The Nite Songs Singles Bar - February 2021 Part 2 - EP’s and Mini-Albums

 

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 Transvision Vamp's I Want Your Love captures the sleazy energy of the original perfectly.

Covers EP's are always risky business but fair play to 'em, the Spangles have well and truly aced this and Boys Just Wanna Have Fun is an absolute riot from start to finish. Bring on that second album.

Bandcamp link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

***

THOSE FUCKING SNOWFLAKES - “Everything Is Absolutely Fkkkkd”

Hailing from Blackpool and signed to Louder Than War Records, Those Fucking Snowflakes are another of those post-Idles angry political post-punk bands. Similar to the likes of Dead Sheeran though, while their music may be somewhat off-kilter, their political anger is very much front and centre and it's this which makes what could have been an obtuse and unlistenable EP actually pretty worthwhile.

From the Boris-bashing Uncooperative Crusties via the well-aimed takedown of Dominic Cummings that is By The Power Of Barnard Castle and the anti-fracking tirade Caudrilla Can Fuck Right Off to the brilliantly named vitriol aimed at Robinson and Farage that is Mendacious Meddling Milkshake Recipient, Those Fucking Snowflakes bring to mind the strange image of Jello Biafra fronting Gang of Four and I have to say it's not an unpleasant sound at all. Like I say, it would have been very easy for this EP to sink into either outright unlistenability or to simply be lost in the post-Idles tidal wave a la TV Priest but these guys more than hold their own and Everything Is Absolutely Fkkkkd is well worth a listen.

Bandcamp link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

***

THE VAINGLORIOUS - “Delirium Tremens”

Hailing from London, the Vainglorious are the latest musical project of former Glitterati and Dedwardians and current Desperate Measures and Rich Ragany & The Digressions guitarist Michael "Gaff" Gaffney. I have to admit that this wasn't what I was expecting from him but the boy done good.

Opening track One More Lie is actually a tuneful slice of melodic rock complete with keyboards but it has a big soaring chorus not unlike Gaff's Digressions bandmate Rags which well and truly carries it through. A Common Mistake is similarly mid-paced and melodic before the dark You'd Die For No-One sounds like Nevermind era Nirvana covering Ride's Unfamiliar but there's no denying it works before the chugging riff of Senseless, the heaviest track on here, signs this one off well.

Gaff's done a good job here and it proves that as well as being a skilled guitarist that he's a dab hand at songwriting as well. Delirium Tremors is definitely well worth checking out.

Bandcamp link

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A brief return from the dead...

Image
  Yup, we're back. Don't all get excited at once. I’d been toying with the idea of doing an end of year list again this year and after a lot of umming and aahing eventually decided to go for it. As with last year, inevitably there were bumps along the way. As of the start of December, I thought this list would be around 40 albums but inevitably reading other people’s lists pointed me towards a bunch of stuff that had passed me by earlier in the year. Plus of course there’s always a few teasing buggers who put stuff out at the last possible moment. So 40 became 50 which became 60 which finally became 70. You lucky people. Actually though, reading through this list, the main thing that strikes me is that I think this might be the most musically varied end of year list that Nite Songs has ever done. From gentle acoustics through acclaimed indie veterans to punk thrash and good old fashioned scuzzy rock ‘n’ roll via some decidedly unexpected diversions (industrial folk music? Check...
Read more

Garbage Days Revisited #90: Soho Roses - "The Third And Final Insult" (1989)

Image
  "If you won't love me then I'll find someone who will!"  - Soho Roses  - So Alone The Soho Roses were a classic case of right band, wrong time. If they'd broken on to the scene in the last few years then they'd have had a ready made audience on the 21st century power pop scene and probably be regulars at Some Weird Sin and similar club nights in the Smoke. The reality? They broke through towards the tail end of the '80s and got lumped in with the dying embers of the Soho glam scene, leaving behind one sadly underappreciated album and a few EP's before self-combusting. In a way, I sort of see the Roses as a British version of Enuff Z'Nuff. Not so much in terms of their sound but more of the fact that they were a group crowbarred in with glam who weren't really a natural fit there and kind of paid the price for it - I've always thought Enuff Z'Nuff sounded more like a Britpop band with flashbomb guitars than a hair metal band. Oh sure, ...
Read more

Album Review: The Fades - "Night Terrors"

Image
  Hailing from South London, the Fades are gaining a reputation of one of the premier garage rock bands in the capital these days and, as with a few albums we've reviewed in these webpages of late, Night Terrors  was written during the lockdown as it was a recurring feature of life for the band's frontman Dave during the lockdown. As befits its title and subject matter, Night Terrors  is an off-kilter effort which might take a few listens to get into but rewards those who persevere with it. Certainly, the discordant vocals and guitars often give the impression of the whole operation being on the verge of collapse on the likes of The Pessimist  and Known It All Along  while Lost My Job  goes into XTC/Nightingales style post-punk territory. However, the likes of People In General  show that they can rein the weirdness in and build up an intriguing multi-part epic which starts off as tuneful new wave before drifting into a nightmarish state-of-the-nation ...
Read more