GORILLAZ – PLASTIC BEACH thanks to NPR

The Sunshine Underground – Nobody’s Coming To Save You

This has been out for a while now, sorry for taking so long, I’ve been busy.

I never bothered listening to these guys when they released their first album, 4 years ago, as I just wasn’t interested. I still don’t know why I bothered listening to this. Thankfully, I really enjoyed this album, there’s a lot of moments where it sounds like The Enemy (a bad thing), but a lot of times where it’s just really good.

None of the songs on this album will go down in history, but this is a very good pop album. The first two singles, Coming To Save You and We’ve Always Been Your Friends, are two brilliant songs. The songs end up sounding pretty similar, but that’s the case with most British “indie” bands nowadays anyway. It’s definitely not a bad album.

Listen To: Coming To Save You, We’ve Always Been Your Friends, A Warning Sign

The Sunshine Underground – Coming to Save You

The Sunshine Underground myspace stream the album

Two Door Cinema Club – Tourist History

From a “very good pop album” to a fucking brilliant one. I’ve been waiting for this album to come out for a while, and it’s definitely not disappointed. I think this will be up there with the best albums of the year, I love every song on this album … a lot. That being said, I guess I’m not a TDCC purist like George (owner of this site) who says “Two Door Cinema Clubs album is a fucking joke – the mixes were so much better on the EP.” To be honest, I see no major difference between the old version of Undercover Martyn (the leading single from this record) and the new version apart from better sound quality. Just knowing the Kitsuné released this album already says a lot about this.

The album starts off with Cigarettes in the Theatre, which starts off similarly to Price of Gas by Bloc Party (coincidentally a favourite of mine, released on one of the best debut albums of all time). This song (and this entire album) is just an explosion of positivity. Everything about this is just incredible, is reaches a brilliant climax at the end of each verse and just picks itself up after it’s done so effortlessly, brilliant. Come Back Home is next and is pretty good. I’m actually in love with the chorus. Do You Want It All? is next, again brilliant. It starts off slow but kicks itself in the arse and there’s a definite uplift in the second half, which is awesome. This Is The Life is similarly amazing. Something Good Can Work is just such a summer song, I want this rain to stop just so I can mong out and really appreciate this.

I Can Talk just explodes into action straight from the beginning, another song with a chorus that I’m in love with. Undercover Martyn is brilliant, this deserves to top the charts, it’s poppy enough to be in the charts and just sooooooooo awesome. What You Know is again, brilliant. If I had to choose a favourite song from this album, Eat That Up, It’s Not Good For You would be it. The lyrics may not be the cheeriest lyrics ever, but this song just sounds so … happy. I can’t describe how much I love this song. You’re Not Stubborn is sadly the album closer. The band decided to leave on a high note rather than slowing things down, which perfectly fits into the theme of the record. Just another brilliant song.

Two Door Cinema Club – Eat That Up, It’s Good For You

Unfortunately, like Vampire Weekend’s album, this is just way too short, 10 tracks – with the longest being 3:51 long. The album is just over 33 minutes long, which makes me a very sad boy.

Keepaway- Baby Style EP

Meh. Pitchfork gave their track Yellow Wings a 9/10 which I don’t agree with. These guys sounds WAY too similar to Animal Collective (who I’m not too big a fan of anyway) and just aren’t my thing. You can listen to Yellow Wings on their myspace.

I’ll give it to them though, this is pretty funky. The similarity of voices between the singer from here and the singer from Animal Collective REALLY puts me off though. Yellow Wings is alright, Family of the Son is better, I Think About You All The Time is better than that, 5 Rings is worse and the last track, Evil Lady, is even worse than that.

It’s alright I guess.

Keepaway – I Think About You All The Time

It’s only a 4-track EP, but it’s kind of disappointing. The title track Renegades is really good, but nothing else competes with it. Sentimental is alright, Time Goes By sounds a lot like a classic Feeder song and Barking Dogs is alright.

You can download Renegades & Sentimental from Feeder’s website: Feederweb

Took my time to finally review this one as it’s been out for a while, but I’m in love with this. Their last album, Liberation Transmission, was terrible, but they’ve taken 3 years to return and they’ve improved vastly, this album is definitely on par with The Fake Sound of Progress and Start Something. I’ll be reviewing the Japanese edition which has a few more tracks on it.

The album starts off with If It Wasn’t for Hate We’d Be Dead By Now, a short 2-minute burst which sets us up for the rest of this record, the heavy drumming throughout the song calms down a bit at the end of this song to flow straight into Dstryr / Dstryr (that is horrible to type out btw) which is one of the stand out tracks on the album, it’s seriously brilliant, just a slurry of drums and heavy guitar, the riff is beautiful and the chorus in anthemic. This is followed up by It’s Not The End Of The World But I Can See It From Here (these songs titles don’t really improve tbh …), the first single released from this album. A fairly solid song, not breathtaking and nothing special, but it’s definitely not bad. This goes into Where We Belong, the second single from the album. This song was written to be played in a stadium, got the very singable chorus and it just sounds good.  Next is Next Stop Atro City which is another one of the stand out tracks from this album. Like Destroyer (I refuse to type it out likes it’s meant to be, you know what I mean) this is a heavier song. This wouldn’t sound out of place next to Shinobi vs. Dragon Ninja off of their first album, brilliant chorus and just a really good song.

