I mentioned in my review of Nothing's Ever Fine (here) that Elise Okusami was an awesome Guitarist, she still is of course, but that doesn't cover it at all, the multi instrumentalist has been given more studio time than usual and the third Oceanator album is awesome.
Everything Is Love And Death feels slightly rockier and more varied than Nothing's Ever Fine, but that allows Okusami to stretch out even more impressively. The Pop Rock is still here, Happy New Year is ace AOR and the opener, First Time may be the best opener that I've heard in quite a while.
Get Out, the lead single, is a much heavier affair, far more in your face, all attitude and that works well with all that surrounds it. Be Here is very 80s, built around a fine Guitar riff and more synth. Drift Away even gets more than a little Garbage sounding.
Won't Someone is perhaps the most surprising, sounding unusually heartfelt, even a little delicate and fragile. Surprising, because so much here is upbeat and the reflection shows an added string to the bow, particularly the splendid atmospheric arrangement.
All The Same is wonderfully melodic with a great Guitar sound and Cut String is delivered at a rapid pace that grips you. The excellent Will Yip production helps an album that is beautifully performed, arranged and sang into an absolute winner.
You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl, CD, Cassette and as a download.
I've started compiling next week's Listening To This Week and it is a little different. A mixture of what we are known for, but also showing the different directions that we like to journey down. I mention this because there is a track from this superb offering.
I suppose might settle on Alt Rock as a genre compromise for Creature Law. It is not that really, but at least it is nearer to it than most of what gets sent in labelled Alt Rock which is a mixture of everything that is anything but that.
This is wonderfully chaotic, a bit surreal, effectively noisy and has a will to change directions at the drop of a hat, not that I expect many hats are in the vicinity. Milky Sandy And Soil is awesome, slightly Cardiacs, slightly Masters Of Reality.
And Dine Ophella is completely different. Prog that nears Metal without getting there, but with Psych thrown in just to confuse you more. Poison Silver Xanadu is probably my fave, a real riff-a-thon, a bit like a much heavier Cohered And Cambria.
Sublime is slightly more Psych and even hints at Pop Rock, but not for too long. It just rattles your very soul and cannot resist falling into something King Crimson 80s like. Finally, the closer is Irregular Handshake.
That is a song that instrumentally gets early Rush and is the most melodic thing on display. This is an album that won't be for all, but if you have an open mind, you will be surprised by how it grabs you. Noisier than you would normally hear on here, but I absolutely adore it.
You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl, CD or as a download.
Longreach's Softjaw offer up 5 great Power Pop songs on their self titled EP. More Old School than the new noisier breed, which is in its own way refreshing to hear something more classic as this style seems unreasonably neglected.
Waiting At The End is wonderfully Merseybeat, whilst Dragging My Feet edges more towards the 90s revival without losing any of the charm that oozes from the recordings. Pleased With Me mixes 70s Pop Rock with Glam Rock overtones, all delivered at a fine pace.
Yet Sleepy Eyes gets far more UK New Wave and gets it spot on with a corking Riff. Don't Go Walking Out again is slightly 60s, but this time mixed with a slightly Slacker feel. The EP is exactly what Power Pop should do, bring Joy.
Incredibly melodic and harmony led, all the pre-requisites are here. big choruses, great riffs and allowing singalongs at will. It is often forgotten, just how life affirming Power Pop can be, Softjaw remind us and do it incredibly well.
This year has been, far more than usual. a remembering of Anything Should Happen. our old place. It was a members only thing and it concentrated more on the under appreciated than the new. No one was more unfairly ignored than Custard. We loved 'em.
We could never understand how bands like Crowded House burst out of Australia, but the more inventive Custard never seemed to travel the world. I know you always feel like your favourite bands should be bigger (except of course for the fans who want bands to be their secret and lose interest when they get larger).
Custard where and are ace. It is also bizarre that David McCormack has become more famous as the voice of Bluey's dad, Bandit Heeler in the cartoon series and for a soundtrack career than his Group adventures, also with The Polaroids and fine solo albums.
Custard returned in 2015, just before we started here, and they are just as great now as they were then. Without the need to write Radio Hits, the true inventiveness is allowed to shine through. Suburban Curtains is a real tour de force.
