Alex Kasznel & The Board Of Directors - Flightless

 

The Cincinnati Trio describe themselves as Pop Punk for Adults, but the album sounds much closer to something that would be on the IRS label, where it still around. This is a splendid Indie Guitar Pop album, more in the Bob Mould mode than Green Day.

The trio format suits them well, they are locked in and the joint vocal of Alex Kasznel and Bassist, Heather Alene contrast beautifully and Alene and drummer Andrew Gable provide a Rhythm section to die for.

They can get noisy, as proven by The Mummers Parade, but it is controlled. They do get a little Punk, instrumentally, on My Piece With It, but the song even sounds a little R.E.M. Antlers features a solo vocal on Antlers and provides a yearning vocal.

Lock & Key, as featured on a recent Listening To This Week, is a magnificent song. It drives with an outstanding riff and a passionate Kasznel vocal. It is storytelling joy that underlines the lyrical adeptness and quality of his songwriting. That dual vocal works beautifully when utilised sporadically here.

Needle & Thread is almost surprisingly jaunty and that works as well as the deeper songs. Scaphoid Feature also adds a wonderful String Quartet arrangement, betraying the Indie sentiments elsewhere. Flightless is a wonderfully deep and engaging album that underlines the benefit of great playing and great songwriting.

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

....................

Feedbacks - Bring Back The Light

 

I'm well late on this with two of my peers and friends at Add To Want List and Faster And Louder getting on the case in February. So it is about time that I remedied my lack of a review.Spain's Feedbacks are masters at the type of Power Pop that we all love.

Available on the ace Hurrah! Musica, a label that has kept the spirit of Guitar Pop thriving, Feedbacks are probably the cream of crop. They've provided great Power Pop over three decades, without ever offering up a duff song, so they are not going to start doing so now.

The album crosses into everything you've known and loved about the genre. Think Shoes, Merseybeat, The Records, Weezer, the 90s Revival, indeed anyone who has graced the scene. Hooks aplenty, massive choruses and engaging solos, they have it all.

Five Hours Drive even gets all Teenage Fanclub whilst Back To The Sun is not a million miles away from Big Star with an absolutely killer Guitar sound. Songs About Her reminds you of the great 70s Pop Rock bands. 1995 sounds very err 1995.

Bring Back The Light closes the album and is the only time the album slows down. Acoustic that sounds a little Smokie, yet could be Chinn And Chapman. This album is Power Pop at its very best. Certainly. likely to be that genre's album of the year. 

It underlines how feel good this sort of music is. It does now feel like the summer. It takes a lot of effort to offer up 11 songs that don't drop in quality. I could have embedded any of the songs and you will have different favourites. But this is a cracking album by a band who know what buttons to press.

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

................

The Shipbuilders - This Blue Earth

 

The second album from Liverpool's The Shipbuilders is an extraordinary listen. Now expanded to a five piece which has allowed the Brass to flourish, the band cross genres aided by a razor sharp production and lyrical sentiments that are adept, worldly and socially conscious.

Listening to the opener, you would be forgiven for thinking the album is Indie goodness. 95 Miles is all Jangle Pop and Hills Of Mexico follows suit with its Guitar Pop feel, built around a terrific riff. This suits Matty Loughlin-Day's vocals well.

The closer, Heavy Is The Weight is superb, epic light, brooding and beautifully played, hypnotic and mesmerising. Six minutes long, the last minute and a half being an instrumental when they get as rocky as they ever will.

The real strength though is courtesy of Trumpeter Pete Higham who turns the sound completely to part Tijuana, part early Denys, even a little Jazz. The Single, Daydreaming, sounds as great as ever, a little like a chirpier version of The Coral.

The River is another ace arrangement, almost Folk at times, it would make a great film soundtrack opener. You can imagine Polynesia being sung by Gene Pitney with its easy listening feel. Metempsychosis sounds very 60s European chilled and you think of Lee Van Cleef during Flagpole, a song beautifully written with sentiments I share. Never Trust A Man Flagpole In His Garden sums up where we are currently in the UK.