Next is the lowest point on the album, For He’s a Jolly Good Felon. Coming equipped with it’s Fall Out Boy-esque song title, the first line just grates me and there are some awful lyrics on this. Looking past that, this song does have a decent chorus (I guess that’s a recurring theme on most lostprophets songs though) but I’m not overly impressed.  The song kind of stops with a minute and a half left to go into some weird beat to set us up for the next song (I’m not complaining though, at least it got rid of the last song). Following is AC Ricochet, which is a pretty good track. Nothing more than that though. Following that is A Better Nothing, a really good song, another stadium rocker.

The album starts to mellow down now.  Streets of Nowhere is more upbeat than other songs, it’s quite poppy and doesn’t come without a few “La La La’s” in the song. I can see a few people not liking this, but I don’t think it’s too bad. Dirty Little Heart is a slow, “emotional,” song. It’s alright, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the next single. Sunshine is alright, heard better though. Darkest Blue is a surprising twist after the combo of average we’ve had before this. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the next single either. The final song on this album is The Light That Burns Twice As Bright … it’s alright. It works as an album closer, but they’ve done better.

Still, brilliant album overall. I’ll be listening to this for a while.

Lostprophets – Dstryr / Dstryr

If you haven’t heard of Ash’s A-Z Series, basically what they’ve done is released a single every 2 weeks, eventually they’ll have released 26 (one for each letter of the alphabet … clever) songs, at the moment they’re at the letter H. Ichiban was G, it was released at the beginning of January and it’s a brilliant song. I’ve had it for a while but it’s only just come to my attention so I decided to upload it, enjoy! Also, Neon – the letter I – is due for release tomorrow.

Ash – Ichiban

Noisia’s new single, due for release March 7th, has leaked and in my opinion, it’s fucking brilliant.

Tracklist:

01. Machine Gun (Original Mix)
02. Machine Gun (Spor Remix)
03. Machine Gun (16bit Remix)
04. Machine Gun (Amon Tobin Remix)
05. Machine Gun (DJ Edit)

Noisia – Machine Gun by NOISIA

Go to their soundcloud page for the 3 remixes of this track. Enjoy!

You could’ve been rubbing shoulders with the likes of Charlize Theron, Justin Timberlake and Drew Barrymore … but most importantly you missed the chance to see Radiohead debut the song Lotus Flower (video underneath). It’s rare that you get an intimate gig with a big band, but to get one with one of the biggest bands in the world must’ve been insane.

Setlist:

“Faust Arp”
“Fake Plastic Trees”
“Arpeggi”
“National Anthem”
“Nude”
“Karma Police”
“Kid A”
“Morning Bell”
“How To Disappear Completely”
“Wolf At The Door”
“The Bends”
“Reckoner”
“Lucky”
“Body Snatchers”
“Dollars & Cents”
“Airbag”
“Exit Music (For A Film)”

“Everything In Its Right Place”
“You and Whose Army?”
“Pyramid Song”
“All I Need”

“Lotus Flower”
“Paranoid Android”
“Street Spirit”

Lotus Flower

Thom Yorke on Radio 1

Unfortunately if you live outside of the UK you won’t be able to stream this, but for those willing to do some research and check some of these tracks out for yourself, here’s the tracklist:

Christoph de Babalon — Are You Talking To Me?
Floating Points — People’s Potential
Floating Points — Vacuum Boogie
Pangaea — Why
Darkstar — Need You
Gil Scott-Heron — I’ll take Care Of You
Charles Mingus — Mood Indigo
Sun Ra — On Jupiter
MF DOOM — Great Day (Fourtet remix)
Jay Eletronica — Exhibit C
TY: Shadows Of Tomorrow — Madlib & Quasimoto
Los Silvertones — Carman
TY: Can — Oh Yeah
George Russell — Electonic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature Part 1
TY: Blaqstarr & Diplo — Get Off (The Rob 3 remix)
South Rakkas Crew — Mad Again (Boy 8 Bit Mix)
GP: Rockwell — Unknown Track
Alex Cortex — Huyendo Part 2
Milton Nascimento — Pao E Agua
Clinic — Distortions
Dam-Funk — Searching For Funk’s Future
GP: Brad Mehldau — Everything In It’s Right Place
João Gilberto — Aguas de Marco

Delphic played at Reading festival this year, I saw them on the lineup and had no idea who they were, I thought they were pretty highly placed (2nd on NME stage) for a band I didn’t know … turns out they didn’t even have an album out by then, as opposed to Manchester Orchestra who played the same slot the day before yet have 3 albums out. I didn’t see them (was watching Fightstar, BIG MISTAKE) but I wish I had. Acolyte’s already been stupidly successful, they’ve gone to no.8 in the UK album charts with little advertisement and I haven’t seen a single negative review about it.

