Nite Songs

  And as promised, following on from the catch-up earlier today, here's the review of Matt Berry's new album. Although there's only been an eight month gap between Phantom Birds  and The Blue Elephant , the two couldn't be more different - while the former was a quite lovely collection of acoustic led torch songs, this album sees Berry going for a more '60s style psychedelic garage rock sound with instrumental interludes and all manner of instruments being chucked into the mix. Berry is on good form again here - the Doorsy Alone  and Summer Sun  which harks back to Ogden's Nut Gone Flake  era Small Faces. There's definitely a comparison to be made here with Chris Catalyst's excellent Life Is Often Brilliant  album from a few years ago in that it's the sound of a talented musician throwing everything into the pot and coming up with a deceptively addictive brew. There's a fair share of curveballs as well - just when you think you've got this pe

  And so Matt Berry joins King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Beans on Toast in that elite club of artists who've had two albums reviewed on Nite Songs in the same day. We'll be dealing with his new album The Blue Elephant  later today but first, we're going to do a quick bit of catching up with Phantom Birds  which saw the light of day late last year. Of course, most people know Berry from his comedy acting work with the likes of The Mighty Boosh , Snuff Box , Garth Marenghi's Darkplace ,  The IT Crowd , Toast , House Of Fools  and most recently the excellent What We Do In The Shadows  TV series. What some people may not know is that the guy is also an accomplished musician with this being no less than his sixth album. The main surprise is that it's a genuinely lovely and heartfelt collection of songs. The obvious touchstone here is Bob Dylan but I can also hear a connection to the aching torch songs of more contemporary artists like Tensheds. For the most par

  Rich Ragany seems to be a guy with an undisputed knack for a catchy tune. He first came to our attention with the Role Models who after a prolonged spell as everyone's favourite glam/punk perennial support band reprobates burst on to the scene properly in fine style with their debut full album, 2015's The Go-To Guy , and would follow that up with two further excellent efforts in 2016's Forest Lawn  and 2017's Dance Moves . The group would go on hiatus in 2018 (although a reunion is being touted for later this year) with Rags putting a new band together, the Digressions, aided and abetted by Role Models drummer Simon Maxwell, ex-Glitterati/Dedwardians guitarist Michael "Gaff" Gaffney, ex-UK Subs/The Men They Couldn't Hang bassist Ricky McGuire and ex-Shush guitarist and all round production whizz Andy Brook on keys. 2019 would see them putting out a supremely confident debut album Like We'll Never Make It . One pandemic later and their sophomore effor

  "I'm not that medieval, sometimes I write my thoughts down..."  - Idlewild  - Everyone Says You're So Fragile We're taking a quick one week interlude from the New York glam-punk scene at the moment because I figured that seeing as I'd already written about Midget this weekend, I should probably make the second part of our weekly look-back double header about the band I saw supporting Peterborough's finest one hot and sweaty night in Leeds (as detailed in Friday's entry). Unlike Midget, Idlewild would go on to some quite significant success. However, similar to Midget, the album they were promoting at that gig very much turned out to be their high point. Even if it seems the band don't think so for some weird reason. As I mentioned in the Midget SFTJ entry a couple of days ago, I first saw Idlewild sharing a bill with the Stamford pop-punks in Leeds in the summer of '98. It seems weird to think given how much they toned their sound down in la

  "I know this small town can really get you down. But I'm gonna help you, I'm gonna see you through..."  - Midget  - The Day Of Your Life There's no doubt in my mind that if Midget had broken through about two years earlier they'd have been perfectly positioned to land a ride in Ash's slipstream and guaranteed chart success. Unfortunately they crashlanded on the scene just as Britpop died off and left behind at least one overlooked classic album and some pretty nifty tunes across their other three. I think the first I heard of them was when their second single Kylie And Jason  started getting played a bit on Steve Lamacq's radio show. Allegedly written after one of the band was working as a barman in West London (although the group originally hailed from the Stamford/Peterborough area) and ran into Peter Andre, then best known for being in Neighbours who told him he was over in England because he was about to release a single (the drudge-fest that was

  Penfriend aka Laura Kidd has been a fairly regular presence on our monthly Singles Bar page with a number of releases in recent months but this is her first full album since putting her previous She Makes War persona to bed a couple of years back. And generally speaking they've all been pretty good as well so it's fair to say that the debut Penfriend album Exotic Monsters  (which has just crashed into the national Top 30 as I write this) comes with a fair bit of expectation attached to it. It gets off to a good start with two former singles, the brooding Gary Numan-meets-Alison-Goldfrapp title track and the lurching tale of dark childhood memories Seventeen  setting out the stall well here. The first new track comes with Hell Together , a creepy ode to being trapped in a co-habiting situation with someone you don't get on with (inspired by lockdown maybe?) with its refrain of "I can feel a storm coming..."  sounding incredibly ominous while the skeletal synth-dr

