Tom Minor - Eleven Easy Pieces On Anger & Disappointment

 

I like to think that I know what I like, but what I like even more is discovering something that completely surprises me. Something that is intelligent, adeptly written and generally it is an album that comes from all directions where each song just engages you with its sheer inventiveness.

Tom Minor's album ticks all of those boxes. It is a myriad of styles that comes at you from many angles. You are not sure what will follow next song wise, even within a song and you find it hard to label, yet everything is so melodic and hypnotic.

For example, It's The Wind Stupid sounds like a Toytown song, but has a Mod Bassline and a killer chorus, a little Andy Partridge maybe in feel maybe? Goddamn And Evil has a Psych riff, yet could easily be Garage Rock. You starting to catch the drift?

Is Everything OK? sounds more 70s, but could also be Steve Marriott or Martin Newell or even Jarvis Cocker. It's Easy To Play Hearts mixes Steve Harley with UK Beat. The two songs with The Creatures Of Habit are real standouts, a fully fleshed sound, but still allowing Minor's quirkiness to flow, slightly Streetwise.

Light Heart Heavy Hand is a lyrically adept piano ballad, song in an American drawl. The Dog walkers is far more straight ahead and even sounds a little Joe Strummer vocally. Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years is all R and B and Mouth Organ, perhaps a slowed down Dr Feelgood, but also vocally a little Music Hall.

Daydreams Come True At Night is even a lullaby closer. Interstellar Standstill is wonderful. Moody and Magnificent, with a more laidback vocal. It reminds me of Ian Hunter vocally. The rap is also surprise, you think it won't fit and shouldn't be there. But like Rush's Double Agent, it works beautifully.

Eleven Pieces On Anger & Disappointment is incredibly inventive. I'd love to know what goes through Minor's mind. It isn't an instantly accessible album and needs repeated listens to realise its excellence. But once hooked you will have it by you forever. Lyrically adept and a myriad of styles, this is wonderful.

You can listen to the album and buy it here.

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The Sugar Hold - QUICKIE EP

 

I have one regret about the new EP from The Sugar Hold and that is that it isn't a full length follow up to last year's SWEET. Everyone knows how much I love this type of Pop Rock with its emphasis on Pop. The New York five piece's emphasis is very much on All You Need Is Fun.

But I do get a bit angsty when I talk to peers about them when they say what a great singles band they are. Every song they offer up fits as a single, so how the hell can they not be known as a longer form band. Every song is a winner and there is a surprisingly large amount of depth and changes of direction in their songs.

On first listen, they appear to be great melodic Pop, but repeated listens reveal how much goes into each song. It is easy to fall in love with Mikey Baish's vocal, it is so easy on the ear, but it is instrumentally and arrangement wise where these songs excel.

Beautifully performed, here are four nuggets that are essential listening. I haven't heard a better Pop Song than Olga this year. A real Let's Party thing that just changes direction at will with wit and pace. The other three songs come close, but this is the one for me.

Well Qualified has big hints of UK Glam Rock and continues the fun, it is also gets slightly Power Pop with Handclaps and the Power Pop drum beat. That drum beat is pretty regular across the EP, but this isn't a Power Pop album. This is the most straight ahead of the four songs.

You've heard Ooh La La on the Listening To This Week Playlist and this is the rockiest thing on show and adds a killer Guitar solo that is part Surf and Part Rock and Roll. I'm Free closes the EP and the Guitar Riff is wonderful.

I'm Free reminds me a little of Vanilla on the verse, but the multi vocal chorus is extra-ordinarily good. A killer chorus on a release that has them everywhere. It takes hard work to be this good and I haven't even mentioned how lyrically adept the songs are. Absolutely Splendid!

All four songs are embedded here, so you now head off and buy the EP here.

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Tom Adamson - Incredibly Tense And Unstable

Another discovery via the Listening To This Weel playlist. This is Sydney's Tom Adamson's third album and it is great Power Pop. He plays everything himself, although you wouldn't know it, the production is that good.

Power Pop isn't really meant to be deep lyrically, it is meant to be about fun and catchiness, riffs and big choruses and Incredibly Tense And Unstable is exactly that. At times, it does sound very 80s, particularly with some of the synth runs and the beat.

There are some also some frankly awesome Guitar solos. These light up many of the songs and when the power rockets up, these take other the show. The pace of the title track and Pretty On Purpose are fine examples of this and Action Comics is a blast across 7 minutes that go by way too fast.

