Perhaps in homage to the strange little perplexities in life, Hookers Green appear to have titled themselves after one of the many curious names to be found gracing paint tubes the world over.
The music itself gives nods towards the indie does electro of Bright Eyes’ ‘Digital Ash in a Digital Urn’, cLOUDEAD minus the rap, a melancholic scaled down Polyphonic Spree, and a touch of Sparklehorse. Ultimately though, the sound can only really be categorised as Hookers Green.
Each song allows you to conjure up a new story. Through ‘There is An Equilibrium’ you could imagine hearing a train in the distant countryside, slowly approaching and building up its sound as it comes. When it pulls into the station, you step on, and discover a swing band inside. As it picks up speed again the intensity heightens, and you are whisked away to an unknown land. ‘The Strode Adventurer’ may reveal a night spent wandering the city streets. You turn into a dark, smelly alley, and all of a sudden a band spontaneously emerges, using tin cans for drums and dustbin lids as symbols. You’re aware that it will disperse as suddenly as it formed, so you simply enjoy the moment and dance without a care in the world. The other tracks make use of distortion and muted vocals to unveil similarly tinted tales, all combining to create an album that cascades into one glorious waltz in the soaking rain.
Hookers Green generously offer us modern, original music that is full of feeling, steeped in a beautiful sadness, with a glimmering of hope. Magical.
Review by Nathania Hartleywww.hookersgreen.com
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However, in the third track ‘We have this place surrounded,’ this hardened attitude is replaced by a more fragile and weaker voice. I’m not sure if this is a different person singing or what but it really adds a certain depth and diversity. No longer is there a strong and confident singer prepared to face life enemies, but instead a vulnerable and very real person. This contrast is amazing. This song had a strong sense of repetitively with guitars and drums getting faster and building up more powerfully as the song progresses. In this respect, its got a feel of ‘Godspeedyoublackemperor,’ about it, though not as powerful or intense, but certainly dramatic. Consequently an unsettled ambience is created so we’re not aware of what we’re listening to anymore. Its like we seep and merge into the music making it shape and affect our mood.
This softer, melodic feel continues as the album progresses. It’s like arrogance has accepted defeat to humanity and revealed uncertainty. All in all, a pretty commendable and interesting album.
Review by Helen Thornton
www.theboxerrebellion.net
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Somehow or another you will have heard at least one of Maximo Park’s 3 singles that they have released to date. If not, then it’s quite remarkable that you’ve managed to avoid their own brand of art rock. Infectious and prone to make people dance, Maximo Park deliver their debut album, A Certain Trigger, on May 16th. It includes the storming singles ‘The Coast Is Always Changing’, ‘Apply Some Pressure’ and the recent release – ‘Graffiti'.
'Apply Some Pressure' remains one of the defining songs of 2005. It’s virtually impossible to sit down whilst listening to it (possible why this review is so difficult to write). “What happens when you lose everything” sings Paul Smith. In a way which is reminiscent of Rush’s ‘Dreamline’, although Paul has assured me that Rush aren’t an influence.
Maximo Park have already mastered the timeless formula of building a song up then cutting it off, leaving you wanting it more than when you first started playing it – something that adds to the addictive nature of ‘A Certain Trigger’
Every single song on the record is a potential single. Each song has it’s own little quirks that you grow to love, including the pride they take in their accent (as a southerner with Geordie roots I feel I have the right to say this). What I find particularly charming is that you can’t just sing and dance along – you feel compelled to sing as they do and dance as Paul does.
The one song that isn’t likely to be released (or performed live for that matter) is 'Acrobat'. 'Acrobat' is a spoken song accompanied by a beautifully sad, melodic chorus that consumes you with a longing that you weren’t expecting. Filled with simple, yet poignant observations, most people will be able to identify with 'Acrobat'. It’s a surprising contrast to the high powered songs that fill the rest of the album.
