Nite Songs

  Summer in the city and the air is still as Aztec Camera once sang. Though not that still over here as we've got a bumper crop of new releases in this month's Singles Bar - we'll have a couple of EP's later this morning but for now let's get started by pouring a cold one and looking at the singles themselves... *** We could only really start with a new effort from Ginger Wildheart & The Sinners  really as Lately Always  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗) represents the second release from their upcoming debut album due in October. Ginger's spoken of the Sinners as being an outlet for the much-loved country-influenced side of his output and while its predecessor Wasted Times  didn't quite showcase this, great though it was, this is more what you might be expecting, a gentle mid-paced effort which is a perfect soundtrack to those lazy summer evenings chilling out in the garden. Great stuff as you'd expect. Bandcamp Link *** Ginger's not the only member of the Wildheart...

  It's safe to say that this new album from Jesse Malin has been a long time in the making. Although it's only two years since his previous effort, Sunset Kids  (an album which I'll be honest and say I was a bit underwhelmed by), we've already had three singles from it over the past 12 months (it's been a gradual work in progress during the lockdown), all of which have been good stuff so I was pretty keen to hear what the rest of the 15 tracks on here sounded like. Sad And Beautiful World  is an album split into two parts with the first side showing off Malin's more reflective side. Similar to Sunset Kids , this part of the album is a very downbeat and mournful one as evidenced by the gentle opener Greener Pastures  but if that album felt as though it was lacking much of a kick - the fact that Before You Go picks up the pace nicely proves that at least there's a bit more energy about this effort. State Of The Art  is even better with Jesse urging the subject...

August always seems to be a bit of a quiet time for releases and to be honest, it has been a bit quieter than usual at the Singles Bar this month. However, we've done a bit of rooting around to find a few potential gems we might've missed in the last few months as well as a handful of new releases plus a couple of mini-albums for you so if you'd be so kind as to head out on to the roof terrace and soak up the sun a bit, we'll get our selection over to you straight away. Well, we started with a Wildhearts  single last month and we do so again this month with the excellent Sort Your Fucking Shit Out  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗) another promising salvo from the upcoming 21st Century Love Songs  album. Poppier than last month's Remember These Days , it still packs enough unexpected twists and turns to what initially appears to be a straightforward slice of pop-punk but builds up to a furious crescendo. Great stuff. We've already encountered Norwegian pop-punks The Cocktail Slipper...

Welcome back to the Singles Bar as we look through this month's releases. A bit of a shorter than usual column this month with five singles and a mini-album to get through so let's get on with it, shall we?... Rich Ragany & The Digressions  are currently limbering up for their second album and on the evidence of  Heartbreakers Don't Try  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑), a tribute to Johnny Thunders with its lyrical references to You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory unless my ears deceive me, it should be well worth the wait. A supremely tuneful slice of Tom Petty style power-pop (two Heartbreakers for the price of one, you might say) with some driving piano courtesy of ex-Shush man and all round production wiz Andy Brook, this is good stuff. Bandcamp link here .  It's always good to see some Jesse Malin  in the review pile although the jerky blues of  The Way We Used To Roll  (🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑) isn't quite up to the standard of his previous few releases like Ameri'ka or...

  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 ...

  Yup, you're right, it has  come around again quickly. Sod's law being what it is, pretty much as soon as I'd finished last month's Singles Bar column two weeks ago, a whole flood of new releases came to my attention so we almost instantly ended up with enough to do another column all together. So you lucky people are getting this month's singles bar instalment a couple of weeks earlier than planned this time out - hope you enjoy... Okay, first up, I demand to know how the excellent Spunk Volcano & The Eruptions  have managed to put no less than three singles out in recent months without anyone bringing it to my attention! Oh well, better late than never. Kicking off, Football In The Sun  (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗) is a great and surprisingly touching ode to kickabouts in the park with your mates in the '80s with a great anthemic singalong chorus in the best Undertones stylee. If you missed it first time out, get a copy now and keep it on standby for next summer when hop...