Valentine’s Day. A time for smug couples, couples who secretly hate each other (but will have steak and Asti Spewmante by candlelight anyway), or for watching Bridget Jones whilst you get steadily drunk and maudlin in flannel pyjamas. Or, of course, tutting at the OBVIOUS commercialism behind the cards, making sick noises at snoggers in the cinema and reading some piffle what I wrote about this week’s singles. Tunes, not men, obvs. YOU DECIDE.

Lady Gaga
Born This Way

‘Telephone’ was one of the best things to happen, both in music and in promo videos, in the history of FOREVER. Unfortunately, ‘Born This Way’ made us do a sadface. Gaga’s whole “thing” is that she’s meant to make brilliantly different, subversive pop songs, but her latest single just sounds like something Madonna could have churned out in two hours, or Kylie wearing leather chaps. Not bad per se, but compared to the sheer brilliance of ‘Bad Romance’, ‘Poker Face’, and ‘Lovegame’, it’s a lesson in generic blipbloppy chart landfill. We’re not angry, just disappointed.

Yuck
Holing Out

Yuck have drawn comparisons to so many awesome bands that they seem like they’re something we ‘should’ like. Alas, we’re finding it a bit hard with this single . ‘Holing Out’ is a case of fuzz over substance; you get the feeling that if all the distortion was taken away, there wouldn’t be much else left behind it apart from some interesting hair. On the upside, the bassline is deliciously catchy- on second listen, it’s impossible not to wiggle around to it at least a tiny bit. Yet comparisons to Sonic Youth et cetera seem totally unfounded, unless we missed the ‘playing your guitar through a fuzz pedal makes you Thurston Moore’ meme. Meh.

VVOLVES
Birds In Berlin

With all the new music that’s come out over the past year or so (chillwave, witch house, vegan crunk, whatevs), it’s easy to forget how good bands are when they just strip back to being a band that make bloody great songs. Thank God then for VVOLVES; not an inch of twee or an underwater noise in earshot. ‘Birds In Berlin’ sounds like Maximo Park before they got shit, and this is A Very Good Thing. Shouty vocals, an organ and very noisy, very urgent guitars recall the halcyon days of 2005 indie, while the incessant drumming means that if you’re not bouncing around by the end, YOU HAVE NO SOUL.

Kisses
Midnight Lover

It’s impossible not to like a bit of Balearic disco-pop when it comes to dancing about like a ninny. Kisses, who incidentally made this writer’s second-favourite record of last year, are thoughtfully releasing ‘Midnight Lover’ on Valentine’s Day. That’s some timely marketing! Aside from that, it’s a brilliant, brilliant pop song, with lyrics that are (deliberately) cheesy, a keyboard that sounds like it belongs in a lift whilst still being effortlessly cool, and possibly the best line in a song ever: “I would like to take you out/For a nice steak dinner/Just me and you”. Kisses: providing singletons *vom* with hilariously bad chat-up lines since 2011.

Misty Miller
Little Thing Called Love

Having your first notable single share a name with a Shakin’ Stevens track is probably a bad omen. Indeed, ‘Little Thing Called Love’ is whimsical to the point of boredom. In a sea of girly folksters, Misty seems to resemble her name on this song- it’s there with you in the morning, but by the afternoon, you’ll have forgotten about it. Another girl playing a ukulele and singing fey songs about boys doesn’t scream originality anymore. Instead, it smacks of a record company dangling a carrot in front of gullible consumers. Shame, because her voice is quite lovely.

JLS Ft. Tinie Tempah
Eyes Wide Shut

JLS and Tinie Tempah are forces to be reckoned with. We know all the words to ‘Pass Out’, and ‘Beat Again’ makes us throw down our handbags and dance, dammit. Together, they have the equivalent of putting lemon juice in Bailey’s- two great things that make each other woefully shit. This song sounds like it was written by the Year Five School Of Rhyming Couplets, and the backing track is so early noughties that it hurts us a little bit. When Tinie starts rapping… well, if you don’t grind your teeth at “If I was writing the alphabet I’d put I and JLS together”, then we salute you.

