Chimpomatic

Cinderella Man

(dir. Ron Howard)

Washed up fighter James W. Braddock is struggling to keep his family together during the Great Depression, but gets an unlikely shot at the World Title.

Seemingly unsure of whether it wants to be Raging Bull or Rocky, the film's aesthetic lifts heavily, but lacks the punch of the former - while the predictable underdog tale lacks the heart of the latter. Russell Crowe's performance as a hard working honest guy might technically be on the money, but the character is lacking in motivation or passion, making for a pretty flat film.

It seems like everybody involved felt like they were in sure-fire Oscar country here, and Paul Giacametti's performance in particular feels like it was sent in by telegram. He's badly cast as a young-looking training 'veteran' and there's no depth to his character - especially for a role that's usually set to 'powerhouse' (Clint and Morgan Freeman in Million Dollar Baby, Burgess Meredith in Rocky, Joe Pesci in Raging Bull). The script holds few surprises too - the bell rings in the nick of time a couple of times, the dishonest opponent gets the odd punch in after the bell, but unlike the aforementioned Million Dollar Baby, there's little doubt how it's going to end.

The production values and art direction are big and expensive, but when the dust settles all we are left with is a long solid, hard working dust bowl of a movie, not dissimilar to that other dull, depression sports drama - Sea Biscuit.

The old Halliwell's Guide would probably say *.

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#CSF

17th Oct 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Celebration

The Modern Tribe

4AD

I had a quick listen to this in the car with Chimpovichs’ brother – who has been accurately dubbed a musical Mr Miyagi. (Coincidentally, our journey home was from a football match where he’d scored a crane-kick goal that Daniel LaRusso would have been proud of). However, much like watching all four Karate Kid films back-to-back we were glad when it was over.
 
Now, the original review ended here, but conscious that while the might of Miyagi-san's wisdom is rarely wrong, the car stereo may not have given it a fair run for its money. I can’t remember if the bass was on / was off – and as such I gave it another couple of listens. (You’ll be pleased to know I think I’ve run out of lame, unrelated, out of place, Karate based links).
 
So - The first thing to say on the second album from this Baltimore three piece Celebration is that it is actually pretty good. The melodic, beat driven art rock (?) tunes here have a kaleidoscope of layers while the stirring vocals of Katrina Ford lend a hot blooded rousing jolt. She’s got a set of lungs on her, oh yes, but she can also do soft and tender too..
 
The chief creative mind in the band pulses in the head of Sean Antanaitis. According to Wikipedia he plays Guitar, Guitorgan, Organ, Wurlitzer, Piano, Moog Pedal Bass, and Electronics and, according to the photos on their website, all at the same time. David Bergander - who ONLY plays the drums - maintains a steady and inventive beat throughout and he creates the setting for many a deep groove.
 
Now. Let’s say you got annoyed by the inability of this review to enlighten you as to the ‘sound’ of this band. Then, in a red rage, you break all the rules governing self-defence and launch an attack on me, force me in a choke-hold to encourage me to namecheck bands that have influenced this sound. What would I cough up? How about: the Cocteau Twins, Moloko, a hint of the intensity of Arcade Fire and, if I had any breath left in my oxygen starved lungs, a touch of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
 
Judging by what I’ve read, I think this lot may well enhance their reputation with their energetic and engaging live shows. According to their web-site, your woman, Katrina, “wishes a violent death upon the era of glum audience members motionlessly watching glum bands with glum arms crossed” and dances around in the crowd as they get everyone going.

This whole experience has taught me that the secret of Karate is in the heart and mind. Not in the hands.

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#Locochimpo

3rd Oct 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Fire Engines

Hungry Beat

Acute Records

Perhaps there was something about being Scottish and in a band in 1981 that made a person want to sing a bit like Edwyn Collins, or maybe that's just the way people's mooths work up there. Either way, you'll not hear a more comprehensive set of mangled vowels than in this compilation by Edinburgh's Fire Engines. What? The Fire Engines, you say? The post-punk-art-punk caledonians oft mentioned in the same hushed tones as Josef K? Yes, them unfortunately. Top effort for trying and all that, but a quarter of a century later it doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.

What's wrong with it? Well, at their best on say Big Gold Dream, the Fire Engines had a pretty good ACR vibe going - you know, the white boy funk band playing a little beyond their capabilities - which ACR totally pulled off. The Fire Engines sounded like they were always playing a lot beyond their capabilities - not tight enough to achieve a convincing Talking Heads funk, smart enough for the prog punk of Magazine, or catchy enough to be Orange Juice. To be fair, a production sound which could be generously described as rudimentary has not helped matters, a fact born out by hearing what they sound like now. Uber fans Franz (Ferdinand) shared a single with Fire Engines last year, on which they covered a track of each others, but that is not included here. Thankfully.

This group really has all the correct boxes ticked: from the right place, at the right time, famous fans, famous contemporaries who achieved great things. It's just the one box that's not getting swooshed - the great and memorable songs box.

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#HarrisPilton

24th Sep 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Animal Collective

Strawberry Jam

Domino

Listening to Animal Collective records is akin to listening to the sounds inside the brain of a child genius who’s hopped up on a cocktail of Ritalin and Prozac and suffering all the known side effects of hyperactive paranoid neurosis. In a good way.

Weaved waves of hypnotic beats are mixed with samples and guitar loops to produce a sometimes awkward, but always interesting experimental sound. All this complimented by the brilliantly bonkers vocals of Avery Tare (supported by some beach boys-like harmonies). One moment singing melodically, then howling like a mad banshee - the innocence, intensity and soreness in the voice, while sounding like nothing else I’ve heard, fits the feel of the songs perfectly.

Listening to Animal Collective can sometimes be a bit challenging. The album opens with some awkward beats and crackles and beeps, but don’t be put off as everything comes together to produce a right rollicking song about monsters – Peacebone.  The stand out tracks on Strawberry Jam are Reverend Green and Fireworks. The former, it’s speculated, is about the things you see living in NYC and contains, I think, one of the best/funniest lines on the album: “Bulimic vegetarian wins weight contest”. The latter, I’m certain, is my current favourite song.

New York based Animal Collective - made up of Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin and Geologist - all do their own stuff and all seem pretty prolific and I think this is their 8th long player together. (Panda Bear released a brilliant solo album earlier this year – Person Pitch – which is well worth a listen). Pound for pound, I’m not yet sure if Strawberry Jam is as good as their 2005 album Feels, but this is still a contender for album of the year if you ask me.

Listening to it I have to wonder how the bejesus they come up with such abstract ideas for their tunes. However, if they’re gonna keep on serving up delicious treats such as Strawberry Jam then I hope they keep taking the tablets.

#Music
#Locochimpo

10th Sep 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Kinski

Down Below It's Chaos

Sub Pop

Like a hit-man's shot to the head, silenced through a pillow, Kinski's third album hits the target with muffled ferocity. Deep, wooly guitars rumble and thunder their way through this album sometimes accompanied by minimal vocals or simple melody but often just push forward with pounding drums as their only guide.

I would like to say that opening track Crybaby Blowout was the song that accompanied a certain 'special move' in the game Mortal Kombat where, on tapping a secret sequence of buttons your character shouted CRYBABY BLOWOUT! and rapid-fire-sucker-punched your opponent in the gut for 3.48 minutes. Sadly, it's not - but you get the gist of the awesome power with which this album opens.

And it's this power that is persistently present throughout the record whether it's with driving instrumental muscle-flexing or subdued vocal melodies. The vocals play an important part with Kinski adding much needed variety to the songs but ultimately it's the purely instrumental tracks that really drive this record. Boy, Was I Mad! is a brooding slow starter that never really seems to threaten anything but then opens up into a ferocious cacophony of thrashing guitars and crashing drums while Child Had To Catch A Train is Kinski at their best, with hard riffs backed up by whirling keyboard melodies. Whenever the band tries to show a more sensitive side like on Plan, Steal, Drive the menacing undercurrents of far off trouble creep up until before you know it you're surrounded by swirls of thumping guitars.

This may all sound quite predictable and it could easily be if handled by less competent bands but you must remember, like The Terminator, this is what Kinski do, this is all they do and they absolutely will not stop until you're dead...satisfied.

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#BC

21st Aug 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The New Pornographers

Challengers

Matador Records

I went to see The New Pornographers a couple of years ago at London’s Borderline. I hadn’t really heard many of their tunes, but this Canadian 7/8 piece came highly recommended. I can’t say every one of their hard driving indie pop tunes clicked with me, but I was certainly impressed and puzzled by their style. There was something about the structure of their tunes that was odd and original and very compelling. (Plus, their drummer was mental and who doesn’t like to see that?).

Their fourth album, “Challengers”, is similar – there’s such variety in the way they build songs, and some great riffs dotted throughout, that on my first listen I kinda knew I liked it but at times I was perplexed as to why.

“My Rights Versus Yours” is a brilliant catchy opener that builds from a mellow folky start to flourish into an air-punching, foot stomping tune. This is followed by the equally ace “All the Old Showstoppers” which houses some great hooks and again made me do a little jig when it hit the heights. “All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth” is where they sound closest to fellow Canadians Arcade Fire, but the next two tunes, “Failsafe” and “Unguided”, are battling it out as my favourite on the album.

