Nite Songs

  So here we go - the inaugural Nite Songs Top 50 Albums of the Year. And what a bloody weird year it’s been... Twelve months ago I was genuinely convinced that I was done with music journalism for the foreseeable future. Pure Rawk, the webzine I wrote for at the time, had just gone into prolonged hibernation (soon to emerge though hopefully...) and I'd also just moved back to my native Bradford after a decade living in the south east. The plan was that I was going to get out and start living again, start going to gigs as a fan and enjoying them for what they were, finally get a new band of my own going seven years after the last one split up, learn to enjoy life as a music fan again really. And then Covid happened. Gigs stopped. In fact, social life as a whole pretty much stopped. Bang went the idea of starting a new band, of going to gigs, of pretty much doing anything really as I also lost my job as the company I worked for cut costs (thankfully my spell on the dole would only l...

  Best known for her work with the Dowling Poole and Ginger Wildheart, this is actually Givvi Flynn's second solo album following on from 2013's under-rated Thieving From The Magpie's Nest . That album was one of the big underrated albums of the year mixing bright and shiny pop with some superb hooks to add a bit of a punch to good effect. Tomboy , I'm pleased to report, carries on in much the same vein with the stomping '70s glam riff of Say Something  and the more melodic If This Is It  getting things off to a good start here. Tomboy  definitely has a very strong '90s Britrock influence with the content veering from the stomping riffs of Antisocial Media  and the title track through the creepy Too Much  to the more mid-paced and reflective How Could I? . There's a few clever tricks on here too like how  Versions  goes from a sparse almost gothy beginning to a lightning-speed whiplash riff midway through and the back to calmer waters. Similarly, ...