It’s that time again! My turn to review the singles. Although don’t take my advice as read; I spend most of my time walking around Manchester listening to ABBA. This week, pretty girl voices, dancing, third rate R’n’B and why I think psuedo-punk is rubbish.

Cut Copy
Take Me Over

The first single from Cut Copy’s new album Zonoscope. It is IMPOSSIBLE not to wiggle around to this song a bit in your chair. It could be accused of being Friendly Fires-meets-Empire Of The Sun, but I’m going to choose to ignore that comparison. Mainly because it has catchy ‘ooooooooooooooohhhhhhh’s, synths that sound as if they’ve come from The Human League’s store-cupboard and even something that sounds suspiciously like a BONGO DRUM. Almost enough to make you wear a sparkly catsuit and slide across one of those light-up dancefloors in your socks. Almost.

Bruno Mars
Grenade

This song seems to be about Bruno Mars loving a girl so much that he would lovingly stand in the way of her grisly demise, via grenades, bullets and various other explodey things. However, she doesn’t feel the same. She’s clearly a wrong’un, but a little man in a suit pulling rocks along a motorway in the video conveys the depths that Mars is prepared to go to in order to win her lurve. Personally, if this song was written about me, and I was in the whole grenade/Bruno Mars scenario, I’d be pushing him in front of me so he could stop raping my ears.

My Chemical Romance
Sing

My Chemical Romance! A band that thrives on a hoard of obsessive teenage fans with first world problems. This song is their usual guff, with lyrics that could be applied to any little jerk who’s annoyed that their parents won’t buy them an iPad/pony/house so they can tweet about how ‘Gerard Way is totes lyk speakin abt me’. Can someone wash his hair and dye his roots as well please? Thanks. The aural equivalent of somebody rubbing a piece of Stilton in your face in the middle of July. Bleurgh.

Elephant
Ants

Last year was definitely the year of chillwave wasn’t it? Bands sprung up everywhere with names involving ‘summer’ and artwork involving bleary, hazy Hipstamatic shots. It would be easy to throw Elephant into the same shoebox, but they’re a lot better than that. ‘Ants’ is the kind of thing you’d want to listen to when wind down after a big night. The backing track recalls a lullaby, albeit slightly more sinister. Adding Amelia Rivas’ dreamy vocals into the mix, and it’s enough to send you off to sleep. In a good way. Relaxing and lovely.

30 Seconds To Mars
Hurricane

Whilst doing research for this column, I came across this comment on YouTube. ‘92% of teens_ have turned to pop and hip-hop.If you are part__ of the 8% that still listens to real_ music, copy and paste this message to 5_ other videos. DONT LET ROCK__ N ROLL DIE ! ,Thumbs Up if u like.’ The fact that anybody can refer to 30 Seconds To Mars’ own brand of wanky pop-cock-rock as rock ‘n’ roll is beyond me, but then again I’m not fifteen. Another one for Gerard Way’s teenage rebel fanbase. I miss Jared Leto being pretty.

Warpaint
Shadows

‘Undertow’ by Warpaint was so amazingly catchy that it would be easy to find any singles that follow it a tad on the disappointing side. ‘Shadows’ sounds like Fleetwood Mac meets Rihanna almost, in the sense that it’s upliftingly folksy, yet the girl quartet clearly have a shedload of attitude behind their vocals.  As far as songs go, it’s alright, but it’s hardly going to have people waxing lyrical/warbling along in the shower. It’s missing the incredible catchiness of its predecessor, sadly.

It’s my turn to do the singles this week. I’ll probably just hate everything and go back to listening to ‘Whip My Hair’ on repeat instead. Especially Jamiroquai. ENJOY!