I just tried to draw up a list of the stand-out tracks on the record, but found myself just re-writing the tracklisting in a different order, which although slightly pointless, does highlight the fact that there is not one single filler on ‘A Certain Trigger’. Needless to say, this record is going to be in the running for the best of 2005.
Review by Jessie Brickley
www.maximopark.com
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The My Initials Club is purportedly the musical brainchild of a London-based artist called Verxon Stentonvaster. Hmm. The music is equally unhinged. Essentially the work of a shadowy collective of musicians, producers and noise-terrorists, the My Initials Club encompass drum ‘n’ bass, folk, broken beat, downtempo, psychedelia, trip-hop and post-rock. The Club comes across like a rawer version of Ninja Tune - which, admittedly, may sound a bit too avant-garde for some tastes – but, anyone curious enough to track down a CD won’t be disappointed.
It occasionally misses the target, (and the comparatively lumpen Ruck Pedal and Salvo stick out like a pair of sore thumbs) but when they get it right they get it very right. Particular favourites include: ‘Rain Cloud’ by Ikechukwu (menacing d’n’b with a cracking, absolutely monstrous sample); ‘You and Your Man’ by D-Thing (a low-key, harmonica-led strum - the closest thing we may well hear to Neil Young-going-chillout); and ‘Hard Life’ by David K. Frampton (would be lovely if it wasn’t quite so strange).
The My Initials Club say that “the aesthetic of the label will unfold over time rather than stick rigorously to a pre-planned set of constructs”. Good call. I look forward to their next release, whichever form it may take.
File under: Chill-out music for edgy malcontents.
Review by Tom Leins
www.myinitialsrecords.co.uk
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On first listen Old World Underground is just sugary pop rock, simple yet slick. Bland. Listen to it again, properly, and Emily Haines’ lyrical sighing transforms into a frenzied plea for revolution.
Take ‘Dead Disco’, easily the best track on the album. It’s pumped up with cold sweats, driven by oily synth noises and frenetic drum beats but subdued by Haines’ honeyed vocals. The lyrics are powerful; it’s a call to arms about the hopeless unoriginality of today’s music. Sort of an oxymoron though, isn’t it? Just another indie dance song in 2005 about lack of innovation…falling into it’s own trap.
Then there’s ‘IOU’; “Old world underground, where are you now?”, another lament over the loss of a counter culture. With ‘Succexy’ they turn to that oh so original and controversial theme…politics.
The album has admirable intentions but the band have overlooked something; listening to an hour of this is almost unbearable. The tracks are just too sugary, too easy to swallow and all too similar. They struggle to carry the messages behind them.
It’s a real shame too because Metric seem so promising. From Canada
originally, the band have a biography that reads like a manifesto and have been surrounded by various hot stuff music people from day one. Whether it’s sharing a house together with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Liars, working with New Order producer Stephen Hague or touring with Death From Above 1979 (right now), they’re never far from real talent.
And of course there are good
bits; the infectious marching stamp of ‘Combat Baby’, the
soothing pop rock lullaby that is ‘Calculation Theme’ and
the creeping beat of ‘On a Slow Night’, but these are rare
moments, sandwiched between tepid, indistinguishable mush (one song is
titled perfectly, ‘Wet Blanket’).
So yeah, there’s potential, hope and angst aplenty.
But no matter how noble their
cause, Metric fail to deliver. There’s no revolution here.
All we get is Dead Disco.
Review and
artwork by Ellie Plevin
www.ilovemetric.com
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zZz, despite the name are certainly not anything you're going to put on to ease you into a slumber. This is a band which appears to be the Doors reincarnate for the ecstasy generation: all swirling organ and hypnotic drums. Two musicians: a drummer /singer and a Hammond player create a sound that can only be described as dance music put to a northern bingo hall soundtrack. Comic? On occasions, but somehow it works. The only real downer with the band is that the minimal vocals and use of only one lead instrument means monotony does tend to set in towards the end of the album. However, take any track in isolation and you'd probably enjoy it; making them in many ways, the perfect support band. If Jim Morrison were alive today I could definitely see him making music like this. If you will zZz are the updated sound of the Doors on a double drop.
