Following hot on the heels of the Trash Dancefloor bothering ‘Oh Marie’, ‘Hold Up’ follows a somewhat darker route... allowing for consistencies of course. Matt Lord’s paranoid guitar lines still blast like an unholy symphonic movement written out in blooood, Liz Neumayr’s vocals are still cut like wire and of course we mustn’t forget the importance of the drums (as so many always do), they are exhibited here in glorious er... sound (where’s the thesaurus when you need it ay?). As this band have told me before, they abhor any notion of scenes or comparisons, so I won’t mention that 'Hold Up' sounds somewhat like the Birthday Party haunting the toilets of CBGB’s with Ari Up of the Slits in tow. Sterling work.

Review by James Williams
www.ladyfuzz.com
Watch the video for 'Oh Marie' on our downloads page or read an interview here
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A fairly modest name disguises the ‘somewhere between scuzzy lo-fi bedroom folk, wiry angular rock and bleepy experimental electronica. With melodies’ music that this chap crafts - that’s you told. The description is in fact very accurate and gives away more than some less than specific banners that float around. In a day and age where originality is highly sought after but rarely achieved, Jeremy Warmsley may just be onto something. What is slightly worrying is how one solitary soul can transfer all of this scuzzy lo-fi bedroom folk, not to mention the wiry angular rock and the bleepy experimental electronica onto the stage. It does appear, however, that Jeremy does leave his bedroom fairly frequently to peddle his wares in the live arena, which, let’s face it, is what it’s all about (the speed at which festivals sell out these days is more than enough evidence of this). Having never witnessed this spectacle, it remains to be seen whether this music transfers well or is best kept in the bedroom. Interested parties can sample Mr Warmsley via a single, I Believe in the Way you Move, released on June 8th. I would urge a listen of '5 Verses' if it can be tracked down. The best bet for this seems to be at one of his many live performances.

Review by Holly Wild
www.jeremywarmsley.com
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Highly seductive and wickedly sexual, this song simply oozes from the stereo, with a long cigarette in one hand and a glass of straight whiskey in the other. It crawls along the carpet, sits at your feet and stares pleadingly up at you as if it needs to try and win you over, when in truth it had you with the first slur of black leather that left it's mouth.

Coming over part Nico part Françoise Hardy, this tune has a snaky shuffle and teasing dance in the music which respectfully allows centre stage to the narrator and her story of the girl who likes to wear black leather late at night. The double bass slithers and slides, the guitar pokes at you with it's restrained stabs and the snare keeps the rhythm and paints the picture of shadows dancing on the wall.

It's nothing revolutionary, nothing new, and as soon as it starts you know it exactly what its going to do, but that doesn't stop it endearing itself to you. Endear it does, as in it's arrogant, knowing swagger it has far greater charm than it should, and all you can do is subtly shake your hips to the rhythm, until before you know it its all over. Damn, that always happens.

No matter, it deserves another listen, but maybe I'll save it until late at night which I just know is its true setting.

Review by Daniel Newman
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Fleeing New York-indeed they should be; the opening bars of the first track of this double A-side offer just a little bit of in your face Strokes nostalgia. This is somewhat watered down by the increasingly fashionable boy-girl vocal that continues throughout the track, inducing a whole host of contemporary garage rock ‘New Yoik’ style comparisons. Second track At Night follows a similar, well trodden, indie rock path. However, the initial disappointment of unoriginality fades as the tunes provide a level of satisfaction, in the way that familiarity tends to do. Undoubtedly the best thing to come out of Southampton (at least since Craig David).

Review by Holly Wild
www.fleeingnewyork.com
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This brilliant slice of taut, well orchestrated garage rock from all female band The Suffrajets is a million miles away from drummer Gemma Clarke's other job as skin thumper for Babyshambles. It open's with a bitingly trenchant blues riff before all hell breaks loose peaking with an apocalyptic, percussion heavy, drums and guitar breakdown. Vocally it's a bit predictable with Alex Gillings singing like a caustic early 90's Riot Grrrl and it lacks that magic hook which would give it a bit of crossover appeal but otherwise this rocks really hard indeed!

Review by James Finlay
www.thesuffrajets.com
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Angular and jagged rock from Leicester, with a poise and grace that perfectly compliments the anger and aggression at work. This two track C.D. has the perfect balance of angst and style to leave us with two perfectly formed bile drenched songs; they beg to be turned up loud and jumped around to.

A strained and impassioned vocal works alongside wonky guitar lines and intricate drum patterns, emerging as a coherent whole leaping from the speakers. There's a real energy behind the storming noise, which is mostly carried in the drums with rapid fire snare work and bouncy paradiddles. Well I think they're called paradiddles as camp and silly as that word sounds, and all I really mean is that there's loads of fiddly stuff going on.

A lovely little noise then, for fans of Biffy Clyro or Hell Is For Heroes, only less whiny and stronger than both. Hence also better, and well worth checking out for a bit of noisy anger therapy.

Review by Daniel Newman
www.queenmarysrevenge.com
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It would be too easy to say that Emiliana Torrini is just another female singer-songwriter from the crowd that seem to have been surfacing in increasing numbers of late, but without getting all ‘girl-power’, it’s about time that female artists started getting a bit more attention. Maybe they can undo some of the damage that Dido has done to their reputation. Unfortunately it seems that some of the initial buzz surrounding Torrini is beginning to fade. This is entirely unjust and 'Sunny Road' is a good example of the subtle yet interesting acoustic gems that she serves up.