I Blame Coco – ‘In Spirit Golden’ (Island)

Because I know Coco is Sting’s daughter, when she sings, I can’t help thinking “She sounds like Sting on lady pills.” But her voice actually does sound like a girl version of Sting’s, right down to the annoying quavering. The backing track is awfully 80s, and not in a good way- in a Little Boots/Europe way. NEXT.

Jamiroquai – Blue Skies (Mercury)

My LORD, is Jay Kay still alive? I can remember dancing to ‘Virtual Insanity’ at birthday parties where there was jelly, ice cream and fights over who had the best dress. ANYWAY. This song is an altogether more acoustic, middle-aged affair than their sound of old, and it ends up sounding like something Mick Hucknall might have written on a bit of toilet roll when he was dyeing his hair ginger.

Clock Opera – Once And For All (Kitsuné)

I missed Clock Opera at In The City- one of the stupidest things I’ve done this year. ‘Once And For All’ reminds me of the bits on Everything Everything’s album where they get all contemplative about LIFE and engine rooms and so on. It’s not as good as when they start getting their dance on (because when they do that, they are AMAZING), but I like it. Which is more than can be said for the first two.

Youthless – Golden Age (One Bird)

Youthless are another band I missed at ITC, because I was doing something inane like eating or sleeping or whatever. Gutted. ‘Golden Age’ sounds like a mixture of Talking Heads and LCD Soundsystem, with an absolutely amazeballs singalong chorus. And a fuzz pedal. The cowbell alone is enough to make you want to ring all your friends and say ‘No! Don’t write that essay! Let’s go out and PARTY!’. Whilst moving your hips like David Byrne. I love this actually.

Best Coast – Crazy For You (Wichita)

The first line of this song is ‘I can’t do anything without you/I can’t do anything when I’m with you’. It’s basically Beth contradicting herself for less than two minutes. And talking about getting stoned. God, Best Coast are boring. ‘Crazy For You’ just sounds like ‘Boyfriend’ but jiggled about a bit.

Tender Trap – Dansette Dansette

Indiepop used to be one of my favourite things. That is until I spent a weekend at Indietracks, whereupon everything was so twee that I thought I was going to go on a killing spree. I’m sure if I’d heard Dansette Dansette prior to this, I’d find it a charming C86-esque popsong that I could do a kind of fey dance to. Instead, it has the effect of eating too many sweets- a good idea at the time, but then when you think about it, it leaves you feeling a bit queasy from the overkill.

MAY68 – The Prisoner (Kitsuné)

The thumpy bassline and overall dark edge to ‘The Prisoner’ keep it firmly in the ‘cool electro’ category, as it would take but one slip of a synth and it might sound a bit like the aural equvalent of a Kraft cheese slice. Alas, it doesn’t, and some of the remixes have the potential to be club classics in the making. VERY promising. The singer, Jude’s voice is brilliantly sexy, and she has nice hair too. A
plus.

Sharon Van Etten - Epic

To Muso’s Guide, Sharon Van Etten is a name synonymous with putting the trauma that comes with heartbreak into songs that ache with feeling. Whilst her debut, Because I Was In Love, explores this subject in a sparse, minimalist manner, Epic suits its name- it’s an altogether more grandiose affair that leaves you brooding for hours after the initial listen. It’s not in any shape or form easy to pin down, but that just makes it even more beguiling.

Van Etten never totally rubbishes romantic suffering on the album, although it’s clear that she’s been through the mill – the press release says that she ‘had some bad experiences in relationships’ somewhat needlessly. A lot of the tracks are ambiguous, while others are all about being totally to the point, but the honesty that’s present throughout is refreshing and heart-rending. It often feels as if it’s not really her going through how badly she’s been treated and how ruined she is inside; more her thinking in a measured way about how things went wrong and how she can overcome the pain.

