Nite Songs

  Approaching the upper echelons of our end of year list now - read on to find out what's made our Top 30 albums for this year... *** 30. BEFORE VICTORIA - "Moving Forward" Stepping away from his career as a writer and bassist for the Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, Moving Forward  saw Marc Burrows' side project Before Victoria very much sprout wings of its own and fly. Mixing elements of grunge, goth, new wave and the odd disarming acoustic confessional, this is a hell of a varied album but one that never loses your attention throughout. Burrows can definitely congratulate himself on a job well done here. *** 29. THE LINDA LINDAS - "Growing Up" Having come to the public's attention with the blistering anger of their Racist Sexist Boy  single, Growing Up proved that the Linda Lindas were definitely more than just back to basics punk rock. Sounding like X-Ray Spex jamming with early Ash, this was a well crafted selection of songs with a lyrical m...

  Regulars on the London power-pop scene for a while now, I'll admit that this is the first time I've listened to one of More Kicks' albums although I've seen the band live a couple of times at a few power-pop gigs when I lived in the Smoke and enjoyed frontman James Sullivan's solo lockdown album Light Years  when it surfaced last year so I was interesting to see what this one sounded like. The obvious template for More Kicks is the Buzzcocks - they peddle a similarly skewed take on the whole power-pop formula with their individual stamp on it as evidenced on the way opener Hurts Like Hell  goes from a bright sunshiny singalong to the sinister spoken word over the closing minute or so. In Love  and Terminal Love (the latter sadly not a cover of the Boys classic) are even more Shelley influenced with their tales of love and angst over hyperventilating riffs while  Animal  and Seven Ways  both have a strident almost Stooges-esque feel to them with their...