The Nite Songs Singles Bar - September 2020 (part 1)

Another new feature! I know, who'd have thunk it eh? Anyway, there was a time when any self-respecting music mag would have a singles review section every week but, let's be honest, those days are pretty much long gone in 2020 with the Top 40 these days being so meaningless and irrelevant that it might as well count for the number of minidiscs you've sold in Outer Mongolia.

Nevertheless, there's still plenty of folks who are still stubbornly putting out singles either as stand alone releases or tasters for new albums and, y'know what, fair play to them. It's also fair to say that while I was taking a hibernation from music reviewing stuff there was a lot of singles piling up in my inbox and a lot of it deserved to be given some good press. So the original aim of this column was to kind of clear the decks and point you good people reading this blog towards some top tunes to make the lockdown a bit more bearable. And then I realised just how much of it there was and nearly had a coronary!

So the inaugural Singles Bar feature is going to be a two parter - look out for the second bit going up later tonight. In the meantime, hope everyone enjoys this and fingers crossed this’ll become a regular monthly (or possibly bi-monthly) feature on this blog going forward...

Anyway, where better to start the September singles reviews than...umm, a Christmas single from last year? We reviewed Beach Slang’s excellent The Deadbeat Bang Of Heartbreak City album on here earlier this week and Jolly Liver (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑), which you can download or stream from the group's Bandcamp page is a low-slung slice of Keef/Thunders scuzziness about spending Christmas in an alcoholic haze on the local skid row. Which, let’s be honest, is probably a depressingly plausible outcome for where we’ll all be in three months’ time the way the world’s going right now so get yer copy in early, have a bottle of rotgut on standby and enjoy.

It’s been way too long since we had a release from Chris Catalyst either on his own or with the Eureka Machines and I’m pleased to report that Happy (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕) is a good reminder as to why we’ve missed him so much while he’s been away. A big skyscraping Beatles-esque singalong with poignant lyrics about staying true to yourself and not trying to live up to the impossible standards set by the people on your television screen, this is great stuff, maybe one of the best things he’s ever done. B-side Dreams is a good ‘un as well, building from a power-pop style beginning to a big apocalyptic wall of guitars to finish off. What more can I say, go download the bugger!

The Empty Page are another band who’d been fairly quiet in recent years since their enjoyable debut album Deeply Unlovable a few years back with guitarist Giz making waves elsewhere with the excellent Death Blooms. So it was good to see them back last year with the vicious ode to smalltown psychosis When The Cloud Explodes. However, the vitriol on that was nothing compared to their most recent release You’re Tame/He’s Very Good At Swimming  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕) which might be the heaviest thing they've done to date, a double dose of pure venom with Kelii really spitting pure rage out for both tracks - the former a diatribe against worker drones who are too institutionalised to break out of their daily routine and the society that spawns these attitudes and the latter a white hot scream of rage about the case of an American straight-A student whose college tried to get him off rape charges on account of the fact that he was a star member of their swimming team and the sort of sick society that even conjures up an environment where something as fucked up as this happens. Essential listening - you can download or stream from the Empty Page's Bandcamp page.

It's always good to hear some new material from the warped minds of Saint Agnes and recent months have seen them release two new EP's, one originals and one covers. "The Family Strange" (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗) sees them building nicely on the sound that made up their fantastic debut album Welcome To Silvertown (go and buy it if you haven't so far) with the twisted groove of Daughter of Lucifer giving way to the almost playground chant like And They All Fall Down which sees Kitty Austen almost rapping over the writhing guitar line as does the intense Brother before the sinister gothy The Meanest Little Kid In Town guides this one to a decidedly unsettling conclusion. You can download it from the Saint Agnes Bandcamp page if you want to investigate further and I really think you should...

By contrast, the group's covers EP The Quarantine Diaries (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) was recorded remotely by the group in isolation with the group kicking things off with a hypnotically sinister take on Nancy Sinatra's Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) before taking a sledgehammer to Lana del Ray's West Coast and Lorde's Green Light to devastating effect before an ultra-intense frenetic take on Grinderman's No Pussy Blues and Nine Inch Nails' Wish. I think it's safe to say that only Saint Agnes could cover these five songs and make all of them sound like artists who they owe a debt to in their sound which is also a big part of what makes them such a unique and awesome band.

