Nite Songs

  Ahh welcome back to the Nite Songs Singles Bar dear reader. Take a chair, pull up a glass and let's see what we've got on the menu here for October... Well, it looks like the big hitters are out in force this month as  The Damned of all people have a new EP out in the form of The Rockfield Files (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑). Having been a bit disappointed by their Evil Spirits album a couple of years back, I was a little bit apprehensive going into this one but it's actually decent enough with opening track Keep 'Em Alive  sounding like a punked up Pink Floyd of all things (or like an out-take from the excellent Strawberries  album which was also recorded at the titular studio back in the early '80s). Manipulator  meanwhile is a faster number with an agreeable woah-oh-oh  hook line and some strong vocals from Dave Vanian while Spider & The Fly  starts off with a sinister piano-led intro harking back to the band's mid-'80s goth phase before going into a driving g...

  "Oh let's just pretend we're human beings for a while/Maybe chronic shyness could drive us to a smile..."  - Kingmaker, Queen Jane , 1993 Kingmaker...god, the poor buggers. Here's the thing about Kingmaker - they were essentially nailed from the get-go as a poor man's Wonder Stuff by pretty much everybody and it meant that when the tide started to turn against that brand of music with Britpop starting to stir, they were very much the first band in the firing line and really copped it with both barrels. Did they deserve it? Hell no. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. It's easy to forget that in the wake of the Sisters of Mercy, the Cult and (to a lesser extent) New Model Army all graduating to the proper grown-up charts that Yorkshire was a bit of a musically barren place as the ‘80s turned into the '90s. While across the Pennines, Madchester was in full swing, the only bands we really had coming up over here who were getting any press of note ...

  There's no doubt that Sparks have definitely enjoyed something of a career renaissance in recent years. Their previous album, 2017's excellent Hippopotamus  saw them enjoying their first UK Top 10 album for well over 30 years and it was deserved as it was one of their strongest efforts in recent memory. The Mael brothers have always been experts at constructing slightly warped and wonderful pop music and the Beatles-y opener All That  is a good example - the sort of song that would have easily been a chart hit if the singles chart still meant anything these days. Likewise the demented glam stomp of I'm Toast  which starts off with a great typical Sparks lyric "Started at the top/Then I had a drop/Then a further drop..."  And let's face it, any band which can rhyme Lawnmower  with Andover definitely deserve your attention. But then I guess song titles like Stravinsky's Only Hit  (as gloriously demented as its title suggests you'll be pleased to know) ...

  I have to be honest, the initial omens for this, the second album by London sleaze-rock stalwarts Neon Animal since they evolved from their former incarnation of Bubblegum Screw, weren’t overly promising. I mean, look at that album cover fer fook’s sake! Somewhere out there is a Swedish hair metal band from 2005 or so that wants its artwork idea back I reckon... Hold yer horses though because you definitely shouldn’t judge this book (or rather album) by its cover. Neon Animal are one of those bands who seem to have been slowly improving album by album since that first Bubblegum Screw album a decade or so ago and Make No Mistake is comfortably their strongest showing to date, finally achieving that scummy Stooges-meets-Dolls nirvana that they seem to have been aiming for since day one. Right from the feral call to arms of superb opener Rock ‘n’ Roll War , this is the sound of a band firmly firing on all cylinders as if they’ve properly worked out their strengths and are well and ...

  In which Nottingham's premier filth wizards follow up their 2017 odds 'n' sods compilation Those Fuckin' Boys  with a collection of the random stuff they've put out since then away from their excellent Stand For Nothing  album from last year. The Priests have always been an incredibly productive band and the 17 tracks on Solid Gold Easy Option  show exactly why they've got such a rabid following. Tunes like Scene Is A Crime  and Shithead Emperor  see them ferociously taking aim at the "play it safe" mediocrity that comprises a depressing amount of modern music while covers of Motorhead's The Hammer  and the Stooges' Loose  show off their influences well as does the short sharp shock brutality of All My Rowdy Friends , a tribute to their heroes who are no longer with us. They're far from a one trick pony though and the almost Mott the Hoople style swagger of She's A Queen  shows they can switch the pace up as well especially when you c...

