http://www.theebatsurrender.co.uk/weekly/reviews/ en jamie@thebeatsurrender.co.uk Copyright 2008 2008-05-06T18:02:00+00:00 http://www.thebeatsurrender.co.uk/weekly/reviews/isobel-campbell-mark-lanegan/ One of the highlights of 2006 was definitely The Ballad of the Broken Sea’s, as I, like many others were shocked on how two artist from different sides of the spectrum managed to sound so well together. However, this could have been put down as a fluke by some, and it would have been a safer bet by the duo to leave it at that, but hey, they’ve shown some balls and given us a second helping. Being quite new to the work of Mark Lanegan, it’s easy to compare him to the great Johnny Cash, with there gritty vocal style, and never more so on opening track Seafaring Song, which is elegant ballad of love found and lost, over the backdrop of Isobel whispering away, it really does feel like some lost civil war composition. Like it’s predecessor, there’s no place for twee little pop tunes that we once likened Miss Campbell to on this album, as shown on The Raven, which is a million miles away from what Legal Man and Amarino were about, with the vocals resembling that of a rambling mad man in a Spaghetti Western, and Salvation being a bluesy number offering of one man’s excuses on how it all went wrong. Who Built The Road has comparisons to Where The Wild Flowers Grow, with Isobel now showing that she has much more to offer than playing the cello and although her vocals never go higher than a whisper, somehow you feel that she just doesn’t need to bellow to get her point across. This point being true on Come On Over where the mixture of husky and raw meet feminine but persuasive and make perfect partners. Album 2008-05-06T18:02:00+00:00 http://www.thebeatsurrender.co.uk/weekly/reviews/the-charlatans2/ Everybody knows the story of The Charlatans, of how the band have managed to survive more than their fair share of atrocities (armed robberies, deaths and dodgy accountants) and of how they’ve lived through many a music scene (baggy, shoegazing, and Britpop to name a few.) that a few lazy journalist have pigeon holed them to. I’m not ashamed in admitting that growing up as a teenager in the nineties, the charlatans we’re one of my favourite bands, with their Hammond fuelled anthems making me strut my stuff round many an indie night, with the likes of Up To Our Hips and the self titled album being forgotten gems of an era that much of today’s music rags seem to ridicule. Unfortunately though, post millennium has found the boys from Northwich lagging a bit, with the likes of Wonderland (like marmite), Up At The Lake (MOR) and Simpatico (just awful) not being up to scratch in what was arguably, one of the best back catalogue’s of modern day British guitar groups. Anyway, everyone deserves a fourth chance and it’s good to see that the boys our using their initiative in trying to introduce their music to a wider audience by offering the album as a free download as of March. First single Oh Vanity is as good a start since Forever on Us & Us Only, with the boys sounding fresh and confident as the trademark Hammond blares its ass through the chorus, whilst Tim’s singing in his natural tone rather than doing his Prince bit. Bad Days also has a nice tempo to it and is well put together, which makes me start to get carried away a bit, that may be this could be the album the boys should have done many a year ago, and I’m more than impressed with Mis-takes although it does clearly rip off New Order at their prime, but isn’t recycling the norm these days. Unfortunately though, this is where things start to slide a bit, with latest single The Misbegetton sounding rather ordinary if not B side material at best and A Day For Letting Go reminiscent of a bad Bowie impression during the chorus. This is further compounded on Missing Beats which sounds like some shitty catch line from an eighties game show or radio jingle, My Name Is Despair seems very laboured to which you think where is this going? And I find myself pressing the skip button half way through which is always a bad thing. Album 2008-05-06T17:24:00+00:00 http://www.thebeatsurrender.co.uk/weekly/reviews/half-man-half-biscuit1/ So Half Man Half Biscuit, the grown-up band for grown-ups who just simply refuse to grow up. Having purchased their first 2 albums, Back in the DHSS and Back Again in the DHSS – some 20 years ago – we are being reacquainted in the form of their latest offering for consideration, the cleverly titled – CSI Ambleside. The mere mention of the sleepy Lakeland town takes me back to the time when I was first listening to HMHB – and tracks like ‘Len Ganley Stance’ and ‘Rod Hull is alive-why?’ My main personal memory of the Lakes is a freak boating accident when I came close to personal disaster. Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a Donald Campbell/World Speed record scenario, but it was still an emotional moment. There I was tootling along in a canoe, when a freak wave (yeah I know, on a lake) struck and suddenly I was underwater – my plastic craft having capsized. As my comrades looked on from lakeside (I’m pretty sure they were watching) all they could see was my Everton sun-hat floating poignantly to the surface. Luckily, I managed to wrestle myself out of the boat and ultimately break through the surface of the water and breathe again. My struggle back to dry land was tainted, as I knew right away there had been casualties and that I was powerless to revive them. That’s right – 20 Regal King Size, ruined – gutted. Enough already, back to HMHB. My initial suspicion was that this album would lead me to conclude that it was really time for these lads to turn it in. Part of this was based on a performance at The Cockpit in the past few years. The gig was enjoyable but the only tracks which stood out were the old classics like ‘99% of gargoyles look like Bob Todd’ – most of the newer material passed by without leaving a lasting impression. Also a group of middle-aged balding men on stage, facing a crowd of middle-aged balding men, was a little unseemly. Oh how wrong I was. HMHB have been described a satirical, surreal and sardonic – what they definitely do is satirise all things modern. So just a few of the subjects covered on CSI Ambleside are Facebook, Stewarding at major events, Organic food, Steroid abuse, on-line gaming, man-bags, disabled badge abuse, Primark, Retail Parks, the property market and loads, loads more. The album kicks off with the decent ‘Evening of Swing (has been cancelled)’ and then moves up a gear with ‘Bad Losers on Yahoo Chess’. This contains the line ‘Deep Blue, in ‘97 I voted for you, for Sports Personality of the Year.’ For the uninitiated, or more likely, uninterested, Deep Blue is a chess-playing computer developed by IBM that defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. Next up is one of the 3 stand-out tracks on the album. It’s very hard not to want to like a track called ‘Took Problem Chimp to the Ideal Home Show’ but this turns out to be a white rap, hip-hop, Beastie Boys style ditty, Laurence Llewyllyn-Bowen receives a well deserved pillorying, amongst others. ‘Ode to Joyce’ passes by smoothly, featuring the lyrics ‘Hey Joyce, you’re not as far out a Ronnie Boyce’ – presumably a nod to the oft replayed incident when West Ham’s Boyce snotted a dodgy clearance from a goal-kick straight back past the hapless Joe Corrigan from around the halfway line. ‘Blue Badge Abuser’ deals with work-shy foppishness before ‘Totnes Bickering Fair’ speaks of decree nisi, divorce and the solemn promise ‘I’m gonna feed our children non-organic food, and with the money left take ‘em to the zoo,’ pleasingly railing against the ‘right on’ types. The song ends suddenly with a chilling warning about the future environment we will inhabit ‘not long now before lollipop men are called Darren’ – quite. Album 2008-05-05T17:59:00+00:00 http://www.thebeatsurrender.co.uk/weekly/reviews/danava/ I have listened to Danava’s album many times and I really thought a lot of it. To me they sound a little like ‘Pink Floyd’ and some old rock band mangled together. There are some very strange synth noises that just really add that something extra. I did a review for Turbowolf recently and was not impressed with their uninventive use of strange synth additions, but ‘Danava’ do it in a cool ‘Floyd’ sort of a way. The Oregon band were supporting ‘Witchcraft’ on this night so didn’t have a large set to begin with. Rios took ages to open, having me stand around in anticipation. By the time everything was all set up, ‘Danava’ had a reduced set, being the first on, so the headlining band didn’t lose any time. After listening to the album I was hoping for more than the three songs, but sh*t happens. They played brilliantly. All the crowd were tapping their feet and swaying their long hair (male and female!). As with any live band that is worth any thing, their songs were pretty much the same as the album. I always like to wait until I’ve listened