Nite Songs

  I was pleased to discover last year that Hi-Fi Sean (aka former High Fidelity and Soup Dragons frontman Sean Dickson) and David McAlmont have been collaborating on an album - given the pedigree of the guys involved (McAlmont's peerless voice and Dickson's record for supremely tuneful experimentation with the very underrated High Fidelity), it seemed as if this really had the potential to be something special. The seven minute opening title track eases you gently into the album - a dreamy slice of string-drenched soul with McAlmont's voice soaring over the top. Fever  is similarly chilled with its rolling rhythm while recent single Beautiful  sees McAlmost really cutting loose over some almost trip-hop drums and Bollywood strings (those with long memories may remember Dickson collaborating with the Bollywood orchestra on the High Fidelity's classic Demonstration  album a couple of decades ago) before Hurricanes  takes the tempo up a notch with some funky rhythm...

  Hailing from South Wales, Sister Morphine are another group, similar to the Last Great Dreamers or Paradise Alley, were regulars on the live circuit in the early '90s just after the glam-punk ship sailed with the arrival of grunge. However, the pandemic saw the band re-establish contact with each other and decide to give things another go and Ghosts Of Heartbreak City , their much delayed debut album, is the result. My initial thoughts when I reviewed the album's lead-off single Nothin' Dirty In The Truth  a few days before writing this 'ere album review was that Sister Morphine sounded a lot like the Backyard Babies but that's actually a bit of a red herring - over the 15 tracks here, they show an impressive amount of variety and twists and turns to keep you interested. Second track Do You Wanna Get Wasted?  is a case in point with its chugging Dr Feelgood style riff (that's the pub rock legends not the Crue song for the record) being underpinned by an acoust...

Ginger Wildheart has always been a man to hit you with new material when you're least expecting it and to be honest, following on from the worthy but rather sedate Sinners album from last year, the prospect of something showing off the harder edge to his output was definitely something that piqued our interest. Teeth is very much a back to basics punk effort, crashing through 16 tracks in just 26 minutes and seeing the G-man at arguably his heaviest since the brutal Mutation albums of a few years ago. Right from the opening political tirade of Not My Country (very much an anthem for these times where the choice between Sunak and Starmer increasingly has the feel of two eunuchs fighting over a punctured condom), the guy definitely means business here and this album is pretty much one concrete-heavy right hook after another as he skewers religious bigots ( Digital Elimination , Thoughts And Prayers ), online mob mentality ( Witch Hunt ), braindead tabloid readers ( Happy John ) and...

  Well I think we can certainly agree on one thing - these L.A. scuzzballs have definitely picked one of the coolest band names we've seen at Nite Songs for a while. The Neverland Ranch Davidians have been picking up a fair bit of good press across the board with this album so we thought that we'd stick our heads in to see what the fuss is all about. I have to be honest, the first impressions weren't exactly promising - opening track The Gospel  is a drony four minute instrumental which seems to basically consist of a three note Kyuss riff being recycled over and again and could really have been done at being kept to just a minute or two. However, the scuzzy Danko Jones rock 'n' roll of Rat Patrol  kicks this one into gear properly with its fuzzed up guitar sound and hyperactive vocals getting this one going properly. Fat Back  conjures up the weird image of James Brown jamming with Mudhoney with its funky rhythms and grungy guitar sound - an odd mix but it definite...

  Hailing from Immingham near Grimsby (hence their name), the Ming City Rockers briefly looked like quite hot property a few years ago with their debut self-titled album being a prime slice of howled smalltown angst which picked them up enough plaudits to get Steve Albini in to produce the follow-up, 2016's  Lemon . And then...nothing. Seven years on from that sophomore effort and the group have returned, slimmed down to a three-piece and with a very noticeable change to their image. But the sound is very much the same with the sort of angry three-chord garage punk that made their debut such a good effort. The change seems to be that Lime  sees the Ming City Rockers taking their worldview out of the smalltowns and over to the nation as a whole. The sarky lead off single Jill Was An Anarchist  was a definite marker laid down and there's plenty more on Lime  where that came from such as the snarling Poor Old Jim  taking a swipe at alcoholic F*r*ge-supporting ...