I would never say that 80s Pop Rock is my thing, but Love Im Morse Code is done so well that you an't help but admire it. Surgeon General even heads towards a bigger Rock, but remains incredibly melodic and Problems is all 80s synth led, but could also be a show song.

The real tour de force though is Going To The Dance (Without You). It has a real UK Glam Rock feel, both vocally and riff wise and features another corking Guitar solo. A really enjoyable romp that you just can't help liking, I love what Tom Adamson has come up with.

You can listen to and buy the album here. t is available on CD and as a download.

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Listening To This Week Playlist

A shorter 21 song selection this week as preparing for Christmas slows down submissions.  The quality is as high as ever though.

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. 

Sharon Is Karen - Tear It Out

Cold Shoulders - Done Again

Stinky Toys - Depending Pretender

Lighten Up, Francis - Crutch

Lighten Up, Francis · Crutch

Drew Danburry - Love

Sallies - Uglys

Sallies · 01 Uglys.wav

Daniel Whitehead - Night Shift

Hauntu - Sadist Sun

False Corners (feat. Mom Friend) - From A Shadow

Mia Cefelo - Girl Who HATES Me

The Jumble - Devil Skies

The Jumble · Devon Skies

Tristan Armstrong - The Lonely Avenue

Back To The Six - No One Like You

To Follow On Soundcloud

Deep Cricket Night - When You Disappear

Live Oak Sunburst - Burn The Forest Down

Slow Buildings - Sweet n Sour Luv

Slow Buildings · Sweet n Sour Luv

Tape House - Jane I'm Drunk

Jaewon - Treasures

Barbacoa - Carolynn

Tom Adamson - I Won't Hold Your Hand

Trickshooter Social Club - Mile Wide

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Sharon Is Karen - Heart Of The World

 

Power Pop fan alert! Louie Golden's Sharon Is Karen arrive from Denton Texas to remind you how life affirming the genre can be. Heart of The World doesn't stay in one place, but it knows what it is good at and rams that home melodically.

There is variety and that is just as interesting. Say Goodbye is well fuzzed up and may just have saved the best to the last. A real Indie bitter sweet lyrical joy. Tear It Out rocks out of the blocks and sounds a little 80s Rock at times, excellently so with ace accompaniment from Ellie Reyff.

Ancient Dread is slightly slower and rhythmically even sounds a little funky instrumentally. The vocal clarity works really well as a counter balance and provides even more evidence that the album is far more than one trick pony.

But it is the Power Pop here that will probably grab the longer time followers here most. The blast in that is Carpet Burns (Sketches Of Pain) sets the scene. I Hate It Here takes you back to memories of how past Power Pop ruled.

Fork In A Toaster has a real urgency with a killer chorus and completes the opening three song memory jogger allowing the rest of the album to take different steps. A corking debut and it is so good to hear how melodic Guitar Pop can make you feel.

You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl and as a download.

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Drew Danburry - Bird Songs

 

Firstly, I owe an apology to Drew and his band Icarus Phoenix. They are a great band and although I have covered them, I should have wrote about them far more. If you follow the Bandcamp link below, you can discover their excellent wares.

But this is solo Danburry and very different to the band. It is an incredible piece of work. The pop sensibilities are clearly present, but the sound is more stripped down and at times, it feels a little Folk or Americana, wonderfully so.

But there is a jauntiness in other moments with great jaunty Pop choruses. The Brass arrangements are particularly effective, they make a big difference to songs, enhancing songs without kidnapping them. They fill the spaces beautifully.

Stripped down, it works, particularly on the hypnotic Ashes. It can also be melancholic. The opener, Bird, is such, but still gripping and it has a feel of the 99 Red Balloons verse. The instrumental arrangement is absolutely superb.

Shadow is very jaunty and reveals those pop sensibilities. The chorus on Love shows the Pop off even more. 20 years in the making and released as a children's story as well as a cassette with audio narration. Bird Songs is an exhaustive project and musically, the EP proves what a tour de force it is.

You can listen to and buy the EP here. 

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Cold Shoulders - The Sun Goes Down Alone

 

Norwegian Trio, Cold Shoulders, breeze in with a really accomplished debut album that you feel the Power Pop aficionados will be keen to claim as the genre is still looking to refresh itself in the 2020s. But there is much more here than just that.

I'd single out the magnificent Done Again as an example of how the trio can take different roads. It is a cracking example of how 90s Indie could breakout into something melodic and engaging The riff is absolutely wonderful and grabs you from the off.