to a band live before I decide they are on my favourites list, they made it! I must admit that the lead singer’s voice goes right through me but the music is fantastic. The live version is better. The songs are all epic. The longest one on the album is easy over ten minutes. Which explains why there was only three songs in their set. With most epic songs there is usually a point where you start to think ‘omg, is this ever gonna end. ‘Bryan Adams – I’ll do anything (to make this stop)’ usually comes to mind after anything above four minutes. They manage to keep me entertained through songs lasting six, seven minutes. Even though some of the same rifs, drum beats and lyrics are repeated in the same songs, they are needed so you can hear the beauty again. Live 2008-05-05T17:24:00+00:00 http://www.thebeatsurrender.co.uk/weekly/reviews/envy-other-sins/ I’ve been to The Cockpit a few times recently, but it’s the first time I’ve been in through the bar bit and it’s pleasing to see that it’s had a bit of a makeover. In place of a rather uncomfortable area to chill out and have a drink they’ve actually put in comfy sofas and made it a genuinely chilled out little room. We spend the first hour in their tonight having a few beers, one because it’s quite interesting checking out all the tickets on display of who has played there in the past. Secondly because whichever of the support bands are on before the main act, they are making a right racket and though I could tell you nothing about them as people, musically it’s obnoxious stuff. Once they depart from the stage it’s on to Envy & Other Sins a band who seem to be more known for their appearance on the Mobile Unsigned thing last year than their actual music, which is a bit of a bloody shame as it’s actually pretty good from what I’ve heard so far. They are just firing into Step Across when we get into the room, it’s the smaller of the two gig rooms and it’s about half full, a slightly disappointing turn out but the band don’t let that phase them over the next 40 minutes. From that confident opening they move onto The Company We Keep and Almost Certainly Somewhere Else followed by the brilliantly titled Man Bites God. At about this point in proceedings a couple of things stand out for me. The singer has a similar stage style to the lead-singer with The Feeling, which is a bit annoying and overly dramatic at times. The second though shows what a tight band they are and very competent musically. Towards the end of the well received set they play the brilliant Talk To Strangers, play debut single Prodigal Son which they say they haven’t played for two years and then recent single Highness, another slice of brilliant guitar pop that should have done so much better on it’s release. Live 2008-05-05T17:07:00+00:00 http://www.thebeatsurrender.co.uk/weekly/reviews/story-of-the-year/ At the first impression I was wowed at how heavy “Story Of The Year” came across-as I was warned they were on the emo side by a colleague of mine. I’ve got to say emo doesn’t come across at all on the first song “Choose Your Fate” which is probably my favourite track off the album. It kicks in with dramatic screaming vocals and disctinct guitar riffs. Definately a head banger in my view! Vocals become much softer on the verses and choruses are an array of energetic screams. As the album progresses some different sounds are employed-much softer vocals and the guitars have suddenly calmed down. The lyrics speak out which is a major plus as most bands these days throw anything within their songs. The lyrics are well thought out thats one of the things I really like about this band-they show their talent. They piece it up together equally well, the catchy choruses and vocals are brought together to bring in some real harmonising sounds which tones it down reaslly well when songs become quite heavy. The fourth track “Tell Me P.A.C” starts off with the sound of marching soldiers. The lyrics are fairly deep (endeavering into that emo stage as most would say!) I presume this is about soldiers in the war reaching that stage where they’re getting tired and feeling more alone than ever, the difficult times which they endure as I’m sure many soldiers could relate to that. I did notice by the 5th song that the majority of the songs kicked off with a “Oh!!” at the very beginning, in my eyes this is alittle repetetive and would personally encourage a different way to kick off their songs to mix it up abit. They are a talented band and probably will go far