Nite Songs

  For weeks it's been sat there in my review pile. Goading me. As if to say "c'mon Andy, review me, let some bile loose, I double dog dare ya". Until now I had resisted - these days as a veteran reviewer of two decades plus, I tend to simply skip past albums I'm not fond of without reviewing them as most of the time it's just not worth the arguments it inevitably causes. Sometimes though, the vitriol just gets to the point where it has to be unleashed. And, make no mistake, The Battle At For Fuck's Sake Even The Title Of This Bloody Thing Sounds Like A Led Zeppelin B-Side  is one of those times. The thing about Greta Van Fleet is, it's a bit harsh to criticise bands for slyly thieving the odd influence here and there - let's face it, if we held all our musicians up to that mirror then 99.999% of them would be guilty going right back to the Stones filching a lot of their early ideas from Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. And let's be honest, ba...

Very much veterans of the goth scene, Bradford's 1919 were there at the beginning in the early '80s, releasing a number of critically acclaimed singles but never quite reaching the album stage. Since reforming around a decade ago, they've quickly set to righting that, releasing no less than four LP's and even carrying on after the untimely passing of founder member guitarist Mark Tighe. Most recently, their 2019 effort Futurecide  was a very respectable effort so the omens were good here. Opening track Borders  definitely has a very strong hint of Bauhaus about it with Rio Goldhamer's vocals being very reminiscent of Peter Murphy and the track itself being a searing anti-racism/imperialism rant which it's difficult to disagree with. The nervy paranoia of TV Love  is similarly indebted to Northampton's most sinister, think Lagarjita Nick  or similar but doesn't quite hit the mark. However, the moody Feels Like Forever  gets things back on track with its s...

  “But it’s always the same, like Citizen Kane, you end up with NOTHING! And you leave for home…” - Generation X - Paradise West It’s a well known fact that Billie Joe Armstrong regularly mentions in interviews that he considers Generation X’s first album to be one of the greatest ever. Well, I hate to tell ya but not for the first time, Green Day’s frontman is wide of the mark. While Billy Idol and co were very much in there with the first wave of punk - Idol and Tony James had both been part of the "Bromley contingent" of punks along with Siouxsie Sioux et al - their first album to me has always felt, in spite of a few crackers like Day By Day  and Youth Youth Youth , the work of a band who were still finding their feet. As far as I'm concerned, that album's the journey and their second one, Valley Of The Dolls , was the sound of them arriving properly. The group had taken their fair share of flack in their early years for being punk bandwagon jumpers (ridiculous gi...

  "You better look out world, 'cos nothing's gonna bring me down!"  - Gay Dad  - To Earth With Love It's fair to say that Gay Dad were very much a Marmite band. To their detractors, they were the ultimate scam group, a bunch of bored music journalists playing at being rock stars (interesting that a lot of these detractors seemed to be other music journalists - a touch of jealousy that they hadn't thought of the same idea maybe?) To those of us who became fans of the band though, they were a much needed dose of stardust and glamour in the increasingly grey and beige alternative music scene in 1999. The campaign for the group's debut single To Earth With Love  was certainly a very effective affair - I remember some time in the dying days of 1998 these posters featuring what looked like a blue and white pedestrian crossing sign started appearing everywhere and I mean everywhere . The group had managed to get some low level press attention prior to this after ...

  We reviewed sometime Steve Ignorant, Ryan Hamilton and Ginger Wildheart collaborator Carol Hodge's sophomore album Savage Purge  in the early days of this webzine ( link here ) and she's followed up with her third in an impressively quick turnaround time. And any worries that this might have had a detrimental effect on the material involved are quickly assuaged when opener The Moan Of A Thousand Years  kicks into gear with a well placed diatribe against the British "mustn't grumble" mentality. The light and shade of Hodge's output are well represented by the second and third songs - Twenty Miles Up  is all about looking back at a bad relationship with the gift of distance and time and realising that ending it was probably the best thing you could have done. By contrast, the stark  Curtain To Fall  takes a look at the crippled state of the live music industry in the wake of Covid and worries for its future. The hypnotic  So Much For Summertime si...