At times, they sound like a more rocked up version of Caper Clowns melodically and that's no bad thing. They can also Jangle beautifully. A little restrained in a West Coast way on Don't Wanna Tell which adds Mouth Organ and in more urgent mode on the splendid No More Honey.

Personally, I prefer them pacey, but they can slow it down really well. There's Another Day borders on the Ballad aided by an engaging riff and a slightly 80s discreet Keyboard sound. I Will Break is ace restrained Power Pop.

That pace that I mentioned is well served on the closer, Neon Lights, which is up and at 'em, yet catchy and foot tapping. For a debut album, Cold Shoulders show great maturity and you can give them no greater compliment. The Sun Goes Down Alone is a corker of an album.

You can listen to and buy the album here.

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hamburger – Beat Back the Ghouls

 

hamburger's follow up to 2020's Teenage Terrified is long overdue. Described as an EP, but with six songs, it may be more of a mini album. The six piece from Bristol, build on that debut, but advance the arrangements with quirky and at times unexpected directions.

We adore Intelligent Indie and it has to be said that the UK is not brimming with such, so we should celebrate great slightly left field Guitar Pop. Beat Back The Ghouls is at its best when the riffs are fuzzed and almost Slacker. Tferehey are avenues we know well and adore.

The female and male vocal mix works beautifully, something fragile combined with something more 90s Indie. This allows different sections to thrive, one sings, one harmonises and allows both call and response and alternate vocal soirees.

The fuzz of Uglie and the slightly growlier Buffalo is stirring, songs that appear to want to blast out, but never quite make it. Those are contrasted by the gentler and hypnotic effect of Toothless and Frankenstein. The latter features a wonderful brooding arrangement, that is so delicate that you feel it may snap.

You can listen to and buy the EP here, It is available on Vinyl or as a download.

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Tommy Keene - Performance - Rockin' The IOTA

 

It has been 7 years since the sad loss of Tommy Keene. Plenty lay claim to the King Of Power Pop, but to me, Tommy was it. A fan since his 80s debut and when I started Blogging, it was largely in the Power Pop world and over two decades on, I still think of the support and encouragement that he gave me.

Many talk glowingly about an artist when they die, sometimes inaccurately, you will never hear a bad word about Tommy during his career and since. He was the nicest man in Power Pop and it is the Power Pop that people talk about, although there was far more to him than that.

Our conversations were about everything but Power Pop. Our love of Prog, particularly King Crimson. How much we both adored Be Bop Deluxe. But mainly about our dogs. It has been delightful to see his back catalogue appear on Bandcamp keeping his memory alive and also seeing albums such as this appear.

Unusually for Power Pop artists, Tommy enhanced his reputation via his live performances. He had all the chops, big riffs and choruses and that unmistaken vocal, but he oozed melody and harmony. Killer songs across a great career and also capable of some splendid cover songs.

Here we find him in 2002 in Arlington VA with a magnificent performance from the soundboard. Newbies can hear how good the man was at what he did. Power Pop can be maligned as a one trick pony, not in the hands of an expert.

His anthology was called Tommy Keene You Hear Me, both a great description and a command. No one did more to show life affirming Power Pop could be. He's really missed, both an artist and a person. You can discover the delights of his career on Bandcamp and there is more to come.

You can listen to and buy the album here.

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Listening To This Week Playlist

With not doing Christmas songs, the run up and aftermath of Christmas is expected to be quieter here. Not a bit of it! 32 songs this week and one of the best playlists that we have ever published. Sorting the track order was incredibly difficult.

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. 

Stinky Toys - The Kite

The Rills - Mistake

Pink Chameleons - Sunshine Honey

Frown Pow'r - Sign Inside

The Transits - Come Melt My Heart

The Swan Chorus - After Dark

Hamburger - Buffalo

Combos For Dogs - Ra! Ra! Resentment!

Flush - Unfinished Films (feat DD Slick)

T-4-FR(ee) - S[Hi]Vvy's Song

Atlas Rivers - The Vanishing

Sprance - Every Little Thing

Wyatt Funderburk - Transit Of Venus

The Mike Stufflake Project - The Fall Song (She's The One) [feat. Eric Troyer]

The Mike Stufflake Project · The Fall Song (She's The One) [feat. Eric Troyer]

Big Nobody - End

Minnesota Sex Junkies - Left! Right!