It is a double album and 21 songs is ideal for me, I'd have more, but a big listen for the newcomer. But I urge those newbies to dig in, there is so much variety amongst the great Guitar Pop Rock, that the album needs a complete listen at every juncture.
From the New Wave, Costello like, Pushing All The Buttons to the UK Beat of Black Rinse. Heart Attacks is fine Power Pop and Fifty Plus is all Merseybeat. Molecules Colliding is great 80s US New Wave and No Pay No Delicious is great frantic melodic Post Punk.
There is even time for a slightly Music Hall ditty in The Leisurely Everly, (fourth time I've heard whistling this week). It sounds slightly Bonzo, slightly Pulp. Custard are magnificent and after all this time to be so original is noteworthy. Absolutely splendid stuff!
You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available as a Double Vinyl album, CD, Cassette (Yes I said Cassette) and as a download.
Now celebrating their 40th Anniversary. The Hard-Ons have earned the right to do whatever they want, not that they have ever needed or wanted your permission. They may less Punk and more Guitar Pop Rock these days, but they were always great at both.
That's not to say that they have lost their noisy bite. One listen to These Days Are Long proves that. Yet that is counterbalanced by the Power Pop of Because You're Mine. The pace of Happy Accidents is mighty fine Indie Rock, almost AOR.
Operation Lightning is incredibly in your face, but Getting Older is part New Wave, part 70s Pop Rock with Thin Lizzy Type Riffing. However, the one minute of Doesn't Look Like Me At All is aggressive Garage Punk of the highest order.
Ride To The Station is essentially Summer Pop, but interspersed with chaotic interludes. Incredibly Pop, but like a lot of the band's songs, different directions come in part way through songs. They start as one thing and change into something else before reverting back.
I Like You A Lot reminds me a lot of a band like Vanilla, great melodic Pop Rock. But the best is saved until last. Pushover is magnificent. For a band that has songs that usually come in `t under 3 minutes, it is a surprise to hear something that is over 6.
Pushover shows an even different side to the band, it is epic.with an extended hypnotic fade. This album will suit old and new fans alike. There is enough of the old slightly angry vibe, but also plenty that shows how melodic and catchy that the Oz quartet can be. Wonderful!
You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl, CD and as a download.
28 songs on the new Listening To This Week Playlist. Aural Delight, as ever, is assured.
I do hope that you can listen to all the songs across this week. The last listed is as great as the first and you have plenty of time to listen. This weekly playlist is solely for submissions, not the usual stuff that we dig out ourselves.
All embeds open in new windows to aid scrolling. Links to the artists will also appear on I Don't Hear A Single Social Media sites over the next 24 hours. This will help you to discover more about the artists who appear here.
Boyracer - Boosey And Hawkes Childhood
Erik Voeks And The Ghosters - Hieronymus
The Warhawks - Secondhand Promised Land
The Modbeats - Fairweather Friends
October Man - Sunken Vatican
Rick White And The Sadies - Standing In The Yard
John Greska - Sweater Aesthetic
These Dead Machines - Phantomshttps://thesedeadmachines.bandcamp.com/track/phantoms
Saige Sage - The Bad Professor (Straight Out Of Montessori Mix)
The Neuroplastic - Tinpanzee
The Unsundered - Cirque Des USA
The Tisburys - The Anniversaries
Chris Pellnat - We Are Not Robots
Gavin Bowles & The Distractions - She Hates My Guts
Nick at the excellent Add To Wantlistsuggests that Boyracer were always destined to write about and he's right. I look at Indie and it has become a catch all term for anything and everything. This is an album that defines what Indie should be about.
It is wonderfully chaotic instrumentally. Guitar riffs all over the place, wonderfully muddy at times, but incredibly melodic. If you like the Guitar, you will love this. The vocals are deliberately lower in the mix which allows you to appreciate the wonderful Guitar attack.
Those vocals are shared excellently between Stewart Anderson and Christina Riley, sometimes separately, sometimes together and even delivered alternatively by verse. It is a crack 5 piece outfit that not only fleshes out the sound, but allows departures into surprising areas.