  An album that’s definitely piqued our interest just through those involved in it, it’s fair to say that the Wingmen have quite the supergroup pedigree. Formed around the nucleus of the Sensible Gray Cells' rhythm section of Paul Gray (also of the Damned, Eddie & the Hot Rods and UFO) on bass and Marty Love (also of Johnny Moped) on drums, also along for the ride are Stranglers frontman Baz Warne, Ruts DC guitarist Leigh Heggarty and Supergrass keyboard player Rob Coombes. You can definitely hear elements of all of the group's parent bands in here but the key is that the Wingmen put enough of their own DNA in there to ensure that you'd never mistake this as an album of off-cuts. Second song The Last Cigarette  (which follows the garage rock style opening instrumental  Starting Blocks ) is a case in point with elements of the Damned circa The Black Album  or Strawberries and Supergrass in their more wistful moments (think Going Out  or similar), a classic sw...

  Another group from the Rum Bar records stable, the Shang Hi-Lo's hail from Boston (obviously) and this album definitely has a bit of a retro feel to it as you would expect, dipping its toe into both garage rock and classic '60s pop. But that's not a problem. Kicking in with the swinging Takes One To Know One  which takes the old rockabilly template and adds a dose of candy floss sweet melodies to it, second track Monsieur Valentine  could almost a great lost Revillos song (maybe with a hint of Kirsty MacColl in there as well) with its girl group style vocal harmonies and retro power pop rhythms. The title track goes into almost '70s disco territory which is...well, okay but it doesn't quite sit as comfortably as the first two tracks did but thankfully the Ronettes-meets-Ramones Plymouth Rock  is on hand to right things afterwards - again, the duelling male and female vocals definitely hark back to Eugene Reynolds and Fay Fife a bit. Billy  has an almost spaghe...

There was a time around the mid-noughties when St Albans natives the Subways were genuinely considered to be the bright hopes for the UK alternative music scene. Similar to early Ash, they were a pop-punk with a kick behind them even if their album unfortunately didn't quite live up to the hype it had been saddled with and saw them slide back into obscurity. You can't keep a good band of indie-rockers down evidently though and so 2023 sees the Subways back with a new album. The surprise is that it's not bad either - it seems that the group have put their near two decades of experience to good use to come up with a record that has a foot in both the indie and punk camps and comes up with something surprisingly good right from the moment the low slung menace of opener and former single  You Kill My Cool  kicks things into gear. Love Waiting On You  and the title track both have an almost new wave feel with their glacial keyboards and the chiming vocal interplay between Bill...

  The prospect of a new Simple Minds album in 2022 is definitely one that makes you wonder exactly what you're going to get. The group are probably most remembered during their '80s heyday for slowly drifting away from their Roxy Music influenced art school roots towards being full on stadium rock superstars alongside U2 et al which eventually saw them pretty much pilloried right out of the big time for their perceived pretentiousness and lack of self-awareness. However, they seem to have undergone something of a critical re-evaluation of late and I actually feel it's deserved - for all their faults, even at their most bombastic, Simple Minds were still capable of penning a good tune ( Real Life , See The Lights ) and the fact that they can still pack out arenas nowadays is proof that their appeal's definitely endured. And let's be honest, even at their worst, they never came across as being anywhere near as insufferable as Bono et al. Direction Of The Heart  is bas...

  It might just be me but I could've sworn that Iggy's previous album, 2016's Post Pop Depression , was meant to be his last. Ah well, can't keep a good chaos engine down I guess and you're certainly not gonna find me complaining about a new album from the lord of misrule in my inbox. Especially when they kick in with a slice of prime Iggy foul-mouthed aggression like Frenzy . Ig might well be in his seventies now but on this evidence, he's still got an aggression that'd be impressive in a frontman half his age. But if you think this is gonna be Iggy going into heritage mode then Strung Out Johnny  quickly puts paid to that with an almost Sisters of Mercy style goth vibe to it before a big soaring chorus. With a backing band (Duff McKagan on bass, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Chad Smith on bass and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Watt) locked in and tight, this is Iggy proving that even after five decades in the game he's got the capacity to surprise. New...