The album starts with Clarion Call. This song starts off slowly but you can feel it wanting let itself go a few seconds after it starts, and when it goes, it really goes. It’s a short song but it packs a lot of punch and it’s a brilliant album opener. Following is Doubt, their previous single which surprisingly didn’t do too well in the charts considering how good it is. After that, we have This Momentary, the single released previous to Doubt which somehow didn’t even break into the top 100. Like the album opener, it starts off slowly but you know that when it drops it’s gonna be a good one – this song reminds me off Born Slippy by Underworld, which is a very good thing. Red Lights follows, another brilliant (albeit a bit too long) song which has been stuck in my head for a while and just won’t get out. The title track Acolyte is next, and it’s this track which makes me realize why the band consider themselves an ‘alternative dance’ group instead of a rock group, it’s a brilliant 9-minute long instrumental piece, the best song on the album and one of the best songs I’ll hear all year! The next song is Halcyon, their next single (and deservedly so, definetely the most single-worthy song on the album) which will be released in March. It’s sickeningly good. So far the album is pretty much a perfect 10/10, there’s literally nothing wrong with it.

After that we’ve got Submission, another epic track. It’s probably the most far out song on the album, this is their anthem, they could play this in a stadium and it would just be brilliant. Next is Counterpoint, their first ever single which again I’m surprised didn’t make the charts. Ephemera is next, unfortunately it’s just an interlude blending into the final song on the album, Remain. Remain is the slowest track on the album, and it’s a brilliant closer.

Delphic give me hope in the British music scene, we had some brilliant bands coming out last year, such as Friendly Fires, but if Delphic carry on producing music like this, then I think we’ve got ourselves an absolutely MASSIVE band in the future, I really hope I can see them some time soon.  This album’s overtaken Contra as the best album of the decade, and it really does deserve it.

Delphic – Acolyte (single)
Delphic – Acolyte (album) – seriously buy this, just do it.

Now, from a band that gives me hope to a band that makes me want to hurt myself. Hadouken!’s first album was average at best, this one is just terrible. The only reason this has a 3/10 is because Noisia produced it and the beats are pretty good. The only songs worth bothering about (well, the ones I can remember) are Turns The Lights Out – only because it’s the single and NME shove the music video down my throat constantly – and Ugly because the lyrics are laughably bad. Seriously, he spends the entire 4 minutes saying “I’M GONNA FUCK YOUR FACE UP” and “it’s ugly like your sister” which, laughably bad. Normally I don’t even care about lyrics, but these guys take the piss.

James from Hadouken! had an interview with Popjustice a few years back where he says, “My main aim for Hadouken! is that when I look at photos in five years’ time I cringe horribly and say I was only doing it because I was young.” It’s been 3 years since their first album, so let’s just hope they don’t release a 3rd album in the next 2 years, and that the singer grows the fuck up and never does shit like this again.

BUY TICKETS ON TICKETMASTER

I’ve had big hopes for Chew Lips since Kitsuné first dropped their Solo EP and I’ve had to wait for a while for this album. Every single I’d heard since then had been brilliant (Slick & Play Together) but this album, sadly, suffered from La Roux syndrome, in that the quality of it is largely based around the singles. It’s not a terrible album but I listen to this and lose attention too quickly. Very disappointed not to see Solo on the album, actually that being there’s quite a few demos which should’ve made it (Salt Air!!).

The album starts off with Eight which is alright, bit slow but I love her voice in this so it doesn’t get a thumbs down. That goes into Play Together which I’ve already said is quite a choon, and then this goes into Slick which I’ve also said is quite a choon.  Karen is up next, in all fairness it does sound as good as the last two songs (maybe even better, especially the chorus which is brilliant). I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘Karen’ being referred to in the song title is Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and these two singers sound stupidly similar. These three songs are probably the best on the album and they come pretty early on, I’d have preferred them somewhere in the middle as I struggle to get to the end without switching off and listening to something else.

The next song is Too Much Talking which, like the album opener, isn’t a bad song but is only saved by the fact that Tigs’ voice just sounds so brilliant. I don’t think slower songs suit the band too much (although Golden Key, the penultimate song from this record is quite good) so I will be overly critical of these (hence why I don’t rate this or Eight very much). Toro is next, again all I can say is that it’s a good song, I preferred the demo (I think the album version is a bit over-produced whilst the demo just sounded right) but it’s not bad. Seven is next, I don’t mean to sound like a record on repeat but again, it’s just good. Good chorus, rest is dull. In fact, Two Hands & Golden Key can pretty much be summarized in the same way (although Golden Key is just a little bit better). The last song, suitably named Piano Song, is just dull, pretty bad album closer.

The album’s a bit short, the stand out tracks happen too early on and they’ve all been released as singles anyway. I had high hopes for this, they weren’t met unfortunately.

Chew Lips – Karen