There is the ace mix of 60s Pop and R and B of You Don't Love Me as an interesting departure, all fuzzed up of course. The Garage Rock of Rails is superb, the instrumental on Larkin could be prime time Blondie and the Bassline on Unknown Frequencies is totally hypnotic.
Boyracer rarely come up for air and here save it for the wonderful closer Homemade Fireworks which shows a different side to the band, a restraint that works beautifully. Incidentally, I mentioned that I hadn't heard whistling on an album for a long time and I've heard it for the third time in a few days now.
I suppose that you would call the band veterans now. There is something apt about their 15th album containing 15 songs. To be fair though, every album sounds as exciting as a debut and for that they deserve a big round of applause.
You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl or as a download.
I was reluctant to join another platform. So although it has the IDHAS handle, it will not be used for promoting the place. There will also be the cynical humour of course.
Hoping for it to be more chatting about old and new music and ideas. No submissions please! Submissions are via any of the other contact places.
I missed this at the end of last year, but thankfully, the 2024 Vinyl release allows it to qualify it for this year. Kansas City's Erik Voeks is primarily noted as a solo artist, most known for the excellent Sandbox album which has just been remixed for a re-release.
His forming of a quartet with The Ghosters really produces a great Pop Rock glow. Written by all four, the Jangle Pop count is wonderfully heavy, but the move away from that genre is just as fine. A song like Hieronyous steps magnificently into intelligent Gravitas Pop.
There are hints of Elvis Costello on the verse of The Most Confusing Part which is accompanied by a stellar arrangement with added top notch Guitar riffing. Suck It Up even gets all UK Glam Rock at times and adds a killer chorus. Yet more Intelligent Guitar Pop.
Slowness Of The Moment is ace 70s Pop Rock to a tee and the weeping Guitar riff on Break Away is awesome. Instrumentally, it is more than a little XTC. There's even a potential Sitcom Theme Song in the jaunty altogether now-ness of Love You Anyway.
It Means Nothing Now has an hypnotic Jangle and yet Hazy Maze mixes UK New Wave with US 60s Sunshine Pop. The whole album is a joy, beautifully performed and lyrically adept throughout. The big reveal is how uplifting Pop Rock can be.
You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl, CD and as a download.
"Mum! Dad is in the Psych Pop room again!" With all the Orgone Box activity, I'm in danger of turning here into a genre appreciation club. I make no apologies though. For all my musical adventures, I have always had a special place for Psych Pop.
Through all my departures across IDHAS and non IDHAS lands, I am also most happy in this destination. Of course, both Rick White and The Sadies themselves have always trod much further afield too, there are real Folk and Jangle elements, as well as UK Beat and Pop Rock.
For this new material, White gathers The Sadies up again and the results are masterful. White's back catalogue through Eric's Trip and Elevator To Hell has always been exceptional as have his albums with the magnificent delights of The Sadies.
The bond with the sadly missed Dallas Good was incredibly song and Good's spirit still feels present here. As you might expect, the Psychedelic Folk is exceptional, but there is an ease in moving to Classic Rock and even Pop Rock.
White's gentle melodic vocal suits the material perfectly and the playing from all is out of this world. Whether a song is groove led or riff heavy, every song holds its own. You just don't want the album to end and there are a surprising amount of choruses.
I've made the surprising decision of not mentioning any of songs. I've chosen my three favourite songs to embed, but your three will probably be completely different. So get yourself over to the album and witness masters of their trade, excelling at what they do all these years on.
You can listen to and buy the album here. The Vinyl can be bought hereand herefrom Bluefog.
Over to Gloucester City, New Jersey for the quartet that are The Warhawks. The band released two EPs in the space of a week in July and both three track affairs offer up different takes and angles of great guitar led Indie Rock.
Parade sounds a little 80s, a bit darker than what surrounds it, Very Indie still. Brighton is more 90s and has a lot in common with the new noisier breed of Power Pop bands. A bit clappy with a big chorus. Highway is built on a killer riff and a knockout chorus.