Review by Tom Lewis
www.soundofzzz.com
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Stockholm’s Anna (just Anna – you know, like just Kylie) is the driving force behind NYC’s Aluminum Babe. Her new album has been getting airplay on US college radio, though there’s a definite European-ness about it all. The first two songs share the same bassline, meaning that a feeling of sameyness sets in surprisingly early, and it’s not until ‘Little Girl’ that anything particularly, well, good happens. This is a pleasant enough song though, racing along well, and Anna’s Lisa Simpson-esque voice doesn’t jar too much.
She even gets the swearing out on ‘Baby Bitch’, which is hilarious. ‘Standing And Waving Goodbye’ is the standout, filtering early Cure through to a memorable song. But overall there’s a sense of one idea being maxed-out – until the final track, the punky Plastic Bertrand cover ‘Ca Plane Pour Moi’, when Anna comes across all Debbie Harry on what must be a live favourite. Ace.
Review by Pete Dodds
www.aluminumbabe.com
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Wales
produces the best pop bands, fact. And I was open-minded and ready to
allow The Afternoons to take their place at the top of that particular
tree. This was due to my only prior knowledge of The Afternoons being
in print through Welsh music magazines and as having had some ITV documentary
about them, both of which I vaguely remember proclaiming them as the perfect
pop band, so I was excited and filled with frothy anticipation as I looked
at the C.D. case and its pretty, glossy depiction of a rocket with pink,
yellow and green smoke coming from it's tail, which just looked like it
should be on a kids confectionary packaging. Yes, I was excited.
However they are not our best pop band merely our blandest, and while
for many out there you may think that this blandness usually equates to
sales, unfortuantly for The Afternoons their particular take on blandness
has not resulted in chart-topping success and remains unlikely to if my
reaction to this record is repeated in others.
To be honest, I think it's all a question of marketing, if the afternoons had the efficient backing of similarly bland guitar pop bands, such as Parlophone for Coldplay and Athlete or Polydor for Snow Patrol, rather than sit on their own label Saturday Records, then we'd be saturated with their songs and the blandness would slowly indoctrinate the public into an uncommitted acceptance and the masses would buy it because it represents a product not offensive to them and which they had grown used to. They'd be the next bland superstars to remind me that I really hate music.
Anyway I'm writing this bit the morning after the afternoon before, and this merely represents my prelude to an account of one hour of my life wasted listening to the new afternoons albums, 'Rocket Summer'...
So I'm sitting here at 3pm in the afternoon in bright sunshine, ready to be blissed out by some great guitar pop lovelyness, this is how the afternoon should be spent. The Afternoons may become another name to add to the cannon of the great pop bands that Wales produces, alongside such luminaries as Super Furry Animals, Gorkys Zygotic Mynci, The Caves, Crashland and Mohobishopi. It is this lineage that I've been made to think The Afternoons belong with, that is among the greatest pop bands in the world, and obviously here I contrast pop bands with pop groups, that is honestly porduced pop music full of clever ideas and razor sharp melodies, and not sachrine, tacky mass-produced pop music from greasy little teenagers who win popularity contests on the tele.