"Myriad Harbour", is another cracking tune where the singer starts the lines only for the rest of the band, like an annoying girl I once worked with, to finish his thoughts for him. This song also heralds the first of a couple of moments on the album, as the vocals get a bit Tenacious D (he asks his local record store for “an American music anthol-low-geeee” – Jack Black stylee), where I’m not sure if they’re having a laugh or being deadly serious.

Singing duties are, however, swapped around four band members (lady singers Kathryn Calder and Neko Case have - I can exclusively reveal - nice voices) and they pepper songs with some pleasant harmonies. These come through strongest in the splendid “Mutiny, I promise You” and the sparse “Adventures in Solitude”.

The main man of this side project (all band members release records as solo artists or with other bands), A.C. Newman, says “Over the years I’ve just learned how to write better songs”. It certainly seems apparent here as it feels like there’s more depth and diversity than on their previous albums. While it might not be as constantly full on as, say, Electric Version (their 2nd album from 2003) - which some of their fans may not thank them for - I think with repeat listens you’ll reap the rewards of this interesting and enjoyable album.


Bonus Trivia:

- The New Pornographers name, its suggested, was inspired by a quote from American Pentecostal Televangelist, Jimmy Swaggart, who declared that music was, yep, the ‘new pornography’.

- Jimmy Swaggart also hated gays: “'I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm going to be blunt and plain: if one ever looks at me like that, I'm going to kill him and tell God he died.”

- Jimmy Swaggart also publicly exposed one of his buddies for having an affair - claiming his mate was a "cancer in the body of Christ."

- What goes around comes around… Jimmy himself got busted – twice - for sleeping with prostitutes, but was less forthcoming in criticism on this one:  "The Lord told me it's flat none of your business."

#Music
#Locochimpo

24th Jul 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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O'Death

Head Home

City Slang

What do you get if you cross a wailing voice, a banjo and a fiddle? This isn't a joke. Country music right? Well normally yes but in a parallel, and slightly perverse, universe the outcome is O'Death.

Listening to O'Death I'm reminded of the scene from the Blues Brothers where the band reform and secure a gig at Bob's Country Bunker. 'What kind of music do you usually have here?' asks Elwood and the response is "we have both kinds; country and western" whereupon the band are forced to launch into Stand by your Man and the theme from Rawhide before a riot ensues. To me this has always summed up country music. As an outsider it has always seemed to be something of a closed shop existing in a vacuum that fails to acknowledge or incorporate any other form of music. Those on the inside appear to know the ropes and stick to the formula - it's either plaintive songs of heartbreak of the 'stand by your man' ilk or sing-along hoe downs from the Rawhide vein.

O'Death are the outsiders who don't play by the rules, they've left the country bunker and discovered a whole other world out there. Now there is another suffix to add after country; it's not just 'and western' because to the musical lexicon O'Death have introduced 'country and gothic punk'. Based in New York, these are rural boys embracing the attitude of the big city. Theirs' is a sound not so much for barn dances on Walton mountain but mosh pits with the characters from Deliverance on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre farm. This is the riot at Bob's Country Bunker in musical form.

It is an edgy and at moments slightly disturbing journey but O'Death is a travelling carnival of infectious energy. Their relentless refusal to charm is charming in itself and if you get it then it rocks! Melody is certainly not sacrificed.  Most tunes being of the foot stomping variety rest on beats that recall Iggy and the Stooges. These songs could've been penned by Tom Waits imagining them being delivered by a voice that at times could belong to either Frank Black, Jack White or Neil Young. At the end of this barn dance you can imagine that someone has spilt volatile moonshine over a hay bale. A stray cigarette thrown away by the fiddler has caused a fire and the band have to make a sharp exit on the back of a pick up truck. The locals elders are up in arms bemoaning the trail of destruction but the kids have had their eyes opened and will never be the same again.

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#Muxloe

23rd Jul 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Latitude Festival

Henham Park, Southwold, Suffolk

I have always been of the opinion that dysentery is a disease best avoided.  After attending the Latitude Festival however, which took place last weekend in Henham Park, Suffolk, I realise that there may be many of you who are not so fastidious.

By all accounts last year’s festival, the first ever Latitude, was a grand affair; 10,000 people, families welcome (encouraged even), beautiful country park and good music.  Seduced by this proposal I followed a group of friends up the A12 and spent four days in an authentic, if slightly more squalid recreation of an earthquake refugee camp.

I have reached a respectable age and had thus far managed to avoid ever attending a music festival.  As someone who is mildly agoraphobic and plagued by an autistic need to bathe myself once a day, it may not have been a good idea to change the habit of a lifetime. 

With a gleeful wringing of hands the organisers announced on the eve of kick-off that all tickets had been sold.  20,000 people this year but apparently no proportionate increase in the facilities or the size of the arenas.  An excrement mountain due to an inadequate number of toilets; a complete collapse of water pressure and thus showers and overcrowding in several venues was the result.  The heavens took pity and, apart from a couple of heavy showers, blessed the reeking campers with sunshine and merry weather.

Day one; It was all about Wilco.  Two Gallants, Midlake, The Fields, began slowly cranking up the afternoon, but I was already worried that the weekend’s line-up which had looked so promising, might have been a bit heavy on whining and men sincerely frowning over their guitars.  Now Wilco are ostensibly a band of men who frown sincerely over their guitars, but they are also schizophrenic and utterly compelling. 

Before they got on stage I was bored; bored by the many children running around, bored by not being able to bring your own booze into the arena, bored by the crowds packed solidly into the comedy arena sheltering from quite a few boring performances.  The Magic Numbers had bounced the audience around a bit, but I just can’t take the whole beard and siblings thing.  It’s all a bit creepy, inspite of the smiley faces.

Then Wilco walked out and with a great white burn of lights, a heave of the crowd and a wall of guitars, they gave a performance to wake everybody up.  I had seen them in May at Shepherd’s Bush Empire and the hour-long set they played at Latitude shared all the highlights from that night but seemed even more determined.  New album ‘Sky Blue Sky’ got a good outing with storming renditions of ‘Walken’ and ‘Shake it off’.  Albums ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’ and ‘A Ghost Is Born’ also got their hits out; teasing the audience with their gentle melodies before snapping into trademark guitar tsunamis and feedback.  Inspired.

Like a musical dose of Valium, Damien Rice must have been back-stage anxiously waiting to numb the crowd from their Wilco-induced high.  His presence in this otherwise exhilarating line-up was inexplicable and who in the world stayed to listen to him I couldn’t stay - but boy, the rapturous noise they made when he’d finished echoed across the campsite. Most disturbing.

Day two;  Bit of a slow builder again.  Herman Dune and Bat for Lashes on the main stage competed for ‘Sound-alike of the day’.  The Cretin who compared the former ‘to the likes of Bob Dylan’ should be strung up with guitar wire; this blatant Jonathan Richman tribute band are within a Nordic-facial-hair’s breadth of copyright infringement.  As for ‘Bat for lashes’, again the literature describes her as having been ‘compared to Bjork, Cat Power and Tori Amos’.  ‘Derivative of’ might be more accurate. 

Prize for most enthusiastic performance of the festival goes to The Hold Steady’.  They run on stage like a bunch of college jocks and front man Craig Finn, announces, ‘We’re the Hold Steady and we’re here to have a good time!’  It’s the last day of their tour and they are clearly over-excited. ‘Stuck between stations’, ‘Massive Night’, ‘Party Pit’ all provoke a lot of finger pointing form the crowd of forty-something-blokes enjoying some healthy man-rock and working themselves up to a belching coronary.  The band strings out every guitar crescendo and look like they never want to leave.  As Craig says, ‘When we started out it was so we could all meet a couple of nights a week and drink some beer.  This is beyond our wildest dreams’.

If Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, who followed, had had a modicum of The Hold Steady’s energy they would have avoided my nomination for Biggest Disappointment of the weekend.  As it was, my own hands were reluctant to celebrate contrived, gurney, vocals and a dull performance.  If they’d played the CD’s of their two albums I’d have had a great time. 

And so it was that CSS brought their balloons onto the stage of the Obelisk arena and revived a sagging day.  The crowd needed relief and their vacuous dance-pop perked it up like effervescent vitamin C.   ‘Let’s make love (and listen to death from above)’ closed the set.  With helium in her lungs Lovefoxxx squealed out her appreciation to the audience after an hour of cat suited carnival.

The Good the Bad and the Queen had to headline I guess, but it was another strange change of tempo when they ambled on. ‘History Song’ and ‘Herculean’ are unexpectedly ballsy, in no small part due to the contributions of Clash Bassist, Paul Simonon.  He takes control of the stage with loping strides and a brooding presence, plucking at his guitar and sending his deep bass across the crowd like a defibrillator.  A Dickensian London backdrop and a top hat for Mr Albarn seem to court great Blakean comparisons; Songs of Innocence and Experience.  And although he’s a very clever boy, Damon’s a right annoying twat with it.  ‘Soldier’s Tale’ comes with a sanctimonious nod to the ‘Soldier I met who was going to Iraq’ and when he brings on MC Eslam Jawaad for the encore I’m squirming at the smug self-consciousness of it all. 

When the band plays ‘80’s life’ I can’t help but think of the last Blur album, and clearly I’m not the only one musing on this.  In the audience there are a lot of girls grinning.  Occasionally I hear one of them shouting, ‘I want to fuck you Damon’… which suggests that something less than raging Anti-war sentiments were rousing the crowd’s passions.

