Nite Songs

  "Listen up sweet child o'mine, have I got news for you/Nobody leaves this place alive, they'll die here, join the queue..."  - The Stone Roses , Breaking Into Heaven So welcome to a new series on Nite Songs. And yes, it's another retrospective column. In this one, we'll take a look at albums which, while the bands who made them haven't exactly been forgotten (if they had been then they'd be in Sounds From The Junkshop), seem to have been treated somewhat unkindly by history. And while it will lean a little bit on some of my personal experiences growing up where it has to, this is more about why these albums deserve a second listen and, just maybe, a re-evaluation. And unlike SFTJ this won't be confined to the nineties and noughties either (yes I know we haven't really dealt with the noughties yet on SFTJ but we will get there eventually!) as we look back through rock history through a bit of a wider prism. Anyway, starting us off, probably on

  "Drain my colour, leave me grey, there are too many moths around when I shine..." - Kenickie , How I Was Made , 1996 I like to think that somewhere out there is a parallel universe where Kenickie decided to weather the storm after their second album underselling and came back with a triumphant third effort similar to Ash's Free All Angels  which gave them the long-overdue commercial breakthrough they'd been waiting for. To this day, the band are still together putting out an album and touring every 2-3 years to an appreciative faithful in the Academy sized venues with Lauren Laverne, Marie du Santiago, Emmy-Kate Montrose and Johnny X now being well-respected veterans of the indie/glam community especially among the wave of female-dominated bands who followed in their wake in the early years of this version of the 21st century. I'd also like to think in said universe that the Stereophonics and Coldplay both apologised and went away some time around 2001 or so nev

  Hands up, although I’d heard of Death By Unga Bunga prior to this album (let’s be honest, a band name like that is kind of hard to ignore), this is my first encounter with these Norwegians’ actual music. And, by 'eck, it's a weird one. Hank Von Hell fronting Weezer? Green Day handing over songwriting duties to Electric Six? It's an odd 'un and no mistake but it's undeniably got the hooks to draw you in. If there's a touch of tongue-in-cheekness about opener Modern Man , it's easily ignored for its chantalong chorus and the stomping Egocentric  could almost be a much less obnoxious Blink 182. Not Like The Others  almost goes full on Cheap Trick/'80s Kiss style stadium rock before No Pain No Gain  goes off down spikier avenues you'd more readily associate with the Backyard Babies' good stuff or maybe the Hellacopters. Similarly,  Like Your Style  recalls the showmanship of Royal Republic but it's then followed by the Thin Lizzy twin-guitar in

  Okay so hands up, this isn’t exactly a new album. But after Deathtraps well and truly stole the show on last Saturday’s Singles Bar, I was determined to investigate the band a bit further and discovered that they released an album which just to say falls within our unofficial “no reviews of stuff that’s more than a year old” remit. So what the hell, let’s do it. Anyway, Stole Your Rock 'n' Roll  is Deathtraps' second album and right from the Erotics-style opener Fall Out Of Love  which takes aim at Internet attention seekers with lyrics like "Let's make a suicide pact and do it for a laugh/Let's use some naughty words, I'll be offended on your behalf" . It pretty much continues from thereon in with hints of everyone from the Hip Priests through Turbonegro and Motorhead to pre-shark jump Wednesday 13 on the likes of the self-explanatory Fuck The Cool Kids , the frenetic Blood Shots  and Backstabbing For Beginners  and the brilliantly scuzzy self-promo

  One of, if not the  all time greatest frontmen in rock 'n' roll, David Lee Roth remains one of those glorious characters who only come along once a generation if that in rock 'n' roll. Making his mark with Van Halen as the '70s turned into the '80s, Roth's gigantic personality combined with Eddie Van Halen's almost supernatural skill on the guitar and the rock solid rhythm section of Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen, would turn the band into world-beaters and international superstars and see the band put out a great run of six albums that would stand toe-to-toe with most other rock bands you could name. However, there was tension between Roth and Eddie right from the word go and in 1984-5 it finally spilled over and led to Roth leaving the band. While his former bandmates would hook up with ex-Montrose singer Sammy Hagar and move on to more smoothed-out MOR rock territory, Roth would assemble an all-star band comprising of Steve Vai on guitar, Billy