  Hooooooo boy. It's safe to say that I have had my ups and downs with the Offspring's music over the years. When they first broke through with 1994's Smash  and the attendant hits Come Out And Play  and Self-Esteem , it felt like they were something new and exciting - along with Green Day, forging a new path for American pop-punk aimed squarely at the teenage market with a suitably juvenile sense of humour but packing enough anger into the formula to tap into the angst anyone feels at that age. The trouble is that with each album they kind of felt a bit less special - 1997's Ixnay on the Hombre  had a few moments but generally felt a bit patchy, 1999's Americana  brought them proper big league chart success with two Top 10 hits but generally felt like they were by now deliberately playing it for belly laughs and by the time of 2003's pretty poor Conspiracy of One , even the jokes weren't particularly funny anymore (the rise of the horrible frat-punk movemen

  "You're gettin' a little impatient/Smokin' like a mental patient"  - New York Dolls  - Fishnets And Cigarettes The New York Dolls need no introduction here of course, their story is pretty much legendary. However, similar to our recent column on their spiritual descendents Hanoi Rocks , the album we're here to talk about today is one from the 21st century incarnation of the group after they reformed in the early noughties. It could have been an absolute disaster but turned out to be a triumph and thoroughly deserves its inclusion in this column. I think my first encounter with the Dolls was on a punk compilation during my student years which included Personality Crisis on it and feck me, what a song. I mean, c'mon, has there been any lyrics about the whole mess of conflicting emotions and impulses that every teenager/early twentysomething encounters than "And you're a prima ballerina on a spring afternoon/Then ya change on into the wolfman howl

  "Who's there? You'll never know..."  - Carrie - Tricara Another one of those bands who put out a great album that the world missed because the timing was totally wrong for it, Carrie were formed from the ashes of mid-'90s rockers Some Have Fins with American singer Steve Ludwin and Australian drummer Bruce Pawsey recruiting ex-EMF bassist Zac Foley and guitarist Dennis Dicker to complete the line-up. Sonically the group were cut from the same half-Britrock half-Britpop cloth as Ash but with a much more dark and twisted Placebo-esque lyrical streak running through them. Like quite a few people I suspect, it was Carrie's fourth single, California Screamin' , released in the summer of 1998, that turned me on to them. A sublime slice of Weezer style power-pop about dreaming of the Golden State when you're stuck in a bedsit in Dalston on a rainy Tuesday night, it should have been the song to break them chart-wise and got picked up and played by Radio 1 a

  Teenage Fanclub are one of those bands who kind of skirted around the edge of my listening for years as a teenager without ever really properly becoming regulars in my tape rack. A group with a clutch of great singles ( Star Sign , Sparky's Dream , Ain't That Enough ), their albums unfortunately were generally solid but just a bit too...well, tame really to hold the attention of someone who was generally into the heavier punkier end of indie. Two decades since I kind of lost track of them, it's clear from opening track Home , a quite lovely laid-back Byrdsian lament, that very little has changed in the world of TFC. Except that somehow while they always sounded a bit lacklustre to my teenage self, as a fortysomething it actually sounds genuinely quite sweet. The fact that said song is seven minutes long but doesn't outstay its welcome with the lovely extended blissed-out outro working well in the context is always a good sign as well. And thus it continues throughout

  Oh lord, here's a name from the past. Many many years ago as a young writer, I was sent a copy of Kent ska-pop-punks 3dB's Down's Can Of Worms  album to review for the webzine I worked for at the time and was, shall we say, less than complimentary about it mainly because this was the era where both the pop-punk and ska-punk waters had been sullied by the horrible frat-punk movement spearheaded by the loathsome likes of Blink 182, Good Charlotte, Sum 41 etc and it seemed like this lot were just another band trying to jump on the wagon. Said review evidently got back to someone who was either a hardcore fan of the band or affiliated with them in some way and it all ended in a somewhat less than dignified argument between us in the comments section underneath said review. Not exactly my proudest moment as a writer - all I can say in my defence is I was a lot more objectionable back then and hadn't quite learned the principle of "if you get sent an album you really d

"So much death and confusion before my eyes. But nothing seems to faze me...and this one still survives..."  -  Ramones  - Poison Heart The general wisdom when it comes to the Ramones is that you only really need the first three albums. Fair point but not exactly true. Although it's safe to say that the band never really deviated too much from their tried and tested "wun-too-free-for!"  brand of knucklehead pop-punk over their twenty year career, they were very much like a punk AC/DC in that they knew their strengths, stuck to them and for the most part did it well even as their star was fading commercially with the '80s turning into the '90s. Mondo Bizarro  and its predecessor Brain Drain  are all the proof you need. It's one of my eternal regrets that I was a year or two too late getting into the Ramones to see them live - I'm pretty sure it was a Ginger Wildheart shout out that led to me picking up their double CD best of Hey! Ho! Let's G