Day three; My limbs are crippled, caked with filth resulting from the lack of shower facilities.  An internal build up of noxious fumes as I attempt to avoid going to the toilet and asphyxiation by medieval stench when I finally do, have all left me in a bad way.  So far this whole Festival bollocks is proving no substitute for a good three-hour gig at the Brixton Academy.

But that’s ok because today’s line up is looking good.  I was annoyed to miss most of the Andrew Bird set after collapsing with exhaustion from my third toilet trip of the day.  All this hovering above the chasm and straining is traumatizing me.  What I eventually do hear sounds bewitching in the summer afternoon.  The drummer, Dosh (accomplished electro-musician himself), gives fine support to Bird who provides vocals, looping violins, guitars, glockenspiel and goddam fine whistling.

Next up The National, whom I’ve been anticipating like a child waits for Christmas.  But Oh No! What’s this?…. there appears to be confusion on stage.  Look, there are Messrs Dessner, Dessner, Devendorf and Devendorf, but what are they doing spending so long tinkering with their instruments and sticking tape onto everything?  It transpires that The National arrived at Henham Park ten minutes ago and came empty handed.  None of their instruments deigned to suffer the stench of Latitude so they’re having to borrow everything off the Cold War Kids and Andrew Bird.

It shows.  The band look ravaged and uneasy with their purloined Orchestra.  There are great songs in there somewhere; ‘Mistaken for Strangers’ (from their latest album ‘Boxer’), ‘Karen’ (off of ‘Songs for Dirty Lovers’) and ‘Mr November’ (from ‘Alligator’) but there is no subtlety to the sound.  Lyrical contributions from keyboards and violins that make the albums so symphonic and full are totally swamped by the guitars.  Lines like ‘I used to be carried in the arms of a cheerleader’ or ‘The English are coming!’ should by rights swell this audience to a festival frenzy and the lead singer is trying hard.  He rasps ‘I won’t fuck us over!’ with a kind of tortured mania that seems ironically relevant to the shitty day they’re having but it feels like a bit of a lost cause.  Two songs from the end of this too-short set they kick into ‘Fake Empire’ and it’s almost like they get their conviction back.  I get goose bumps with the rhythmic build and the crowd responds, maybe they’ve just warmed up?!  Well they have, but now they’ve got to get off; ‘Thank you very much! I’m glad we got here because half an hour ago it looked like we wouldn’t make it’.  I feel cheated.

The Cold War Kids do well next and The Rapture, like CSS last night, provide a poptastic interlude which the crowds devour.  I sense that a lot of people are getting a bit tired of some of the slightly dour singer-song writing going on and want a sugar rush.  ‘Get myself into it’ and ‘Whoo!  Alright-Yeah… Uh’ do the job and you have to hand it to them, Matt Safer and Luke Jenner know how to handle their audience.  They tease us by walking on and off stage, bounce off each other vocally and insist on being resiliently up beat. 

Jarvis Cocker is on stage next as the sun begins to sink and if you haven’t been able to make it to the Comedy tent, Jarvis provides plenty of star cabaret.  Again, however, there is the sense that everyone would probably rather be watching Pulp, just as last night they would have much preferred Blur to the drones of Damon and his crew.  But Jarvis encapsulated his previous band more singularly than Damon ever did, so if you close your eyes you can almost daydream that…

‘I stand astride these two monitors like the Rock Colossus that I am’, claims the lanky one as he bemuses the crowd with surreal commentaries on the weather.  He then gains our instant favour by empathising with the epic efforts required to have got this far into the Festival.  ‘The world is still run by cunts’, brings his set to an end and those of us who weren’t expecting much are impressed by a run of songs which have never been less than engaging.  Just as I finish clapping and start to, mentally prepare myself for the festival finale with the Arcade Fire, Jarvis reappears;

‘We were going to end there but I just want to play you one more song which I promise this band will never play again’. 

‘What?  A golden slice of Pulp!’, the crowd wonders eagerly, ‘Common People’, ‘Disco 2000’?!…

‘It’s called, the Eye of the Tiger’.

‘What?’

And so off they go.  Jarvis and his band play themselves out with a sparkling cover of Eye of the Tiger and the exhausted crowd smile and cheer their appreciation.

If day one had been all about Wilco, then I guess the whole festival was really about the Sunday night headliners.  I’m sure that anyone reading this would probably take the credit for introducing their friends to the Arcade Fire, probably the most exciting band in the world at present.  But to find yourself in a field with 20,000 people equally convinced that the band are their own private discovery, throws you a little.

The scene is set with a great red velvet backdrop, several oversized Victorian camera props onto which are projected surreal faces in black and white and a lot of red neon.  Tantalizingly the stage is covered with all manner or paraphernalia; hurdy-gurdies, cymbals and the pipes of a great organ.  In the hands of an army of musicians each gets its moment in the limelight during a performance which just keeps getting better.

The husband and wife pairing of Win Butler and Regine Chassagne take it in turns to lead the way on a comprehensive journey through their two albums, Neon Bible and Funeral.  From the pounding urgency of ‘No cars go’ to the swelling Mariachi trumpets of ‘Ocean of Noise’ there is no escaping the band’s persistent inventiveness and passion.  Highlights were aplenty but the Bruce Springsteen coloured tracks ‘Antichrist Television Blues’ and ‘Keep the car running’ were blistering.  Projected onto the backdrop was footage taken from a camera apparently embedded in the snare drum.  Watching a giant drummer beating the rhythm out so relentlessly was mesmerising as the music continued to build, crescendoing in the ‘Power out’ and as a finale, ‘Rebellion (Lies)’.  As the performance came to a close fireworks showered over the back of the audience and someone lit a series of paper lanterns that billowed softly up into the night sky.  The band seemed just as entranced by the moment as they looked out over 20,000 arms clapping in time to the music; ‘Every time you close your eyes’ they sang but we didn’t dare.

If I’m honest I’d have to say that Butler’s voice repeatedly got lost in the roar of the music and I found myself anxious that he was straining to meet the range which his songs demanded in a live performance.  Perhaps I was just distracted by the tuneless moron next to me who insisted on droning loudly and inanely along with the music: and there are a lot of opportunities to accompany the songs of the Arcade Fire with a choice bit of off-key humming. 

Latitude 2007 will be the first and last festival I ever attend.  Three days of crowds, camping and mountains of faeces, book ended by two fantastic performances by Wilco and the genius of Arcade Fire.  If anything it has convinced me to spend a lot more time in the Shepherd’s Bush Empire enjoying whole-hearted performances by some of the great bands who were compromised by poor organisation and shorter sets.  To my mind learning that may have made the whole experience worth it.

Overall experience - 2
Music in general - 3.5
Arcade fire and Wilco - 4.

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#LG

19th Jul 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Wilco

Shepherd's Bush Empire, London

For a while now Wilco have been the final frontier when it comes to live music. In the last few years many of the greats have been ticked off my list and tonight the final pillar was going to fall. Wilco certainly didn't disappoint. You could divide this gig into two distinct sections - before Jeff Tweedy addressed the crowd and after. Ploughing through 3 choice cuts from the new album and some Wilco classics including I Am Trying To Break Your Heart it seemed Tweedy was here to do a professional job and get the hell out of there. Then the surprisingly charismatic frontman decided to include us in their fun and the whole night took off. And after that it went pretty much as I'd expected, which is good - as I expected nothing short of greatness.

Wilco have never been the kind of band to come out punching with soaring anthems or fancy pyrotechnics so it wasn't until mid-way through that their brilliance fully seeps in and you stand there totally porous to their genius. That's when songs like At Least That's What You Said, Hummingbird and A Shot In The Arm envelop you in their warmth and you are forever changed. Glen Kotche's drumming was, as expected, the back bone to this stunning performance, and new signing Nels Kline frequently took new tracks like Impossible Germany and the beautiful You Are My Face to dazzling heights as he frantically throttled the neck of his guitar. But it was the awesome rendition of the epic Spiders (Kidsmoke) that totally stole the show and took it stellar. I have always considered A Ghost Is Born to be Wilco's finest and this reinforced my opinion. During the 10 minute marathon of climbing guitars, heavy drumming and swirling sound effects this band became something else. This song alone puts them in their own category and though Sky Blue Sky sees them opting for time out of this category for a while their place will always be guaranteed. It was a pleasure to be in the company of this band and its music.

BC - 4 Stars

As a powerhouse band Wilco seem to be getting better and better, with some great contributions from the new boys coming up through the ranks, and notably the Clapton-suited summer signing Nels Cline up front proving some major firepower. Jeff Tweedy holds his own in a guitar duel however, of which there were plenty - mostly more full on and rocking than I could have ever anticipated.

In a live setting the quiet/loud formula of many of the tracks was more apparent - even on many pre A Ghost Is Born numbers, and certainly on beefed up renditions of some of the Sky Blue Sky highlights, such as Side With The Seeds. Many of the more low-key songs like Poor Places and Via Chicago were given a fleshed out majesty by the full band that made them sound better than ever with the finer details or the effects, keyboards and backing vocals more richly presented. Surprisingly the big stand out for me was Woody Guthries Airline to Heaven, which found the band firing on all 6 cylinders to magical effect.... and there was even room for an extra Nels Cline solo.

