Nite Songs

  Jump for joy, it's Top 40 time - cue Whole Lotta Love / Yellow Pearl / The Wizard /your TOTP theme of choice... *** 40.    SARAH SHOOK & THE DISARMERS - "Revelations" Another band who I discovered pretty much by accident this year, Sarah (now River) Shook and their band are now on their fourth album and if, like me, this is the first you've heard of them then listening to it will make you quickly want to make up for lost time. Mixing the winsome country strum of prime time Tom Petty with a bratty indie-pop insouciance, Revelations  mixes sugar ( Criminal , Nightingale ) and spite ( Jane Doe , You Don't Get To Tell Me ) to great effect. Give this band a listen now.  *** 39.     X - "Smoke And Fiction" If this really does turn out to be LA punk veterans X's swansong then rest assured they've gone out on a high note. A more than worthy follow-up to 2020's storming comeback Alphabetland , it sees them throwing everything from old-school pun...

  Kubix Day 1 Review here And so on to Day 2 of Kubix. While yesterday was a fairly slow-paced opening day to the festival, today proves to be a lot more busy with several stage clashes. In the interest of covering as much as possible, please be aware that for quite a few of the bands I've reviewed here, I didn't catch the full set due to hot footing it to/from the other stage. But hopefully I've done this justice... It's weird how a nice sunny day (a stark contrast to yesterday which alternated between clouds and rain) can make even bands you weren't a fan of first time out seem pleasant enough and Republica , who open the Main Stage today, are a case in point. Back when I was 18, I generally found their Essex girl techno-Britpop about as much fun as root canal surgery without the anaesthetic but today they're enjoyable enough with an energy and enthusiasm to their set that means you'd have to be a bit of a miserable bugger not to enjoy it. They play the hi...

  And so the countdown continues. Ten more today as we move into the Top 40 (cue up the old TOTP chart rundown theme should you feel so inclined) *** 40.      THE MUDD CLUB - "Bottle Blonde" From Kansas via Machnylleth, the Mudd Club blasted out of nowhere to come up with one of the better debut albums of 2021. No-nonsense two minute knucklehead garage-punk, it's the way the group attack the songs on  Bottle Blonde  with such sheer carefree abandon in the best X-Ray Spex/Adverts/Television Personalities style that makes this album a winner. *** 39.     STEVE CONTE - "Bronx Cheer" Conte's first solo album in seven years was a triumphant comeback from the guy with an impressively varied repertoire taking in everything from full throttle punk to laid back smoky blues jams. The guy deserves credit for putting together something this varied when it would have been very easy to just stick with a safe option and Bronx Cheer  is an excellent listen. ...

Mainstays on the folk punk circuit in recent years, this is the fifth album from Ferocious Dog and if I'm honest I was a little bit underwhelmed by their previous effort, 2019's Fake News And Propaganda . So it feels a bit like there's an element of "put up or shut up" with this new release. As it turned out, I needn't have worried - The Hope  might actually be the band's strongest album to date. There's a real energy to these tunes which seems to have ignited a bit of a spark that was there intermittently before. Similar to the Levellers, who they've gigged with quite a bit in the past, it's a heartfelt honesty and passion powering the songs along here right from the  moment the intro of Port Isaac  blasts into the barrelling sea shanty Haul Away Joe  and the political anger of Pentrich Rising . There's a good mixture of light and shade in here from the mournful acoustics of the title track and 1914 to the angry tirades about homelessness ...

  So here we are again. The autumn is rolling in although given that as I write this it's 25 degrees up here in Yorkshire, clearly no-one told the supreme being. Guess we'd better grab some cold ones, head out on to the terrace and see what aural delights the month has waiting for us then... A couple of covers to kick us off this month, both courtesy of Screaming Crow Records' Action Jukebox series. First up,  The Dirty Denims  take on the Kiss classic Rock 'n' Roll All Night  (🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑) and turn in a respectable version although it was always gonna have its work cut out matching the peerless original. The fact that they're a Donnas style female fronted band at least gives this version a slightly different twist (hey hang on, didn't the Donnas cover Rock 'n' Roll All Night  themselves back in the day? :checks notes: No, turns out that was Strutter . Carry on) The original track Better Believe It  on the flipside is actually the better tune here, so...