The second EP offers even more variety. Domino is top notch Slacker Rock. Secondhand Promised Land is probably the best thing here, but the competition is high. Anthemic Power Pop at its very best with a Butch Walker like handclaps.
How High Can We Go? is wonderfully noisier, more aggressive and this works just as well. You can imagine this lot to be a great live band. I'm a bit confused as why the two EPs were not combined into what would be a splendid mini album. But both EPs are at Name Your Price, so no one has an excuse and can grab the six excellent songs. Great stuff!
My recent post about Orange's Judy Over The Rainbow has created an overwhelming interest from people as has the fact that Orgone Box are recording new material. So I'm republishing our Mick Dillingham's Interview with Rick that was initially republished here in 2020.
You can still buy both The Orgone Box and Things That Happened Then from Bill from Minus zero at very reasonable prices here and here. Markus at Sugarbush still has the Vinyl Reissue of confectionary for sale here. As well as the odd copy of Centaur.
Ray at Kool Kat issue Centaur on CD on his Kool Kat label and still has copies here. The Judy Over The Rainbow 3 Track Single by Orange can still be bought on Vinyl and CDS fairly cheaply on Discogs.
This is a precursor to a much bigger piece on Rick Corcoran planned for later in the year when the New Release Reviews are caught up with. I also have some Rarities and demos from Orange and Orgone Box that I will ask Rick about regarding what we or he can do about.
Reviews are back tomorrow. Now for that Interview from 2001!
This interview with Rick Corcoran, the man behind Orange and Orgone Box, was done when the first album came out on Minus Zero in 2001. The recent news that a new album is planned for release this year on the Sugarbush label is both exciting and also makes this even more interesting.
So how did you first get into music?
“My brother taught me how to play a few chords on the guitar and piano when I was about fourteen and I sort of taught myself from then on by playing along to records. When I joined my first band, I was sixteen and working in a nightclub in Sheffield. There was a band with a silly name rehearsing in the afternoons and I used to get up and jam with them after I'd swept the broken teeth and pigs trotters off the floor Anyway that was my first band.
Growing up I got a cross section of influences. My dad was a Beatles fan, Frank Sinatra too. My mum listened to Rodgers and Hammerstein and my brother was into Be-Bop Deluxe and prog rock in a big way. So there was always a lot of that stuff being played around the house.
My thing was always guitar pop more than anything – first The Beatles, then Sweet and stuff on Top of the Pops, then Punk and bands like Cheap Trick and The La's. Nowadays if I'm honest I download my favourites off the Internet, stuff like I'm Mandy Fly Me, You're So Vain, Silver Star by The Four Seasons and Guitar Man by Bread. Apart from obvious stuff like The Beatles and The Beach Boys, I've always been into one-off tracks and hits more than any one band and I still am”
So how did you start making your own music?
“When I first moved to London, I joined a band called Sugarbush who were a sort of Replacements/Tom Petty-ish type band. We gigged around Richmond and Fulham for about six months and then I took off with the drummer and the bass player and formed The Green Tambourines. The Tambourines were the first good band I'd been in, but maybe we were a bit out of time. I mean we were playing guitar pop while your Jesus Jones and Acid House were happening! As far as I knew an E was a major chord.
Island Records put us in the studio with Wreckless Eric producing, but they wanted us to be Nirvana so that didn't work. We also had a daft manager who played jazz on his answerphone and didn't know anyone, so you can tell how organised we were. Anyway we did some memorable gigs around London, but we split up after about eighteen months. I'm still in contact with two of the guys from the Tambourines In fact the drummer Tam Johnstone played drums on the Orgone Box and the bass player Tim McTighe did the orchestral arrangement on the track Find The One.”
So this was when Orange came about?
“Orange came together quite quickly after that. I was playing guitar for a band at the Midem festival in France and I gave one of my demos to their manager. He offered me some studio time. but only if I had a band, which I didn't. So Orange was formed by picking the first three guys I came across - not a good move.
We signed with Chrysalis by making them think we'd been together for ages. but actually I didn't know the band from Adam and they didn't know me. The demos that got us signed were all my work, I'd done them at home, but the record company couldn't tell, as a band we didn't sound anything like them. When I. heard the recordings we did at Abbey Road, they could have been different songs. It was a joke, but it was my fault, because I'd roped them into it.