After the crowd got into the swing of it, Tweedy lightened up and things really picked up getting better and better. This is a man I never thought I would see doing the running man, but there you go. With two extended encores it seemed like we were in Wilco heaven, and with the introduction of Bill Fay for a rendition of his Be Not So Fearful we were provided with a touching tribute to some of the bands roots and influences. Fantastic.

CSF - 4.5 Stars

just to add to the dedicated tweedy-watchers above. for some reason i had them filed in the wrong side side of my alt country factfile for years, have to say i'm glad we've put in the conversion hours at chimp towers to get me up to speed. have only really got round to absorbing the last two albums, but enjoyed everything they played. totally concur on Spiders (Kidsmoke) being the stand-out moment - love those loooong jams where everything cruises and then explodes. Impossible Germany had a great solo to finish it off, loved the freak-out stuff on Via Chicago and that last Bill Fay track was a very sweet closer. never really noticed the beatles influence on the wilco sound before, suddenly felt like i was watching a kind of US indie version of Wings (a good thing in my book). great playing from the whole band, and good to hear a band rocking out without just turning up the amps to 11. 

brought 3 other newbies w me; all walked out converts which leads me to award a pretty conclusive...

4 Stars - c71 

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22nd May 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Kissaway Trail

The Kissaway Trail

Bella Union

It is a phenomenon of the music business that for every great band they discover music lovers have to suffer a wave of mediocrity trailing in their hero's wake. For every Stone Roses there is a Flowered Up, for every Oasis there follows a Northern Uproar, for every Blur there is a Menswear swimming in the slipstream, for every Nirvana a Stone Temple Pilots, for every Kylie in the spotlight there lurks a Lisa Scott Lee in the shadows…. you get the picture. Is it that these bands strive to replicate a formula that is proven to bring success and acclaim or just that record companies actively seek out sound-a-likes of the big buzz band of the moment? I’m not sure, but we can all recall the process; the NME big up this new band and mates pass on a copy of the album like pushers of illegal substances. ‘Go on, you loved Nirvana/Oasis so you’ll definitely love these lot, go on give it a try, go on.’ You’re initially willing to believe that these new lot will be the bona fide real deal before the excitement of the scene dies down and time confirms that they are little more than cheap tribute acts. To the pantheon of such acts can now be added the name of the Danish group The Kissaway Trail. This is a band that will be pushed to you on the basis that ‘if you loved Arcade Fire, you’ll love this lot, go on give it a try, go on….’

Except here’s the thing, The Kissaway Trail are not Arcade Fire. That’s all well and dandy of course, lots of good acts aren’t but the problem lies in the fact that though they may sound similar to the Canadian maestros of the moment, the album they’ve produced is just not particularly good. The Kissaway Trail certainly check all the right boxes. Urgent percussion, tick. Lush strings, tick. Soaring choruses, tick. But they don’t work together in a way that one would expect. It is like mixing ingredients in a bowl and expecting to pull a nicely risen wholemeal farmhouse loaf from the oven only to find that it is actually white Nan bread. Maybe for a debut album comparisons with established acts are harsh but as the Kissaway Trail are trading on them it is only fair to make a few. Tracy with its premature climax lacks the stamina and passion of Arcade Fire, Smother+Evil=Hurt fails to reach the dizzying heights of euphoria the Polyphonic Spree are tuned into and La La Song could do with an extra sprinkling of the Flaming Lips genuine, rather than expedient, eccentricity. This collection of songs all feels just a little too contrived and frankly boring.

Word is that the Kissaway Trail rock on stage, and they certainly have a few tricks up their sleeve offering some promise of a bright future if only they can find their own distinct sound. They certainly aren’t as lame as Menswear or desperate as Lisa Scott Lee but though the NME might currently tell you differently the fear remains that the Kissaway Trail could end up being remembered in the same bracket as Northern Uproar, Stone Temple Pilots and the like.

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27th Apr 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Dirt

Mötley Crüe

"Yo, bartender, hook me up with another shot of bourbon...hey duuuude, I'm fuckin' dry over here... Jeez, what's a guy gotta do to get a swig of the juice?" I drag deeply on my Marlboro red, I have just been reading all about the old times, the old gang - The Crüe - fuck yeah.

In the early days things were pretty wild, Vince, Nikki, Tommy and Mick ripping up sunset boulevard and causing chaos. Just four young guys with fire in their leather pants and a passion to make it. There was no kissing ass with these dudes, the stairway to rock heaven was achieved through pure party energy, and hey - these dudes had party in their blood.

Crazy fuckin' nights in the Whiskey and even crazier mornings at the Crüe pad: girls, booze and as many pharmacuticals as we could handle - man those times were rockin'. Chicks and good times were rollin' - but dude, The Crüe never lost sight of the ultimate prize - rock stardom. And these guys made a deal with the devil to make damn sure that they became the kings of rock.

It was the come down that was rough though. From the fuckin' top of the world, there was only one way to go. Down.

"Yo, dude throw us a light..."

Everything these guys loved turned to dust. Hot chicks became bitchin' wives, and then costly divorces. Fast cars destroyed some of our best buddies, and the alcohol...man when you finally sober up there's one hell of a hangover.

But when this Crüe turned in on itself ...dude thats when the pain really hits hard, when the shit really hits the fan. The guys re-live every fuckin' moment, pouring it all out, every last drop of Mötley mayhem.

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25th Apr 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Low

Drums And Guns

Sup Pop

Things We Lost In The Fire was an exquisite piece of work that managed to wrap you in its melancholy, taking you deeper into its hopeless warmth and only allowing you up for air to keep you alive. 2005's The Great Destroyer saw the band take a whiplash turn of direction as they showed us that all this brooding and threatening that we had persevered with was about to pay off. They flexed their muscles and the result was awesome. So where to after this turn? The Great Destroyer was such a bold move for a band with such a distinctive back catalogue that there was no going back from it. Drums And Guns unfortunately shows Low trying to.

This starts off very slow indeed, but through Belarus Low manage to maintain a certain tension, or air of expectation. It ticks over nicely, but in classic Low style goes nowhere - and leaves you wanting more. This is to their credit, as in the past they have expertly held your attention through miles of empty, lonely terrain but as Breaker creeps in with it's subtle electronic tip toes and itself goes nowhere you start to wonder whether you have the patience for another long and desolate journey. This seems like an album of sketches, rather than finished ideas. Few of the songs have any kind of resolution and when they do, as in Your Poison, they tail off after barely a minute - while Hatchet is entirely based around a very questionable concept of "Let's bury the hatchet like The Beatles and The Stones."

The glimmers of light throughout this record are the introduction of a more electronic sound. It gives the vast sonic landscapes some definition. Always Fade has an organic, sampled beat that mirrors the muddy textures they used to create with the guitar and Breaker adopts a totally different minimal sound that supports the vocals very well.

This is by no means a bad album, but for a band from whom we expect greatness it is disappointing. They seem to be reconsidering their brave move, but finding that it took them so far away from their original position they are struggling to get back. Since I first heard this band I have been so impressed with their confidence and conviction. They were always a band that knew exactly what they were doing and when playing live they displayed a command of their audience that throughout their marathon, barren performances you could have heard a pin drop. This conviction seems to have dwindled slightly here and I can't fight the feeling of restlessness that creeps in during this record. I am in no way suggesting that I'm getting off the Low Train, but I might read my book for a while until the view changes.

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19th Apr 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Andrew Bird

Armchair Apocrypha

Fargo

This latest album from Chicago singer-songwriter and violinist sees the guitar take more of a center position than previous works and the result is a multi-layered piece of dazzlingly original music that is a delight to listen to from start to finish. I must take this moment to warn any readers who are sensitive to over-praise but I will be saying nothing negative about this record in this review as there is nothing negative to say.

Whether he is accompanied by former band Bowl Of Fire or trading under his own name, Andrew Bird has consistently delivered music of effortless grace and though Armchair Apocrypha sees an evolution or resolution of sounds discovered in previous albums Weather Systems and 2005's enchanting The Mysterious Production Of Eggs the core beauty to this mans music remains the same.

The source of this beauty is not too easy to pin down. Musically, Bird weaves a very rich tapestry indeed. Swathes of layered and looped violin usher in jangling guitars, glockenspiel and delicate brushed drums. Thematically it's a similar story with everything from spirituality (Darkmatter) to mortality to the current political climate (Scythian Empires) being addressed but it's all cleverly disguised in a unique poetic ambiguity. But all this wouldn't be half as beguiling if it weren't for Birds voice. This is the key to this and every album previous. Bird has much to say but he's in no hurry to say it. His effortless style can shuffle along in almost spoken word (Cataracts) then can lift to soaring falsetto like a leaf in the summer breeze (Armchairs). Pretty soon you start trusting this voice and give yourself up to its warmth and when you do your heart delights in the knowledge that it could be taken anywhere at a moments notice.

One of the most beautiful songs comes in the form of a 58 second interlude called The Supine. It's deep classical symphonies with dancing finger picking delicacies are simply divine and echo the closing track Yawny At The Apocalypse, who's purely instrumental cello and violin washes ease you out of this sublime dream world. This is truly heartfelt music from an artist devoted to his art and his world and will leave you in quiet awe of just how many strings there are to this man's bow.

