Arctic Monkeys, War Child Records – ‘Opening Night’
The first Arctic song in four years is sure to frustrate some fans. ‘I prefer their early stuff,’ they dribble onto their keyboards. Fools, all of them – Tranquility Base is their best album.
‘Opening Night’ is a continuation of the band’s evolution, although it wouldn’t have looked out of the place on The Car, straddled beside ‘Mr Swartz’ and the title track. It’s a smoky affair chock-a-block with Turner’s now-trademark lyricism of the retro-futuristic backdropped by the tragedy of showbiz. Sometimes this crooning detachment veers too far into the obsolete (‘ten years later/ It’s been a decade’ isn’t Turner’s sharpest turn), but this is more than made up for by the song’s biggest strength: its gradual build, how its shadow grows as the guitars multiply, the fuzz thickens, the falsettos gather. It looms, it broods, and as the opening track for an album supporting children affected by war, it gives suitable gravitas considering the context.
Sunday Smoke – ‘Already Know’
A bit of post-Britpop slickness from newcomers Sunday Smoke, delivering a measured and mature account of a relationship’s breakdown. If you told me this was a Travis song, I wouldn’t question it. And it’s certainly less creepy than Fran Healy recounting his accidental paedophilia on ‘U16 Girls’ (yes, that’s a real song); one-nil to Sunday Smoke, I suppose.
100%WET – ‘Delete Forever’
Grimes’ original utilises its acoustic instrumental to add a certain naivety and innocence to contrast the hedonism of the lyrics. Though she ‘can’t see above it’, her comedown brings about a sense of distanced, albeit futile, reflection. 100%WET’s cover focuses more on the ‘guess I fucking love it’, the excess of hyperpop mirroring the overwhelming totality of addiction. It’s easy to get lost in its sonic depths, swept along in its hypergaze wake.
Cowboys Hunters – ‘Have A Pint’
This song chirps like a puggie glitching on fortified wine, taunting you into having a good time before it nicks all your pennies and leaves your trousers by your ankles. ‘Have A Pint’ has put Cowboy Hunters onto my ‘must see live’ list, as long as I remember to leave the Stetson and spurs at home.
Joshua Idehen – ‘This Is The Place’
It does help, after listening to a lot of shoegazing tracks, to have a bit of a tonic. ‘This Is The Place’ is a reaffirming ode not to happiness, but contentment. It’s a reminder to be present, to dance, and after every listen so far, it’s managed to put me in a better mood.
Balancing Act – ‘Sunshine’
Starting somewhere between ‘Norwegian Wood’ and ‘Shelter Song’, Balancing Act dissolve into a Kasabian-inspired swagger, strutting amongst the buzz and ending up at the debauched and death-rattled with Kai Jon Roberts’ manic vocals.
Sports – ‘Drama King’
I’m a sucker for some high-pitched synths. Passion Pit, Basement Jaxx, ‘Xanadu’ – put some warbling treble on a track and I’m there. That’s how ‘Drama King’ lured me in, though it was Sports’ playful self-doubt and manipulated vocals that kept me, even for the ‘Hallelujah’ reference at the end.
Dead Dads Club – ‘That’s Life’
Despite what the title may suggest, Chilli Jenson eschews Sinatra for Gallagherian philosophy. The opening ‘she tells me everything is made by design’ might even be a line from Dig Out Your Soul or a Liam solo album, I couldn’t tell you, but between the profound generalisations, Dead Dads Club imbues the song with enough anthemic oomph and reassurance to grow into something more personal and empowering.
Cardinals – ‘I Like You’
‘I Like You’ feels like an inverted ‘For No One’. It’s a song that flirts with the baroque before charging into its refrain headfirst with a triumph of chords, a song that finds our lovers working through self-doubt and depression and coming closer as a result, far removed from McCartney’s gutting depiction of sudden, ordinary loss. A fantastic song that’s gotten me interested in their upcoming LP.
Autumn Fires – ‘Gone By June’
Blimey, this takes me back. Really, there are three certainties in life: death, taxes, and a pop-punk phase. It was Infinity on High for me, and ‘Gone By June’ scratches that itch, energy and emotion without a hint of pretension.
The New Pornographers – ‘Votive’
Give me more mandolins, dammit! Even with only three notes, it is furiously dance-worthy, stomping over synths with a proud distain. As it should. Let this short, meaningless review be my votive to the mandolin.
Bloodworm – ‘Bloodlust’
This gothic slab of post-punk slivers like carcinogens through your arteries. The band nails the almost-ecclesiastical savagery they seem to be going for. Let’s just hope their worrying obsession with blood is purely artistic.
Avalon Emerson & The Charm – ‘Jupiter and Mars’
You can really sense Rostam Batmanglij’s hand in this song. It jitters with the same freneticism that Ezra Koenig so well glided over on Contra, though Emerson’s cosy wit fares just as well. A properly charming record, a smiling moon, a winking star.
Mauro Brenner – ‘No Bad Blood’
This is not music made for me: it’s far too optimistic for a bin-dwelling grouch like myself, and quite frankly, that’s no fault of the song. I admire Brenner’s energy, and as a throwback to early 2010s pop, it’s pretty bang on.
Vehicle – ‘You Are Not A Cowboy’
Throwing a bit of grit under the bubblegum chompers of British Invasion pop, Vehicle come out a-swinging on this song. The Saul Adamczewski influence is palpable, buried as it is amongst the country-crunching guitars, and it’s a bit more novel than their usual kitchen-sink cynicism, but, as ever, it’s buoyed by a wink and a nudge.
Committee of Sleep – ‘Desire Lines’
‘Desire Lines’ haunts with the menace of mundanity, hanging above the hearth like a taxidermied housecat, a kitchen sink drama that actually concerns itself with washing dishes. It grinds on with a repetitive drumbeat and shrill Pixies-esque riff, and I can’t help but match its mechanisms, a relentless march that stirs a dread in me. Big up Quentin Blake.
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