Nite Songs

  And so the end is near...we present to you the ten best albums of the year just gone in our humble opinion... 10.     BEANS ON TOAST - "The Toothpaste And The Tube" Another regular presence in my end of year lists in recent years, The Toothpaste And The Tube  sees Jay McAllister aka Beans on Toast returning to the fray in fine form and taking on everything from the joys of life on tour ( Back Out On The Road , The Golden Lion ) through laments at the state of the country ( Hope & Glory , The Greenwash ) to enjoying the simpler things in life to get you through ( Swimming In The Sea , The Dragicorn ). McAllister is quite simply one of the best lyric writers in the country today and The Toothpaste And The Tube  is a fine place to start for those wanting to discover his work. *** 9.     CYANIDE PILLS - "Soundtrack To The New Cold War" Soundtrack To The New Cold War sees Leeds pop-punks the Cyanide Pills well and truly coming of age. The group have ...

  Looking back from two decades' distance, 2002 was a weird year and This Footnotes column is likely to be a little more, how shall we say, obscure than the ones that have come before. As 2002 rolled around, I was now out of the other side of Uni and drifting between various jobs (most of which were either warehouse or bottom of the rung admin employment) and accommodations (a fallout with my parents led to me essentially being a bed and breakfast man for a good bit of this year before finally settling in with some bandmates in a house in Kirkstall which was basically rotting away from the inside) Luckily though, as the internet started to expand, other places started to spring up aside from the obvious two to    get my fix  of good new music. My Wildhearts fandom had led me to the excellent Five Miles High webzine (run by Darren Stockford who'd previously run Ginger 's Silver Ginger site) while as I've mentioned elsewhere, it was also around this time that I...

  So here we go...the big moment...who's won our Album Of The Year award? Read on to find out! *** 10.     L.A. GUNS - "Checkered Past" A real return to form for L.A. Guns and arguably the best album that's come out under this band's name in nearly three decades. Checkered Past  sees them retaining the heaviness of their recent efforts but applying them to the big fist-in-the-air template that they made their name with in the late '80s, veering from strutting AC/DC riff-fests through ferocious thrash to more moody introspective moments. Phil, Tracii and the rest of the guys can congratulate themselves on a job well done here. *** 9.     THE CORAL - "Coral Island" One which escaped our attention at the time, Coral Island  might just be the Coral's best album to date. Almost a world within a record, side one is pure blissful summertime psychedelia set at the titular seaside destination before side two sees winter roll around and things take a more ...