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16th Apr 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Modest Mouse

We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank

Epic

2004's Good News For People Who Love Bad News catapulted this band into the mainstream, earning them two Grammy nominations and selling over 1.6 million copies worldwide. Lead single Float On was given ample airplay and longtime fans held their breath to see if this stardom would be the end of the band. Thankfully We Were dead Before The Ship Even Sank shows them having weathered the storm beautifully. It's as fierce, original and furious as anything that's gone before and then some. Perhaps the addition of Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to the lineup is what's provided these songs with a fresh sense of melody.

After a somewhat lackluster opener, Dashboard is where this record really introduces itself. It stomps around arrogantly with foot-tapping ease, the beat pounding under swathes of strings and a glorious trumpet fanfare. Fire It Up has all the soaring, skyward swagger of Float On, while Parting Of The Sensory pretty much sums up why this album is so good. It ambles along for the most part with a menacing and brooding shuffling of the feet, but slowly getting faster and more intense until it evolves into a drum pounding, fiddle frenzied tirade of "someday you will die somehow and somethings gonna steal your carbon." This song displays the raw edge of this band and their ability to keep this rawness under wraps but always have it looming. When it's unleashed, singer Isaac Brock's strained and maniacal voice spits a venom so powerful it's hard to imagine it comes from anywhere contrived.

Fly Trapped In A Jar has Marr's expansive and solid guitar sound driving the song to fantastic heights, while Spitting Venom is an eight and a half minute heavy-weight that changes tempo all the time climaxing in enough cymbals and trumpets that it really should close the album. But obviously they didn't mean us to end on this high. Invisible firmly draws a line under this album with it's wake-up call of driving guitars and stabbing vocals. The odd tempo of this closer cleverly explains the choice of opener as one could lead on to the other in a constant loop which is more than possible for an album this packed with ideas.

Modest Mouse have always plotted their own course and this album is evidence of their impressive ability to retain their fiercely original edge throughout 5 albums. In fact it heralds a new and expansive horizon for the band showcasing a depth of sound and breadth of vision that until now has only been hinted at. In a music scene inundated with new bands every day it's a treat to hear the work of a long standing lineup honing its sound.

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4th Apr 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Hot Club De Paris

Moby Dick Club, Madrid

“The latest revelations from Great Britain!” or so say the posters outside the Moby Dick club, nautically themed and one of the better live music venues in Madrid.  I have no idea if they are setting scenes on fire in the uk, but they’ve just come back from the South by Southwest festival in Texas, invitations for which are generally only handed out to those ‘buzz’ bands looking to arouse industry suits.  And it’s easy to get a buzz from Hot Club de Paris, influenced by the likes of Minutemen, Don Caballero and Shellac, theirs are short, energetic, jerky songs but with the charm and wit of their Merseyside roots never far away.

They begin with an off-mic a capella, in which they introduce themselves and then get down to business reeling out most of the songs from their debut album Drop It ’Til It Pops mixing it up with a bit more a capella, some jokes, a spot of Q and A with the audience and rounding things off nicely with last single Shipwrecked, leaving the typically quiet but appreciative Madrid crowd that little bit happier than they had been 45 minutes earlier.

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27th Mar 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Patrick Wolf

The Magic Position

Polydor

Opening with a veritable cascade of drums that would put Collins to shame (Phil not Jackie) I thought I was about to witness hordes of screaming crazed Roundheads charging the Cavaliers in the opening of some period war film. Then in come the even more epic, but beautifully scored strings in what turns out to be a great opening track, Overture. Having not heard any Patrick Wolf before I found myself slightly miffed that I'd missed out. He's quite clever you know, apparently he built a Theremin when he was barely in his teens. Shame I couldn't spot any on this album (but then I'm deaf as a post so wouldn't anyway). Based a lot around the piano and some stirring string arrangements, the sound of this album benefits from lots of experimentation with dirty analogue sounds and the occasional senseless dark brain-bleeding noise. However with a strong voice that is often lacking up against such a distinct and full sound such as this the whole album comes together nicely. It certainly makes for a much better soundtrack to that new series with Ray Liotta on Channel Five.

At times the young 23 year old songwriter reminded me vocally of a cross between that bloke from Divine Comedy and Edwyn Collins but with more of a wryness about him. I'd certainly like to see how he gets his girl into The Magic Position whilst singing in the major key. I liked the one with the firework sounds, Bluebells and then hark, is that the voice of Marianne Faithfull I hear on the beautiful piano and violin piece that is Magpie? Holy Sheet what a coup, this guy obviously has some noteworthy fans, if you're interested, Edward Larrikin appears on Accident and Emergency.

It's not a dance floor filler but overall I enjoyed this album, despite Get Lost starting with the sound of my alarm clock going off before turning into a summery guitary, synthy, happy lets-go-have-some-carefree-fun number. I bet that Mika bloke would love to be as good as Patrick Wolf.

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8th Mar 2007 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Busdriver

RoadKillOvercoat

Epitaph

The problem with being the hip hop reviewer for a white, middle class indie rock website is that you don't tend to get much work. Sure, I get paid the same as the other chimps, but you can often find me in the canteen here at Chimp Towers sippin' on a 40' with my feet up - waiting for a beep on my pager from CSF to tell me he's got something for me. Long days amble by and the odd thugged-out dick rap record comes and goes but in the words of Ice T " I don't play that shit." I took this job for the cause. Hip Hop has the potential to be the most exciting and creatively diverse genres of them all - it doesn't have the boundaries that others suffer from, it goes where it pleases or at least it should.

So one lazy afternoon after finishing my fourth brewski, I was thinking of popping out for some more cigar papers to escape the accusing glares of the dinner ladies (I had just been crunking furiously while shouting " Errr' body in the club gettin' tipsy,")  when my pager goes buck-wild. "Busdriver, WTF?" was all it said. At first I thought it was my editor wanting me to drive the Chimpmobile on another day trip - but then remembered the new album RoadKillOvercoat by the LA tongue twisting lyricist. Finally a real job. Busdriver's previous albums for Big Dada were like no other. He's the gatling gun of the hip hop world, delivering intricately constructed raps with rapid-fire dexterity. This was gonna be good - something proper to get my teeth into, but damn, I was hella' drunk.

From the outset the signs were all there that this was going to be a treat. Casting Agents And Cowgirls sees Busdriver fit his rhymes expertly round a a tight beat which prepares us well for the machine gun onslaught of Less Yes's, More No's. Rhyming "Soccer Moms" with " Carpet Bombs," this track is about lyrical muscle flexing, as is the next installment where we're told, "Recreational paranoia is the sport of now so kill your employer." You can almost imagine the speed of the little ball bouncing over these words at the bottom of a Karaoke screen.

And so it continues, but once you reach mid point you are thrilled but starting to map out the rest of the record. This is where this album becomes a great hip hop record. With Sun Shower, Busdriver plays his hip hop ace card - he reaches into his inside pocket and pulls out a fully credible license to do what the fuck he wants. All hip hop cats have this license, but few know it. After dazzling us with lyrical acrobatics the dude starts singing. Yes singing. His floaty vocals drift effortlessly over a minimal, deep techno beat and if you thought this was just an interlude, the next track sees Busdriver duet with Coco Rosie's Bianca Cassidy. My editors pager words echoed in my head "Busdriver, What The Fuck?" indeed. The Troglodyte Wins restores the hip hop factory settings but they sound fresher now. The beats are gloriously tight, the rhymes even more thrilling and they see us through to the end where we get yet more of that singing stuff, and there's even an acoustic guitar on blissful closer Dream Catcher's Mitt.

This kind of thing makes my days in the canteen gettin' tipsy worthwhile. It's clever, but not anally so and Busdriver has cultivated a refreshing blend of fiercely intelligent poetry with the playful humour of his earlier work. Since the demise of Blackalicious the cause needs rhymes of this agility - and Busdriver carries the torch to new heights, skillfully avoiding the pitfall of cliche with a style such as his. RoadKillOvercoat is an album that delights the same way anything by Buck 65 or Dose One would and it does what hip hop set out to do. What ever the fuck it wants.

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1st Mar 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Harmful

7

Kool Arrow

I’ve got a theory about bands like Germany’s Harmful.  Bands that aren’t afraid to properly ROCK - nice fat dirty riffs that recall early 90s greats Quicksand and Helmet - but have a singer dude with a nice-voice, telling us about how nasty the world can be.  I imagine the band compliantly rocking out in practice and the singer really ‘feeling’ it, then once he goes off to meet his superior girlfriend or get his hair done, the rest of the band crack open the smokes and fire up the beer and produce some of the awesomest music possible. 

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27th Feb 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Wires On Fire

Wires On Fire

Buddyhead

Ever since the mid-80's - when those two school buses carrying the Punks and the Metalheads crashed on the way to the high school - LA seems to have cornered the market on a certain genre of music. You could describe it as punk influenced metal, maybe with a touch of West Hollywood sleaze. Sure the genre is long out of high school now, probably driving it's own muscle car around town - but the agenda is still the same.

Following in the steps of the likes of The Bronx and The Warlocks, Wires On Fire are a pretty incendiary bunch - and it's no surprise to find out they are on tough talking and generally entertaining website/label Buddyhead. Hard and heavy, this is punk sensibilities with a penchant for guitar solos. You know they're going to rock live, but for this debut they've just laid down a sold album with some promise.

C+ (2.5 stars in chimp terms). Has potential, but could try harder.

