Searching for inner-scouseness has not been fashionable for a long time. Thrown aside for the Saturday night jerks and exertions to House and ignored by the thrall of UK Garage, Liverpool has not looked inwards since tank tops and Panini stickers. Fair enough really, as all background noise for adolescents should be played out to match the times and not hark back to a previous incarnation of pop’s past, especially not to an era when we have to consider our Continue Reading
As soon as you play this album, you just know that The Warm Guns possess every Beatles record ever written. Their own album, ‘Blown Away’ contains the kind of upbeat pop psychedelica and ‘socially aware’ lyrics that are rarely produced on these shores anymore. It’s the memory of the original Britpop invasion filtered back through an American West Coast sensibility – shiny guitar stabs and soaring backing vocals singing about time travel and Mao Tse Tung, with a liberal sprinkling Continue Reading
We may be backtracking into the last century a bit here, but you remember mix tapes. Don’t you? Throwing down your favourite tracks with primitive technology that back then seemed like the future had come to your bedroom and honing a knack for squeezing your choice cuts snugly onto one side of a C90 to suit your mood, or just to force your superior tastes that week onto a mate. And right now it is summer – c’mon, the sun’s Continue Reading
Despite the moderate success of the 1996 single ‘Guilty’, Gravity Kills has yet to make a splash compared to other contemporary metal/industrial acts such as Godsmack, Filter, or Stabbing Westward. Perhaps it was the band’s overt admiration for Trent Reznor and company’s music that caused the backlash of comparisons and accusations of unoriginality. While Superstarved might possess similar tones as the groups’ previous two records, Gravity Kills seems to have finally broken away from the obvious and expected to create Continue Reading
The latest in a series of split singles from Sorted records, ‘So Easy’ and ‘Subway Sex’ are two neat slices of punky guitar anthems. Circa 1983 – Kyle Hill (vocals) Sam Walker (bass and vocals) and Ash Sommerton (drums) – have spent the last year establishing themselves on the Midlands’ live circuit, and their track ‘So Easy’ sounds like it could be a favourite at gigs with its spiky guitars and a sneer of a vocal, joined in the chorus Continue Reading
Familiarity breeds… well, it breeds a mixed bag for two particular Gallaghers. It breeds reaction from the lowest common denominator, it breeds nostalgia, ticket sales and most importantly to them it breeds number ones. And then of course there’s also the contempt. So a no win situation then? Well, hell no! It’s all win, you must have read a paper recently; Oasis are back on top of the world, on top of the charts and selling tickets like you’ll get Continue Reading
“Next On The Misery List” almost succeeded in melting my stereo like a Tofutti Cutie on the July sidewalk with drums that make Squarepusher sound like downtempo trip-hop. How is he hitting the ride cymbal that fast? Uphill Battle won’t be doing battle with The Pleasure Seekers for The World’s Most Decelerated Band any time soon. Following in the volcano-pissed, highest-octane, crack smokin’, triple-bass, caffeinated footsteps of Napalm Death, Repulsion, Extreme Noise Terror, Final Conflict and Dropdead, these guys make Continue Reading
All bands grow older, either with each other or bickering amongst themselves in icy seclusion. Both of these behavioural patterns affect the music that the groups make. Either, like R.E.M., the boys are bashful enough with each other to just carry on regardless of anything but self-motivation and that they like spending time together. Whereas the Rolling Stones seem to prefer mutual exclusion and meeting every so often to complain about Ronnie Wood’s haircut and to discuss Mick’s latest conquests. Continue Reading
“A Jackknife to a Swan” is pretty un-ska. They’re busy writing songs about Mafiosos, and the whole affair sounds more like anthemic chorus-metal to me. The horns do come up from a triangle in Bermuda to affect the choruses, but the band seems sick of all that silly skanking business. Good for them, but we’ve got this whole Bosstone legacy to put to bed, don’t we? The up-strokes on the guitars framing “Everybody’s Better” reach artificial realms previously populated by Continue Reading
It is one thing to be confused for an irreverent yet sophisticated genius; it is another thing entirely to be recognised as a Martian. Although he is only one of the members of the Flaming Lips, as the central songwriter Wayne Coyne is often identified as a man apart; far removed from our planet. All of these out-of-this-world descriptions are a little unfair as this portrays the man as an unhinged eccentric and his songs to be far-out and “just Continue Reading