HØME - Electric Love

HØME · Electric Love

Sour Station - In My Mind

The Sugar Hold - Ooh La La

Gong - All Clocks Reset

Thirsty Curses - Foot In The Door

Band Of Four - Hello

Frei - Sail

Frei · Sail

Mup The Edens - Feeling Unknown

My Dinosaur Life - Empty Canvas

The Crooked East - Where It's Warm (2024 Version)

The Crooked East · Where it's Warm

Dan Millson - Saint Peter

Frankie Sunswept & The Sliver Moons - Tears Of A Crocodile

Sundial - Talaterang

Sundial · Talaterang

Jaewon - The Bower Bird

GiGi Abbott - Elizabeth Meets The New Kid At School

The Classicals - I Was A Fish

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Reviews

 

Apologies for the lack of Reviews this week.  Real Life Work has offered up some really stretching hours this week. Things get better from tomorrow with more convenient hours then a few days off from the weekend onwards. 

The hope is to get loads of the reviews done in the rest of December and they will start after tomorrow's Listening To This Week Playlist is up. That is selected and it is a cracker, People say that it goes quiet in the lead up to Christmas, this week's LTTW is disproving that theory.

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Listening To This Week Playlist

There appears to have been a theme recently of returning heroes for us recently. We don't decide release dates of course, but this week we have three in Joe Giddings, Nick Frater and Armstrong. A Top Notch 30 song listening experience awaits you.

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. 

Joe Giddings - Adrenalin

Radio75 - Luxury Of Bots

The Hong Kong Dollars - I can't believe you're dead

Nick Frater - One Minute

Tony Billings - These Are The Days

Smackbeat - 1999

Soft On Crime - Crackdown

MacEnstein - Old Boy

MacEnstein · Old Boy

Lemon Power - I'm An Animal

Armstrong - The Wall Of Love

Ape Bucket - Make Up My Mind

The Ratchets - Late State Capital

The Greeting - Over

Horse Chops - Bureaucratic Tone

Magic User - Nothing

Bird AKA Janie Price - Falling Like Stars

Bird · Falling Like Stars - Remastered 2024

Stanmore - My Australian Days

Sloan Brothers - Beathing Distress Blues (DOA PDA)

West Mark - Saw You Walk By Tonight

West Mark · Saw You Walk By Tonight - Master 1.3

The Men - Pony

Big Suze - Kevin 1

Big Suze · Kevin 1

The Haymakers - Get Me To Friday

Lima Shakes - One More Time

Souls Extolled - Gold

SLACK - Patina

Burly Wood - Savings Account

Housewyfe - a race for inner space

Soundserif Fab - My Ambition

Calico Mantra - Dream Machine

Omernac - AFK

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Radio75 - Screaming Out

 

I adore Barcelona 5 piece, Radio75. Screaming Out is their third album. I reviewed the debut album, Songs For Celine and then somehow went missing for the follow up, Mandatory. However, I am back in line now. Indeed, the band are the only band to appear on Listening To This Week,with the same song twice. That song was the title track of this album.

I suppose that you might call this lot Indie Rock, but that would in no way do them justice. They come in from many directions, Modern Rock, Pop Rock, Alt Rock, Psych Pop and even a little Prog and Space Rock. Indeed, the song Not Your Moans might just contain all of those.

Work Of Art is wonderful fuzzed up, melodic Noise Rock, yet Last Days Of May is pure Brit Pop. Live With That is like a less po faced Muse, yet Under The Lake Of Vostok really blows off the cobwebs. Those Lazy 20s even ventures into Prog.

Songs For Celine revealed hints of AOR and Pop Rock. Screaming Out is far more in your face. There are no Ballads here, not much coming up for air, but that is the strength of the album. It grabs hold of you and won't let go.

Songs are still incredibly melodic and built on riffs that just ooze Power. The closer comes as a complete surprise. All programmed beats and mellowness, a big move away from the Guitar and that works just as well. Yesteryear is equally as good as what has gone before, just very different. What a splendid album!

You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on Vinyl and as a download. You can find out more about Radio75 here.

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Blake - Louder Than Sound

 

I've been meaning to get around to this for a while and all the melee around IDHAS means I am full of regret that it has taken this long. Blake is one of those great English Singer Songwriters that doesn't get nearly enough credit for both his variety and ability to write the most captivating songs.

His arrangements are becoming legendary, just listen to Disguises and tell me that you are not moved by that delicate fragile melancholic instrumental track, emboldened, not by a Guitar, but by a wonderful Sax solo. Then contrast that to the following track, Coning In From The Cold as a comparison.