This Blue Earth is an inventive masterpiece. The sound of a band who knows exactly what they are about. An ability to mix Guitar Pop and Folk with Easy Listening mixed with big Brass arrangements and more than a little Scouse Scally Pop. Those Arrangements!!! Absolutely wonderful album!

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

....................

T Shirt Month Update

 

We are currently experiencing issues uploading the images for T Shirt Month. It is frustrating because the articles have been written. The posts will go up when the image will upload and the problem is fixed. However, there are potential reviews in draft that have already had the album covers uploaded. 

So I will concentrate on some of those until the image upload problem is fixed. Look out for them starting to appear tonight. Onwards and Upwards blah blah etc etc.

..........................................

Listening To This Week Playlist 14 July

 

Here's the new LTTW Playlist. 23 splendid songs. As well as the traditional version, we have put the playlist on Spotify and you will see the link below. Remember this is early days on Spotify, so the following there is nowhere near our one here. Only 19 of the 23 songs are currently on Spotify.

The weekly playlist is largely for submissions, not just the usual stuff that we dig out ourselves. The song order is not about song preference, but how the playlist flows.  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. 

The Spotify Version.   (4 Songs are currently not on Spotify)

Link To Spotify.      Link Now Active.

The Wind Ups - That's Just My Dream Girl

Supercobra - Nothing But Lies

Bass Drum Of Death - Do Nothing

Sour Ops - She's So Strange (Will be added to Spotify on 18 July)

Soft Hearted Scietists - Hello Hello

Late Cambrian - 28 Years Later

Witkin - Last Year's Ashes

Feedbacks - Telephone

Scoobert Doobert - Quiet Your Mind!!!

Bad Self Portraits - Pensive

Moletrap - Middle Of The Land

Ryan Loves Sports - Sun Queen Shining

Ryan Loves Sports · Sun Queen Shining

T J Felix - towering inferno

Cherry Fez - Happy Hour (Not On Spotify)

Paul Muldoon & Rogue Oliphant - Visible From Space

Winchester 7& The Runners - Just A Crush (Not On Spotify)

Beddy Rays - Red Lights

The Dirty Nil - Fail In Time

DD Island - Cherry Tongue

The Fishermen Three - Electricity (Not On Spotify)

Deep Sea Camels - Now I Think Maybe You Know

The Probies - My Paradise

Invisible Joe & The Mushroom Gorilla - In Between

.........................

T Shirt Month - Splitsville

 

Here I am again, this time celebrating the return of Splitsville. When I started out with Anything Should Happen all those years ago, the focus was completely Retro, the exact opposite of what here does and so it looked backwards at what had been. I had spent the 90s immersed in the revitalisation of Power Pop and ASH took on that mantle initially. Many bands that were not around in 2007 were celebrated and introduced to a new set of listeners. One time, we talked and talked about our favourite Power Pop band and even revisited every album on John Borack's Best 200 Power Pop Albums. Splitsville came out top and rightly so. So the return of the Baltimore quartet  on the acclaimed Big Stir label is really exciting and having heard the new album before its release next Friday, I had ever reason feel to feel so.

Many people will rightly point you to The Complete Pet Soul as their masterpiece, but I was enamoured before and after. I missed out on their debut, U.S.A. which was largely the introductory demos, but I was a massive fan of the two albums by The Greenberry Woods, the band that became Splitsville. But the follow up, 1997's Ultrasound, gripped me thoroughly and led to the third album, Repeater, an album that is a Power Pop classic and one of my favourite albums ever. The Complete Pet Soul was released in 2001 and is a wonderful listen. It mixed originals that blended the harmony and orchestration of Pet Sounds and the more stripped down Guitar Pop of Rubber Soul. In that Top 200 albums, it was 45th.

2003's Incorporated is another fine listen. It slowed things down a little, less up and at 'em, more thoughtful, allowing more space than the melodic riffathons that had largely defined their career thus far. Now over two decades later comes Mobtown, an album that builds on the strengths of the past, but feels more modern, more now and will fight for space with the next generation as an album that will define Guitar Pop Rock in 2025.As they have matured, it is now not all about Guitar Riffs, there is space for keyboards and roots. My two embeds are the two singles from the new album.