The first thing we did after signing for Chrysalis was the single Judy Over The Rainbow. As far as I can remember I had a good time making it because the producer Dave Eringa, was a really funny bloke and the song went down really easy. The response from the radio was good too, loads of plays on Radcliffe and Independent stations. Everybody at the gigs knew the song, which was great because it was the first time anything like that had happened for me.
I think if we'd been a cooler band it would have been a hit. Nowadays I prefer the 4-track demo version that I wrote and recorded while I was with the Green Tambourines and which is also on the Orgone Box album. I like the arrangement on the Orange version, but it's played too fast and sounds a bit hectic to me, which incidentally sums Orange up. I relate more to the slower spaced out feel of the original, it rolls along as opposed to jumping, if you know what I mean, and it's less gimmicky.
Orange recorded loads of my songs for Chrysalis, but none of them ever got released. Because we never got on as a group of people, we never really hit it off as a band. I think the bad feeling started right at the beginning when I got rid of the first drummer and another guitarist who happened to be mates with the rest of 'em. I don't think they ever forgave me for that, but there you go. Although I don't particularly enjoy being hated, that on it's own didn't bother me.
It was the laziness and playing crap that I couldn't work with. They were always late for gigs, which is fine if you play great and look great but they didn't, songs were always breaking down. In the end we went into Chipping Norton studio with Gus Dudgeon, to re-record an album we'd fucked up at Rockfield. But the band just couldn't get their parts together. The guitarist couldn't think of anything to play and the drummer just gave up and asked if we could use a drum machine!
I found it all a bit embarrassing in front of a guy like Gus. I mean he did Space Oddity and Rocket Man for godsake! After three days work they went home for the weekend and never came back. I haven't seen them since. It was all my fault, because I roped them into it. I ended up finishing the album with Gus, but it never came out because Chrysalis dropped the whole project anyway. Funnily enough that was the best feeling I'd had for along time.”
You're time with Orange doesn't sound a happy one. Did it put you off the whole music thing?
“No, I thought sod all that major record company stuff and spending weeks in big studios getting drum sounds, comping vocals and everybody eating three course meals. I hated it, so I borrowed some money and hired some tape machines and started recording new songs at home. I did this kitsch campy song called Find The One, which is a kind of Roy Orbison thing and some Japanese label heard it and asked me to do an album, which eventually turned out to be The Orgone Box.
Making it was a really enjoyable experience for me. I had four 8-track tape machines, a 32 channel desk, a load of effects, three amps and half a dozen guitars all set up in my flat, so I could make a right racket. I wrote most of the songs while I was recording them. What I did was put down some guide drums with a click, added a bass line, a bit of guitar and a vocal.
Then I took the tapes and the machines to this place called the House in the Woods, which is a big old mansion house in some woods just off the M25. 1 got hold of Tam Johnstone and he laid the drums down to my guide track in what looked like a big dining room or a library or something. The feel was just right and the whole thing took about four days.
Then I took the tapes home again and spent a few weeks doing overdubs and generally just had a great time playing around with the music. I've always wanted to be in a great band, but when it comes to recording, I always seem to be at my best when I'm working alone. It's just the way I am. That way I can conjure up and maintain an atmosphere that I feel is right for the song and put all of myself into the performance, instead of reacting to an atmosphere created by others.
I don't like being hurried or slowed down by other people. I like to do things in unorthodox ways and at unsociable times. I can start work on an idea one day and just keep working until I'm happy. I don't think about sleeping or eating. Those things just break the flow up for me. I'll stop when I'm satisfied or when I get bored or when I drop.
At the end of the day, it's not the sound quality or making sense that I'm most bothered about. It's whether there's a spark in the record that excites me, a feel that takes me somewhere else in my head, that's what I do it for. I mean just listen to Noddyland. The crowd on there is from the Shea Stadium gig, I had it in my cans while I was singing and playing guitar at the same time and it was like a fantasy gig for me. Pure tennis racket!”
Listening to the album it strikes me how literate and thought provoking the words are.
