Singles (2007/06)

Those with a keen for criticism may have noticed our shameless neglect of the singles column in recent months. I can only hold my hands up and apologise for the sheer lack of reviews. Things will improve...

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13 JUNE, 2007

THE LOOSE SALUTE - "The Mutineer"

Graveface (Listen at MySpace)

Mojave 3 drummer Ian McCutcheon has finally broken out of Neil Halstead's shadow, forming a band that has the potential to eclipse at the very least the latter day work of his old outfit. Musically The Mutineer is in the same ballpark as Mojave 3, a simple folk-influenced pop song with dreamy male and female vocals, but crucially it possesses a sense of fun that Halstead's recent songs have tended to lack. The album Tuned To Love comes out later this month on Graveface and it's produced by none other than the Go! Team's Gareth Parton (The Pipettes). I think we could be in for a treat. (8) DC

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12 JUNE, 2007

KOOPA - "The One-Off Song For The Summer"

Unsigned (Listen at MySpace)

"This is what REAL MUSIC sounds like!" boasts Koopa's MySpace page. What makes music real? Can a band claim superiority over a pop vocalist purely because they found a few words that rhyme and mastered a simple chord progression? Are Koopa more worthy because they've found success before a record deal? Of course not. This is summer radio fodder. Chirpy, hummable pop, slickly produced, heard a thousand times before. And better. (4) DC

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BLACK STROBE - "I'm A Man"

Playlouder (Listen at MySpace)

Bo Diddley gets an electronic makeover on the latest single from Black Strobe. There's not much else to say really. (5) DC

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11 JUNE, 2007

EUGENE MCGUINNESS - "Monsters Under The Bed"

Double Six (Listen at MySpace)

Eugene McGuinness is a young British singer-songwriter. Ok, so he's not in the best of company (look at the charts, they're full of these floppy haired, acoustic guitar hugging buffoons) but please stay with me here. There are only two songs here with which to judge McGuinness (and neither get much further than the two minute mark) but I can safely say that James Blunt he most certainly is not. A more fitting comparison would be Norway's Sondre Lerche. On Myrtle Parade he's possibly even Britain's answer to Colin Meloy. This is exciting, refreshing stuff. (8) DC

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THE IRREPRESSIBLES - "My Friend Jo"

Of Naked Design (Listen at MySpace)

The mission here is clearly a very conscious one: to redefine the modern pop song. Of course this has been attempted countless times before and My Friend Jo isn't quite as daring or as different as the band would like to think. In fact it sounds curiously like a Jeff Buckley impersonator collaborating with a classical group. It's not bad but the word novelty somehow springs to mind. (6) DC

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DRAGONS - "Condition" / "Failure"

Ohm (Listen at MySpace)

If you can look beyond the Ian Curtis-isms of Dragons vocalist Anthony Tombling Jnr this is a pretty interesting single. Lots of modern British bands clearly owe a huge debt to Joy Division but the vast majority have choose to imitate rather than integrate the band's musical ideas. Simply put, few are making music quite like this. Condition is a moody concoction of searing basslines, rasping synthesisers and taut drumming. Of course, it doesn't quite fit in with the current trends of British guitar music but that works just fine for me. (7) DC

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THE ANSWERING MACHINE - "Silent Hotels"

Ohm (Listen at MySpace)

Bizarrely iTunes wasn't quite sure if this was High School Musical or Tom Verlaine. I think it's fair to say that the chiming guitars and Strokes-y rhythm section of Silent Hotels have got more in common with the latter, but The Answering Machine aren't quite the finished article just yet. For starters the track features a few too many Bloc Party-isms for my tastes and lyrically it's pretty banal stuff: "it just hit me / in this city / I talk to myself / and I drink 'til I'm sick". (6) DC

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THE BIRD AND THE BEE - "Again & Again"

Ohm (Listen at MySpace)

Again and again and again and again. And that's just one play. Musically this is reasonably pretty - think the kind of jazzed up indie-pop-tronica that would happily soundtrack uncomfortable dinner parties in soulless urban apartments - but that hook is just driving me up the wall. (5) DC

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