“We are all together alone, and these are just wishes, and I am just dreaming...” - Voice of the Beehive, Perfect Place , 1991 So one week we're dealing with the scuzzy rock of Love/Hate on this column and the next it's the pure pop of Voice of the Beehive. Well, say what you like about Sounds From The Junkshop but you can't say we don't vary things up on here... It's rare that you'll see a pop band that you get into as a 9-year-old who'll stick with you through your teens and who you still listen to some 30-odd years later but Voice of the Beehive definitely fall into that category and that's why I think they're definitely a justified choice for a SFTJ column. Indeed, the group actually had their origins in the indie scene of the mid-'80s putting their first single, the lovely languid  Just A City  out on Food records, then a tiny indie run by ex-Teardrop Explodes man Dave Balfe and also the home of the likes of Zodiac Mindwarp (who co-wrote th...

  Lucy & The Rats have been staples of the London power-pop/garage rock scene for a few years now and they offer a more mid-paced melodic take on the formula. Their self-titled debut album, while a little bit patchy in places, showed a band with plenty of potential and on the evidence of Get Lucky , their sophomore effort, they're continuing to progress nicely. Once you realise that this band are closer to the pure pop of bands like the Records than the spiky pop-punk of the Buzzcocks or similar, their sound is actually pretty pleasant to listen to with the likes of September , Real Thing  and Not One Tear  having the sort of irresistably sweet melodies that you can't help but be drawn in by. Ironically, it's when they try to up the tempo on Pinch Myself  that they sound weakest (though I'm sure it's nothing a bit of practice wouldn't sort out). There's a sweet rough-around-the-edges Television Personalities style DIY charm to Get Lucky  as well as evide...

  The Speedways' debut album Just Another Regular Summer  was one of the standout debut releases of 2018 and the band's blurb at the time stated the group would be a one album one gig and done affair. Of course, when your songs pick up the praise they subsequently did, it's maybe not a surprise that they decided to re-evaluate and so here in 2020 we find ourselves with a second album from the London power-pop group. All in all, Radio Sounds  is pretty much a straight continuation of the band's debut and the influences here are as you'd expect - the Buzzcocks ( The Day I Call You Mine ), the Ramones ( In A World Without Love, It's Hard To Stay Young ) and the Undertones ( Number Seven ) all get a tip of the hat here. But the group have enough of a knack with a catchy chorus and killer hook that it's easy to overlook the similarities and enjoy the songs for what they are. There's the odd curveball in here too to keep things interesting from the Spectoresqu...

  Well, this is a bit different. Formed Eden House singer Louise Patricia Crane's debut album is described by the press release blurb as being a mixture of '80s dream pop (good) and '70s prog rock (erm, no comment). But the truth is that (to these ears at least) this owes more than anything to late '80s goth (ie when bands like the Mission and the Sisters of Mercy started to up their production budgets away from the movement's skeletal sounding origins). And you know what? That's alright with me. Opening song Deity reminds me of the Banshees (somewhere circa Peepshow  or Superstition  if you want a specific point) with Crane's vocals definitely sounding like Siouxsie Sioux with maybe a small hint of All About Eve's Julianne Regan in the mix as well. The tribal drums and chanting vocals of Snake Oil which recall the Banshees' Kiss Them For Me  continues the vein well while the folk-tinged  Painted World  and Ophelia  could easily be early All About Ev...

  "Don't ask me why things are the way they are - they just are..." - Love/Hate, Wasted In America  (1992) This has been one of the weirdest SFTJ's I've put together so far. Following the previous column on the Dogs D'Amour, I thought it'd be fun to take a bit more of a look at my teenage metalhead phase and dig up a few memories. The trouble really was finding one band to centre it around - as I've mentioned in previous SFTJ's, in between first seeing the sheer savage glory of AC/DC's Thunderstruck  video on the ITV Chart Show as an 11-year-old and kind of finally settling in as a Wildhearts/Terrorvision/Therapy? fan (which, let's be honest, is pretty much the ground I've occupied ever since when it comes to this sort of music) three or four years later, I ended up taking more than a few turns down various metal back roads with varying degrees of success. Short of calling this particular column "Confessions of a Teenage Metalhead...

 While they may not be quite as well known over here in dear old Blighty as their fellow countrymen Giuda, I would say that Faz Waltz are actually marginally the better of the two leading lights of Italian bootboy glam rock. Their last album, 2018’s Double Decker , was one of the surprise triumphs of the year, mixing the traditional Slade/Sweet glam stomp of this genre with a dash of Kinks/Small Faces style ‘60s pop to good effect. Rebel Kicks is pretty much a straight continuation of its predecessor with lead off single Grown Up Guy being a Slade style stomper, the title track sounding like Mott the Hoople covering Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting and Got Me Goin’ being a good three minutes of T-Rex indebted flamboyance. You do worry a bit with Broken Teeth and Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Tough that Faz Waltz are starting to repeat themselves a bit but the Steve Harley style piano ballad of Do You Remember? chucks in a welcome change of pace just in the nick of time before the sw...

