Nite Songs

Okay, time for the big hitters - we did the first half of our Top 100 albums yesterday and now it's ten a day from now until the New Year. Settle down and let's see how the first part of our Top 50 unfolds, shall we?... *** 50. THE KUT - "Grit" Grit  saw the Kut deliver an album more than worthy of their commercial step up in the world, ironing out their old inconsistencies to deliver a well-rounded effort packing plenty of variety and some great tunes and hooks to boot from the driving riff of Not Here For Love  to the shameless power ballad of Satellite . The sound of a band very much arriving. *** 49. CINDY LAWSON - "New Tricks" Something of a local legend in her home state of Minnesota thanks to her '80s band the Clams, New Tricks  is an album that deserves to take Cindy Lawson to a wider audience. Mixing spiky pop-punk, Runaways style gang chants and even the odd bit of grunge and shoegazing for good measure, this is an album with its fingers in man...

I suppose one of the few bright points of the Wildhearts going on an indefinite hiatus earlier this year is that it's given all of the members a chance to concentrate on their solo projects and tonight is a good opportunity to catch up with three ex-'Hearts as they get back on the road. The number of familiar faces, some of whom I haven't seen in years, tonight really makes this feel like a bit of a special occasion and you know it's going to be a good one. The last time I saw Grand Theft Audio  live was at Bradford Rio's way back in about 2001 but as their Pass Me The Conch  album earlier this month showed, they've picked up without missing a beat and moved their sound forward well. With Jay and Ritch joined by new members Ben Marsden (The Main Grains, the Spangles, Modern Day Dukes, Warner Hodges Band) and Rob Lane (Teenage Casket Co, Ryan Hamilton, Bulletboys), tonight's set is a good mix of new ( Scrub Up , The Gods Of Rock , Ici Mon Decree ) and old ( W...

  Honestly, a comeback from Grand Theft Audio, one of the few nu-metal bands that your correspondent actually liked, wasn't something that I was expecting a couple of years ago but since Jay Butler and Ritch Battersby reconvened, they've been on a decent run of form with the Another Life  and Ici Mon Decree  singles showing a band pushing themselves forward to good effect. Pleased to report that Pass Me The Conch  continues that form from the instant the rolling riff and "Put your hands in the air!"  chorus of Scrub Up . Bury The Day  is a pure riot and The Gods Of Rock  shows off GTA's trademark sly sense of humour with lyrics like "No-one cares about your shit song/We're just waiting for the end" . Trevor  has an ominous slow building anger to it with Butler's menacing vocals before we get two former singles in Ruin Your Youth  and the frenetic  Ici Mon Decree . Away  is a slower more thoughtful number although lyrics like "I wann...

  Welcome to the Singles Bar on this cold November night. Glass of mulled something for you? Well, while you mull it over, let's have a look at what's out this month shall we? Well, we kind of had to start with long time Nite Songs faves Evil Scarecrow  who are back with a bang this month complete with half a new line-up and a new single Master Of The Dojo  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗) from their forthcoming album due to see the light of day in 2022. And it's as brilliantly silly as you'd expect with some Karate Kid  inspired lyrics about kicking people in the balls to win fights over some chugging none-more-metal riffs. Expect to see audiences doing a dance routine to it much the same as they did to Robototron  and Crabulon  in recent years at a venue near you soon.  Bandcamp Link And it isn't getting any less heavy or silly around here as Geordie stoner rock bruisers Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs have teamed up with Lancaster art-rock oddballs The Lovely Eggs ...

  "If hate is black and love is white then doubt's a shade of grey..."  - Silver Ginger 5 - Church Of The Broken Hearted I'll be honest, I've been wanting to do the second part of my Wildhearts story for a while now but given the amount of stuff I've had to sort out in the meantime for SFTJ I wanted the time to be right rather than just jumping ahead of the timeline. Well, we're now up to 1998 and I think it's safe to pick up the story again so let's do this. As I mentioned way back in part one of the Wildhearts story , 1997 saw the band splitting up amid a flurry of drug demons, record deals gone wrong and a chronically unstable line-up (in more ways than one). However, with so many ex-members now moving on to new musical projects, it did mean that there were suddenly a lot  of new bands on the horizon featuring one or more ex-members of the group and it's fair to say that I had quite a few stories based around the band from that split in the ...

Welcome back to the Singles Bar for our March instalment. As seems to be becoming a regular occurrence at the moment, this is another two-parter with this bit being all singles and the second part a mix of singles and EP's. Let's get that first order in and see what's on the radar this month then shall we?... The Dowling Poole   have been a regular fixture in this column over the last 6 months or so and their latest release Slow Genocide  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑) is a paranoid Sleaford Mods-style ode to the lockdown and the government's clueless handling of it featuring gruff vocals from Terrorvision's Tony Wright. Sinister and creepy, it's a good slice of political paranoia 2021 style. With the group's long time lyrical target Donald Trump now gone from the White House, it looks like the band are now squarely training their sights on the cabinet of leeches running the UK and there's plenty of anger here to stoke the fires of discontent. Bandcamp link here Saint Agn...

  Welcome once again to the Singles Bar for our final session of 2020. As you'll see throughout today, this month's entry has been a bit of a never-ending saga to put together. The aim was to clear the decks before the end of the year but just when we thought we'd got everything sorted out, it seemed like something else that was of interest came on to our radar. So keep your eyes out for further updates today because rest assured they will be coming. Anyway, here's a blast from the past to start us off -  Grand Theft Audio were one of the few bands I genuinely used to enjoy back in the dreaded nu-metal era (partly I think because of the presence of ex-Wildhearts drummer Ritch Battersby and former 3 Colours Red guitarist Chris McCormack in the fold).   Ruin Your Youth (🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑)   is their comeback single as a three-piece (McCormack is now busy playing guitar with the Professionals) and sees them abandoning a lot of the electronica that marked their sole album from ...