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24th Feb 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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300

(dir. Zach Snyder)

Enjoyable macho action that's basically one very long, very crunchy fight scene. Not sure how historically accurate any of this is, but it's the story of 300 buff sixpack Spartans fending off some extras from the dark hordes of Lord Of The Rings (aka Persia).

Based on the Frank Miller graphic novel, it's shot in a similar style to Sin City, and employs the same washed-out digital grainy aesthetic. It's also got the same slim connection to reality - this is heightened everything, everywhere. They shout SPAAAAAAAAAAARTAAAA as often as possible, and make a proto-fascist case for sticking together with your friends and family (as long as they're not born deformed, in which case it's prudent to chuck them out of town asap).

Gerard Butler is the superbuff Spartan leader. He's been the Phantom in The Phantom Of The Opera, Dracula in Dracula 2000 and Attila the Hun in Attila so he's obviously into his historical roles. Lena Headey is the rather unelegantly named Queen Gorgo keeping the Spartan home fires spartan. Weirdest casting for Chimpomatic readers will be The Wire's Dominic West - yes, if you've ever wondered what good po-lice McNulty would look like with long hair and his shirt off, here's your chance.

It's all pretty silly - and vaguely offensive in its depection of the Persians as a horde of unreconstructed "Others" - but carried off with a kind of unpretentious conviction: it sets out to make a crunchy bloodthirsty action blowout, and it succeeds. It's also told from a "here's a story about a legend" perspective, and doesn't really pretend to be anything like a historically accurate account. Apparently they borrowed some swords and stuff from Troy, but it's nowhere near as boring.

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20th Feb 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Arcade Fire

Neon Bible

Rough Trade

In 2005 the Arcade Fire gave us Funeral - and with it music was exciting again. No sooner had the music industry heard all 10 songs that it set about desperately trying to find the next source of this feeling. The well timed release of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah saw that band ride this wave with another stunningly exciting debut. So it's 2 years on and Clap Your Hands got in there first with their reply, so what of Neon Bible? Is this a one trick pony? Well, what do you do after such a powerful debut? As we are seeing with Some Loud Thunder, the answer is to play it cool and take it all down a notch. No such idea ever crossed the mind of Win Butler and co. when making Neon Bible. The agenda is clear here, take everything great about Funeral and times it by ten - reveal the iceberg. It's the sound of a band who know full well that they make big music. The best word to describe Neon Bible is massive. If you intend to listen to this album you will need to brush up on 'The Platoon Position', as mid way through the opening track Black Mirror you'll find yourself in need of a suitable body position to justify such grandiosity. It's triumphant music which is surprising considering all the previous themes of death, resentment and wasted life are at its heart and the inclusion of war and the demise of America it's thematically pretty bleak. Musically and stylistically it hasn't changed much from Funeral although it seems quite obvious that someone's been listening to Bruce Springsteen. So with the immortal words of The Boss "Just wrap your legs round these velvet ribs and strap your hands across my engines,"  I will begin with what will undoubtedly become a tired and over-used driving/cars metaphor to describe this album.

If the opening track with its rumble of thunder and deep, pounding drums is akin to the feeling of getting behind the wheel of a high performance vehicle then Keep The Car Running is the point where you come over the brow of a hill and see the open road ahead. The delicate guitar strum at the start hints at the pace ahead and makes your heart flutter with impending excitement.

Title track Neon Bible is the early stop at the service station to refuel when all women and children hear the words they dread. "Get what you need cos we're not stopping again." And with Intervention we are most certainly back at full speed. It's the grandest song on the album, shit it's the fucking grandest song this side of God Save The Queen (National Anthem not Sex Pistols.) Anyone frowning at my use of cuss words will see that they certainly are justified. Starting with a chapel organ the size of St Pauls Cathedral if every hair on your body doesn't stand on end consider yourself paralyzed. I don't know how this song will be played live as no building with a roof could possibly contain it.

Black Wave is pure Blondie with it's sublime melodies courtesy of Regine Chassagne, who until now has been the power house behind the backing vocals. Ocean Of Noise brings things down a notch with it's washes of strings and soft vocals but the driver of this car wasn't joking when he said we wouldn't be stopping again. This was merely a momentary drop in intensity before the full mariachi band bring this song to a glorious close.

The Well And The Lighthouse comes in with rapid pounding drums and Butler's frenzied vocals forever building and with Antichrist Television Blues The Boss really comes to the forefront. With it's strumming acoustic structure, passion fueled tales of working for the minimum wage and unstoppable tempo this would make Bruce wish he'd written it. As do many of these songs this one builds and builds to such tremendous heights then suddenly stops and makes you think that had it not stopped so suddenly you could very easily have shit yourself with joy. Windowsill is more of a slow builder but guess what, it lifts you up on yet another earth shattering wave of sound and rings you out at the end.

The inclusion of No Cars Go is the only questionable element to this album. Having heard its original form on the early EP this feels like all too familiar territory and even though it's been working out since its first appearance its inclusion here still feels a bit unnecessary.

Things are brought to an exhaustive close with My Body Is A Cage and please welcome back on to the stage, the huge fucking chapel organ. "My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love, but my mind holds the key," sings Butler "Set my body free." This song is the end of a movie, it's the unfeasible tracking-crane-shot that lifts from close proximity and keeps on lifting, encompassing everything, showing us the whole picture. And with it's climax your body drops from the Platoon Position and though all your senses try to stop you, you press play again.

So to put this tired metaphor to rest, this is an awesome journey that covers a lot of ground. It never hits traffic, it sometimes slows down for safety reasons while passing through small villages but never opts for monotonous motorway driving and always takes the scenic route.

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#BC

7th Feb 2007 - 6 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Early Years

The Great Awakening

Beggars Banquet

With their debut LP only recently slipping from heavy rotation, The Early Years are already back in business. While their outstanding debut had it's fair share of 5 star classics - it did somehow have a hint that the best was yet to come with these guys. In between a lot of touring and shows (including a brief stint as the backing band to Can's Damo Suzuki), plus ramping up the debut album for release in the US, the band have still found time to record four completely new tracks for this EP.

Stomping first tune Say What I Want To plays on all of the debut albums strengths, pounding beats layer and build upon like a tidal wave. On Fire applies the same method, but with a minimal electronica slant. There's a slight Edge jangle to the guitars on those last few tracks - which give it a nice 80's indie sound, almost on a Stones Roses vibe.

As The Early Years start to meet their early promise, let's hope that things only get better and a second album builds even further in the same direction.... Viva ze Early Years!

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31st Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Smokin' Aces

(dir. Joe Carnahan)

Big cast for this trashy mob hit throwaway thriller that manages to take that ultraviolent guns, girls and gangs Tarantino mould and have fun with it, rather than boring you with another pointless beer-ad rip-off: Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Alicia Keys, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Jason Bateman, Common, Ryan Reynolds, Peter Berg.

It's a simple Game Of Death style plot: flashy Vegas magician Buddy "Aces" Israel (the awesome Jeremy "Ari from Entourage" Piven) has got mixed up with the mob, and is holed up in a Reno hotel penthouse after he's decided to turn state's evidence. The mob put out a contract on him, and the film's basically a race between various teams of assassins, some bondsmen and the Feds to get to him first.

Piven's on fire here (sometimes literally) - a paranoid coked-out sleazeball manically shuffling cards in his dressing gown, trying to hold it together long enough for FBI men Ray Liotta and Ryan Reynolds to take him into custody. Alicia Keys and Common have both been to that school of totally convincing hip hop actors. Jason Bateman's shady lawyer is a great cameo. Even Baffleck is decent - there's hope for his post Bennifer career yet.

It veers in tone at times (which kind of works), and there's a flaw in the ending which lets it down a bit, but overall Joe "Narc" Carnahan delivers one of those pumped-up live action cartoons that remembers how to have fun with the blow-the-fuck-out-of-everything genre. Also, it's only a touch over 100 minutes, which feels pretty compact these days.

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29th Dec 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Best of 2006

CSF

For me this has been one of the best years for music in a long time. A handful of new bands have emerged with debut albums that have set the tone for a promising career, and this is the first time I have struggled to narrow down the list of favourites... rather than struggle to fill it. Accomplished debuts from The Early Years and The Longcut just missed out on a place, as well as albums from returning artists like Yo La Tengo, Yeah Yeah Yeah's and M. Ward finally making it clear to me what all the fuss is about. And Pearl Jam had a new album and put on the show of a lifetime in London.

My top albums, reduced to as few as possible and in a vague ascending order:

6. Tapes 'n' Tapes - The Loon
With the awesome single leading the charge (see below) this self-released debut from the Minneapolis band has all the right ingredients, and as one inspired hack wrote "This is the record I'd want to make if I formed a band". It's certainly not perfect, and although it never lulls it doesn't quite flow in a couple of places... but for a debut album it's awesome.

5. Oxford Collapse - Remember the Night Parties
These guys were a shot from the blue and if this was a November/December list they'd probably take the gold medal. Again it's a slightly uneven start, but by the midway point I'm totally hooked. Pure garage band fun.

4. The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth
I've been so generally underwhelmed by The Strokes that it took a hooky copy of this mid year to even provoke me to try before I buy... but I take it all back. Far more adventurous that Room On Fire and an easy equal to Is This It?