  Well that was quick. When Jim Bob made his long overdue return last year with the Pop Up  album, I don't think anyone predicted that 2022 would see him already making a follow-up but clearly the guy is keen on making hay while the sun shines. While Pop Up  was a pretty dark album, Who Do We Hate Today? sees Jim Bob staring even more intently into the abyss, despairing at what this country has become in 2021. Shona Is Dating A Drunk, Woman-Hating Neanderthal Man ,  #prayfortony  and Men  see him railing against bigoted white male privilege and the ultra-dark six minute A Random Act  sees him furiously spitting bile against social media ghouls when tragedy strikes ( "Today's thoughts and prayers are tomorrow's gifs and jokes" ).  There's the odd more tender moment on here - former single Song For The Unsung  is a quite lovely tribute to those who kept the country running through the lockdown (a marked contrast to the song before it The Summer...

  "I know you wanna try and get away/But it's the hardest thing you'll ever do..."  - Supergrass  - Richard III In It For The Money  was arguably the last great Britpop album. Often overshadowed by Supergrass' debut I'm gonna go right out on a limb here and say that to my ears at least it's a far superior effort and probably Gaz Coombes and co's finest hour. As with a lot of people, I'd first become aware of the band via their debut I Should Coco  and the "good on its first few listens, more irritating than a dose of scabies afterwards" mega-hit Alright . To be honest, I still have mixed feelings about I Should Coco  now. I know a fair few people who regard it as the point where '90s indie crossed the threshold into being unforgivably commercial never to return and, while I wouldn't go that far, I'll be the first to admit it doesn't sound quite as special as it did when my 16-year-old ears first heard it in 1995. There...

  “With me there are no conventions, see me without my pretensions” - Sing-Sing - I’ll Be We’ve already encountered Emma Anderson, one half of Sing-Sing, in SFTJ’s past when we covered Lush , the band she made her name with, a few months ago on Sounds From The Junkshop. When that band abruptly ended following the tragic suicide of drummer Chris Acland, the remaining members would go their separate ways with bassist Phil King joining the Jesus & Mary Chain for the disappointing Munki  album and Miki Berenyi taking some time off from the music business, only resurfacing at the Lush reunion (and subsequently moving on to Piroshka) a couple of decades later. So I suppose you could say that Emma was really the only one out of Lush to remain creatively active after the band split as she would link up with singer Lisa O'Neill to form Sing-Sing (the group would also rescue drummer Justin Welch from the wreckage of Elastica for their first couple of singles and early gigs). I firs...

  We first heard the French Girls via their five track EP earlier in the year and this debut album of theirs (on Rum Bar records as the EP was) sees them building their sound nicely with a well-refined set of razor-sharp power pop, crashing through 10 tracks in just 22 minutes. We get three tracks from the EP - Crazy Yo! , Soda Pop  and Aerobicise plus seven newies here and similar to the Ramones or the Lurkers before them, they follow the same pattern of two minute blasts of power-pop with one eye on '60s garage rock and the other on the poppier end of '70s punk. Oh sure,  Independent Woman is a defiant slice of feminist pop-punk and is to be commended but for the most part, this is simplicity writ large with the likes of  Summertime  and Dude Rocker  sounding like some sort of righteous collision between the Donnas and Helen Love or maybe the Grease  soundtrack on a Tizer overdose. Admittedly, variety isn't exactly the French Girls' watchword with on...

  We first heard from Wicked Cool signed power poppers Kris Rodgers & The Dirty Gems via their supremely funky  She Likes To Party single towards the end of last year and now we have the group's debut album ready to go here. Said single kickstarts the album and it still sounds good now with its infectious chorus and squeezebox led guitar (although it's a bit difficult to get Murray Head's old novelty hit One Night In Bangkok  out of your head while listening to it if you're of a certain age!) Said song also kind of plots out the way this album goes thereafter - it's all big bold brass soaked soul-influenced rock 'n' roll complete with Rodgers' swirling keyboards over the top as evidenced on the Stax style strut of I Can't Give It  and I'm Your Man and the well handled cover of Elton John's Take Me To The Pilot . It's all good stuff played with plenty of enthusiasm and clearly designed with pinpoint precision to get a crowd dancing aft...