‘A Crime’ is an absolute killer of a song for anyone who’s ever had a messy one-sided breakup. Alarmingly honest and straightforward, backed by a simple acoustic guitar arrangement, her voice echoes around the subject matter as if her life depends on it.  It doesn’t really feel right to call it ‘pretty’, but at the same time, it’s all weirdly beautiful despite closing herself off emotionally with the line ‘never let myself love like that again’.

Sylistically, there’s loads to take in; from the country-tinged ballad ‘Save Yourself’ to the echoing dark euphoria of ‘Don’t Do It’, where she seems to be pleading with a lover despite knowing she can’t change his mind. However, if there’s a moment on the album when Van Etten really shines, it has to be on seventh and final song ‘Love More’. It centres around a simple, repetitive chord pattern, with a harmonium providing the base for the track. Featuring backing vocals from Meg Baird from Espers, singer-songwriter Cat Martino and Jessica Larrabee of She Keeps Bees, you’d be hard-pushed not to get a lump in your throat as the quartet paint a beautiful picture of romantic grief and world-weary experience. It’s rather unclear as to whether she’s regretful, or optimistic for the future, as lyrics like ‘You chained me like a dog in our room… I thought that we were fine’ would suggest that she’s emotionally broken, yet the gentle beauty and swell of the harmonium, teamed with the repeated ‘It made, me love, it made me love more’ chorus hints at a cautious optimism.

In all, Epic is basically gorgeous. Full of raw human emotion and an altogether warmer sounding affair than 2009’s ‘Because I Was In Love’, it’s a pleasure to listen to, even though Van Etten’s honesty can be upsetting and uncomfortable at times.  A break-up album in the truest sense of the word – if you’ve just split up with someone, it’ll have you weeping into your pillow.

Salem - King Night

The music press have been collectively slipping in their own juices over a clutch of new genres this year. We’re probably all sick to the back teeth of hearing about chillwave now, and when I first heard the term ‘witch house’ being used, I thought I was going a bit mental. Supposedly, Salem are leaders of the coven, and their debut King Night is certainly bewitching, although sometimes not for the right reasons.

Salem’s musical sound hasn’t changed much from their EP, Yes I Smoke Crack – there’s still all the thrilling, woozy fear coming through, dubsteppy beats and beautiful soundscapes. It’s all wonderfully broody and melancholic, end-of-the-worldly…  then Jack Donoghue starts rapping, and it all goes out of the window. He sounds as if he has the kind of cold that’d have you buying shares in Kleenex, and it just feels pretty uncomfortable. Compared to how chilling and beguiling Heather Marlatt’s vocals are, it all just sounds weirdly funny. Thankfully, this only crops up two or three times across the album, but it’s enough to make you cringe.

Awful MC scenes aside, Salem thankfully live up to the hype surrounding them. Sometimes it’s a little over-the-top (the sense of doom on the title track could be put against the theme from Psycho in the creepy stakes), but the album really comes into its own when they tone down the shtick a little. The more atmospheric, less booming tracks on King Night are where it really shines – the delicate electronica on ‘Frost’ is eerily calm despite the thundering bass, and like the best parts of a horror soundtrack, it leaves you on edge in terms of what’s going to happen next. It contrasts completely with the likes of ‘Sick’, where it sounds like the bass has been turned up to eleven to make it sound threatening, and just ends up sounding about as scary and provocative as the Honey Monster looks.

For the most part, King Night isn’t terrible – it has some truly breathtaking, pretty soundscapes going on, springy beats and blasts of bass and distortion that you can feel in your chest. But yeah,  Jack Donoghue, if you’re reading, it’s probably best to keep your mouth shut and concentrate on making wonderful, other worldly noises instead. Witches are meant to be scary, not comedy rap stars.

