Nite Songs

  Top 20 time then - hopefully a few albums on here you might have missed first time out and will enjoy giving a much deserved listen to. Tune back in for the Top 10 tomorrow... *** 20.     CAROL HODGE - "The Crippling Space Between" Hodge's third solo album sees her in good form, mixing light and shade to brilliant effect. Informed by the strange climate that lockdown brought on, by turns angry and hopeful, despairing and optimistic, it runs the full gauntlet of emotions that a lot of us felt during those weird months. She may still be one of the UK music industry's best kept secrets but on the evidence of The Crippling Space Between , it's really time that somebody changed that and she received the recognition she deserves. *** 19.     MINISTRY - "Moral Hygiene" Times like this provide rich fodder for Al Jourgensen and Moral Hygiene  is arguably Ministry's strongest album for over a decade. As you'd expect, it doesn't let up on the heavines...

  Hailing from Norway, the Cocktail Slippers have cropped up a couple of times in our Singles Bar in recent months with their chirpy power-pop singles and I was looking forward to hearing this debut full length from them. The obvious template here is the Go-Go's and I guarantee you won't be able to listen to the opening title track here without Belinda Carlisle and co's We Got The Beat  going through your head. That's not a bad thing though - a bit of the stardust has definitely rubbed off here and it makes for a fun listen. Which, to be honest, sums up the album pretty well - this is power-pop in its most sugar-sweet form - Be The One  and Like A Song Stuck In My Head  both sound like Voice of the Beehive with a newly acquired Ronettes fixation while Excuse Me  and former single City On Fire  are the Primitives with better production and added pop sensibilities. Indeed, if you remember those days of 1988-89 or so when the likes of Transvision Vamp and the ...

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...

  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...