Thursday, September 24, 2015

And more again

Tindersticks - We Are Dreamers

Tindersticks' tenth album, The Waiting Room out - oh lord - 22nd January 2016, arrives with a great amount of bubbling restraint even by their standards. Savages' Jehnny Beth pops by to offer counterpoint to Stuart Staples' always reliable baritone. They may have settled into their particular groove but they're still wriggling around in fear of the human condition within it.

Tindersticks - We are dreamers! from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.




Post War Glamour Girls - Cannonball Villages

From the second half of their two-part Feeling Strange album, out 30th October, a return to a default doomy state over eight and a half heavy minutes of shuddering shards of guitar noise, barely pent up rage born of frustration.




The Spook School - Binary

The big obvious pop hit from second album Try To Be Helpful, out 9th October, ever since they debuted it last summer, informed lyrically by gender norms and singer Nye Todd's trans identity and musically by a joyful rush of pop-post-punk.




Bruising - Emo Friends

Touring with Los Campesinos! in November ahead of this 7" out on the 20th, the Leeds duo trade in misleadingly coy west coast harmonies and Breeders-recalling fuzzed up summer riffs.




Freddy Lobos - I'm Fucking I'm Free

Huge Part Chimp-recalling riffs and anxious quiet-loud dynamics drive the debut offering from a band featuring some of Ex Comets and (soon to become extinct) Maybeshewill's John Helps.




Friday, September 18, 2015

Gramma's Boyfriend - I Live My Broken Dreams

Following on from her STN Top 50 of last year album Last War, Haley Bonar has formed a side-project band that takes her dark power-pop leanings into spiky new wave dance-punk directions like Devo fronted by Throwing Muses, Bonar developing an unhealthy-sounding snarl alongside. Album PERM is out October 9th.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Everything great that happened since we went to End Of The Road and now need to catch up on

The Drink - No Memory

A second album less than a year after their debut, Capital out 13th November, here the trio aim for a beguiling kind of motorik pastorialism, bursting from semi-drone into outbreaks of colour, folky mini-solos to the fore.




Dilly Dally - Purple Rage

Dirty and angry, like a post-grunge intersection of Breeders/Veruca Salt controlled rage and prime Siamese Dream Smashing Pumpkins forcefulness, Toronto's Dilly Dally see anger as an energy, cementing Katie Monks as a sheer unfuckwithable presence. Debut album Sore is released 9th October.




Darren Hayman - Nuns Run The Apothecary

Hayman's first truly solo album Florence, out 6th November, was recorded at Elizabeth Morris of Allo Darlin's Firenze flat in the depths of last winter, providing a sparse backdrop for his thoughtful, detailed observational style that sees his recent politicised leanings take a breather in favour of the elegance of personal beauty.




The Radio Dept. - This Repeated Sodomy

A very Radio Dept title and a very Lesser Matters sort of Radio Dept track, less than two and a half minutes of chiming distorted guitars and quietly charged/cynical lyrics. It might qualify as a summer sound but they're too keen to make things wonky for that.




Chorusgirl - Oh, To Be A Defector

We wrote about Chorusgirl initially at the end of July, where we described them as "tak(ing) up the female-fronted fuzzbomb art-pop baton that the Darling Buds, Lush and the Long Blondes help patent - jangling guitars carrying along a bucketful of big hooks, Silvi Wersing's strident, cool-as vocals, joy camouflaging the pain". And as Fortuna Pop! pick them up for a self-titled album out 13th November that about carries it here, art-noir cocksure in its internalised pain.




Alimony Hustle - BNOC

We introduced you to the Bristolians back in March; now having announced some support dates with Trust Fund their new single is all focused anger both pointedly lyrically and in their huge sound for a duo.




Trust Fund - Football

Speak of the devil, Ellis and co's second album of 2015 Seems Unfair is out October 30th, again with MJ on recording duty, again expressing personal doubt and failure of basic humanity codes through the medium of barbed jangle.