Ryan Hamilton & The Harlequin Ghosts’ new album will have been released by the time you read this and we’ll have a review up on here once we’ve worked our way through our current backlog we promise lads! In the meantime we’ve got taster single Can I Get An Amen? (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) to get our teeth into at Ryan's Bandcamp page and it’s a most enjoyable slice of laid back countrified power pop with a sly sense of humour underpinning the lyrics which bodes well for what’s to come. The B-side sees them turning their attention to a cover of Duran Duran’s Ordinary World with Ryan’s plaintive vocals making the track work well. I’d have loved to have heard them give this the acoustic treatment as they have done with a few past cover versions but this one definitely works well enough.

Hamilton has also put out a solo EP, Incommunicado (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) during the lockdown recorded in isolation in Texas and this shows off more of the countrified side of his output. Opener Independence Day could almost be Nebraska era Springsteen with its tale of dark family secrets in smalltown America while Heads Carolina Tails California is a simple heartfelt ode to hitting the road and leaving your troubles behind. Grandpa (Tell Me 'Bout The Good Old Days) is an ode to longing for a simpler time which just to say stays on the right side of twee before the Tom Petty style melodies of EP highlight Two Sparrows In A Hurricane wind this one up nicely. With less of the studio shine of Hamilton's albums, there's a stripped-back charm to this EP that you'd have to be pretty cold-hearted not to be warmed by. Good stuff.

Tony Wright has been keeping himself busy with some enjoyable online gigs during the lockdown and the erstwhile Terrorvision frontman’s new single Self-Isolation Blues (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) is a harmonica honking slice of countrified angst (not entirely dissimilar to his excellent Grand Ole Otley collaboration album with the aforementioned Ryan Hamilton actually) which takes a surprisingly affecting look at the weird times we currently find ourselves in. Definitely well worth a listen - you can stream or download from Tony's Bandcamp page.

One group who've definitely been making hay while the sun has been shining and the world in general has been stuck indoors wishing they could get out and enjoy it are The Urban Voodoo Machine who've put out a brace of new singles during this time period. Johnny Foreigner (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑), which came out in the dying days of last year (and is backed by the enjoyable instrumental Chat Noir Bop), sees the group railing with righteous fury against the hostile environment that the last decade of Tory governments have been quietly encouraging to an almost ragtime waltz style backing - a depressingly apt anthem for these dark times. Living In Fear (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑), which followed during the spring and again sees them railing against the politics-for-dummies rhetoric racist rhetoric of goons like Priti Patel and Nigel Farage, sees them going down an almost samba/calypso route with a sly lyrical nod to the Sex Pistols' God Save The Queen thrown in for good measure. Good stuff and another much needed call to arms in this depressing environment.

Voodoos frontman Paul-Ronney Angel has also put out a solo single in recent weeks, One Ghost Town (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑), which sees him revisiting the sort of desolate Wild West style laments that the Voodoos have done so well on songs like Rather You Shot Me Down, but again with a serious and angry political message behind it. "The government failed yet again/They're a joke you can trust" snarls Angel and you can't help but nod in agreement. Good stuff.

I first encountered Land Sharks via their Rock-a-Lips EP last year through various Wildhearts loving mates. Featuring Mike and Steve from Embrace plus the unmistakable vocals of Mikey from Mr Shiraz, their undoubtedly Faith No More influenced offerings came across, to me at least, as the sound of a group of undeniably talented musicians who were still kind of getting used to playing in the same group. However, I’m happy to report that their new EP Dancing In The Fire (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) is a much more immediate beast with the songs fair leaping out at you. At their best such as on the title track and Tip Not Serve, they sound like what might happen if Mike Patton dosed up Andrew WK on a near-lethal dose of LSD and horse tranquilliser and then set him loose to play a gig in front of an unsuspecting audience. Pretty damn good in other words. See for yourself by streaming or downloading it from the Land Sharks Bandcamp page

Similar to Ryan Hamilton, Italian old-skool glam merchants Faz Waltz are another group who we've currently got an album waiting in the review pile for and which will hopefully be up on this 'ere site soon enough. In the meantime we've got a taster single in the form of Grown Up Guy/C'mon Liar (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) to share with you on here. True to form, the A-side is a Slade style stomper with strutting guitar and a solid rhythm that'll put a spring in your step while you're listening to it walking to/from work while the B-side owes a slight debt in its sound to Jumping Jack Flash era Stones which is never a bad thing. Faz Waltz are definitely a band who should be better known over here than they are and this single is a good indicator of why. Give it a spin at the Faz Waltz Bandcamp page.