Nite Songs

  Okay, here we go friends, once more unto the breach... You know how this thing works now, ten albums a day from now until New Year's Eve - Bandcamp links (where we've got 'em) by clicking on the title. Let's do this. 50.     ASH - "Race The Night" I suppose the big problem with Ash is that, for better or worse, they will always be singing over the echoes of their glory years in the late '90s and early '00s. However, Race The Night  might just be their strongest effort since Meltdown  way back in 2004 - an enjoyable slice of power-pop with the tunes and melodies of old rightly pushed back to the fore where they belong. One of the more unexpectedly enjoyable comebacks of 2023. *** 49.     OBEY ROBOTS - "One In A Thousand" This collaboration between Laura Kidd (She Makes War/Penfriend) and guitarist Rat (Ned's Atomic Dustbin) proved to be another good addition to both of the involved parties' back catalogue. A collection of dark odes t...

  Still very much out there two decades on from their inception, this is Alabama 3's first album since the untimely passing of frontman Reverend D Wayne Love. Hand on heart, they're one of those bands who my knowledge of is a bit patchy - I know the obvious songs like Woke Up This Morning  and Ain't Goin' To Goa  and had a couple of albums back in the day but this is probably the first time in nearly two decades I've listened to the band's music. Opening track Whacked  is a good start to the album with its pulsing electric drumbeat, steel guitar and Larry Love's gravelly vocals about how everybody's searching for that perfect high combining to create something pretty damn good. Yolanda meanwhile sees Love telling tales of his musical education in Brixton over a heady mix of beats and slide guitar. As you'd expect from the Alabama 3, this is an impressively varied album from the gospel stylings of The Lord Stepped In  and Every Time I See A River  to ...