  Blimey, is it that time again already? Welcome to the June instalment of the Singles Bar where, much the same as last month, we've got a good mix of concoctions on offer from all across the alternative spectrum. Take a chair, pull up a glass and let's sup... Anyway, we've got a genuine legend kicking things off for us this month in the form of Charlie Harper & The Sub Machine  and their new single Panic  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑). A lurching ode to the imminent environmental collapse with its swirling Stooges guitar and drums, this is a good effort from the UK Subs frontman and proof that old dogs very much can be taught new tricks. B-side, Post War Punks  is nearer to the choppy punk rock of Harper's day job and is also well worth a listen. Bandcamp link here . Charlie isn't the only UK Sub to have a single out away from his day job this month either - Alvin Gibbs & The Disobedient Servants , fronted up by the Subs bassist, also have a new release out in the State of

  "I wanna drink to the children of tomorrow! I wanna raise my glass up high!"  - The Hybirds  - "Born Yesterday" So this story starts some time towards the end of 1997 - your correspondent, now living in Stoke-on-Trent as a student, has been badgered into going to see Cast with some mates (I think it was at the Sugarmill). Although I'd liked the first Cast album, I'd heard the second when it came out a few weeks before and hadn't been convinced - it really felt like they were treading water and had used up all their good ideas on the album before ( Be Here Now  syndrome if you will). "Ah well," thinks I, "hopefully they'll chuck a bunch of stuff from the first album in the set - if so it should be okay." We end up getting to the venue early and seeing the support band - a bunch of up-and-coming lads from Nottingham called the Hybirds. Who promptly absolutely blast us away. Yes, it's very much the standard Noelrock template bu

  We reviewed One Thousand Motels' debut album 2% Out Of Sync  back in January ( link here if you need a reference point) although it actually saw the light of day late last year. Either way though, it's clear that Chris Constinatou and Rat Scabies are both intent on making hay while the sun shines - six odd months for a turnaround period is impressively quick. While their debut had a sort of psychedelic feel to it, the opener here When The Rabbit's Got The Gun  sounds more like an old Edwin Starr soul number - bit unexpected but I'm not complaining. Dark Harvest is harmonica honking blues rock with some unhinged Screamin' Jay Hawkins style vocals over the top of it while the funky strut of Brand New Headline  and Reel Me In (the latter complete with a Stax style horn section over the top) see them setting the ground nicely. This soul/funk sound might not be what you were expecting from a couple of punk veterans like Chris and Rat but I'm impressed with how wel

  Regulars on the Camden indie/scuzz-punk circuit for the last few years, Idestroy have been slowly building their profile in recent years and this debut album definitely comes with a bit of expectation attached to it. And I'm happy to say it delivers - hand on heart, I'd heard a couple of the band's songs prior to this and they hadn't really grabbed me but this is a good debut album which is definitely worth a listen. Similar to Dream Nails, who they share a righteously angry DIY aesthetic with, Idestroy take the fury of early '90s riotgrrl but they remember to add some tunes and hooks to the formula which, truth be told, was the downfall of a lot of the band from the original scene 25 years ago. While the furious Petting Zoo  is a warning against groping perverts and the ode to post-one night stand self-loathing of Swim  is the sort of thing Hole would've done before they signed to a major and smoothed their sound out, there's also a sly sense of humour at

  "They couldn't mess with my band - my band's a rock 'n' roll band!"  - Hanoi Rocks  - Obscured So here's where we pick up the story following the Mike Monroe GDR column yesterday - if you've not read that yet then I'd humbly suggest you click on the link above and give it a quick read first as it'll make this thing flow a bit better. Don't worry, I'll still be here when you get back. All caught up? Good. Let's begin. So literally a few days after I'd bought Mike's excellent Whatcha Want  album, the news came out that Hanoi Rocks were reforming and I think it was this that finally prompted me to give that cheapo greatest hits compilation of theirs that I'd got a few years previously (see part 1 of this article) another listen. This time, I got it. I think my main problem first time out is I'd expected Hanoi to be a straightforward glam/sleaze band like G'n'R or Poison or Skid Row and they very much weren

  "Some self-proclaimed selfish hypocrites lay down their laws and rules to make ya think there's gonna be some great reward for all your suffering some day soon"  - Michael Monroe  - Right Here Right Now As you might have guessed from the title, this week's Garbage Days Revisited is a two-parter dealing with Michael Monroe and Hanoi Rocks. As well as being one of my favourite bands, they're also a bit of an oddity in that there were two albums released in 2002, one the group's first reunion album and the other Monroe's final solo album for almost a decade, that probably had an equal share in drawing me into being a fan. So today we'll deal with the latter of these and tomorrow the former. Got that? Okay, good, let's do this. Similar to the Clash, I think it was probably through the Manic Street Preachers that I first became aware of Hanoi Rocks as Nicky Wire would go on to anyone who'd listen about what a huge influence they were on the early