SOFTJAW - SOFTJAW

 

I reviewed Softjaw's 2024 EP and now the splendid Dandy Boy Records label has gotten hold it for a Physical release and made it into an album by adding four songs. It is an essential listen for you Power Pop kids.

The Longbeach quartet have more than enough in common with the new breed of the genre, but primarily this will appeal to lovers of 70s Power Pop. Having said that, there is a lot of UK New Wave in these recordings.

Those five EP songs sound just as great as they did then and I've embedded the 2 songs that I chose then. But the two singles that are added are exemplary, particularly Underground Lover, which may very well be the best listen on here.

There are two covers and these coincidentally are two of my favourite songs from two of my favourite bands. The Nerves' Working Too Hard is a Power Pop classic written by Paul Collins and Playing Bogart, written by 23 Jewel's Nick Simpson.

Playing Bogart is more noted as a song from Any Trouble's debut album and Mick did an exhaustive interview with Clive Gregson here. This self titled debut album is an absolute joy. Big choruses, great riffs and pure energy.

The future of Power Pop is in safe hands, indeed the genre is as popular as it as ever been. Guitar Pop joy should be mandatory for all. The Vinyl album is available to buy from Dandy Boy in the Us and from Bachelor Records in Europe.

You can listen to and buy the album here.

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Fingerless - Repeater

 

Brisbane Trio Fingerless offer up a fine Pop Rock album. Covering a fair bit of music from Oz, I'm more used to hearing Guitar Pop or something much noisier. Repeater does seem an outlier, with its 70s tints. The music here continues to surprise here.

The stunning Guitar solo on Yes Today for instance that is Classic Rock excellence, it is a surprise and a wonderful listen. It is very different to the Piano led Charlie with its sparser arrangement and melancholic, slightly breathy, vocal.

You will, of course, have heard Portfolio on a recent Listening To This Week Playlist and it is one of the songs of the year and sounds as great as it did. More Guitar Pop than what surrounds it, the vocal harmonies and raiding of the instrument cupboard shine.

Cry A Little goes all early 60s, Roy Orbison like, yet The Same Stream gets a little more Eric Stewart 10CC, uncannily so. Grotesque is even a little Travis. More To Come mixes Brit Pop with something that could have been wrote by Billy Kinsley for Liverpool Express.

People decry some of the 70s Pop Rock, I have no idea why. This album revises that  joy. Beautifully performed, arranged and produced with a good deal of variety. Melodic great choruses ring out on a splendid listen.

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

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Back Tomorrow!

 

I've had a few days away from music working on something completely different. Seemed the right time with the Easter Holiday starting. Expect Reviews and more tomorrow starting off what promises to be a very busy month here.

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Whelligan - In Pursuit Of Inchoate Visions Of Beauty

 

The final Review of the 31 in 31 is something very close to my heart and deliberately left until the last review. I last visited Whelligan for his previous 2022 album, In The Mean Meantime, a corking affair, you can read my review here. 

So four years on cometh the follow up and it is an absolutely charming offering of Indie Pop and Neo Psych, wonderfully pastoral. Produced by long time IDHAS favourite Nick Frater and there are similarities to Frater, but this is less Guitar Pop and more life affirming.

The use of Brass and Acoustics enhances a really thought provoking album. It may be gentle, Jamie Whelligan's vocals will always give you that, but the arrangements are absolutely stunning. The Melotron just melts my heart when it appears.

The theme is about Whelligan's growing up in 80s Birkenhead. It is an area that I am utterly familiar with, having worked on the Wirral for most of my life. I know the times well to as the town and Liverpool were in the midst of the Thatcher slump, all we really got was some nice gardens and managed decline.

It wasn't as mellow as this album though as anyone going through St. Johns Subway at night would testify. but there was a defining spirit, an ability to laugh at the degradation with a self reference. So to the album, which is a must for all.

It is pensive, beautiful, if I don't sound too soft using that word and just to show Whelligan isn't all about soundscapes, there is a jaw dropping piece of Scouse Guitar Pop in the closer. Game Over, which revives the Brass as a Revue band and even has a lullaby instrumental extract to end.

I really don't think you will hear a more affecting song than the gentle Psych of Bedroom Reminiscences, truly heartfelt and what an ace Guitar ending. My Friend 'The Messenger' gets all Jazz and Hero To Clown gets close to a mid 60s Studio Ballad, a little Gene Pitney with a Brass Band. 

