Rating: 2/5
If, as popular conception dictates, Swedes really do only follow one of two musical extremes - church-burning black metal or polyphonic, wide-eyed pop - then Shout Out Louds have definitely chosen the latter. The Stockholm quintet combine the dreamy ambience of The Cure with the resonant guitar of U2, adding their own lush harmonies [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘music’
August 5, 2008
August in singles: Punks, divas, has-beens and a will-be
[Nacional: recipients of August's single of the month award. But there is no award... more like an accolade actually.]
Punk is all the rage - on the evidence of the first two singles this month anyway. The King Blues are a London act who project a renagade, guerilla-gigging image. Let’s Hang The Landlord (*, 4 Aug), [...]
July 29, 2008
The Blakes - The Blakes (album review)
Rating: 2/5
It’s easy to get an idea of what to expect from The Blakes by citing their apparent influences: early Strokes in the playful kick of ‘Modern Man’, ‘Country Girl’-mode Primal Scream in the bluesy ‘Magoo’, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in the loose, grungy sway of upcoming single ‘Don’t Want That Now’. And the [...]
July 25, 2008
XX Teens - Welcome To Goon Island
Rating: 4/5
Some bands have no luck in the name game. After being threatened with legal action by a copier corporation under their previous guise of Xerox Teens, this London quintet settled on the dubious-sounding XX Teens. (And they’re not even teenagers.) Never mind all that though, because their debut album Welcome To Goon Island is [...]
July 24, 2008
Jakob Dylan - Seeing Things
Rating: 2/5
Jakob Dylan is either immensely brave or immensely foolish. To pursue a solo career in the shadow of Dylan senior - and in an acoustic, country-blues style at that - must require great self-belief or gross ignorance of the implications. Because, let’s be frank, under the family name the Wallflowers frontman is always going [...]
July 21, 2008
T in the Park: Sunday roving report
So much for Saturday. Sunday was all set to be the great day, with the clouds clearing and a glut of exciting bands to enjoy. The only problem was how to take it all in…
After a brief sojourn in the Media Village that proved uneventful (no ‘celebs’ to watch being slobbered over by the Daily [...]
July 17, 2008
T in the Park: Saturday roving report
With memories of a litter-strewn airstrip and 80,000 dancing, drinking, singing, colliding, wretching, cavorting, exposing, stumbling, pissing people fading as fast as my sunburn, it’s time I posted my second annual T in the Park roving report…
Straight off the trusty shuttle bus - via the bar, of course - we decide to sample some sounds, [...]
July 11, 2008
Interview: Hot Chip
This is a feature I wrote back in February for The Skinny, the week before Hot Chip released their third album. It all came together too late to tie in with the album release, so here it is on the eve of their T in the Park set…
Interviews with Hot Chip often begin with the [...]
July 8, 2008
July in singles: a bored actress, Pammy’s ex, and the next Arcade Fire?
[Attic Lights: recipients of July single of the month]
To look at bespectacled Glaswegian Ross Clark, you might expect him to be a modest, sensitive, home-spun folkster. But, au contraire, Silversword (****, Out Now) is a raucous, joyous, full-band-with-horns blitzkrieg, taking the populist bent of The Fratellis and filtering out all the bad stuff. Paul [...]
