Nite Songs

  Getting close to the top of the chart now as we head into the Top 20. Needless to say that anything in this bit you've missed, you really should investigate pronto... *** 20. GULP - "Beneath Strawberry Moons" A genuine unexpected triumph of an album - Gulp's third effort sounds like some sort of cross between the icy electronica of New Order and the laconic psychedelia of Mazzy Star with maybe a hint of All About Eve and Ooberman at their most melancholy. Featuring Super Furry Animals man Guto Pryce, this is another great album which seems to have undeservedly sailed under a lot of people's radars. *** 19. BENEFITS - "Constant Noise" Honestly, I'm not sure if Benefits actually could  have pulled the same trick twice following on from their debut album  Nails  last year. That record was so brutal and uncompromising, veering into pure white noise in places, that it really was the sort of thing you could only really listen to once. However, here's...

  We're very much in the upper echelons of the list now - the Top 10's coming tomorrow but let's go through those who just missed out on the very top tier - our Top 20 albums of the year. *** 20.     LAURA JANE GRACE - "Hole In My Head" Hole In My Head   might just be Laura Jane Grace's strongest album to date. Similar to its predecessor, 2020's Stay Alive  and the 2021 At War With The Silverfish  EP, it's stripped back acoustic punk rock wearing its heart on its sleeve, similar to Frank Turner at his best and the likes of Punk Rock In Basements , Tacos and Toast  and the superb album highlight Dysphoria Hoodie  have a fist-aloft honesty to them that's near impossible to resist. A triumph of an album. *** 19.     JUKEBOX HEADACHES - "Wigston Deli" Wigston Deli   does what every good second album should by taking the best parts of Jukebox Headaches' double album debut Balkan Telescope  and building on them to great effect. Takin...

  And so the end is near...we present to you the ten best albums of the year just gone in our humble opinion... 10.     BEANS ON TOAST - "The Toothpaste And The Tube" Another regular presence in my end of year lists in recent years, The Toothpaste And The Tube  sees Jay McAllister aka Beans on Toast returning to the fray in fine form and taking on everything from the joys of life on tour ( Back Out On The Road , The Golden Lion ) through laments at the state of the country ( Hope & Glory , The Greenwash ) to enjoying the simpler things in life to get you through ( Swimming In The Sea , The Dragicorn ). McAllister is quite simply one of the best lyric writers in the country today and The Toothpaste And The Tube  is a fine place to start for those wanting to discover his work. *** 9.     CYANIDE PILLS - "Soundtrack To The New Cold War" Soundtrack To The New Cold War sees Leeds pop-punks the Cyanide Pills well and truly coming of age. The group have ...

  I think it's safe to say that those of us who were here at the Brudenell tonight needed something like this. In a week where the pressure cooker situation between the US and Russia has finally boiled over in the Ukraine, the news seems to get worse every day in terms of what the UK can expect in terms of soaring bills and poverty this year and not to even mention the utter shitshow going on at the top level of politics in both of our main parties, these are dark and worrying times indeed. Even Jay McAllister aka Beans on Toast, normally a man whose generally easygoing nature and cheerful tunes shine out for all to see, seems to be feeling it a bit as he explains during a between-song diatribe about how first we had Brexit and all the conflict that caused, then we had Covid and the lockdown and all the damage to our mental health that caused and now we've got the threat of nuclear war hanging over us and you wonder when this is all going to end. However, as he mentions at the ...

  On into the Top 30 we go then. Brace yourselves... *** 30.     RICKY WARWICK - "When Life Was Hard And Fast" When Life Was Hard And Fast   sees Ricky Warwick back to the no-nonsense rock music he's made his name with first in the Almighty and more recently with Black Star Riders. Veering from fired up punk to more moody reflective moments, this is straight ahead fist-in-the-air singalong rock anthems done by a master of the craft. Great stuff. *** 29.     BEANS ON TOAST - "Survival Of The Friendliest" Jay McAllister aka Beans On Toast is one of those songwriters who can make you see the light in even the most dark of times and Survival of the Friendliest  was a much needed ray of sunshine as the bleakness of December and the prospect of yet another lockdown set in. Working with a full band for this one, it's an album full of songs of hope to put an arm around your shoulder and see you through your long dark night of the soul. *** 28.     PE...

It's December so that must mean a new Beans On Toast album is in the offing. No less than his fourteenth, it was mostly written during and in the aftermath of the second lockdown in the early months of the year with the aim of coming up with a set of songs that tried to see the good in these decidedly bad times. There's always been a lovely laid-back quality to Beans on Toast's previous albums and unlike last year's double release of Knee Deep In Nostalgia and The Unforeseeable Future , Survival of the Friendliest  sees him working with a full band. The result is a genuinely uplifting set of songs with the rolling beat of Not Everybody Thinks We're Doomed  writing the manifesto large while Rocks  and Blow Volcano Blow  both look at the wonders of nature. However, the mournful Tree of the Year  is an angry lament at the old oak tree cut down to make way for the HS2 vanity project and The Commons  is a Levellers style call to the dispossessed to rise up and r...

  So here we go then, our favourite ten albums of 2020. Big thanks once again to everyone who's given this site a read over the last six months since we set it up and taken an interest in the demented gibberings within. And quite frankly, I think we can all agree, good bloody riddance to this awful year. We'll be back in 2021 with the usual mix of reviews and features but we're going to take a few days off to recuperate after how insanely busy December has been here. We're just about caught up with our review backlog now so we figure we deserve a bit of a break! Have a great New Year whatever you do folks and we'll see you on the other side... *** 10. BEANS ON TOAST - "Knee Deep In Nostalgia" ( Bandcamp ) ( Review )/"The Unforeseeable Future" ( Bandcamp ) ( Review ) Released on the same day, these two albums show the two different sides of Beans on Toast. While Knee Deep In Nostalgia , produced by Frank Turner, was a warm and gentle full studio a...