There's even room for a couple of short instrumentals, the Canterbury-ish Box Of Roses and the Twanging Beau Jolly. The title may be long, but the album is all too short. I just want more and more. It whisks you into a different time and place, magnificently so.

You can listen to and buy the album here.  The CD is available here.

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Listening To This Week Playlist 30 March

The 5th and final playlist of the month. An absolute belter! One to listen to from start to finish. The maximum 30 songs that underline what we are good at and offers up plenty of the usual surprises. Last week's was incredibly popular, this may very well surpass it.

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 those who appear here. 

Phenomenal Cat - The Little Islanders

The Big Believe - Personal Air Traffic Control

Louie Cameron - Canina Canoona

Taylor D - Strange Addiction

Peel - Heaven From Here

Dirty Beau - Backseat Driver

Onesie - Meetcha At Minnies (The Captain's Song)

Bory - Living Proof

Sona Bliss - Take A Ride

Sharp Class - Faith In The Breaks

bothsxdes - addict

My Life As A Bird - Cheers To My Old Friends

Livingmore - Undone

Conor Miley - Raise Your Red Flag

The Idiot Kids - Age Of Instants

Sour Ops - Opting Out

Soviet Dust - Kakadu

The Hanging Stars - The Glass House

The Hopeless Romantics - Maybe We're Not Meant To Be

Hedge Childe - Beckoning The Angels

The Casbahs - Leaves

The Skinny Dippers - Sunshine Overdrive

Greg Williams - Every Day It's Your Birthday

Buttercup - Uncle John

Frog Fortress - Hardcore Band

Weyes Pez - Watching Paint Dry

Modern Olympia - Confirmation

The Living Orchestra - Animal Party

The Violet Twilight - Lime Green

Devotion - The Journey

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My Life As A Bird - The Cabana

Here we celebrate the new and under appreciated and San Jose's Mike Keller fits both camps. His solo project, My Life As A Bird, reaches its second album, hot on the heels of last year's debut album, Sunflower. It is right up our street, in fact it probably lives next door.

Get ready for Guitar Pop of the highest order. It is a Guitar fest of the highest order covering Power Pop, Slacker Pop, Pop Punk and much more. There are big hints of Weezer, but also big crunches. The solos take on epic proportions, at times sounding noisier Not Lame.

The riffs are completely hypnotic and veer into Classic Rock, UK Glam and encompass the likes of Teenage Fanclub and the noisier brand of Power Pop that we all currently adore. There is such a shake yer fist feel to proceedings, but an admiration of the sheer hypnotism of the guitar.

It doesn't fit one area, but encompasses all. The Pop Punk is incredibly melodic, none of that robotic vocal nonsense. It also treads into Emo with not a pair of half pants in sight. I keep coming back to the earlier days of Weezer as a pointer.

I suppose Slacker Rock is really the easiest description, but there is so much more here than that. Towards the end the album surprisingly gets slower. Sadie is built around a mesmerising riff and Who? closes things with a stripped down acoustic delicate feel until it explodes. 

I've deliberately not described other songs to encourage you to delve in to the whole thing. The Cabana is 31 minutes that will underline the glory of Guitar Pop. If you wanted to know where our heart is, it is probably here. What a great album!

You can listen to and buy the album here.

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Mr Magpie - The Fever Dreams Of Mr Magpie (Official Release)

 

Last year for a week until Sunday 21 December, Mr Magpie made their second album available to listen and download on Bandcamp, at Name Your Price. It didn't feature in our Best Of 2025 because the album was being released this year.

It is an extraordinarily great album. Now it has been released on Vinyl and as a download. The guys from the Peak District offer up a heady mix of restrained Jangle with a hint of Gentle Psych Pop and journeys across both Folk Rock and Classic Rock.

The album is wonderfully restrained allowed the atmospherics and vocal to breathe. It is almost chilled at times. Nervous Breakdown is the song that probably best expresses what they are about incorporating all the genres that I've previously mentioned.

The Boy You Never Knew is splendid Folk, still a hint of Jangle, but acoustically led as a lot of the album is. The song is hypnotic. Dead Orchard Voodoo is a haunting listen until a surprise chaotic Slide Guitar outburst at the close.

Meet Me By The Lighthouse is lyrically adept and almost a Porch or Campfire song. Lloyd Loom is almost Americana and Amanita allows you to envisage endless beautiful landscapes. The album is very laidback yet a cracking listen. Too few bands grip you with such restraint.

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

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