with this album, as for the rumours of it being emo I would disagree completely they sound nothing like your typical emo band, I’m thinking “Taking Back Sunday” or perhaps “The Used”. To me they sound similar to “Alkaline Trio” with a twist of added screams. Album 2008-05-05T15:44:00+00:00 http://www.thebeatsurrender.co.uk/weekly/reviews/voodoo-six/ I’d been passed a ‘taster’ disc with three of this band’s songs on recently and was quite impressed with their slick rock tracks which flirted a bit with the stoner sound at times. These were taken from the bands recently released “First Hit For Free” album which they are promoting at the moment. After Kevin discussed the band with me, and once he’d found out I didn’t hate them, he wielded his influence and got me on the guest list for their support slot with Tygers Of Pantang down at my local Rock Club, The Gasworks. So, once the band finally took to the stage I settled back to enjoy a good set. It was good to see the group dynamic; this is obviously a band that works well together and not just a studio based outfit – one of the questions I had about them after hearing the taster CD. Interestingly, the front man seemed to be taking his lead from one of the lead guitarists as to which song they would play next. Lead singers are usually ‘The Ego’ who call all the shots once a band’s on stage. He certainly looked like a rock star with half his face made up, floppy cuffs, leather pants, doing the sideways Axl Rose shuffle – yet he seemed likeable enough despite all this. And he possesses quite a vocal range, too. At one point he left the stage and tried coming round doing the audience participation thing – passing the microphone to folk to sing what he’d just sung – big mistake in Bradford, my friend. The bloke I was stood with shot to the bar, several pairs of arms were folded and you could see people suddenly becoming very interested in the floor, the walls, their nails etc. That’s something about the Bradford music scene; unless you’re mega big, you won’t get much response out of a crowd. Having said this, there was a handful of young ‘uns down the front who were having a great time and were really getting into the music – but a lot of the rest were older blokes who were stood around listening, but not really moving much. I reckon they were here to see the main act, who have been doing the rounds for years now. I think this also explains the cheeky winks I got from one of the barmaids – I was one of the few blokes in there under 50. The band played for around 50 minutes. Sadly, I didn’t record the total number of songs they played – sorry about that. It seemed to be into double figures, anyway. I do know I had four Newcastle Browns while they were on (had to keep my barmaid happy), and two quick trips for a pee. The Gents in the Gasworks are proper Rock Club bogs, by the way – well worth a visit (if you’re a man). And the screens everywhere mean you don’t miss much while you’re at the bar. One highlight of the set was they nearly started playing “Freebird” – they only played a few seconds of the intro, but it got me excited. Overall I was impressed with the professionalism and skills of the whole outfit…and I love to try and find fault, if I can. I think the band were let down a little by the sound, my ears were ringing when I left the venue and this was not down to the volume of the band. The instruments were clear enough, but there was a top layer of white noise which I think the sound guys could have tried tweaking a bit. Live 2008-05-05T15:16:00+00:00 http://www.thebeatsurrender.co.uk/weekly/reviews/the-rosie-taylor-project-this-city-draws-maps/ Leeds as a City (and especially musically) is known for it’s vibrancy, the fact that it’s upbeat and looking to the future, it’s come from being a fairly run down place to being the fastest growing City in Europe, in the book Pies And Prejudice the Northern leftfield travel guide it’s described as “The Barcelona of the North”. This of course all filters through into the musicv that is pouring out of the city, The Kaiser Chiefs and Pigeon Detectives specialise in pogo-pop, The Sunshine Underground and The Hair mix things up between indie and dance, Stateless fuse a modern twist of rock and electronic elements in their sound and you can add hundreds of other artists onto that list as well. One type of music that we’ve never really specialised in though is bed sit romantiscism, music made by dreamers for dreamers, the type of stuff that Heavenly and Sarah Records