The back catalogue is available on CD fairly cheaply on Discogs. Hopefully, the success of Mobtown will make these albums available for all again. You can find out more about Splitsville on their website here. The new album can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp here and the Big Stir Records site here It is available on CD or as a download. You can listen to the new album in full on Friday 18 July, the release date. It will be reviewed here just after release.

.............................

T Shirt Month - It's Karma It's Cool

 

The second post of T Shirt Month features Bailey, our Lurcher, modelling the It's Karma It's Cool attire. Bailey will be making an appearance or two throughout the month. It was in 2013 that I was introduced to main man Jim Styring in our Anything Should Happen days. He was behind the Pop Dogs and starting out with an EP that I loved and I was so taken with his enthusiasm, that I just wanted to help. As he had grown through various ventures, that enthusiasm has never wavered. It is hard to make any impact in the UK these days, but that doesn't stop Jim and the band has grown well in the USA, supported admirably by the Kool Kat label.

Via B-Leaguers in 2016 and The Ego Ritual in 2019, Jim eventually settled into the established quartet that is It's Karma It's Cool. The quartet consists of Styring, Martyn Berwick, Mikey Barraclough and Danny Krash. The debut, 2019's Hipsters And Aeroplanes has been followed by three more albums, Woke Up In Hollywood, Homesick For Our Future Generations and Thrift Store Troubadours. There has also been a departure from their Guitar led Pop Rock with a side project in Solitary Bee that have released three recent singles. The return of IKIC has been marked by a great single, Crashability, released in May.

Initially built on big choruses, unexpected riffs and a real lyrical adeptness, the band's career developed as did their sound. The Power Pop roots were not as obvious. Ventures into AOR, Modern Rock and Classic Rock revealed that there was far more to the quartet than initially met the eye and ears. Thrift Store Troubadours continued the diversity adding Psych, Glam Rock, West Coast Rock and generally the sound was even bigger. It is a tremendous album and maybe the best place to start for newcomers.

Styring has come a long way in 12 years and It's Karma It's Cool is a tight unit, not one man trying to find a path through the mire. Instrumentally, the development has been magnificent, but the strength is also in his vocals. He has an ability to sing Pop or Rock, easily adapting to whatever he sings. As is the case with all of this series of posts, I am choosing my favourite track by the band and the most current. IKIC are a band that have all the tools to break through considerably, they will need a bit of luck, but they certainly have the talent.

You can read all our reviews by searching the band's name on here and clicking on the tag. The complete back catalogue of the band can be listened to and bought here.

..................

OMEGA THREE - POWER POP PUNK ROCK

 

You might expect an album released on the excellent Grow Your Own Label to be a little too In Your Face for us here. But Omega Tribe are a trio that have Anarcho Punk credentials but present them in a manner that appeals to followers of a Guitar Pop Persuasion.

Lyrically, their sentiments shine through at times, but the songs here are incredibly melodic. At times, I'm reminded a lot of the post punk UK New Wave period when it wasn't just about being to hold a guitar and pose in the correct manner.

Essential Workers is a good example of what the trio do well. The message is clear, but the arrangement and performance gets very close to Power Pop. Anti Government Forces has a hint of The Clash, but is primarily great UK Glam Rock.

The First Time reveals a much broader Pop Rock side and as a love song that shows not all about smashing the state with its melodic joy. Upside Down is wonderfully commercial and has more in common with 70s Pop Rock.

How I Love You is a monster of a song that goes over 6 minutes and crosses genres at will, unexpected violin and mouth organ and at times it gets close to Modern Prog. There are also three great bonus tracks including the magnificent Streets Of London, a song that sounds more Folk than anything, but the lyrical sentiments are something that I agree with fully. 

My town in the north is not a million miles away from this commentary. But the real lesson here is not to believe the label or the tag. Omega Three are a trio with beliefs, but also know how to write catchy, melodic Pop and deserve to be heard much further afield. This album is so good that I could have embedded most of the songs. I still don't quite get Animal though.

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

......................