Robyn - Body Talk Pt. 2

Robyn’s musical career has actually spanned three decades, spawning five other albums and a Eurovision Song Contest pre-selection in her native Sweden, yet it wasn’t until 2005’s eponymous release Robyn that she began to gain acclaim in the UK. At the start of 2010, Robyn announced that she would be releasing three brand-new albums this year – the stuff of dreams for both her mainstream and underground fans, yet enough to make others take a step back and wonder if she’s up to the challenge.

I bloody love Robyn’s singles (Be Mine = TUNE), but I must admit to never having listened to her breakthrough album more than a couple of times all the way through, so I was interested to see how she’d tackle the whole three-releases thing. And while the first of the trilogy is more about exploring emotions that make you want to laugh and cry, frustration and playing around with genres, Body Talk Pt. 2 is more of a return to her dancefloor maven side, with an altogether mixed bag of results.

In parts, it’s pretty great. Both ‘Hang With Me’ and ‘In My Eyes’ are really fun, full of sparkly chords, synth that sounds like it’s ready to start flying and some brilliantly distorted vocals, that signify her move back towards the danceable rather than the wilfully experimental. The acoustic version of ‘Indestructible’ at the end of the record is a masterstroke too – after all the beats and bleeps, it shows off Robyn’s more vulnerable side, and proves that she’s got talent in spades.

Disappointingly, Body Talk Pt. 2 isn’t without its flaws. A lot of tracks sound like they’re there to use up time; case in point being ‘We Dance To The Beat’, which is repetitive to the point of being more effective than counting sheep to send you off to sleep. Or the kind of thing you’d only like if you were off your tits on drugs in a club.

‘Include Me Out’ and ‘U Should Know Better’ try too hard to emulate Robyn’s knack for a catchy interlude as well, with the latter featuring a cameo from Snoop Dogg. It just comes across as an effort to salvage something, rather than something worth taking notice of.

Sadly, I found myself feeling a little bit disappointed with the second volume of Body Talk. The idea of bringing out three albums in a year is a brave concept, but I feel she might have been better off doing just one instead and taking the best songs off the three. Saying that, the third instalment isn’t out yet, so it’s hard to judge. When it’s good, it’s very very good- it’s just a shame that it’s mostly filler rather than killer.

Islet - Celebrate This Place

When a band is so new that they’re on their first release, it can be difficult to write about them. It’s even harder when Islet are a band that are almost impossible to track down online. Unusually for 2010, there’s no MySpace page, no Facebook link to ‘like’, and no philosophical rambles from the band on Twitter – fabulous in one sense, because it brings back the idea of a band being inaccessible and mysterious. It’ll probably annoy most of the music press because they can’t have a cheeky looksy on Google to pad out a feature, mind. Following the release of their free EP given away as part of Turnstile’s ‘Bento’ series, Celebrate this Place serves to further deepen the intrigue that surrounds Islet.

One of Islet’s main selling points is that the show they put on when you see them live is fabulously entertaining- swapping instruments, walking into the crowd, and basically acting like they’ve just been let out. Before listening to Celebrate This, it was hard to imagine how they would come across on record, but thankfully the songs are still as engaging to listen to.

EP opener ‘We Shall Visit’ is almost proggy in its initial approach, with hypnotic vocals that wouldn’t sound out of place in a tribal ceremony. Then the drums and the ‘proper’ singing both kick in, and it’s impossible not to want to move about to it. It’s fortunate that Islet manage to pull this off- in lesser hands, it could be seen as a cheesy call for attention.

It isn’t often that an instrumental can be classed as a standout track, but Islet change this with ‘Jasmine’. Apart from a repetitive female vocal, it allows the band to completely lose themselves in their music, and it’s ace; like Kate Bush if she’d been wearing a loincloth and wielding an electric guitar, perhaps.  ‘Iris’ is similar in the sense that it takes in loads of different influences, but its definitely one of the heavier tracks on the EP, with solid, jerky guitar riffs jelling perfectly with the howling group vocals. Then there’s ‘Holly’, which begins in the same proggy vein as ‘We Shall Visit’, before turning into a reggae-tinged tale of obsession. It’s all brilliantly nuts.