  Sometimes you can tell exactly what you're getting from an album by the cover art and, if you've seen the picture above, you can probably already guess what Aussie rockers The Stripp sound like - fast, furious and filthy rock 'n' roll which kicks in on the Plasmatics style title track with all the subtlety of a hurricane ripping the roof off your house. The influences are pretty much what you'd expect here - a bit of Motorhead, a touch of Vice Squad, a hint of the Supersuckers but, as with all the best bands of this genre, the key is that the Stripp have the sheer bloody-minded enthusiasm to keep this barrelling through while steadfastly refusing to let your attention go. The fact that they've got a good ear for a decent hook and riff doesn't hurt either. The only slight complaint is that the production's a tiny bit off on one or two tracks with the vocals fighting to be heard above the guitars but it's nowt a bit of extra care in the studio next t...

  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 ...

  Although they bill themselves as From The Jam live, on record Bruce Foxton and Russell Hastings use this moniker, presumably to keep Paul Weller's lawyers from the door. Foxton's done a couple of decent solo albums in recent years in the form of 2012's Back In The Room  and 2016's Smash The Clock  so I was intrigued to see what this one would sound like. The answer is that it's a perfectly pleasant album but doesn't really leap out at you right from the moment the chugging blues rock of Electronic Lover  starts the album. Feet Off The Ground , ironically enough, sounds like the Style Council with its chiming keyboards and almost jazzy rhythms while Lula  is straight ahead AOR (complete with a sax solo). And so it pretty much continues throughout to be honest. Like I say, I'm aware that Foxton is in his sixties now and it's probably a bit unfair to expect him to still be the angry young firebrand he was in his Jam days but The Butterfly Effect , while i...

  Bluddyell, now here's a name I didn't think I'd be seeing in the reviews column in 2023. Thousand Yard Stare were one of those bands who were briefly tipped to be the next big thing in the post-Madchester pre-Britpop indie ice age of 1992-93 but notched up just a sole Top 40 hit, 1992's Comeuppance  (kind of a midway point between baggy and shoegazing) before disappearing as fast as they'd arrived as both of those movements descended into being terminally unfashionable. The group reformed in 2015 and have been beavering away on the fringes of the indie scene since with Earthanasia  being their second album (third if you include a live one) since reforming. And...well, to be honest, it sounds much the same as Thousand Yard Stare always did. The guitars on the likes of Measures ,  Espirit du Corps  and the languid piano ballad  Borrowed Time  still wash over you like warm ocean waves while the songs lilt along gently without any real sense of haste. Th...

  So this is it then, our final album review of 2022 before we wind down for Christmas and it's definitely one that I was a bit excited about. We first encountered part-Welsh part-American scuzz-punks the Mudd Club via their rather excellent Bottle Blonde  album last year and Give Me A Thrill  has just to say beaten our cut off point for 2022 so let's see if it can grab itself a place in our end of year list. It gets off to a good start with Friday Night On A Monday Morning  sounding like Blondie staggering home from the local lock-in at 6am before the Cramps-esque title track chucking an undeniable groove into the mix. There's an enjoyably sloppy feel to a lot of the tracks here such as  Calendar Ghoul  and the strutting Tattoo  which carries on the feel from their first album and I'm certainly not complaining about that while You'll Never Change Me , Brand New Shoes  and Throwaway Lover  go into almost Cramps style rockabilly territory. A c...