Review by Holly Wild
www.emilianatorrini.com
Watch Emiliana Torrini videos on our downloads page
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The start of this single is dirrrtyy. And I mean low, gritty guitar, and a nice deep bass line. The song itself stays on a loop, and it certainly isn’t pushing any boundaries – but it is a different, slightly rockier sound for Ambulance ltd. What I like about these guys though, is their lyrics. Oh I do love a good lyric. ‘Relax, don’t think about the way I treat you’ croons lead singer Marcus Congleton: ‘I really want you, and you really want to’. Ambulance Ltd still sound cute though, so ladies, don’t worry.

Review by Anna Bosworth
www.ambulanceltd.co.uk
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What with people like Devandra Banhart and The Earlies currently twisting folk music into weird new forms, the Great Indoors couldn't have timed their demo any better. However one listen to this Brighton based band's CD suggests that they've been honing their brand of bewitching homespun folk for a while now, and it's just good luck that finds them currently surrounded by like-minded musical peers.

While the new breed of folkies rely on quirky-ness and innovation, the Great Indoors produce a more classic sounding style, akin to a later-period Gorky's being fronted by Mick Head from Shack. The first track, 'Herbert and George', is a wistful summery paean to longing and lost love. Lead singer Brendan intones bittersweet phrases like "something happened, we stopped sending letters" and "she's looking right through me at you" in a worldly voice that invokes a lifetime of melancholy but still maintains a sense of sunny optimism. The second track 'Grace' is more of the same, this time buoyed by a lonesome cello, while the devotional 'Portrait' has a triumphant chorus that finds Brendan declaring his partner's "raven hair" and "limitless love" over a Beatlesy strum.

Aside from the vocals, what sets this band apart is the work of multi-instrumentalist Alex Forster, who adds a subtle eclecticism using banjos, cellos, plucked violins, choppy electric guitar, and some unidentified instruments that sound like they probably haven't been played since medieval times. His contributions colour every track here and save things from becoming a little too traditional. All in all, the Great Indoors have produced a demo of perfect rural English folk pop which will be a fitting soundtrack to the upcoming balmy evenings. The last track's chorus goes "I've been singing this song all summer long"- give this demo half a chance and you probably will be too.

Review by Ian Viggars
www.greatindoorstheband.com
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Manchester's Earl are treading a difficult and lonely path here with this production heavy dance-rock effort. The problem is, Earl don't seem to know how they want to sound (Garbage-esque synth pop, Balearic metal, etc) and the end result is quite simply a mess. They've gone for a big, spectral, club friendly pop production, underpinned it with metal guitars and laid on an irritating pseudo-punky vocal that sounds a bit like that woman from Republica. All in all a confused and uninspired effort.

Review by James Finlay
www.fatnortherner.com
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Review by Holly Wild
www.thefieryfurnaces.com
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The Duke Spirit are living breathing testament that being a veteran music journalist doesn’t necessarily mean that your bound to get it right when you decide to pack up your typewriter and brave it in the capricious world of the Independent which is what ex-NME hack and label boss Andrew Oldham has done. One of his first signings The Duke Spirit look every bit the part as all the other, anodyne, aesthetically correct magazine cover acts out there but fall to the wayside of underachieving predictability when it comes to the music. This latest offering is your usual Camden-lite indie rock affair with frontwoman Leila Moss telling us that 'Love Is An Unfamiliar Name' (eh?) in her best PJ Harvey voice. With so much similar fare to choose from these days The Duke Spirit will have to try much, much harder.

Review by James Finlay
www.dukespirit.com
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This is some big noisy rock music, containing shades of what I think Kerrang now call old school metal with chunking riffs the size of mountains, but with added specs of Rockabilly psycho fun and lovely old American garage punk. So yeah a bit of a mish-mash of noisy energy, but all set in place by a vocal that starts scarily like some wannabe Josh Homme, but soon evolves into an Iggy Pop style screecher, throwing his voice all around the rhythm section, straining and creating a whole new textured instrument, obviously climaxing in his wails and whoops, which is pure sexual energy the way that Iggy used to understand back in the early seventies.

As the C.D. progresses, the music loses it’s metal edges and becomes more wiry and jerky, with time changes, awkward instrumental sections and a guitar that wobbles around creating spindly clouds in the sky. Most crucially though , the voice actually develops and shows far more range than I’d expected, while the first track is all fast garage fare, the second track is a far more laid back Jim Morrison type drawl, all cool and delivered knowingly (only hopefully not by a fat pretentious drunken loser), and the third track is a mix of the two, alternating between the laid back stoned verses and an aggressive pick axe of a chorus. This guy can really scream well, I do love this voice, it does lots of fun stuff and really gives an added interest to the songs. So, as lazy as I am in comparing the voice to myriad other people, he does synthesise these and comes up with a working hybrid the other side that I think I'll call a bit unique.

That said, I’m still lazy enough to say that he combines the old Queens of the Stone Age dual vocals of lazy Josh and screamy Nick, only he does both far better and never makes me want to smack him, because he actually seems genuine and believable, not just going through the motions for effect.

My excuse for laziness is that it’s Monday morning and I’m still tired, but you have no excuse to be so lazy I’m sure, so ignore most of what I’ve said and just take it that this guy has a damn good range and is pretty exciting as he can shift between several types of delivery, always keeping the sound fresh, and properly expressing himself. Mostly, you should all remember that he’s much fun and sounds like sex, thus capturing the point of rock and roll. At least someone remembered.

So yes, great vocals, a real groove and shuffle to some of the music, and that which isn’t so smooth is just aggressive and really puts me on edge.

Hurrah! music that makes me excited! Definitely worth checking out, a crystallisation of the last fifty years of American alternative rock in three tracks, really is one to shout along to as you jump around your bedroom.

Can’t ask for much more can you?

No.

Review by Daniel Newman
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