Pull In Emergency – Pull In Emergency

Pull In Emergency - Pull In Emergency

It’s worth playing a little game with yourself when first listening to Pull In Emergency’s eponymous debut. Pretend, for a moment, you don’t know some of them aren’t yet old enough to drink. And for argument’s sake, since debuts from young bands are hardly a new phenomenon (Exhibit A: Ash), pretend you don’t know that the band first started getting mentioned by mainstream media over three years ago, when several were still 13 (eat your heart out, Tim Wheeler). Ask yourself, does this sound like a band of wet behind the ears pretenders? … Continue Reading

Mystery Jets – Serotonin

Mystery Jets - Serotonin

The more you listen to Mystery Jets’ third full length, the more it feels like Twenty One mark II. Certainly any fans hoping for a return to the shifting sands of 2006’s Making Dens will be sorely disappointed. Album number three, Serotonin, shares the richly populist vein that ran through its predecessor, including a full quotient of sexually charged metaphors. This time around, however, there’s a new component: drugs.

Initially, it’s difficult not to find the fact that the band have named a song – nay, an entire album – after the neurotransmitter linked to ecstasy use, well, just a bit naff. In the song itself, the title is pronounced ‘Sarah Tonin’ – a cheap trick but one the band just about gets away with, in part because of their determination to carry off the girl/drugs metaphor without let up; in part because, at times, they so perfectly capture the small hours cold, one-way ebb of pill taking: “Now it’s faded and I can’t hear what you’re saying / It feels like you’re slipping through my fingers”. … Continue Reading

Kele – The Boxer

Kele - The Boxer

Kele Okereke (now just Kele) has hardly made a secret of his penchant for electro and it’s little surprise that his solo debut sees him veering strongly in that direction. At the same time, Okereke’s Bloc Party legacy hasn’t been lost (though Russell Lissack’s dextrous guitar work is missed at times) and as a result The Boxer can feel like a collection of musical experiments by an artist pushing in different directions to see what works best. Fortunately, more works than doesn’t, making this a varied record that is both engaging and, at times, challenging, with less of the earnest, politicking than we’ve seen from the singer in the past. … Continue Reading

The Boy Who Trapped The Sun, London Water Rats

The Boy Who Trapped The Sun

June 2, 2010

The Water Rats can be an unforgiving venue. The step down to the pit in front of the stage often acts as an unseen barrier as the room fills, resulting in an enormous gulf between band and audience. The adolescent punk band who precede The Boy Who Trapped The Sun give cause for reflection on what it is to have a natural stage presence when they gawkily gesture for those watching to move forward. Two girls do, uncomfortably; with a forced enthusiasm that suggests their support may be borne more of their relationship with the band than with their music. The rest of the audience, if anything, appear more resolutely rooted in the room’s nether regions, within easy reach of the door. … Continue Reading

LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening

LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

If James Murphy were to write a job description for his own job, it would make peculiar reading. “Frontman and knob twiddler wanted”, it might read, “No singing voice to speak of; propensity to look a bit on the porky side; understated lyrical genius”.

The idea of someone else filling Murphy’s role as the driving force behind LCD Soundsystem might seem a strange one – the frontman’s mark is what makes their output so peculiarly unique – but This Is Happening suggests that shipping in a substitute might not be such a big deal. The material may still be compelling, but there’s little demonstration of any progression since 2007’s Sound Of Silver. If Murphy wanted to sell an LCD Soundsystem franchise, it seems he’s finessed his formula sufficiently to allow him to scribble it down in a handover note and bugger off. … Continue Reading

Angus and Julia Stone – Down The Way

Angus and Julia Stone - Down The Way

Listening to Down The Way, it’s difficult to escape the feeling that Angus & Julia Stone have run out of ideas. Their music has always been characterised by its simplicity, but whereas in the past this was delivered with a certain degree of sophistication, their latest album sees them falling back on repetition and cliché to plug the gaps where creativity once lay. … Continue Reading

Fionn Regan – The Shadow Of An Empire

Fionn Regan - The Shadow Of An Empire

It’s been almost four years since Fionn Regan released his debut album, The End Of History. Any questions about what he’s been up to in that time are answered with a single listen to its successor: he’s been growing some balls.

The End Of History was generally well received by the music press, but its whimsical, plinkety plunkety folk always felt a bit like a facsimile of a great album rather than the real thing. Regan’s soft, string-backed harmonies created moments of wonder, but the acoustic cleverness began to wear thin after a while. … Continue Reading

Kitsuné Maison 8 – Various

Kistune Maison 8

Kitsuné Maison’s fashion-cum-music brand has become something of a weathercock for a shallow artistic valley hemmed in by electro pop on the one side and its cousin, electro-indie, on the other. Their previous seven compilations are awash with familiar names (Bloc Party, Wolfmother, Klaxons, Gossip) often remixed by other, equally well-known artists (Soulwax, Metronomy, MSTRKRFT), so that the entire back-catalogue resembles some sort of digitalised, cross border love-in.

… Continue Reading

Cosmo Jarvis – Humasyouhitch/Sonofabitch

Cosmo Jarvis

It’s hard not to listen to Cosmo Jarvis and find yourself mulling on how things used to be better, way back when. When Kate Bush was signed aged 16, she spent most of her advance, and most of the following two years, taking interpretive dance classes and mime training. EMI, the theory goes, were happy waiting for her creative talents to mature (and her education to be completed) rather than forcing her into a substandard early release that would inevitably frame the remainder of her career.

… Continue Reading

The Brute Chorus – Send Me A Message

The Brute Chorus

The tragedy is, The Brute Chorus should have been amazing. When we first saw them at the 100 Club on Oxford Street eons ago, vocalist James Steel’s sheer rock ‘n’ roll exuberance was irresistible. Even then though, there were questions about how the foot-stomping set would translate on record without the spectacle of Steel’s stage show or the raw edge of live performance.

… Continue Reading