  It’s fair to say that the Erotics have had something of a career renaissance of late and on the evidence of Rot In The Shade , it's still rolling on quite nicely. A good mix of some tracks from the various EP's the band has put out over the last couple of years and some new numbers, this is every bit as much of a scuzzy scummy riff-fest as you'd expect right from the moment Knockin' On Death's Door  kicks in sounding like something that wouldn't have been out of place on the first W.A.S.P. album. The swaggering finger-clicking Helltown Boogie  keeps the momentum rolling on nicely before the scuzzy low-slung You Got Me Shakin'  which even has some incongruous harmonica on it! The attempt at a ballad on Diamonds  doesn't quite work unfortunately and the Spanish sung Dia De Los Muertos  is an odd but enjyoable curio before the Panama  style riffage of Too Hot To Stop  gets things back on track (definitely a hint of Cocked And Loaded  era L.A. ...

  Formed by former Main Grains guitarist JJ Watt, I have to admit that I'd not been entirely convinced by the City Kids thus far. They'd shown a little bit of promise here and there but compared to some of the genuinely good Britrock bands who've emerged on to the scene in the last couple of years, they seemed to be lacking that extra something to put them up there as genuine contenders. With Filth  though, they may just have made a proper mission statement. The band the group remind me of on the opening title track is actually the Anti-Nowhere League, part-punk, part-biker rock with the snarled vocals and chugging riffs showing the band at their strongest and tighest so far. Alone  is similarly high quality with its panic rush of a chorus and flashbomb guitar pyrotechnics and It Should've Been You  shows that they can do melodic as well. Heartbreak  definitely owes a nod to Social Distortion (certainly JJ's vocals are nicely pitched somewhere halfway between Mi...

  Impressively, this is the second album in a little over 12 months from Rum Bar signed glam revivalists the Amplifier Heads following on from last year's rather good Saturnaliens . On that album, these Massachusetts natives came across as a group of starry-eyed dreamers in thrall to Bolan and Slade, almost like a 21st century version of Spiders & Snakes. And I'm pleased to report that Rectifier  keeps that particular pot boiling over nicely right from the way the Arrows-style stomp of The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll  kicks things into gear. The standards remain high throughout, Underground  cheekily nicks the riff from the Scorpions' Rock You Like A Hurricane , tips a bucket of Max Factor and glitter over it, plonks it in a pair of ridiculously high platform boots and shoves it back out on to the stage. Tape Deck slinks through the back alley powered on by sheer confidence while Maniaxe  is a pure no-brainer Sweet style rush. Monsters  is a bit of a...

  The follow-up to last year's Single Album (logically titled then I guess) sees Fat Mike and co return and in just as much of an uncompromising mood as ever. And, let's be honest, we wouldn't have 'em any other way. Opener Darby Crashing Your Party  (named after the infamous late Germs frontman) sees Mike looking at some of his less than advisable past exploits and half-apologising, half shrugging his shoulders in the best Stiv style nihilistic fashion before My Favourite Enemy  is similarly self-critical with its brutal pummelling drums being underpinned by a surprisingly melodic tune. Don't Count On Me  is similarly brutally honest ( "It's not that I don't care/I just don't care very much" ) while packing in about five changes of pace to come up with arguably the album's highlight. As I said at the outset, Mike and co are in an unapologetic mood here with Fuck Day Six  being a brutal look at the week Mike spent in a drying out mansion th...

  Another offering from the always reliable Rum Bar records stable, Stars Like Ours are a trio from the label's home town of Boston who are, as you'd expect, a pop-punk group but definitely leaning towards the more muscular end of the genre. Over the nine tracks and 30-odd minute here, they serve up an enjoyable offering which sounds like one part Celebrity Skin  era Hole and one part 1977 era Ash, all chugging guitars, purred angst and with enough skyscraping choruses and soaring riffs to stand out from the crowd. While lead singer Michelle's vocals are pure Courtney style snarl, it's the more melodic approach that Stars Like Ours take to things which helps them stand out with the likes of the anthemic Radio , the stratospheric All Too Often  and the chugging Lines  being particular standouts which you could just imagine Tim Wheeler penning back in the day while Love In A Parking Lot  is pure simmering tension. Throughout the trio, completed by guitarist Kristi...