Nite Songs

It's a bit odd when you think about it that the bootboy glam revival spearheaded by Giuda and Faz Waltz has so far mostly been confined to Italy given that when the movement first came around in the '70s, it was very much a UK phenomenon as epitomised by groups like Slade. Hard Wax are clearly a band keen to bring back those days and on This Is The Sound , their second album, they come on like the bastard offspring of Noddy Holder and Jimmy Pursey with the chugging glam riffs and bootboy chantalong lyrics mostly about drinking and fighting. It's fairly straightforward stuff for the most part although there's the odd diversion to make sure it stays interesting such as the AC/DC style riffage on Razor Part Rebels  or the oddly enjoyable excursion into Chas & Dave style East End pub piannah rock on Days Of Glory . The best track on here though is the barrelling closer In For A Penny  which is reminiscent of the Heavy Metal Kids and signs the album off in good style. Or...

  Therapy? were arguably one of the first proper rock bands your correspondent became a fan of. Forming in Larne, Northern Ireland in 1990, their ferocious early albums were raw as hell with frontman Andy Cairns' vocals barely containing the chaos thrashing around beneath them. However, as they started to slowly refine the formula, they quickly became darlings of both Kerrang! and the NME (albeit briefly with the latter) and gained a major chart breakthrough when the ferocious Screamager catapulted them into the Top 10 in early 1993. It was a few months later though that your correspondent became a fan with the Opal Mantra EP which crashed into the Top 20. Mixing the angst of grunge with a heavier punkier sound, their sound was memorably described by one journo at the time as "like techno music played by guitars which ate people and with better tunes". I've had my ups and downs with Therapy? through the years - following a number of efforts to try and recapture the ...

  The news last year that veteran Swedish old school rock 'n' rollers the Diamond Dogs had returned to the fray after a five year hiatus was generally greeted pretty warmly by all concerned. Similar to a Swedish version of the Quireboys, their more down to earth bluesy approach to rock 'n' roll marked them out as real contenders in the early noughties on the back of albums such as Too Much Is Always Better Than Not Enough  and Up The Rock  with a sound that was a world away from the peroxided poodle rock that a lot of their fellow Swedes tend to be guilty of when it comes to this sort of music. The band went on hiatus in 2015 following the passing of sax player Magic Gunnarsson (with frontman Sulo putting out some very worthy solo albums in the interim as well as fronting street-rock supergroup the Crunch) and this return effort is half originals and half covers which, if I'm honest, kind of makes it feel like a bit of a stop-gap album. Nevertheless, there's som...

  Lauren Tate is best known for her day job fronting Barnsley's answer to Babes in Toyland, Hands Off Gretel and it has to be said she's one of the more charismatic punk singers on the circuit today, never shy of standing up to lazy cliches and bullies and with a good line in thoughtful and angry lyrics as well. So the prospect of a solo album from her is certainly a pretty intriguing one. I'm happy to report though that Songs For Sad Girls  is generally pretty decent. HOG are a band who definitely aren't afraid to let their angst and venom run at full tilt on their albums and the fact that there are songs on here dedicated to self-harm ( Miss America Perfect Body ), neglectful parents ( What About The Kids ) and abusive relationships ( Can't Keep My Hands Off You ) all within the first few songs. Musically, this album is more varied than you might at first think from the poppy He Loves Me  and the Ronettes-style harmonies of Naturally Born Bad  to the vitriolic...

Okay so this instalment of Sounds From The Junkshop is likely to need a little bit of prior clarification. It's not that the Wonder Stuff are exactly an unknown band but they seem to be a band cursed where their two big hits, the omnipresent Size of a Cow and their Vic Reeves collaboration Dizzy seem to be the first thing people think of. For this episode of SFTJ though, we're taking a trip down a road less travelled to revisit an album that's generally regarded as the runt of the litter when it comes to the group's first run and was fairly swiftly disowned by the band at the time but ended up being one of my favourites and an album I've frequently revisited down the years. I refer of course to the band's swansong prior to splitting, Construction For The Modern Idiot . I was aware of the Wonder Stuff before then obviously - I remember the excellent Don't Let Me Down Gently  being on Top of the Pops a few years before and buying it from the local Woolworths...

  Tensheds is the solo career alter ego of Jim Jones & The Righteous Mind keyboard player Matt Millership and Deathrow Disco is no less than his fifth solo album. It’s an intriguing and enjoyable beast as well which shows off the guy's versatility as a musician to good effect. The sheer scope of this album could easily have been a disaster in the wrong hands but it’s to the immense credit of Millership and his co-accused here that they manage to pull something pretty damn good out of the hat here. Opener Youngbloods sees Millership going full Ray Manzarek with a screeching keyboard solo that almost sounds like guitars before taking it to a whole new level on Gold Tooth  and Sharp Threads  which sounds like a couple of rolling blues rock numbers with Millership replacing the guitar parts with his keyboard playing. A tricky one to pull off and he deserves a lot of credit for doing so. There's plenty of other highlights here as well from the the panicky  Black Blo...

Oh I can hear you now - "Bluddyell, he really has lost the plot this time, David flippin' Hasselhoff?" Allow me to explain -the prospect of the Hoff doing a covers album may be the sort of thing that sounds more like it belongs in Novelty Records Monthly  rather than Nite Songs  but looking at the choices of bands covered here, this is definitely not yer standard "actor doing a bunch of '70s pop standards" territory. Whitesnake? Echo and the Bunnymen? Modern English? Lords of the New Church? The Jesus & Mary Chain? Okay, I give in, you got me intrigued, let's investigate. The surprising thing is that Hoff actually doesn't do too bad a job here. Backed up by a guest list including Steve Stevens, James Williamson, Tracii Guns, Todd Rundgren, A Flock of Seagulls and Ministry of all people (c'mon, try and tell me that the Hoff and Al Jourgensen teaming up to cover Sweet Caroline  doesn't at least vaguely intrigue you), he treats the songs wit...