Nite Songs

  James Alex aka Beach Slang is certainly a prolific guy if nothing else. As well as recording three excellent albums, he's also done an acoustic album and a couple of EP's as Quiet Slang and several covers EP's down the years. So I suppose the arrival of an acoustic covers album from the guy recorded in lockdown isn't a particularly big surprise really. The song choices here are very much from the indie/college rock end of the music spectrum with the likes of Sebadoh, J Mascis, Elliott Smith and the Magnetic Fields all represented. It's as rough and DIY sounding as you'd expect with just Alex, his guitar and a couple of FX pedals here and there. I guess how much this will appeal depends on your taste for this sort of music - in terms of bands I'm familiar with, there's a suitably spooky take on the Eels' PS You Rock My World  and his version of the Smiths classic Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want  is decent enough (although I've heard ...

  Getting close to the top of the chart now as we enter the alliteratively alluring Nite Songs' Top 20 albums of 2020. Some crackers in here and no mistake. 20. SPARKS - "A Steady Drip Drip Drip" ( Review ) Scary to think that Sparks are now almost half a century into their careers. And scarier still that they're still putting out albums as great as A Steady Drip Drip Drip  way after most of their contemporaries had given up the creative ghost. Taking in the group's formative glam stomp as well as excursions into everything from samba rhythms to music hall stylings to pure pop, this is just as much of a joy to listen to as ever. Great stuff. *** 19. DIABLOFURS - "Neon Satellites" ( Review ) With controls firmly set to the new wave era of the early '80s. Nottingham glitter merchants Diablofurs came up with one of the best debut albums of 2020 mixing Tubeway Army style electronica with pure power-pop sensibilities to great effect on tunes like Rival Gr...

Another new feature! I know, who'd have thunk it eh? Anyway, there was a time when any self-respecting music mag would have a singles review section every week but, let's be honest, those days are pretty much long gone in 2020 with the Top 40 these days being so meaningless and irrelevant that it might as well count for the number of minidiscs you've sold in Outer Mongolia. Nevertheless, there's still plenty of folks who are still stubbornly putting out singles either as stand alone releases or tasters for new albums and, y'know what, fair play to them. It's also fair to say that while I was taking a hibernation from music reviewing stuff there was a lot of singles piling up in my inbox and a lot of it deserved to be given some good press. So the original aim of this column was to kind of clear the decks and point you good people reading this blog towards some top tunes to make the lockdown a bit more bearable. And then I realised just how much of it there was a...

  Beach Slang seem to have been one of those bands who've been sailing just under my radar for a while now - there's been more than one person who's said to me "Oh, you like the Senseless Things and the Replacements? You'd love these guys!" over the last few years. And so here in 2020 I finally find myself listening to a Beach Slang album. And it's pretty good. Right from the off, Let It Ride  sees them wearing their Westerberg influences on their sleeves as does the Can't Hardly Wait  style horn section on recent single Tommy In The '80s (perhaps tellingly they now have none other than Tommy Stinson on bass for them) but they quickly throw a curveball in as Bam Rang Rang  goes from a supersonic Ramones full throttle blast to suddenly switching to an almost Smoke On The Water  style riff-fest midway through. The one-two of Nobody Say Nothing  and Nowhere Bus  nearby are aching acoustic-led Skyway  style laments but no worse for it. If the one comp...