Nite Songs

  Time for the third part of our end of year countdown as we reach the Top 40. As always, feel free to cue up the old chart rundown music from Radio 1 if it helps enhance the experience for you... *** 40. WET LEG - "Wet Leg" Yes, it's easy to be cynical about Wet Leg but the truth is that when all's said and done they came up with a bit of a cracker for their debut album. It's quite simply fun music with a lot of the songs having an endearingly gleeful vitriol to them. Yet there's a serious undercurrent there as well with the likes of Wet Dream  and Piece Of Shit  having a genuine anger underpinning the playfulness. For once, a case of the hype being deserved. *** 39. KAE TEMPEST - "The Line Is A Curve" Kae's first album since coming out as gender neutral is all about seeking solace in tough times, be that their recent struggles or the recent struggles all of us have had thanks to lockdown etc. Backed up by lush orchestration and with Tempest...

  Hands up, it's been a fair while since I last listened to a Tegan & Sara album so I'll admit to being a little out of the loop here with the much-acclaimed Canadian lo-fi pop-punk duo. I remember listening to and enjoying a few of their early albums like Sainthood  and The Con  but I think this might be the first album of theirs that's crossed my path since So Jealous  way back in 2009. Perhaps unsurprisingly given that it's well over a decade since my last encounter with them, my initial thoughts on listening to Crybaby  is that this is the sound of a more grown up Tegan & Sara with the opening duo of I Can't Grow Up  and All I Wanted  are breathless slices of dream-pop which drift by blissfully before Fucking Up What Matters  comes on like the Nova Twins with added nous and a less brickbat approach, an ode to a destructive relationship with lines like "I don't hate you, I just hate what we've become"  and shows that this is still ...