That song is just as well put together, yet it is jaunty 70s Pop Rock. That comparison tells you all you need to know about Blake. She's In My Heart contrasts with both as a cracking slab of 60s UK Beat with a gentle Psych Pop riff. We are only a quarter of the way in and I'm already delighted. 

Business Hours is great Rock and Roll whilst Strawberry Way is more Folk Pop. Slippery Slope is lyrically modern day, but sounds more like a 60s Troubadour offering. The centrepiece is the magnificent Sharks, a real let's do the song right here.

Being a little late with this review, I had the rare opportunity to read the reviews around. Power Pop is mentioned a lot, which as someone who started in that area, I don't really hear that. The exception is the splendid Everything About Her which is definitely so.

I hear more influences from the great artists over here. The Kinks, Stealers Wheel and even Canterbury Folk. Louder Than Sound is an awesome mix of the slow and the fast, both equally excellent. The Acoustic vibes ache and for the pacier songs, you lose control of your feet. A master at work!

You can listen to and buy the album here. The album is available on CD or as a download.

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Rob Moss and Skin-Tight Skin - RECORDS

 

The catch up continues tonight with three very different albums that all fit the IDHAS Remit. I love Rob Moss and his Skin-Tight-Skin Trio lock together to allow the Guest Lead Guitarists create a noisy affair. You can probably hear the Boston sound from far afield.

The Guitarists really let rip, never more so than Curt Florcsak on Right Hook. Moss mixes storytelling and a have a good time all the time vibes without ever really coming up for air. This is certainly the loudest that I can remember him on his solo adventures. 

His background allows him to mix a Punk Attitude with a slightly Harder Rock via Indie Rock. His almost talky vocal style reminds me a little of Alice Cooper, not the Poison era AOR, but an album like Special Forces when the Horror was toned down and replaced with anthems.

RECORDS is like something on Burger Records when it gets really melodic and the Guitarists bring that extra something special.Charles Hansen is one of my favourite guitarists and he appears on two songs, We Just Don't Know and We Just Don't Dub. One is a great anthem, the other an extraordinary mix that works just as well.

Hey You (We're Sick Of You) edges towards a mix of UK Glam Rock and Punk before a blistering solo courtesy of Paul Armstrong. The World (Is A Playground) is an alternate joint vocal with Jen D'Angora which works beautifully. 

Randy Klawon's Guitar Track on You And Time is probably my favourite, but 11 are excellent and their talents matched with the band are splendid. This is a noisy, boisterous album, raw in places, but that adds to the joy. It more than hits the spot.

You can listen to and buy the album here. It is available on CD or as a download.

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The Mommyheads - One Eyed Band

 

I think many of you know that The Mommyheads have been with me forever. Those that don't, well they have. I think many of us have bands like this. Ones that are still around and continue to produce consistent quality. Ex Norwegian and Sparks are others for me. The latter dates me most as Propaganda was the first album that I bought under my own steam, 50 years ago.

I saw a review of the album recently that described them as Indie Pop. I can just imagine the faces of the young girls when they played a song from the album. They've also been lumped in with the likes of Radiohead, which is more apt, but not really accurate any more.

However, the magnificent Life Is A Dream is much poppier instrumentally than you might expect. With its 70s Disco feel and that ace Club 57 string arrangement and Brass. Yet it still sounds incredibly Mommyheads tempo wise.

Indeed, the band's continual need to develop shows here in little ways. More instruments, more keys, but that start a vibe and take it wherever it goes still applies. Cerebral to the extreme, there is no band like them and here the slight additions make me love them even more.

I could never imagine The Mommyheads doing a multi vocal arrangement, yet they do so on Season Of Our Sound. But there are also trademarks present. Architect does sound a little like Genius Killer 2, although no song ever could better that particular ditty.

For all their technical brilliance, Adam Elk can also deliver an incredibly effective fragile vocal that just melts you. Here, it is on Human Being and which other band could mix Prog with Calypso? Well listen to Risk It All and note that they succeed.

Weightless And Unbound gets surprisingly close to a ballad and Junk gets all Jazzy. None of their albums ever hit you first time. But by the second or third listen, you are hooked. It may show, but The Mommyheads are my favourite band in the whole wide world.

I know many of you trust my judgement, so Mommyhead virgins can grab it at Name Your Price. Incidentally, the band's debut album, Acorn, has just been reissued 35 years on. So you can compare and contrast the development. That is also available at Name Your Price here.

You can listen to and buy the album here at Name Your Price. It is also available to buy on Vinyl and CD.

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