3. Band of Horses - Everything All The Time
The ups and downs or the tone of an album has been on my mind recently and this is possibly the one album in this list that gets it right. Mellow start, build up, high point around the middle, wind down, strong finish. A definite band to watch.

2. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
I was already thinking the worst when this album arrived, and the double track listing took a look to break down. It's biggest flaw is the length and pacing - as track by track there's hardly a dud on here. Easily their best album, with some absolute classic tracks. Their next one will surely get it just right...

1. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
You can argue that it's a 2005 release, but since it took off 12 months ago this infectious debut has never faltered and never lulled on rotation. You can't listen to track one - which is surely a negative - but it's like a non-stop rollercoaster ride with your friend who's one drink a way from plastered, with a finale that should never stop.



Singles
Midlake - Head Home. Great rolling vibe that is slightly lacking on the album as a whole.
Tapes 'n Tapes - Insistor. I thought it might dull, but it's still the note-perfect highlight off The Loon.
Chili Peppers - Snow (Hey Oh). For a track that momentarily sounds like it's heading into funky monk territory, this is possibly RHCP's greatest. The constant build up and the amazing final chorus are inbelievebale. Just when you can't take any more you can almost hear Frusciante plugging in an extra guitar.

Films
Brick - a great Sundance debut
The Departed - flawed but thoroughly entertaining
Little Miss Sunshine - touching, with non-stop laughs
Awesome - awesome. Resurrecting the near zombie that is the concert movie.

Biggest Let Down:
Miami Vice

TV:
Wire
Entourage

Live:
PJ Astoria
PJ Dublin
MMJ Astoria

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20th Dec 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Flaming Lips

Hammersmith Apollo, London

Having seen Midlake a week earlier at the ULU and found them disappointing, simply because the sound quality was very poor, I luckily decided to get to this gig at the Hammersmith Apollo early - and it turned out that Midlake would also be supporting the Flaming Lips. Seeing them again at the Apollo was so encouraging - you could really appreciate Tim Smith's voice and their nostalgic sound, which really resonated across the room. Sadly, no one had a clue who they were. Van Occupanther's fantastic songs like Roscoe, and Head Home came and went without any fuss, unlike at ULU - where the crowd clearly adored them, singing along to every word. It was sad; a great band like Midlake can really appeal to a wider audience, and even though the sound quality was better at the Apollo, the uninformed crowd wasn't quiet sure how to receive them. They had driven all the way from Paris especially for the show, and afterwards had to drive back to Lille to perform another gig the next day. Let's hope they had more success across the channel.

I had heard the Flaming Lips really put on a show - a friend once saw them live where they gave out mini radios for everyone. A local radio station would be broadcasting a song live, and when that song was performed everyone had to switch on their radio so they could hear it in stereo. Back at the Apollo, balloons were hovering above our heads as the crowd diligently played 'keepy upy' with them. The band came on stage accompanied by mass eruptions of cheering, shouting, confetti, more giant green balloons, and mirror balls - 3 mirror balls.

Opening the set with The Soft Bulletin's hit single Race For The Prize, Wayne Coyne got into his translucent giant balloon and walked across the crowd. My god, it was friggin amazing. As the show moved on the balloons really began to irritate, and you soon noticed popping sounds, as they were very quickly eliminated. More confetti was fired into the crowd, with the never-ending audience sing-a-long lasting from start finish - ending with Bohemian Rhapsody - Flaming Lips style.

Ever-articulate circus leader Wayne Coyne marshalled proceedings, first encouraging everyone to celebrate the recent mid-term defeat of George Bush's Republican Party, then apologising and praising how wonderful a crowd we were - how he has subjected us to all this confetti and balloons, and singing along to surreal lyrics - yet we didn't boo him once. He went down on his knees and thanked us all, watched on by a crowd of Santas on the right and green aliens on the left, holding touch lights. The rest of the band was dressed in super hero outfits. I can't think of another band that has put so much effort into making sure they entertained us.

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6th Dec 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

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...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead

So Divided

Interscope

...Or as CSF quipped 'You will know us by our really long name' and to be completely honest, that was all I really knew about them. Of course, I knew of them - a name like that doesn't erase quickly - but I mostly remember them for the one, very Sonic Youth-ish track; Mistakes and Regrets and the hectic video that went with it. After that, I mentally labelled them art/prog rock (ie. 'difficult') and filed them alongside the likes of The Mars Volta.

So, when the new album arrives and the first thing I hear is a church bell on Intro: A Song of Fire and Wine, it's a case of rolled eyes and "Here we go again!" But then track 2, Stand in Silence, bursts through the speakers and I apologise. This is one of the best tunes I've heard this year. Admittedly, I am a sucker for a meaty riff, and this one is a beauty, but to get from said riff, into a military type fanfare that wouldn't be out of place over the final scene of Top Gun and then back again: it's a tip of the hat to you guys (who we will know…)

The band then seem intent on keeping the listener guessing what is round each corner, so much so that So Divided could simply have taken it's title from the range of music within. Wasted State of Mind begins with Indian drums and ends with French Accordian, Naked Sun is a 70s blues rock/groove with rousing brass section. Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory is a note perfect cover (if slightly slicker) from the mighty Guided By Voices album, Bee Thousand. Eight Day Hell is all joyously upbeat a la The Polyphonic Spree - who I find too saccharine, but in isolation one song works well here.

All this leaping around does indeed leave the record slightly divided and lacking in a clear vision. However, this can also work to it's advantage, as there is something for everyone here. All the songs are written with intelligence and performed with mucho passion so that, like the seasonal selection boxes soon to appear on supermarket shelf: you may well have your favourites (more track 2 please) but once in a while you can gorge on anything - and when the quality is this good you welcome the change.

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6th Nov 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Ben Folds

Supersunnyspeedgraphic, the LP

Following on from yesterday's nostalgic Squarepusher review comes a 'new' LP from 90's hero Ben Folds. Although culled from 3 internet-only EPs, The Bens EP he did with Ben Lee and Ben Kweller and a couple of singles and compilation tracks, Supersunnyspeedgraphic features many of the Folds' trademarks, and his unique approach and charm are in full effect on many of the tracks.

While he's been recording no-stop since the early 90's and no doubt thinks he is 'expanding', 'progressing' or 'developing' his sound with recent albums like Songs for Silverman, Ben Folds has little idea that he will be forever labeled as the soundtrack to hazy art school barbecues in the summer of '96. And let me say right now - that's no bad thing.

A cover of In Between Days gets the full Ben Folds' treatment, presented here as an upbeat sing-a-long that tumbles along sounding like the drum kit is not properly secured, and a dilapadated piano has been resurected for one last jam - bringing a welcoming pub singalong atmosphere.

Adelaide is a highlight, building up from the most simple of piano licks into a full blown epic with witty, engaging lyrics providing an autobiographical feel - also present on There's Always Someone Cooler Than You.

Bens Kweller and Lee make an appearance on Bruised - and Ben Lee's brief vocals make me realise how much hope was pinned on him as a prodigy back in the day. I blame the collapse of Grand Royal for that one.

The album certainly has the feel of a compilation rather than a themed studio album and amongst the highlights there are certainly a few duds. Out of the context of an album some of the ballads - like Still - can sound contrived and a bit forced, and a cover of Dr Dre's Bitches Ain't Shit mis-fires. While it's impeccably done in the style of a Ben Folds' ballad, that just focuses the emphasis onto bitches and hoes in the lyrics just makes it seem like a tired joke - done better by The Gourds with their cover of Gin And Juice. If you don't speak English however that could well be your favourite track...

While there are no sublime moments on a par with Mess or Brick there is plenty on this album to recommend to more than just completist collectors out there. For such a prolific performer Folds' rarely puts a foot too far wrong and this is no exception.

So, get round mine for about 4pm, the coals will have whitened and I'll start the grilling.

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27th Oct 2006 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Sebadoh

III

Who are Sebadoh? Well, Ill let them introduce themselves, courtesy of Showtape 91 the 11 minute spoken-word epic that closes side 2 of the re-issue of 'III', the aptly titled 3rd album, from this Massachusetts 3 piece.

Amongst other things, Sebadoh are:

- "Your new favourite dope-smoking renaissance threesome"
- "Your post modern folk-core saviours"
- "Featuring that guy who played bass in Soul Asylum, Lou Barlow"
- "3 more reasons to leave your boyfriend. Way to Go, Sebadoh!"

So there you have it; cynical, sarcastic, funny, confident and impossible to pigeonhole. Whilst III was their third album, it marked something of a starting point for the band. Previous albums The Freed Weed and Weed Foresting were self released cassettes that unashamedly wore (literally) their creative influence upon their sleeves. For III Lou Barlow and Eric Gaffney were joined by Jason Lowenstein, and whilst not compromising their taste for musical extremes, produced an album that heralded the introduction of 'lo-fi' in the midst of the Grunge Explosion.

Barlow, freshly liberated from a traumatic stint in Dinosaur Jr. (not Soul Asylum) used III as something of an exorcism, wasting no time in having a dig at J Mascis on track 1, The Freed Pig "You were right, I was battling you, trying to prove myself". From then on, the album takes the familiar shape and form of a typical Sebadoh album, ie. all over the place. Track 2 is a blistering cover of Minutemen's Sickle & Hammers, the heavily distorted bass (a signature sound) and blood curdling screams of Scars, Four Eyes is followed by the delicate Truly Great Thing "Make it easy and I'll hold it against you, Make it hard and I'll run away". Back to their herbal muse for Smoke a Bowl, a song which wouldnt be out of place on the Black Lodge Jukebox in Twin Peaks. How do you follow that? With the country hoe-down tinged Black Haired Gurl of course.