used to turn out by the bucketload, it has a certain tweeness to it, but ultimately it has the romantic feel of a Parisian romance. One such band could well be about to put Leeds on the map in these musical circles. The Rosie Taylor Project are a group who blend romantic imagery with soothing acoustics and delightful trumpet flourishes, they sing about lifes great pleasures and lifes way of knocking you, they sing of relationships with the tenderist emotions and they do all of this brilliantly. This City Draws Maps is the result of all this, eight tracks that softly glide along and take you to distant places, tracks like A Good Cafe On George Street and Black And White Films that both feature some truly delightful melody, Anne Sexton with it’s female backing vocals and glockenspiel and the ravishingly simple Reveries that reminds you of early Belle And Sebastian. Album 2008-04-21T16:48:00+00:00 http://www.thebeatsurrender.co.uk/weekly/reviews/lyrics-born-every-where-at-once/ Lyrics Born returns with his first studio album since 2003’s Later That Day (which was actually the first album i’d heard by him) on Anti Records, a label that has always been happy to throw it’s weight and support behind artists that are a little bit maverick and pioneering. Adding Lyrics Born to the label’s roster may have looked a bold move, but it’s repaid handsomely here as he merges his trademark flow, with various genres being crossed musically and the type of beats that we’ve now come to expect from one of the founding members of Quannum Projects. Also featured on the album are a number of excellent collaborations including two from heavyweights Chali 2na and RJD2, Lyrics Born nurses these guest appearances into his own sound so that they don’t take centre stage and this helps to keep the sound together as a cohesive album. Lyrics Born manages to cross the divide between old daisy age hip-hop from the likes of De La Soul (lyrically) and a slightly more beats driven hip-hop that you would expect from DJ Shadow. The best example of this on the album is probably Hott 2 Deff which features a funkin’ groove and some excellent lyrics. Elsewhere on the album the sound is heading towards electro groove on songs like Don’t Change and the throbbing I’m A Phreak. Differences and Is It The Skin I’m In are more soulful affairs, while the highlight for me is Whispers with it’s poignant lyrics about the sudden death of a best friend. Album 2008-04-21T16:00:00+00:00 http://www.thebeatsurrender.co.uk/weekly/reviews/the-kills/ Due to not knowing when I was setting off to London for the football this weekend I’d left it too late to get a ticket for this sold out show at The Cockpit. Which was disappointing as i’ve been desperate to see These New Puritans since hearing Elvis at the turn of the year and of course The Kills was the icing on the cake. Luckily one of my PR contacts came through with a couple of guest list places for me and it was off to the gig we go, hi ho hi ho…or something. For once we were there in plenty of time, so we’d got a really good spot for These New Puritans when they emerged onto the stage. The first thing to grab me was how much of a debt they owed to The Klaxons dress wise, lead singer J.B. sports some strange futuristic chainmail attire that gives the impression that he’s trying out for the band he’d really like to be in! Performance wise i’m left pretty damn gutted by this Southend outfit. They have none of the subtle brilliance that came across on debut album Beat Pyramid, instead they build their entire set around the drummer, who while very good, still dominates the overall sound for me. J.B. suffers from his vocals being too quiet, so even a track like Elvis (which gets the best reaction) loses some of it’s edge and cool. They play a pretty short set and it pains me to say it but i’m glad, they just don’t convert the tracks that made me love them in the live arena and I certainly wouldn’t be bothered for seeing them again live. I know everyone can have a bad day, but this was just tedious and out of tune, not two great qualities to have really are they! The Kills unfortunately don’t fare much better for me. We have a really long wait in between the two bands which I can’t understand as it’s not like they have hundreds of members or instruments to sort out. The crowd are a bit restless, but the duo do emerge eventually. Alison looks as cool as ever and Jamie Hince looks like the consumate rock star that he eventually turned into. Live 2008-04-21T15:13:00+00:00