Nite Songs

  Like the Vibrators album we reviewed last week, this is another album which we heard in time for it to make last year's Top 50 album list but by the time we did so, all the review slots until the end of December had been used up. So anyway, here's the review finally, better late than never etc. Maybe it's just me but given the way we've all been put through the wringer in the last 12 months or so, music that can make you chuckle a bit seems to have become a bit more valuable in recent months and so the arrival of a lockdown album from Harlow's premier exponent of "chap-hop" Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer (who those with long memories may remember as Jim Burke, frontman of indie dance Britpop era almost-weres Collapsed Lung) actually feels a bit like welcoming an old friend back after a long break away. A Thoroughly Modern Existential Crisis  is every bit as silly as you'd expect from someone whose gimmick is that of a toff gangster rapper but the fact is ...

  Compiled by former Gunfire Dance and Waldos guitarist and current Men That Will Be Blamed For Nothing drummer Jez Miller, Hatful of Holloway  is a compilation of covers to raise funds for renowned rockers' drinking joint the Lamb pub in Holloway. With an impressive cast list, for a worthwhile cause, it's certainly something bearing investigation with a good mix of straight up fired up rock and some more out there moments as well. Among the highlights are Flesh Tetris turning in an agreeably crunchy version of Rammstein's Du Hast and Paul-Ronney Angel and Tomirae Brown's seasick Oh Pandemic  which is as darkly ominous as you'd expect. Gunfire Dance's fired up cover of the Kinks' Till The End Of The Day  reminds you what a sadly under-rated band they were and The Men That Will Not Be Blamed... also do a quality raid on Ray Davies' back catalogue with their cover of Victoria  (a live favourite from their gigs). Elsewhere, Miller turns in a competent cover...

  "The devil on my shoulder buys me drinks so I don't care. My angel's slipped, he's lost his grip, I guess I'm heading straight for you know where..."  - 60Ft Dolls  - Pig Valentine , 1996 And so Sounds From The Junkshop returns after its Christmas break with another tale of bands who really should have made a bigger impact than they did. Newport natives the 60Ft Dolls were one of those bands who came to prominence during the Britpop movement but ended up kind of falling between two stools - they were probably a bit too rough and scuzzy for the Adidas clad Oasis/Blur brigade but not quite heavy enough to appeal to Britrock fans. It's a real shame because they put out two absolutely storming albums which are well worth tracking down. I think my first encounter with the Dolls was some time in late 1995 when I saw them sharing a bill with their labelmates Sleeper and the Wannadies in Leeds. All three bands gave a good account of themselves that night but I d...

  The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that this album crept into the lower end of our Top 50 list for last year. However, due to its late release in the calendar, by the time we got round to listening to it we'd actually used up all of the review slots for December so we're sneaking it in early doors for 2021 instead. Anyway, the Vibrators. One of the more under-rated punk bands in this reviewer's humble opinion, they put out four highly recommended albums (1977's Pure Mania , 1978's V2 , 1982's Guilty  and 1984's Alaska 127 ) which were marked by the group having three principle songwriters in frontman Knox, guitarist John Ellis and bassist Pat Collier who all had a very different approach to songwriting. This would turn out to be those early albums' main selling point as it gave them a wide variety of musical styles that definitely set the group ahead of the standard 1-2-3-4 punk merchants. However, Ellis and Collier's departure in the late...

  James Alex aka Beach Slang is certainly a prolific guy if nothing else. As well as recording three excellent albums, he's also done an acoustic album and a couple of EP's as Quiet Slang and several covers EP's down the years. So I suppose the arrival of an acoustic covers album from the guy recorded in lockdown isn't a particularly big surprise really. The song choices here are very much from the indie/college rock end of the music spectrum with the likes of Sebadoh, J Mascis, Elliott Smith and the Magnetic Fields all represented. It's as rough and DIY sounding as you'd expect with just Alex, his guitar and a couple of FX pedals here and there. I guess how much this will appeal depends on your taste for this sort of music - in terms of bands I'm familiar with, there's a suitably spooky take on the Eels' PS You Rock My World  and his version of the Smiths classic Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want  is decent enough (although I've heard ...

  Ah the joys of the January review pile As has often been observed in the past, this is very much the graveyard shift of the year where yer average reviewer has to look at stuff they may have missed in the last few months. So at least you know what to expect on here until the release schedule starts to pick up again in February/March. Anyway, you may remember New York's Baby Shakes for their rather excellent Cause A Scene  album in 2019 which was one of the first reviews we ever did on Nite Songs. Shake The System  is more of a stop-gap album of demos and previously unreleased tracks with all proceeds going to the NAACP charity which supports racial justice and equal rights. So all for a very worthy cause then. The material herein is the usual impressively tight and tuneful power-pop that we've come to know and love this band for with a few tracks such as Running Through The Night  and  Modern Girl Renegade  which have surfaced on previous releases rubbing...

  So here we go then, our favourite ten albums of 2020. Big thanks once again to everyone who's given this site a read over the last six months since we set it up and taken an interest in the demented gibberings within. And quite frankly, I think we can all agree, good bloody riddance to this awful year. We'll be back in 2021 with the usual mix of reviews and features but we're going to take a few days off to recuperate after how insanely busy December has been here. We're just about caught up with our review backlog now so we figure we deserve a bit of a break! Have a great New Year whatever you do folks and we'll see you on the other side... *** 10. BEANS ON TOAST - "Knee Deep In Nostalgia" ( Bandcamp ) ( Review )/"The Unforeseeable Future" ( Bandcamp ) ( Review ) Released on the same day, these two albums show the two different sides of Beans on Toast. While Knee Deep In Nostalgia , produced by Frank Turner, was a warm and gentle full studio a...