Nite Songs

  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...

  Welcome to the traditional Nite Songs end of year rundown. As we did last year, we're gonna kick off today with our Top 10 EP's and mini-albums before kicking off the Top 50 countdown in earnest tomorrow. As you'll know if you've been frequenting our Singles Bar over the last 12 months, 2021 has been nothing if not a varied year as evidenced from the sheer variety of stuff making up this list from sugar-sweet power-pop to ferocious punk. Read on for our picks and hopefully we might just help you plug a couple of gaps in your collection then tune back in tomorrow as we start the albums list. *** 10. THE SPANGLES - "Boys Just Wanna Have Fun" Sometimes covers EP's just work and this one from the Spangles was one of those where you could literally sense the band having fun as they were making it. Covers of Transvision Vamp, Kim Wilde, Joan Jett and the Bangles are all handled well with the melodies and hooks given a good old scuzzy glam-punk makeover to top ...

  As we mentioned in Part 1 of this thing earlier today, the sheer volume of new stuff this month has led to this month's Singles Bar being a three-parter and here's the third bit with no less than seven new EP's and mini-albums (think that might be a record for this thing!) for your delectation. *** BILLY IDOL - "The Roadside EP" We reviewed the lead off track from Billy's new EP, the downbeat Bitter Taste , last month in this column. However, any fears that this would be another album of mid-paced songs with few rock-outs as per his last album Kings And Queens of the Underground  are, I'm pleased to say, unfounded as the raw punky lead off track Rita Hayworth  kicks in sounding sleazier than a room full of crack-dealing pimps and thank feck for that. Elsewhere, U Don't Have To Kiss Me Like That  is a pulsating drum machine fired rocker that could have belonged on Billy's Whiplash Smile  album and Baby Put Your Clothes Back On  is a sinister slowi...

  It's safe to say that 2020 will be remembered in music as the year of the lockdown album with several artists gaining strength from turning the fear and frustration brought on by Covid and the attendant shutdown of the world into songs and words. Against Me!'s frontwoman Laura Jane Grace is another to add to this list of people - this new album was originally conceived as an Against Me! band album but the lockdown saw the members of said group scattered to the four corners of the US and, not knowing when things would return to normal (as I write this in the middle of the second lockdown I think most of us are questioning if they ever will), decided to simply do the album as a solo project by booking out her local studios in Chicago and enlisting the help of Steve Albini to do some production remotely. The result is, as you might expect, a haunting stripped-back album which is at once comforting and stark with tunes like opener Swimming Pool Song  and the disturbingly frank M...