“It's a very personal and private record lyrically and at the same time, I feel that the tunes are universal. Nearly all the songs are introspective themes because that's the way I am. I'm always thinking about what I'm thinking or what you're thinking and my songs usually analyse me. Listen to Anaesthesia, Bubble or Ticket With No Return for instance. Lyrically I'm being very melancholy, even a bit down on myself. But at the same time the tunes are very uplifting, very welcoming to the listener. I think the tunes contain a hopeful message.”
So what the heck is an Orgone Box anyway?
“The Orgone Box was a thing devised by a psychoanalyst called Wilhelm Reich. He claimed that Orgone was some kind of universal energy and that he could capture it in his device and then use it to treat illness. I read about it in a book on the occult by Colin Wilson and I liked the idea of it. It sounded musical to me and I'd done most of the record in my flat, which I suppose is a kind of box, so bobs your uncle, as they say It's nothing profound I just liked the sound of it.”
How does it feel now the album is finally coming out?
“It's funny how things come about, I honestly thought that the album would never get off the ground. The Japanese label got closed down and I couldn't get anything else going, so when Bill Forsyth phoned me out of the blue I was dead chuffed. I'm hoping that the Minus Zero release will prick up some ears. I read somewhere that if the music is playing, the audience will find it one day and I believe this. Sooner or later the album will make its mark, and to be honest I could do with the money to do more recording.
At the moment, I've got the bones of another album written and I've just started putting the ideas down on tape. As it stands I think the first side is going to be about eight songs all joined together in a kind of mosaic. I'd love to get something else out this year if possible, that's what I'm aiming for.”
The early Rick Corcoran recordings are still available on Vinyl from Sugarbush Records on the fantastic Lorne Park Tapes (SB019) here.
Centaur, the reworking of the Orgone Box album is still available on CD here and as a download here. The Sugarbush Vinyl Release is now sold out.
Just a heads up, that I am taking a break for the next couple of days. I've got a really bad hearing problem that seems at its worst this week. I like to listen again to an album before publishing the review and a constant pulsing problem in my ears over the past few days is making this really hard. It just isn't fair to not give an artist's album the full attention that it deserves.
I will be working in the background on IDHAS admin and planning as there is exciting stuff planned for I Don't Hear A Single in the coming months. I will also be able to listen to individual songs as and when I can. I am a little low as I rely fully on my ears obviously.
Ear wise, all the obvious has been checked and I do look after my ears. So now the investigation is to see if it is an Inner Ear infection, Tinnitus or a nerve problem that may lead to further ear loss.
In the meantime, particularly with October being so Review heavy, this may be a chance for Readers / Listeners to catch up on previous Reviews or listen to the current Listening To This Week Playlist as it is a cracker.
Earlier than usual, an absolute corker this week. A varied 32 songs, but also a hint of returning heroes with Orgone Box, Dropkick, Dom Mariani and Silver Sun appearing. One of the best Playlists that we've ever compiled. I know we would say that, but have a listen to see if we are right.
I do hope that you can listen to all the songs across this week. The last listed is as great as the first and you have plenty of time to listen. This weekly playlist is solely for submissions, not the usual stuff that we dig out ourselves.
All embeds open in new windows to aid scrolling. Links to the artists will also appear on I Don't Hear A Single Social Media sites over the next 24 hours, most likely tomorrow due to the later hour of posting. This will help you to discover more about the artists who appear here.
CMON CMON - All The Other Kids
Killer Cashew - Romance
Ryan Hendry - No Time For Wondering
The Warlochs - Nosedive
Tasks - Bring On The Flood
Combos For Dogs - Trilogy Of Terror
Orgone Box - Web Of Melancholia
Verry Gerry - The Face You Try To Hide
The Sabs - Cloudy Day
Silver Sun - Nothing To Show For It
Hushtones - Paper Flowers
Dropkick - Dreams Expire
Dom Mariani - Jangleland
Tomato Flower - Radical
Kaleb Braun-Schulz With The Nightingale Band - One Arm Free, No Legs Free
I'd heard quite a few of the songs ahead of the album and Hartlepool's Mt. Misery have conjured up one hell of a Pop album. The debut could be a little sad sounding at times, this follow up eschews all of that in favour of the chipper and downright catchy.