The Brigadier - Sailing The Seven Neuroses

 

The last time that we heard from Matt Williams was in our first year and it has taken that long to follow up the excellent Wash Away The Day. That album reminded me a lot of City Boy's Dinner At The Ritz, a real fave of mine. You can read my review here.

It really is great to have him back as the world does not have enough great Pop Rock and this certainly is. Harmony laden, at times Sailing The Seven Neuroses sounds more than a little 70s Pop Rock, particularly with the Pilot like Guitar solos.

But the album isn't just that. Blessings is great gentle Jangle Pop and Man About The House moves into the prime time UK Glam Rock period. Heaven's In My Heart even gets into Electro 80's New Wave whilst It's You I Think About goes further into 80s synth laden very smooth Indie Pop.

Yet What About Tomorrow is very Nick Frater and Peace Within The Poison is a mix of West Coast Harmony and Andrew Gold 70s Pop Rock. The Title Track has a glorious arrangement, almost Modern Prog and as an instrumental breaks the album up nicely.

The opener, Bleak Companion rock things up considerably and Don't Go To Bed With A Bad Mind is a great closer and allows Williams to add in all the ingredients that he excels at across a 5 minute plus piece that allows the harmonies to excel across a fine arrangement.

The album feels a little different to Wash Away The Day The feel is more mellow, the sound more Commercial Pop, but it is so beautifully done that you just can't help yourself revelling in the mellowness. Wonderfully arranged and performed, this a cracking listen.

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

..................

T Shirt Month - The Supernaturals

 

Here I am, looking my age, at the start of T Shirt Month on I Don't Hear A Single, a celebration of the upcoming 9th Anniversary of IDHAS next weekend. You will see a different T Shirt each day until the end of the month. We begin with one of my favourite bands who are now in their fourth decade. Unlike many bands from those beginnings, they are still around and releasing albums as good as, if not better than, their perceived heyday and that heyday was Britpop.

Britpop was the last scene that I was immersed in, Since then, it has been here there and everywhere and it wasn't the headliners that really moved me. Oasis and a great first album and a half and then became the sound of Coke. Blur were interesting, but you felt that Daman Albarn wanted desperately to be Andy Partridge. Ditto Brett Anderson with his Bowie fascination with Bernard Butler as his Mick Ronson. I had a lot of time for Pulp, but it was away from the noise that the better stuff resided. Guitar Pop bands that concentrated on the Pop that were the most interesting and still are. The Supernaturals were the best of these, run close by the likes of Dodgy and other bands such as Straw and Octopus that we celebrated on Anything Should Happen.

Since reforming in 2015, the band have released four superb albums that don't rest on their past, but are every bit as good as those glorious Brit Pop days. Their current album, Show Tunes is as good as they've ever been and they are currently working on their next opus. Reviews are aplenty on here of all stages of their catalogue. Not only did the band remain relevant in the now, but they also caressed their past. Releasing the tapes of their pre major label days that were as easy to get hold of as record horse droppings. As well as bringing them to CD and download. The big albums were also released with loads of bonus tracks and you realised that these songs were as good as anything that you had previously heard. 

Although many outsiders will know them as a singles band due largely to Smile, the quality throughout their career is unrivalled. Never afraid to take chances, but never forgetting about how strong the chorus is meant to be. I was also delighted to see the addition of Joe Greatorex to the band, an artist I had followed throughout his career. His band, Colin's Godson, remain one of my obsessions, the most underrated band ever who made their releases unique with the artwork and extras.

The band's discography remains fully available on Bandcamp. If you haven't been there, you are in for a treat. It Doesn't Matter Anymore and Show Tunes have also been released on Vinyl recently. Embedding wise, I have gone for my favourite song by them showing them live on Scottish TV and my favourite on the latest album.There is no better band to start off T Shirt Month. Look out for tomorrow's guest and I will try to look younger. 

You can listen to and buy the albums here. You can also buy T Shirts there. The two Vinyl releases can be bought here.

..................

Finn Wolfhard - Happy Birthday

 

This may be the first time that I've covered an artist with over 21 Million Instagram followers. The Canadian is of most noted for his acting in Stranger Things, the two It movies and the two most recent Ghostbuster films.