  "Faces drop one by one when they hear our names"  -  The Lurkers - God's Lonely Men Depending on who you ask, the Lurkers were either the most unglamourous punk band ever or West London's answer to the Ramones. However, when your correspondent first got into punk, I think it was this very down to earth no-nonsense attitude that drew me to them after hearing their almost-hit Ain't Got A Clue  on one of the first punk compilations I bought. Soon afterwards I would end up picking up a best of compilation, the wittily-titled Greatest Hit  on Beggars Banquet and after enjoying that would quickly track down the band's first two albums via their re-release on the excellent Captain Oi label (run by ex-Business bassist Mark Brennan). In the true "deep cuts" spirit of Garbage Days Revisited, it's the second Lurkers album we're going to be looking at today but a bit of background first - the group formed in West London (Ickenham to be precise) just as...

  So I think this is what they call sod's law - having started this column under the impression that August was going to be the "quiet bit of the year" and therefore a good opportunity to catch up with some stuff we'd missed in previous months, muggins 'ere promptly got sideswiped by a sudden avalanche of new releases the week before the thing went live and thus it became a two-parter. So here you go...a few more singles and a couple of mini-albums thrown in just because we're dead nice like that...  Anyway, kicking off the Singles Bar part 2, here's a name I've not heard for many years as Aussie garage rockers The Chevelles  return with their first new music in over a decade. Steve McQueen (I Wish I Was)  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) shows that the time hasn't changed them much but when you've got the right mix of pop-punk tunefulness and upstart snottiness that this has, that's no bad thing. Good to have you back with us gents. Bandcamp link here Speakin...

August always seems to be a bit of a quiet time for releases and to be honest, it has been a bit quieter than usual at the Singles Bar this month. However, we've done a bit of rooting around to find a few potential gems we might've missed in the last few months as well as a handful of new releases plus a couple of mini-albums for you so if you'd be so kind as to head out on to the roof terrace and soak up the sun a bit, we'll get our selection over to you straight away. Well, we started with a Wildhearts  single last month and we do so again this month with the excellent Sort Your Fucking Shit Out  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗) another promising salvo from the upcoming 21st Century Love Songs  album. Poppier than last month's Remember These Days , it still packs enough unexpected twists and turns to what initially appears to be a straightforward slice of pop-punk but builds up to a furious crescendo. Great stuff. We've already encountered Norwegian pop-punks The Cocktail Slipper...

  “Well I was thinking, I’ll wear a rose/And in the morning, I’ll be your dog” - The Crocketts - 1939 Returning So the legend goes that some time in the mid-‘90s, beardy Gordon Gecko wannabe and alleged inspiration for the old WASP classic Chainsaw Charlie (Murders In The New Morgue) Richard Branson was looking for some new bands to sign to Virgin’s corpo-“indie” offshoot V2 and took a punt on a couple of then-unknown Welsh bands who'd both come up together in the small villages of the province. One was a power trio specialising in blue collar Springsteen indebted odes to smalltown desperation and the minutiae of rural life. They were called the Stereophonics. You might just have heard of them. The other was an ultra-deranged group of Pixies soundalikes who wrote songs about having a Satanic girlfriend and being a hot and sweaty sex slave. They were called the Crocketts. Odds are that if you don't remember the late '90s then you probably haven't heard of them. Hand on h...

  Signed to Wicked Cool Records, we first encountered Marc Ribler via his Shattered  single way back in March which was a pleasant slice of Ryan Hamilton style power pop. Hailing from New Jersey, it's maybe not a surprise that he's found himself on Little Steven's label and the opening title track here definitely reminds me a bit of an '80s track from his mentor which is no bad thing with maybe a touch of Electric Angels style spiteful pop sensibility. Second song I'm Comin' Around  sees him going almost full on country-pop and while it's nice enough, you do feel like it could do a bit more of a kick in with the sugary sweetness. In fact this seems to become more of an issue as the album goes on - The Only Truth  is a nice enough song but it's a bit difficult to get the spectre of U2's painfully self-righteous  Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of  out of your head when you're listening to it. The haunting War On Peace  at least sounds a bi...