooves, before returning to where it started and disappearing into the ether.

‘Atlas’ may not be THE music of the future, but it sure sounds like music from the future. If it had been released a few years ago it would have surely have featured alongside hover-cars on Tomorrow’s World (RIP) with claims that this is the kind of music our children would have plugged directly into their brain. In a genre of the unusual that generally belies a phrase like “anthem”, ‘Atlas’ is just that. Walking a fine line between the dark, distant past and the sci-fi noir future, it is at once both deeply primal and utterly innovative. Seven minutes plus may seem a lot for a single but you get the impression that if one solitary element of this strange song was missing it just wouldn’t work as well.

Third, the verdict. Well, clearly 5 stars. And it’s worth every last twinkle on your screen. Buy it, love it, get lost in it, dance to it, surrender to it.

*****

First published on www.rockfeedback.com. See it here.

The Strange Death Of Liberal England - A Day Another Day

Given that the entire British music press seem united in the opinion that The Arcade Fire are the greatest band in the world, now is a rather opportune time for The Strange Death Of Liberal England to release their first single proper (after a self-released debut limited to 200 copies). For TSDOLE (self-confessed lovers of all things Canadian) approach music making in a similarly grandiose avant-garde melee of orchestration, instrument swapping, screaming and shouting.

The single is to be released on Fantastic Plastic which should come as no surprise seeing as the label’s A&R policy seems to be to hunt out the most bizarrely named bands in Britain. With Help, She Can’t Swim, Guillemots and the Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club already on their roster, The Strange Death Of Liberal England is merely par for the course.

During their live shows TSDOLE raise placards adorned with slogans such as “Repent!” And this exclamatory approach is exactly how their music sounds. ‘A Day Another Day’, despite opening delicately with post rock style arpeggio guitar and strained, impassioned vocals, builds and builds, slowly but surely, into a giant procession of shouted choruses that is related with even more glorious noise than the Polyphonic Spree at their best. It does sound rather Canadian, and you certainly wouldn’t know this band was from Portsmouth, but they pull it off with equal parts aplomb and reckless abandon.

As well as being noisy and passionate, TSDOLE make undoubtedly literary music. ‘A Day Another Day’s most marvellous refrain, the closing “We are Bandini! Arturo Bandini” is inspired by (or at least references) John Fante’s cult hero. Fante’s novels were extremely influential on the work of every “intellectual” rock star’s favourite author Charles Bukowski and his work ‘The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills’ also seems to be referenced.

There is not much more to be said than that ‘A Day Another Day’ is a fantastic piece of music. TSDOLE seem to have captured on record their alleged live energy, with the song sounding both grandly orchestral and appropriately rough around the edges. If liberal England is indeed dying a strange death, this is a worthy soundtrack to the funeral.

*****

First published on www.rockfeedback.com. See it here.

The Mules - We're Good People

Mules, as we all know, are a horse/donkey crossbreed. It seems London’s The Mules take the same hybridised approach to creation as their namesakes in the animal kingdom, with ‘We’re Good People’ sounding like the work of some eccentric musical scientists.

The song indulges in a similar style of social commentary to the likes of Good Shoes, with lines like the pointed opening ones: “These are very odd times / But time at ease with myself / Appropriately emotional / Controlled yet highly sexual”, and The Mules seem equally as influenced by post punk as some of their contemporaries. But instead of the (albeit well-executed) one dimensional spiky guitar approach that the Mordenites choose to employ, The Mules go for something considerably more interesting and ambitious. The sparse verse chords give a nod to both ska and the aforementioned post punk, but the addition of ‘Ghost Town’ style spooky noises, the excellent backbeat and an orchestral breakdown that comes from nowhere give it a gypsy-folk tinged life of its own.

Like a more clinical Larrikin Love, this is an intelligent and arty approach to music making that is perhaps not surprising from a group formed at Oxford University. Lyrically it is witty and insightful, although in a rather knowing way: “I’ll turn on the TV / Travel shows delight me”. Songwriter/drummer/vocalist Ed Seed’s delivery is in many ways reminiscent of David Byrne and only reaffirms Talking Heads similarities that are present in both the overall feel of the song and what it has to say about consumerist culture.

The single is backed by the vaudeville-cum-gypsy-folk-punk orchestral rock out that is ‘Problems With Exits’, another indication of The Mules’ fun and original approach. There are also two decent remixes from CSS and Lights, the former providing CSS’s trademark bongo/synth samba flavour and doing what every good remix should do – highlight the quality of the original song. And ‘We’re Good People’ does indeed have considerable quality – certainly more pedigree filly than ass.

****

First published on rockfeedback.com. See it here.