  Duncan Reid & The Big Heads' Bombs Away  was one of the standout albums of 2017, taking the promise of its two predecessors and really fine-tuning the power-pop formula to excellent effect. Since then, they've gone through a slight line-up shift with guitarist Mauro Venegas leaving amicably and subsequently resurfacing in the Speedways to be replaced by former New Device/Yo-Yo's/Role Models man Nick Hughes. I'm pleased to report though that the change doesn't seem to have done them much harm as songs like For All We Know , Little Miss Understood  and To Live Or Live Not  keep up the pure sunshine pop of their predecessor going in fine style, both written about seizing the day while you can. Likewise, he Monkees-referencing  Ballad of a Big Head is pure '60s pop and a real joy to listen to. It's far from a one-trick pony though as Motherfucker  takes a well-earned swipe at the entitled bastards in government currently running this country into the grou...

  Stalwarts of the London scuzz-rock scene, it'd probably be fair to say that Zen Motel are also one of the most hardy groups out there and have been steadily plugging away for close on two decades now. Obviously such a long lifespan has entailed some periods of instability and Even A Horse That's Waiting To Be Glue Needs A Little Sugar Too  dates from between the band's second album, 2007's Stations of the Dead  and its 2010 follow-up We Want Your Blood . According to frontman Lee Wray, it simply took the band over a decade to finish it, possibly because of their line-up going through an almost total change during this period although a few tracks have surfaced on other EP releases or as bonus tracks. Even A Horse...  (sorry lads but I'm not typing that title out in full every time!) is a good showcase of Zen Motel at their scummiest and snottiest, sounding like a righteous three-way clash between Poison Idea, Turbonegro and the Replacements. While Soul On Fire , D...

  Ah the memories. Silver Sun were the great should've-been band of the mid-'90s. Taking the '70s Cheap Trick style power-pop formula and giving it a liberal dose of Britrock meatiness, they should have in an ideal world coasted to Top 20 stardom in the wake of the Wildhearts and Terrorvision, both of whom they definitely owed a sly debt in their sound to (although with their own spin on the formula obviously). Instead, they were lumped in with Britpop whose retro footy shirt clad laddishness never really suited them, and when that ship went down in 1998 or so they quickly found themselves sunk. They never officially split up though and frontman James Broad has continued to put releases out under the Silver Sun name with various collaborators old and new in the 20 years since with Switzerland  being their sixth album no less. It kicks off in fine style too with Earth Girls Are Easy  (a tribute to the cornball '80s musical film of the same name) sounding like some great ...

  Lucifer Star Machine seem to be one of those bands who've been plugging away on the circuit since time immemorial. The last time I encountered these German rockers was way back in 2013 with their Rock 'n' Roll Martyrs  album which sounded like some righteously unholy collision between Motorhead, Turbonegro and the Hip Priests and was fine stuff indeed. However, on The Devil's Breath , they seem to have taken an unexpected turn into more melodic territory. While vicious opener The Void  seems to kick in just as heavy as they always did with the Eddie Clarke/Phil Campbell style speedfreak riffing, elsewhere it seems as though they've gone off in an almost pop-punk direction such as on Dwell In Misery , El Camino Real  and Baby, When You Cry  taking them into more Volbeat-esque territory (even using keyboards in places). Nowt wrong with that, I like Volbeat as well as it happens, but somehow it feels as if they've sacrificed the rawness that was their main sellin...

  Back in the mid-'90s, Baby Chaos (along with Kerbdog) seemed to be the perennial support band whenever a Britrock band you liked came to town and I've got memories of seeing them supporting both the Wildhearts and Terrorvision back in the day. After two good but sadly underappreciated albums (1994's Safe Sex, Designer Drugs And The Death Of Rock 'n' Roll  and 1996's Love Your Self-Abuse ), they were dropped by their record label (EastWest natch) and mutated into the more indie-oriented Deckard for two further albums (again, well worth a listen if you should encounter them) before returning to the Baby Chaos moniker around a decade ago and putting out a more restrained comeback album Skulls Skulls Skulls, Show Me The Glory  which sounded more like a reined-in Muse than anything (not necessarily a bad thing mind). To be honest, it's a bit difficult to listen to the 21st century version of Baby Chaos without thinking of Muse mainly due to the similarity betwe...