The album continues in this vein before closing with As The World Dies, The Eyes Of God Grow Bigger which captures the split personality of the band perfectly; acoustic singalong, followed by distorted screamalong, all ending with the cheery farewell "BLOOD ON THE WALLS, BLOOD ON THE WALLS." Hey, a trip with Sebadoh isn't ever easy, but you go to some interesting places along the way.

Disc 2 of this re-issue is immediately a winner, in that it includes the Gimme Indie Rock EP - the title track of which, is possibly the finest 3 and a half minutes this prolific band ever laid to tape. The rest of the extras all add to the whole; unreleased songs from the recording sessions, raw 4-track versions of old songs and the bizarre closer Showtape '91. At a hefty 41 tracks, the new 'III' might help solve that terminal puzzle: 'What to get the Sebadoh fan who has everything?'

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25th Oct 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Mr. Lif

Mo Mega

Mr. Lif could rhyme over a pneumatic drill and you would have to sit up and listen and with fellow Def Juxter El P on production for 8 of these tracks a pneumatic drill isn't too far off the mark. This is Lifs follow up to 2002's I Phantom and it's as intense as ever.

Lif's delivery is cold and relentless but its in the subject matter where you really find the heart and soul of this album. The general concept on Mo Mega is how the increasingly modern world is slowly consuming the lower, poorer classes and with his unique monotone, nasal drawl he lambasts everyone from the President to the FBI to fast food chains. Lif never messes about and with El P behind him chucking out dirty beats to make your eyes water the flavor is as hard hitting and uncompromising as the political onslaught of early Public Enemy.

The early stand out is Lif's relentless attack on McDonalds with The Fries. Here we get his conspiracy theory of how the government is using fast food to cripple the poor and its told with dazzling vocal skill. Do excuse the hefty quote coming up but it's pure genius. "A new disease that you caught at Mcydee's, in your quarter pounder with cheese, order with ease, super size please. People won't even survive through the drive thru. kids blacked out in the back with a happy meal, what a crappy deal, but it was only four ninety nine so there's more people in line, yea the plan's running fine, the parking lot is now a burial plot where you can park and rot if you can find a spot."

The best thing about most Def Jux releases is that they often feature other label artists which is always a real treat. Here we see the intensity peak with Take Hold, Fire! featuring the mighty Aesop Rock and El P. These guest vocals come as a welcome break from the relentless tone of Lif and it makes for a classic Def Jux lyrical master-class. This signals a general easing off on the political accelerator and the comic frivolity of Murs Iz My Manager comes as a breath of fresh air. Here the two rappers argue about why Murs should manage Lif to make him more commercial. Lif is having none of it and at one point Murs asks how he is supposed to get Lif the Herbal Essence sponsorship if he never washes his hair.

From here on the beats are lighter and more 'hip hop' I guess. The vocals ease up as a result and once you get to the end you just want another go. Rappers like Mr. Lif and his Def Jux buddies are really stretching this genre and it's thrilling to behold. If I was a Head Of State I would look on this group with some worry. They have such a ferocious style that you get the impression that if their music doesn't change things they are perfectly prepared to walk into the Oval Office and start breaking some heads.

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23rd Oct 2006 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Sebadoh

Bubble And Scrape

Before MySpace. Before The Strokes. Before Pete Doherty. Before rock bands arrived image-ready with an NME endorsed 1st album to force down your throat. Before this, there was a gentler time. Where bands recorded music and couldn't give a Razorlight what they looked like. Sebadoh, were kings of such bands. How tight the jeans, how battered the converse? Wouldn't have crossed their minds.

Sebadoh probably woke up around 4, mooged around the house in a dressing gown, eating breakfast cereal and drinking a beer. Then they'd pick up a guitar, a 4 track recorder and knock out great tune after great tune. Ex- (and now 'present' once again) Dinosaur Jr. Bass-Pounder, Lou Barlow, was the main man, whose songs seemed to be a result of putting his private diaries to music. They were mostly about relationships; how wonderful they could be, how devastating they could be, but were never anything less than brutally honest.

'Bubble & Scrape' is slightly more coherent than its predecessor 'III' yet less polished than 'Bakesale' which followed. It's a good place to start if you want to get into Sebadoh, which is something I would personally recommend. The relationship theme runs through it, as are the polemic ways it is expressed, both lyrically and musically. From hurt, honest, tenderness "I think our love is coming to an end." - 'Soul and Fire', to angry, bitter and cutting "I love you sister/ I love how you condescend." 'Sister'. There are no bad tracks here. Of the 17 (Count' em!), I'd say the following would make my Sebadoh 'Best of…': Soul & Fire, Happily Divided, Cliche, Sixteen, Homemade and Forced Love. With at least 4 others on standby. Not bad for a band that released 7 albums between 1989 and 1999.

Yep, Sebadoh have a MySpace site, I'd like to think though that perhaps they'd prefer to just send cassettes through the post. Maybe I'm a dreamer, but then most Sebadoh fans are…

Click here for our Bakesale Review
Click here for our Live Review

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18th Oct 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

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J Dilla

The Shining

Jay Dee aka J Dilla is known as a producer's producer and was often compared to the likes of DJ Premier and Kanye West. He is a little known character in the Hip Hop world but was responsable for such master works as The Pharcyde's Running and De La Soul's Stakes Is High. His is a story of unrelenting dedication and a story who's end came far too soon - both for him and hip hop. He suffered from illness for many years, performing in a wheelchair towards the end of his career, and finally died just days after his 32nd birthday.

The Shining was the album he was working on when he died and just before the end he passed it on to fellow Detroit producer and long time friend Karriem Riggins. It is a mouthwatering line up featuring Common, Busta Rhymes and Madlib but despite this it is a very disjointed whole. This is to be expected considering the circumstances but when it's good it's great. It would be a crime to give some of these guys a whack beat and Dilla dutifully lays down a beauty for Common on E=MC2. Common is at his best when rhyming over hard and funky rhythms and that is what he gets here. At a glance the best cuts here are the "Love" songs. Love Jones is an all too short instrumental ditty from the man himself, Love featuring Pharoahe Monch is a classic soul groove, Jungle Love is a low down, dirty, beat driven grime-fest featuring MED and Guilty Simpson where we get the priceless line " I got hoe's like firemen." In an album that frequently sways into mushy RnB, Jungle Love has enough dick and hoe boasting to see us through. The last "Love" song is Black Thought's masterfull Love Movin'. The complex clicky beat is like nothing you've ever heard and it flows with the greatest of ease to the hard hitting vocals of The Roots front-man.

Unfortunately these moments are broken up by some less than perfect and often week cuts like the shocking collaboration between Common and D'Angelo and Busta Rhymes' testosterone filled opener that sounds more like a Richard Prior sketch. It's not enough to ruin this great artist's final work, however it does suggest, annoyingly so, what The Shining could have been if Dilla had been allowed to see it through.

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18th Oct 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Clinic

Visitations

This is the fourth album from the eclectic Liverpool four piece and the best way to describe it is to let the man who is responsible for its greatness sum it up. " The rule is: surprise yourself," says singer Ade Blackburn. "We went for something direct and primitive – surreal ballads next to subhuman riffs." Visitations is a grimy, tense and moody affair that is utterly compelling from start to finish and it's largely down to the pent up ferocity of their front man. If you got into a fight with Clinic you'd be wise to keep your eye on Ade Blackburn. He'd be seething silently in the background but would be the one most likely to do serious damage. His buddies with the instruments do a lot of shouting but he manages to keep his cool for just over 32 minutes and it's gripping to witness. For the most part the guitars are fierce but fuzzy and often threaten to drown the almost indecipherable vocals. Blackburn spits his lyrics through gritted teeth and that's where the power lies. He breeds a tension and urgency from this delivery that keeps you on your toes and locks in your attention like a rabbit in the headlights.

From the outset Visitations lets you know that this ain't gonna be pretty and some people may get hurt. The fierce guitars and heavy drums of Family herald the start of a rough but rewarding road ahead while Tusk does its best to pulverise your eardrums. Although these are typical of Clinic's ability to produce hard hitting, gritty rock gems the most arresting moments come in their down time. Animal/Human is a beautiful tripped out Velvet Underground moment while Paradise recalls the sparse, hollow melodies of Cowboy Junkie's cover of Sweet Jane. But as fine as these moments are the best of all comes in the form of Harvest (Within You). This is to be the first single off Visitations and it's a wise choice. It's a dirty little bitch of a song and I'll be damned if it isn't the most toe tapping, funky number I've heard in ages. It builds up in subtle layers of instruments and just as you feel you could nod to this rhythm all day it rises gracefully to almost Doors like majesty.

Clinic manage to change tempo with effortless confidence but never take a drop in intensity. Their music stares you in the face and challenges you to look away. Blackburn ends proceedings with the title track that is based around the repeated line "Don't get close" and although Clinic do their best to keep you at arms length I strongly urge you to defy Ade's words and get as close as you can to Visitations. It won't be a comfy snuggle by the fire but it's guaranteed to be a friend for life.

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10th Oct 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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