Listening To This Week Playlist

The latest Listening To This Week is here, running as usual from Monday to Sunday. 22 songs for you this week. There is no song preference in track order, just what we think flows.  I do hope that you can listen to all the songs across this week. The last listed is as great as the first. 

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.

Gritter - Goth Night

MODEL CITISIN - Been And Gone

The Breaks Inc. - No Words (It's Just This Thing That I Do)

The Midwich Affair - There's Something In The Beat

Telos Vision - On The Line

Vast Robot Armies - Taking Back The Time (Featuring Allen Epley)

0Stella - Easy To Keep

Magic Machine - Strange Magic

Todd & Karen - Juicy Gossip From The Mothership

Five Stories Falling - 12 Years

GO MAHHH - Melting Bull

KNETX - SOMETHING/NOTHING

Imperial April - Sunlight

The Grand Mals - Building Houses

Jon Mullane - Walking Away

Boss Rush - Catalogue Of Shame

Scenic Brooke West - And I Know Better

Grimm Winter - Falling Up

Wylie Green - The Answer

Movie Night - Haunted

Sam Higham - Tape Deck Mimic

Organicways - Pure Distress

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The Mommyheads - Coney Island Kid

 

I haven't been around a lot recently due to illness and I've sat on The Mommyheads album for much longer than I ever normally would. One of the biggest questions from followers recently has been asking when I am going to review the album. People know how much I love the band and have developed a similar love.

The reason has simply that I hadn't listened to it properly and I have to listen a few times to one of the band's albums to fully appreciate it. You hear different things on every play and I like to spot most before putting pen to paper.

For all my fan boy mentality, I just worried a little if they could follow Genius Killer. To me it is one of the best albums of the past decade. Not only were the band at their simplest, yet most complicated musically, but they were at their finest lyrically and the subject wise. Indeed, the title track may be one of the best things that I have ever.

I shouldn't have been so ridiculous, this is the their fifteenth album, they know what they are doing. No band can switch been Pop Rock, Big Rock and Prog without ever losing their soul or credibility and all whilst providing some of the most inventive music. Radiohead maybe could, Steven Wilson might, but neither hit the mark as often and as well.

Coney Island Kid is wonderful, but is a very different album. All the twists and turns are here, but the album almost feels like a complete piece, certainly a theme. I've read people call it a concept album and I'm not sure it's that, but it is splendidly joined.

Elk's lyrics are particularly themed and as deep meaning and social as they ever were, but here they seem to fit the work incredibly well. Never preaching, never forefront, but sung in a way that you are going to notice and hopefully note them.

However those who are expecting something fun packed about a Fairground are going to be surprised. This is deep stuff, yet incredibly melodic. It is an album that is meant to be listened in full. I really hope you can as the download is Name Your Price and the download sounds much better than the stream. It seems wrong to listen to it as a sub 200 mp3 stream with all the work gone into it.

I have to mention a few songs without spoiling the surprise. Learning To Live is magnificent, an almost centrepiece that in the best way it can sums up the band. Solemn By The Sea is just beautiful and just washes over you. Onset MA is the most poppy that they get with a truly addictive chorus.

On a career level, it has been so delightful to see The Mommyheads raising their marketing game considerably over the this and Genius Killer. They've also been playing live even more and the responses have been fantastic. 

Please try to listen to the whole thing from start to finish, if only to shut me up. It is quite an exciting time for me with The Mommyheads currently soaring and an Ex Norwegian album out soon. Coney Island Kid is top notch. I wouldn't recommend it so highly if it wasn't A1.

You can listen to and buy the album here.

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The Evening Sons - Tracks

 

The Evening Sons are another addition to Brent Rademaker's wonderful Curation label. I've followed Brent since his days in The Tyde and I expected his label to be dominant on West Coast sort of affairs. Not a bit of it, Curation is becoming a really burgeoning home for Power Pop and Pop Rock with an emphasis on melody and the guitar.

Even better for us is that the band are from Brighton and here in the UK, we aren't overrun with this sort of Guitar based joy. At its heart, the album is Slacker 90s, but the hooks range across the two earlier decades, riotously so.

It is very American, scuzzy and loose, but essentially amped up Power Pop. You can hear bits of The Ramones, but you also UK New Wave Guitar Pop and The TFC Glasgow crowd. But you also great harmonies that would adorn both 60s West Coast Pop Rock and that Power Pop revival of the 90s that wasn't afraid of melody and slower songs.

Summer Rain gets closest to Teenage Fanclub, yet This Time even manages to encompass three 70s UK genres in Glam, big sounding Big Rock riffs and the New Wave joy of say The Motors. It is the most melodic that The Evening Sons get and you can imagine the song being a great set closer.

Cindy's Sox heads into The Jam territory and Forcefield isn't a million miles from 80s AOR. Then Glenn Fry goes even further, this times towards Hair Metal. Let Her Run is splendid US Plimsoul Power Pop and Hey, Hey (Let's Get Lost) again trails UK Glam 1974, whilst also a little New York Dolls and close to label mates Uni Boys.

Then there is Superspreader, the ace trailing single, that is everything that you could want in a Guitar Pop song. The beauty of Tracks is that the songs are not like any similar new bands around who seem to only manage just over 2 minutes. These are four minute-ish wonders that allow the offering to reveal the full depth of its scope. There is a reason why I love both Pop and the Guitar and The Evening Sons explain why.

You can listen to and buy the album here.You can also delight at the development of Curation Records while you are there.