Hey is great Guitar Pop, it reminded me a lot of Caper Clowns and leads off a fine listen. There seems to be a real wave of bands breaking through from the North East, these four may be the best. More Indie Pop than Pop Rock, Mt. Misery can breakout though.
Love To Kill gets really close to Dropkick and even latter day Teenage Fanclub. It jangles like a good un. Driving Through A Dream sounds like something off a great 70s Pop Rock album, wonderfully gentle, but incredibly melodic.
Heatwave could be from a West Coast Guitar Pop album and yet Waking Up sounds like 60s Summer Pop. On My Mind is wonderful 80s Jangle Pop to a tee and Movies picks up the pace wonderfully aided by a splendid slightly weeping riff an ace solo.
There may be some who would like a little more breaking out, and the band are more than capable of this, but why would you when you master the laidback so well. Well performed and arranged, with a top notch production. What's not to like? Love In Mind hits the spot significantly.
Prepare to be amazed. Baltimore's The Smashing Times' last album was a wonderful Pop album. They follow it with something very different. Gone are the catchy ditties, replaced with something absolutely wonderful. Underground Pop is a description that doesn't really do it justice.
I listen to a lot of music, too much sometimes and I'm always looking for something out of the ordinary. There is Intelligent Indie to be had, great Psych Pop too, but you have to search hard for it. Too much music sounds the same as everything else. Lately it has been even more of a challenge than usual.
The song titles will give you an inkling that this album is something out of the ordinary. I suppose you might call it Left Field, but what exactly is that. Vocally, it does sound very Brit and with the band beginning a 7 date UK Tour at the end of November, you can witness that in the raw.
Mrs Ladyships and the Cleanerhouse Boys is one of those albums that will take time to appreciate, but they are usually the best long players and last the longest. There is a 60s Psych edge, but there is also a fair bit of Jangle around.
For all the Syd Barrett descriptions that will spring out, there is even an Indie C86 feel at times and songs come from unusual angles, for instance, it is a while since I've heard whistling on an album.
Rupert Tingle, Button Thief is great Psych Pop, bordering on Toytown, yet still has a breakout part that could be Brit Pop. Wednesday, On A Hummingbird's Wing is incredibly inventive. It is a song built on a Jangled riff, but could be Julian Cope or Pulp and yet still sounds very 1967.
The references are very 60s, but there is more within. This is an album that you might find on the Fruits de Mer label or Gare Du Nord. It may take time to appreciate, but that time is well spent. In a sea of mediocrit, The Smashing Times are a shining beacon of light. Totally Splendid!
You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl and as a download.
As long time fans of Honeycrack, Jackdaw4 and The Dowling Poole, we just couldn't resist a listen to Willie Dowling's debut solo album. Particularly, as we had heard that it was gonna be a Piano Pop affair and we do love the Piano.
It is more Piano Driven Pop Rock than a straight ahead man on a piano stool affair. You will have heard the Title Track opening up the current Listening To This Week Playlist and that sounds more than a little Andy Partridge. That was the song that encouraged Dowling to take on the album and you can fully understand why.
The album is essentially one of two halves. There are the 70s Pop Rock songs that border on a Softer Rock. All beautifully arranged and performed with the lyrical adeptness that is too often taken for granted, Dowling is a super songwriter.
Even on those lighter moments, there is still variety. Then there are the big production numbers which at time lean more towards The Dowling Poole with the Piano replacing keyboards. The closer, In The Ocean builds and builds with a wonderful arrangement.
Sadie Goldman is very sedate, but expertly sang and hypnotic. At times, these songs are very reminiscent of Kid In A Big World era John Howard. But when these songs break out, the word magnificent is the only one I can attach to them.
The Gravy Train vocal is Bowie-esque and the jauntiness of Down The Slide is totally affecting, a little Andrew Gold in places. I Killed My Imaginary Friend may be best thing here, lightning fist, a little 80s New Wave with a hint Toytown. Dowling has never made a bad album, he certainly isn't gonna start now and this is one of his best.
You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on CD and as a download.