Ahh all these thoughts are going through my head as the opening track, 'Rocket Summer', shimmers out of my stereo speakers, all fuzzy guitar hooks and electronic bleeps, perfectly constructed following all the rules of good pop music, with its verse/chorus/verse/chorus/catchy middle 8/harmony vocals and hand claps coming in as the song winds down. I'm immediatly drawn to think of Ash, before they went boring, and as captured on their greatest hits, umm 'Intergalactic Sonic Sevens' I think it was called, were the perfect pop band, and, as should be, had singles that once you heard them made you realise how empty your life was before. Those are songs that grace our car all summer long, and have done since we were spotty teenagers, ahh summer music. This is what The Afternoons seem like to me, just what I'd hoped for, summer pop music, bliss. Although, by now and the second song I'm starting to feel a note of caution dampen my optimism already, as though these songs are undoubtably perfectly formed and tick all the right boxes, at the same time they aren't the most exciting propositions in the world. They seem to miss that little touch of something extra, that spark of magic which Ash used to be able to sprinkle over their singles. They don't come alive, whilst making all the right motions they don't do so with any sort of convictions. It's kind of like a pencil drawing of a naked woman, yes I understand what it represents, but it's not the real thing and I find it slightly hard to get excited, this isn't making the progression from plans to construction, there is no real woman standing before me, no blood pumping through the veins, no breath heating my neck, it's just a picture, and my interest is waining quickly.
Okay now my worst fears are being realised as the first three songs sound exactly the same, and as the third finishes I find it impossible to remember a single hook or chrous from any of them. This is sad, music so featureless that it hardly even enters my ears let alone resonating in the way real pop music should, there is no substance at all. Yes it's all very nice, there are some pretty bits and it does nothing wrong, but it does nothing right, and you'd think having had three songs in a row that follow exactly the same formula and are practically indistinguishable would mean that I'd at least know how they go, it's not exactly rocket science to remember tunes as simple and plain as this but no, I have no idea, instantly fogettable fluff.
Which means that when the fourth track, 'Fading Fast', cautiously appears from my speakers as a slow ballad I'm actually relieved for the slightest bit of interest that a variation provides. This shocks me, as here I am lauding the arrival of a ballad and I detest ballads, especially ones that seem so cynically written and placed to provide a variety to up-tempo numbers, like a made to order pattern. However this particular ballad doesn't seem as cynical as I originally thought it was, as well as, and maybe because of, being a blessed relief, it is actually rather beautiful. It feels genuine and heartfelt in it's naivety about either lost love or the lost years of life, or probably both at the same time, 'days are fading fast', this feels so delicate and true as to strike me as being something of a torch song. 'Days that are fading fast' is a refrain that, at last, I feel sure will stick in my head after I've left the album, and even more suprising to me is that this ballad, God I hate ballads, is far more memorable to me than all the mid-paced jangley hazy stuff that came before and which starts back up exactly the same as we leave track four for track five and 'Coast Road'. Same old same old...
Oh sorry I think I nodded off there for a few minutes, but ahh I do start to see a pattern emerging with tracks 5, 6 and 7 all the same mid-paced instantly forgettable sound, which means that as with track 4, track 8 is the slow ballad placed to break the cycle, oh how interesting. However, and this may just be my good mood slowly being sucked out of me, this ballad, 'Looking For A Reason', doesn't feel as pure and lovely as the last ballad, and is merely a turgid and miserable Love Song. I have no worse fear in my life than having to listen to a miserable ballad in the form of a love song, so pathetic and self-pitying in its message that life ends when dumped by a girl, this is a low point. I hate this, 'I'm looking for a reason to live without you' is such a cloying pathetic mantra that I consider compiling a book of the 1001 best reasons to live life after the end of a relationship, unless you're such a pathetic little man that your whole life depends on such structures in which case please don't tell me about it. I just want to shake the guy and scream 'GET OVER IT, GET OVER IT', but fortuantly he's not here so I don't. Oh I just realised why some of my nerves were convulsing, ha who says that body cells can't remember, because every nerve in my body is suddenly trying to burrow deep into the sanctuary of my gut and hide, as yes, they all remember the travesty that was Cast, and this sounds like Cast.
Somehow it gets worse and the next track is another pathetic love ballad, self-pitying, and if someone wrote this for me then I'd shoot them just to put them out of their misery. Yep, definately Cast, this really is not a good afternoon for me. I feared this album would have its share of ballads, hence the reason I hate full albums by this type of band, formulaic, predictable and thus thouroughly miserable. I mean maybe I'd enjoy The Afternoons a lot more if I just listened to their singles, because I can predict exactly what is coming where on this album, it does everything routinely, but without any spark, without that magic dust, that thing you can't put your finger on but which makes good pop music FUN and full of life. Predicting what will come where just makes the ordeal of listening to this album even more depressing.
