The Blackout – I Don’t Care (This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things)

The Blackout

Ah, emo, I’ve missed you. Only kidding. You might hide behind a lie of being “post-hardcore”, but I can spot you a mile off. The preposterous band name, the pretentious song title, the dumbness of having yet another heavy rock outfit from Wales (we already have to put up with Lostprophets, what have we done to deserve this?), it’s just not possible to take it seriously.

That said, this The Blackout song’s not all bad, it crunches along happily enough for a bunch of depressed kids, Sean Smith has the perfect voice for the band and it all seems harmless enough. It’s disposable, mass produced commercial fast-food mush. You won’t be “begging for more”, as Smith hopefully claims. … Continue Reading

Bo Ningen – Koroshitai Kimochi

Bo Ningen

It’s fair to say that I am something of a newbie to the vast genre of J-rock. The name Bo Ningen means nothing to me at all. I haven’t a clue what the song is about. Nor can I contextualise it for you without a frame of reference.

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Jesca Hoop – Hunting My Dress

Jesca Hoop

You would think that there were enough kooky female singer-songwriters to go around. But while Jesca Hoop undoubtedly sometimes sounds similar to Bjork, Bat For Lashes, Regina Spektor and so on, somehow her own quirks come to the fore making her a very different and special proposition.

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Wolf Gang – The King And All Of His Men

Wolf Gang - The King And All Of His Men

Everything about this Wolf Gang track screams opportunistic bollocks. There’s absolutely nothing original and the song gives an unnerving feeling that you’ve heard each hook before in a different, yet identical, song. It sounds like Scouting For Girls. It has an “oooooooooooooh wooooooooah” bit solely included to tick a box on a record label clipboard. I should hate it. Everyone should hate it.

But… I keep going back to it. It’s so catchy I can’t help having repeated listens. And whenever it’s on I get this stupidly massive, shit-eating grin all over my moronic face. The melody is firmly embedded in my brain and doesn’t seem to want to come out. I can’t chase it away. I’m sure it was even in my dream last night. … Continue Reading

Little Boots – Earthquake

Little Boots - Earthquake

Attempting to catapult up the charts is the latest prime cut from Victoria Hesketh’s debut record as Little Boots, Hands. It’s not quite up to the highs set by the brilliance of the dancefloor-slaying ‘Remedy’ but it’s getting there, a tremendous break down before the final chorus making it perfect for daytime radio.

In truth, it’s not that different from her previous singles, but why change a winning formula? ‘Earthquake’ seems set to secure Little Boots as 2009′s premier electo-pop poppet, pipping La Roux on the line. Success may have been as slow to build for Hesketh as it was comparatively immediate for Elly Jackson, but as they say, slowly slowly, catchee monkey. … Continue Reading

Snow Patrol – Just Say Yes

Snow Patrol

Are you sitting down for this? Do you have some water nearby? Are you prepared for a shock? I hope so, because Snow Patrol have made and released a song that isn’t complete garbage.

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The Raveonettes – In And Out Of Control

The Raveonettes

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when the Raveonettes fell out of vogue. Back in 2003 they heralded a bright new era in rock, riding the crest of the wave brought about by the Strokes, showing that women could once more front successful yet alternative bands. Blondie are the obvious point of reference, but the Raveonettes were always a bit more sleazy and exciting.

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The Xx – Islands

The Xx

‘Islands’ is a brilliant choice of single for The Xx. Most of the tracks on their eponymous debut do not make much sense on their own, but ‘Islands’ makes its breakthrough brilliantly, the girl-boy vocals of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim provide a superb introduction to what the band is all about.

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VV Brown – Game Over

VV Brown

I really want to dislike VV Brown. I hate her faux-alternativeness, her desperation to do anything going in her pursuit of success, her hair, her name, pretty much everything about her. She seems to be everywhere, yet somehow I’ve avoided almost all of her music. Until now. So I was all set to deliver a written sucker punch to her flailing career. Kick a woman while she’s down? Why the hell not.

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Cult With No Name – Careful What You Wish For

Cult With No Name - Careful What You Wish For

A few listens in to this second offering from London duo Erik Stein and Jon Boux, a.k.a. Cult With No Name, I’m still struggling to find anything interesting about the album to tell you.

It’s mostly a male voice singing and a piano playing. The two parts are by two different blokes, with Stein singing (sometimes sounding like Robbie Williams, and on the poppier moments more like the Pet Shop Boys) and Boux prodding away listlessly at the piano, with some moodily atmospheric swirly stuff going on in the background on some of the tracks and, even more rarely, some electronica stabbings that sound like the basic settings on a Casio keyboard for toddlers. And not in a good way.

There’s nothing to lift it beyond the mundane. Stein’s lyrics are mostly trite platitudes, the melodies samey, and the swirls of sound uninteresting. It’s not awful, it’s just dull. It is possible to tap your foot along, even to concentrate on it for a few seconds at a time before boredom inevitably sets in, but it’s too amateurish to be taken seriously, and not pleasant enough to be simply background music.

Cult With No Name have bedroom project stamped all over them. Two friends with big ideas, but without the talent to realise them. Careful What You Wish For is full of half-baked premises, pieces of sound that with the right backing might work, but that fall flat in this setting.

A smattering of violin in ‘Something Better Than I Know’ and a bit of guitar in ‘She B.C.’ can’t lift the monotony in the middle of the album, and by the horrible cover of the Stranglers’ ‘Golden Brown’, any smidgen of interest has leaked away.

It’s not possible to pick highlights or even lowlights from this effort, as none of the tracks are distinguishable from each other. It’s just a big slushy mish-mash of unformed sound, and it’s really not at all worth an hour of your life. Expect something by the Cult With No Name to adorn a car advert sometime soon. It’s that kind of banality.