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Turnstyle - Citizen's Handbook

 

Over to the Australian Perth for the welcome return of Turnstyle and what a great Indie album this is. Their reputation for Casio meets Guitar may proceed them, but their fourth album is a little more Guitar dominated to offer up something that is right up our street.

They may best described as something between Weezer and Teenage Fanclub, but they are much more fuzzy than that and have large dollops of American Slacker Rock and UK Indie Guitar Pop. Deliciously lo-fi, but incredibly melodic and riff driven.

They are not afraid to step out either. Lissa From Benissa is great Superdrag-ish stuff with a chorus that could be Manc early 1990s. but also has massive hints of Psych Pop. Yet Plain & Simple is more Power Pop and Band Shirt is very fuzzed up early Teenage Fanclub.

Ancient Voices is great 80s Indie Pop Rock. mixing keyboard with a hypnotic riff and a wonderful bassline, all of this with a catch all chorus. Imitation Radio Station goes full on Electro Synth Pop. Black Holes is all mood and melancholia.

Then there is the opener and closer. Robots Working edges towards a moody light Grunge mixing it with 90s College Rock. Robots Ending takes a very different course, with a Casio Electro vibe instrumental of the song. 

The beauty of I Don't Hear A Single is that we can cover what we want when we want. This allows a wider palette in a small but wonderful musical world. We do have a big weakness for quirky Indie and Citizen's Handbook is definitely that in spades. Excellent!

You can listen to and buy the album here. The download is Name Your Price. But there is also a splendid recycled Vinyl release and if ever an album should be heard on Vinyl, it is this one.

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Gizmo - Buddy System EP

 

The last of the three EPs that I wanted to tell you about is this corker of an EP from Gizmo. The quartet from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island underline how great the Cannucks are at offering up this type of stuff.

Four songs in 8 minutes is very say what you wanna say and get off, but the quality of the songs is right up our street. Generally, there is a real 90s feel of Slacker College Rock, but in such a short period of time, you realise how much potential is in the band.

Prisoner Functionary is great Power Pop, yet Producer And Virtual is very Fountains Of Wayne and a little Weezer. Luanne is great Slacker Guitar Pop with some affecting harmonies and a killer riff. yet Deepest Skin crosses Jangle Pop with something that would have easily fitted on the Not Lame label.

There is loads to like here, great Guitar Pop in fact. I wish that the songs were a little longer and there were more of them. Hopefully, that will come in the future and I will certainly be keeping my eyes peeled intently. Back to albums for IDHAS for the rest of the week.

You can listen to and buy the EP here.

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Papernut Cambridge - Cinderella Crazy Golf EP

 

Oh how we love Ian Button at IDHAS Towers. Following his Top 10 appearance in the IDHAS Best Of 2022 as Toni Tubna, he follows the splendid Channel Suite album earlier this year, we have a delightful EP to enjoy.

Button inhabits a world which doesn't appreciate his lo fi joyful pop nearly enough. His gentle voice suits the diversity of his material and he should be applauded regularly, both for his past and the present.

Here, he offers up great 80s Indie Pop with I Can't Take My Eyes Off Your Eyes, something very close to Power Pop with the title track and some great Pastoral Psych Pop, almost Toytown, with Bread. Add in the 60s Strumming Pop of I've Loved You The Longest and you have a crackerjack of an EP.

People rightly fete Martin Newell, but Ian Button is every bit as great. He ploughs similar territory. but with a deeper sense of variety and melody. The EP is available as a 7 Inch EP as well as a download. I'd say it is an absolutely essential purchase.

You can listen to and buy the EP here. 

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Chris Catalyst - Mad In England

 

2021's Kaleidoscope was a corking album that came as a complete surprise to me. It made the IDHAS Top 30 in the Best Albums Of The Year, deservedly so. You can read the review here. Mad In England continues to variety of Kaleidoscope but takes it even further.

I get sent a lot of UK Pop Rock and most of it sounds very Brit Pop. There is no problem with that if bands were aiming at the better edges of the genre. But most of the bands want to be Oasis and it just gets extremely dull. Why not try to be themselves, these bands are obviously talented, so why be a clone.

I would suggest that these bands have a listen to the two Catalyst albums. The songs are influenced by others, but he makes them his own and considering that this is a true solo effort, that is admirable. With such variants, not everything works, but the vast majority does.

As well as Pop Rock, paths are taken into Guitar Pop, Classic Rock, Indie Rock, Modern Prog, 60s Beat, Psych Pop and Brit Pop. You might think that this would get confusing over 11 songs, but the album is so damn melodic with Catalyst's suited vocal and wonderful Guitar playing.

He is not afraid to mix genres either, Stop allows Modern Prog to turn into inventive Brit Pop, yet I'd Rather Be Anywhere has a verse that is pure 80s Indie Pop and a chorus that trails 70s Pop Rock, even a little UK Glam. The latter may be the best thing here, lyrically adept and beautifully arranged and performed.

My Family goes all 90s US Indie Rock, but the title track is great Modern Guitar Melodic Rock with a hint of Muse and a great trumpet blast from Nick Hughes. There is also a real Council House mentality to the magnificent I Got A Gift.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along gets very close to Power Pop and the closer, Dead Man Walking starts moodily, but breaks into a mix of Classic Rock, even Blues Rock. So as you'll note from my words. there is a lot to admire and get your teeth into here.

The title, as you'd expect, suggests a theme and that theme allows Catalyst to explore England as it was and as it is. It is also a chance for him to demonstrate what a splendid lyricist he is. an outlier in this type of Rock. Mad In England is top notch and underlines that Pop Rock doesn't have to be all cliches and ripped off riffs.

You can listen to and buy the album here. 

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