I am bored. Desperate to press skip, or fall asleep, or put my fingers in my ears, but some sort of self-agrandising delusion to journalistic integrity convinces me not to.
PLEASE END! The only consolation is knowing that I will never have to listen to these last two tracks again, as the boredom will either drive me crazy and to suicide or I will programe my mind to forever remember the notion of 'skip'.
But for now the first option is winning out, as I am subjected to yet another fucking turgid ballad. I can't help but think of the word 'losers' but realise that is such a pointless and unconstructive thing to say, plus it sounds fucking American, although my body is starting to convulse and I start to forget about notions of right and wrong and am merely working on 'survival' mode. I detest bands who fill the second half of albums with this kind of boring shit. I find it offensive, it's like they're personally insulting me. The album should really come with some sort of government health warning attached to the cover, 'boredom may lead to suicide'.
This really is a slog, what insipid boring mush, my ears are pissed off with my head, my brain is just thankful this crap takes so little effort to register and reject, and my eyes have some sort of white dots forming in front of them.
Yep, the first ballad was beautiful, the three I've just been exposed to, the three in a row, the three ballads, my God three ballads, well these are formulaic, lifelessness masqurading as sincerity. At least this last of the three, 'You Are', builds up at the end into an almost flourish, with high 'do dada' backing vocals, lovely piano, gorgeous strings, some great slidey guitar work, and a refreshing brass motif, which all works to keep me sane, it's so almost interesting.
Wow by this point I'm actually glad to return to the regular mid-paced numbers, this one, 'In Flames', sounds like The Coral, but boring. I had high hopes at the start of the album and even enjoyed it for a while, but as I near the end and it drags on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on (sorry, but welcome to my world) I just can't help but realise how bland it all is and this is sinking into my pores and making me so so tense. I've just checked the C.D. case to see that it's going to end soon and thank my God that it is, one more track and I beg for an end.
The last track, 'Canada Geese', fades in, falsetto vocals, pedalsteel guitar, and is something of a compromise between setting 1, mid-paced and setting 2, ballad, my God its almost as though they have a third gear but in reality it's a boring mix of both the previous. I don't want to hate this record and I feel so bad for disliking this band, I bet they're lovely nice people, it's just that I'm so bored, and blandness in music is my biggest bug-bare. The last track fades out, my C.D. player clicks, the C.D. whirs and spins, and yes, it's all over. That should not have been such an ordeal.
As I try desperately to remember any of that, I struggle except for some vague semblance of the first ballad.
In conclusion, we get about half an album of pretty, summery but vacous and unremarkable mid-paced guitar pop, a little less than half an album of insipid and pathetic balladic self-pity, and one moment of true beauty. I hate ballads so much, but strangely that's the only piece of sound I will take with me from this album, apart from the curiously satisfying sound of my teeth grinding. If the record company has any sense then that song, 'Fading Fast', will be that horribly routine third single, the inevitable slow one, and trust me nothing about this album does not conform to the ultra-routinised way of pop bands, so keep an eye out for the third single. Maybe, just maybe it'll get the exposure it deserves, and you can experience The Afternoons as a great band rather than tarnished like in my poor mind. Or alternatively, and I bet you kids are all way ahead of me technology wise, why don't you just burn 'Fading Fast' onto your ipods, I think burn is the right phrase. Oh who cares, I just want to find the first Ash album, which is how pop music is done well, though maybe the first Afternoons' album is equally great, and they evolved into a boring, pointless block in the same was that Ash have done. Maybe that first Afternoons' album is worth checking out, but in truth that risk requires a lot more effort than anything involving The Afternoons can rouse in me, so it's unlikely that I'll ever be inspired to bother. However that shouldn't stop you, and maybe you can tell me about it. So rather than take the chance personally I think I'll just chuck the good song into the middle of a mix tape of songs to listen to on balmy afternoons, perhaps. God I'm bored.