  Yup, we're back in the ring for a second swi(n)g at the Singles Bar this month. We've had a few mini-albums land in the review box this week so we thought we'd use this particular column to give 'em a spin. Enjoy... *** THE SPANGLES - “Boys Just Wanna Have Fun” Featuring various off-duty members of the Idol Dead and the Main Grains, the Spangles first came to our attention a couple of years ago with the excellent SweetFA  album and this four track covers EP featuring the band turning their hand to covering various female-fronted bands they look up to. Hence Joan Jett's Bad Reputation  is turned into a glorious Ramones style thrashy singalong and Kim Wilde's Chequered Love  has a nitro rocket strapped to its back to power it through. The group also take on the Bangles' Walk Like An Egyptian  (also covered by fellow Leodensians the Eureka Machines a few years back if memory serves me correctly) and turn it into a properly enjoyable romp while their cover of

  “Morning in the mirror, things will suddenly seem much clearer, I promise it’s alright...” - Lush , Lit Up , 1994 Similar to the Boo Radleys, who we covered on Sounds From The Junkshop last week, Lush are another band who'd been slogging it away on the indie circuit for years before suddenly changing with the times when Britpop came along and scoring a few hits before their career was suddenly and tragically ended. A whole group of fans with lank floppy hair suddenly averted their gaze from the floor to scream "SELL OUT!" at them at the time. Well screw you shoegazers, Lovelife  was Lush's best album and this week, I'm here to tell you why. I haven't really touched on shoegazing too much in the SFTJ entries so far because, to be honest, it's was always kind of the polar opposite end of the alternative music scene from the spiky indie-punk I listened to growing up. However, I did know at least a couple of other guys in my teens who really were into it an

  TV Priest seem to be gaining a reputation as ones to watch among the alternative music press - having released two highly acclaimed singles last year, they've recently signed to Sub Pop records and thus we now have their debut album. Similar to Idles or Girls In Synthesis, Uppers  is most definitely not an easy listen - opener The Big Curve  kicks in with a dischordant riff and some Mark E Smith indebted vocals and Press Gang follows a similar path with the lyrics veering from angry polemic to obtuse metaphor seemingly straight after each other. It continues much the same with the content varying from good stuff (the anti-Covid Journal Of A Plague Year and Slideshow 's skewering of idiotic keyboard warriors) to songs which frustratingly miss the mark like the sluggish Leg Room and the dull Fathers And Sons . The main issue I have with Uppers  is that, like it or not, there's an elephant in the room here and its name is  Ultra Mono . And, while I suspect that TV Priest are

  Well here's one we missed when it came out midway through last year. Hailing from London, Calling All Astronauts sound like some righteous cross between Ministry and Tones On Tail with the sledgehammer guitars and sinister electronica being pinned together with a vicious political invective to create something that's definitely intriguing. Songs like Unholy Trinity , Divided States Of America  and Give Them A Leader  take a well-focused aim at the fucked up state of the world at the moment. There's a definite hint of the Sisters of Mercy circa Vision Thing  here as well although CAA are much more overtly political than Eldritch and co ever were. And that's not a bad thing - it's quite a rare thing that you'll come across goth bands dipping their toes in these waters and it makes the likes of New World Disorder , Not In My Name  and Post-Truth World  feel just that bit more hard-hitting. Elsewhere, they train their lyrical guns on everything from vapid pop star

  Oh sod it, y'know what, I'm just gonna say it - yes I am a Queen fan and no I'm not ashamed. It's easy to see why they're a band who get a fair bit of stick, they were unashamedly pompous and overblown and...well, the less said about Brian May and Roger Taylor's attempts to keep the thing going since Freddie Mercury's untimely passing the better. But all that ignores that on their day, Queen were bloody good. Their six album run from their 1973 debut to 1977's News of the World  is one of the great runs of quality albums and even their efforts afterwards usually have at least a few classics in there to make them worth a listen. In Freddie Mercury they had one of rock's great showmen who could hold a crowd in the palm of his hand with consummate ease and had one of the  great rock voices of all time. Behind him, Brian May's superb guitar work and the ultra-tight rhythm section of John Deacon and Roger Taylor provided him with a formiable backing