However, the 22 year old has a less famous musical career. Initially through Calpurnia, onto The Aubreys and now with his debut solo album. Whereas you might expect his day job means a vanity album made of up of mediocre Pop and cover songs, this is nothing of the sort. 

Finn Wolfhard · Choose the latter

The majority of Happy Birthday is close to great Guitar Pop and the rest is excellent noisy Indie Rock. It is also not front loaded as the contrast of material is segued wonderfully well and the closer may be the best song on show, a song that wouldn't be out of place on one of the current hip West Coast Pop Rock labels.

That song is Wait and it is an engaging strumming stomp. But the standout may be the Power Pop joy of Choose The Latter which is all Jangle and riff. Objection! runs that close with its mix of 90s slowed down melodic scuzz and Scouse Pop nearness. A song that sounds akin to the splendid Guitar Pop that breaks out all too infrequently.

Finn Wolfhard · Eat

But when the fuzz and noise comes to the party, it is just as effective. Crown is such a think, all 90s In Your Face, hypnotic and gripping. Happy Birthday is an album promoted as a stand alone thing, not a mention of Wolfhard's mega TV and Film career. It deserves to be listened to as such, because this is a really really good Guitar album.

Finn Wolfhard · Crown

You can listen to the album here. It is available to buy everywhere and on all streaming sites.

.................

Listening To This Week Playlist 7 July

 

Welcome to the latest Listening To This Week Playlist. 25 songs with two of our favourite bands to close proceedings, giving you the devastating wit of HMHB and a 12 minute Psych masterpiece from Custard Flux. As well as the traditional version, we have put the playlist on Spotify and you will see the link below. Remember this is early days on Spotify, so the following there is nowhere near our one here. 

The weekly playlist is largely for submissions, not just the usual stuff that we dig out ourselves. The song order is not about song preference, but how the playlist flows.  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. 

The Spotify Version.    (It's All Songs is not on Spotify. The other 24 are.)

Link To Spotify

Pedestrian Traffic - Sister Mysterious

Crying Shame Records · Sister Mysterious // Pedestrian Traffic

Alex Kasznel And The Board Of Directors - Lock & Key

Takeover - The Uncle

Takeover · The Uncle

Pup - Concrete

Tom Minor - The Loneliest Person On Earth

Tom Minor · The Loneliest Person on Earth

Strange Pink - Boys Club

The Confusions - You Fuck It Up Again

The Shipbuilders - Daydreaming

Shake Some Action! - Spend Your Days In The Sunshine

Cream Crown - Very Strange!

Trolley - A Carnival Of Grey And White

Sona Bliss - You Will Be Mine

Kirk Adams And Ed Woltil - It's All Songs (Not On Spotify)

The Radio Field - It's Alright

Tommy Magik And The Wonderfulls - Absolute Legend

Austin Rain - American Classic

Mo Bedick - Hourglass

Messmaker - Faster Than The Night

The Conspiracy - Icarus

Barking Poets - Change Our Ways

Royal Fools - Madaket

Royal Fools · Madaket

Loose Lips - Don't Mess Me 'Round

Maya's Radio Orchestra - Garden Variety

Half Man Half Biscuit - Record Store Day

Custard Flux - The Floating Chamber

.........................

Custard Flux - Enter Xenon

 

Custard Flux are beloved here. The albums regularly bother the higher echelons of our End Of Year Album lists and each album adds something different to the Curvey Back Catalogue. We know how the followers here are also enchanted as Reviews are regularly most popular when posted. 

Enter Xenon is no different as Curvey's shifting of the dial continues. There are songs that you might expect, built on wondrous Riffs, surprising choruses that grip you and an early Gabriel-esque vocal. But Custard Flux are about evolving.

A band that initially started out using heritage instruments gradually morphed into an outstanding is it Prog? is it Psych Pop? electric affair. Now even wider steps are taken. The use of Monophonic and Duophonic synths changes the mood considerably.

There is far more of a soundscape feel when you move away from Opportunity Knocks. The keyboard element is incorporated into the norm on Winter and Tomorrowland, enhancing strengths. This is nevermore so on the magnificent Superposition.