Ahh Ash...
'Oh yeah she was taking me over'
Oh by the way if anyone wants this C.D. then get in touch with me, I can't imagine listening to it a second time myself, however be warned that if you find Coldplay stimulating, this disc might cause you to be overcome with giddyness through over-excitment.
'Oh yeah it was the start of the summer'
Hmm yes it is sunshine music, just boring summer music, so go on just get your old Ash albums out.
'ohh ahh'
Oh its not bad, its just not very good either.
'ohh ahh'
Its just so much nothing. Now leave me alone to listen to some good pop music.
Review by Daniel Newman
linq.me.uk/theafternoons
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Right so this is your basic pop punk fare, you know Golf Records and Fat Records rather than Blink 182 and Good Charlotte, it has a slightly more palatable texture to it than the average chart fare. This probably comes from the music rather than the vocals. The music is good decent fun, beyond the usual chart pop punk inanity, it has clear influences from ska, some reggae and even some hardcore and Oi! stuff in there. Think somewhere along the lines of Less Than Jake, Goldfinger, MU330 and Rancid and you'll know it exactly. Although track 3, 'Space Fluid', is far and away the most interesting track by enhancing the punk thrash for a brilliantly restrained dub work out, featuring the arbitrary amounts of reverb; well that is until half-way through where it suddenly speeds up with fast vocals and double time drums, which just feels so damn uncomfortable that I'm glad I'm not watching them live as I'd feel bad when they saw my face cringe at the noise they're messing up.
The rest of the songs don't venture as far as the last, but that's fair enough, as it's obviously not experimentation they're doing, and there are loads of nice little touches that keep the interest up. However what really spoils this isn't the music, but the vocal. I can handle the childish lyrics and dumb concentration on sex that's also fair enough, really pop music should be about sex, and simple is the new complex...or something. No, the problem with the vocals is that Anonymous Tip seemingly come from South West London via California. My pet hate is when bloody British bands sing in American accents, for this look at almost every British pop punk and nu-metal band. The affected American accent is the most pathetic thing in music, just so dumb that it makes me angry. I mean the one time I can handle it is on the first two Idlewild albums, because, well Roddy was just an angry little creature, kind of cute, and anyway he grew out of it and realised that he was actually Scottish. By far and away the worst example of this Americanisation is the Lost Prophets, who come from the same Rhondda Valley as me, being from Pontypridd, however whenever Ian Watkin sings its an American accent, and even more stupid is the way that when he talks on stage he talks in an American accent. I don't have an American accent, and have probably watched as much dumb American kids T.V. as he has when I grew up, so it leaves me so damn angry to hear how fake he has to be, and at the pathetic little pretensions to being American that all these bands have; here's a new idea...be yourself, scary isn't it?
Anyway yes Anonymous Tip sing
in an annoying Californian accent which most people are probably so used
to pop punk bands singing in that they wouldn't even notice it to be a
total fake, it'd just be accepted. But just think about it for one second...South
West London; California, I'm not really stupid, they are quite far apart
aren't they?
Plus if I was being even more critical I'd slag off the way the singer,
hmmm his name is...ummm...lets see...oh it's lovely packaging by the way,
red and yellow, very pop-art...ummm...the singer is Sanj Surati, anyway
he seems hideously mis-cast as a pop punk singer considering that towards
the end of almost every song comes some ridiculous hard core scream which
just sounds like a complete joke in this context and is the type of silliness
that gives hardcore a bad name, i.e. it is shit.
But hey if you're in a good mood you might forgive the vocal problems of the band and just enjoy some simple dumb punk, that doesn't lack in energy or spirit at least. Me? I'm never in quite a good enough mood for this, my good mood stretches to Rancid and this pushes me a bit too far. So if you're happy and you know it, you might listen to this.
Review by Daniel Newman
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