Islet definitely work best when they’re sounding urgent and angry- closing track ‘Rowan’, which is so ambient that it sounds almost church-like, just comes across as a bit boring after how exciting the other tracks are. Other than that, while Islet are never going to set the chart world alight- they’re far too weird really- Celebrate This Place is a great, playful taster of what’s to come. Can someone show them how the Internet works now?

Pomegranates - Everybody Come Outside!

If you’re anything like me, just the mere mention of the word ‘winter’ will make you long for hot, sunny days and mountains of ice cream. Instead, endless months of rain, freezingness and shapeless knitwear are ahead. As SAD sets in, the perfect antidote is always a dose of summery indie-pop, isn’t it?

Pomegranates step up to this mood-altering challenge pretty well with their UK debut, Everybody, Come Outside! As soon as the insistent drumming of the title track begins, along with the order to “COME OUTSIDE!”, you want to stop whatever it is you’re meant to be doing and play out.

Allegedly, Everybody… is meant to be a concept album, based on the idea of a young bloke leaving home before being abducted by a time traveler, in a space ship called ‘Coriander’. Sometimes the very idea of a concept album can be off-putting, and one involving time-travely funny business might turn off some potential listeners straight away. Thankfully, Pomegranates are SO ACE that they’re able to pull it off without diving into cheese territory.

The album’s “journey” really begins on third track ‘This Land Used To Be My Land, Now I Hate This Land’, when singer Joey Cook yelps about being “…so tired of living in the city/and never being able to see the stars at night!” Teamed with the juxtaposing vocals of Isaac Karns, which provide a more masculine foil to Cook’s, the overall feel of the song is one of desperate wanderlust.

The influences on Everybody…! range far and wide. Take the quirky Shins-esque pop of ‘Southern Ocean’ for example; as the narrative of the album changes from displeasure to pure, unadulterated excitement, it’s reflected in the jerky guitar hooks,  the machine-gun drumming and especially the ‘awoooooo’ noises that break up the song’s bridge.

The only way I can think of to describe the beginning of ‘Coriander’ is ‘sparkly’.  ‘Atmospheric’ would be good too, as the whole dreamy vibe of the song conjures up the feeling that you’re flying. When you’re least expecting it, there’s a steel-string solo that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Peter Gabriel song (in a good way, not a ‘Sledgehammer’ way).  ‘Svaatzi Uutsi’ starts off sounding like something Vampire Weekend might have made if they hailed from Hawaaii, before morphing into shoegazey new wave. The lyrics are gorgeously provocative too, and like album opener ‘Everybody, Come Outside!’, it makes you want to join in their fun.

This album would be pretty much perfect if it wasn’t for two things. ‘384 BC’ is only alright at best- a song that lasts one minute and forty seconds just seems a bit pointless, especially when its pace is so much slower than the two songs that sandwich it.

Closing track ‘I Fell Like I’m A Million Years Old’ is another gripe. This song has the potential to be excellent. Except for the fact that at 13 minutes long, it probably needs about seven of them cutting off. It starts off fine; a perfect, sleepy-sounding lullabye to send Pomegranates on their way after a knackering day of time-travelling. But really, do I really need to hear or want to hear the same two acoustic chords played over and over for ten minutes or so, with no words at all? I’m assuming the effect they were going for was dreamlike- instead, I find myself having to fade it out manually so I don’t go into a coma.

To sum it up, I bloody love Pomegranates. I love their first album which you can’t buy over here. I’ve downloaded the sessions off the internet, and tried to buy a T-shirt with their name on. I love Everybody, Come Outside! too, because for the most part it makes me feel like summer never ended. It’s just a shame that they had to taint it a little with the over-indulgent album close. Apart from that, an excellent indie-pop record from one of my favourite fruity bands.