There are also two instrumentals that underline how ace Curvey is at moving on with an uncanny knack of taking you along for the ride. Just when you have made your mind up that Custard Flux have done it yet again, stepped slightly away, you get the superb 12 minute closer.

The Floating Chamber is gobsmacking Psych that underlines the power of the Guitar in mesmerising fashion. It is jawdroppingly great and a perfect end to another Curvey masterclass. Thank goodness we have him or we would all be listening to the same thing time after time after time.

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

............................

Iain Hornal - Return To The Magic Kingdom

 

We are big fans of Iain Hornal. He seems to be on a four year cycle of album releases as his third arrives after 2017's The Game Begins With The Lights Out and 2021's Fly Away Home. Both of those albums featured high up in our Best Albums Of The Year. You can read our reviews here and here.

This is Pop Rock of the highest quality. At times there are comparisons to Hornal's sideman jobs in Jeff Lynne's ELO and 10CC, but it should be remembered that these are bands that celebrate their past, new material is a long time ago. Here you have the now, new songs that delight.

The centrepiece is The Magic Kingdom, the jauntiest of jaunty affairs, that even sideswipes the ELO vocoder and offers up a real wonderland listen. But throughout, the melody smashes through, massive choruses, beautifully sung.

There are surprise interventions and slight changes of direction, but these never detract from the song. There are also footprints into other genres. Just My Personality gets close to Psych Pop at times and Over And Out mixes Jangle Pop with Prime Time 70s Pop Rock.

There are nods to what has gone before. Already There is prime time Andrew Gold and the single, Positive People still sounds as wonderfully Glam as ever. But that song and many of the others makes you realise that this is not just about the singalong.

There is a lyrical adeptness throughout, unusual in Pop Rock when easier rhymes are lazily used. Return To The Magic Kingdom. however, is a tribute to the power of the Chorus and the album is chock with them. When you have finished singing along, you can head off and buy this bundle of joy.

You can listen to the album here. You can buy the CD and Download here. The CD is available at all good Record Shops.

.................

Sandra's Wedding - Arturus Rex

 

Another returning favourite and more great Pop Rock as Goole's Sandra's Wedding return on Darrin Lee's excellent Subjangle label. The previous two albums have both appeared on our End Of Year Best Albums list. 2021's Pleausure Grounds is reviewed here and 2023's The Hopeful Boy Replacement Service is reviewed here.

The sixth album is great Pop Rock again, but there is a marked change in direction. The choruses are still there as is Joe Hodgson's vocal similarity to Paul Heaton, but this time round that vocal link is less prominent.

The arrangements are much bigger, much more fleshed out. Aided by Brass, Strings and a more Acoustic led feel. The choruses are as massive as ever, but the bolder wider arrangements allow the full effect of the song to burst through. 

As lyrically adept as ever, these songs tell stories of suburban and by the water everyday life, but the wit also shines through. There is an Orbison-esque vibe at times as these mellow, yet soul hitting vignettes hit home.

Beautiful can be an overused word, describing things that are a little better than the ordinary, but this is a beautiful listen. Instrumentally, the album washes over you, livened up by the sheer jauntiness and singalong choruses.

Sandra's Wedding are not a trio in the first flush of youth, but there is a real grown up feel to the whole album. Arturus Rex is stand out proof of how songs can lighten the mood, make the world feel brighter and there is no better compliment that I can make. Wonderful!

You can listen to the album here. The album can also be ordered as a CD or Download for its 2 August release.

..................

Welcome To July

 

Thank you all for an incredible June. Our focus was on Reviews which meant one of our busiest month's ever. Those Reviews and the continued growth of the Listening To This Week Playlist resulted in over 130,000 hits in June, our biggest ever month.

July continues our Review catch up, simply due to how much is to be written and wanting to keep August more free for the new additions to I Don't Hear A Single. We also enter our 10th year on 19 July and will celebrate this throughout the month with our daily T Shirt Posts which begin in a few days.

Thankk you for all your support, but thanks go more to the artists who provide the new music for here. It is those that we all should continue to support.

.....................