back in fifteen minutes

Three great new records that you should hear.

The Yeah-Yous Fifteen Minutes is nice, breezy fluff of the highest quality.

Show Me What I'm Looking For by Carolina Liar is a great bit of American pop-rock in a Fray-esque style.

Finders Keepers is the new single from You Me At Six. Again, great, catchy tune.

Finger on the pulse, kids. Stay cool.

if you give me something then i'll believe it

A couple of years ago I reviewed the promising debut album from Ben's Brother, a new British band destined for great things. Despite an Ivor Novello nomination (their track Let Me Out was beaten by Amy Winehouse) and a top Forty hit they haven't really broken through into the pop mainstream.

2008 nearly saw that, though, as brilliant single Stuttering secured much Radio 2 airplay but agonisingly peaked one place outside the UK top Forty. Dropped by their record label, the future of the band (I say band, it is basically Jamie Hartman and various assorted musicians) looked bleak until Hartman signed a deal with Island records for the release of second album Battling Giants.

Battling Giants took the same path for me as their debut Beta Male Fairytales. On first listen, I liked it. On second listen, I liked it more. From then on (and it has not been off my earphones for a week now) I like it more every time I hear it. It is an utterly brilliant album even in comparison with ...Fairytales and somehow Hartman has managed to take his superb songwriting into another dimension. The songs are punchier, fuller - somehow more rounded and, in places simply noisier as his trademark voice soars over piano and guitar.

From opening track (and single) Apologise, you are aware that you're listening to something polished and classy. It is difficult to pick out specific highlights, but the duets with Jason Mraz and Joss Stone (the latter is the stunningly beautiful Stalemate which would surely be a huge worldwide hit with, say, Leona Lewis on board) are a good place to start. Upbeat, catchy tunes If I Let The Ladder Down and Therapy are also terrific and the album highlight is the soaring What If? which wouldn't sound amiss on something by the likes of Coldplay or U2.

I had the pleasure if meeting Hartman at his gig in Nottingham last week and he is clearly delighted with this record. If anything, the live performance improved the material (if that were possible) and so after a combination of a chat with a very nice man, repeated exposure to the album and a fantastic live performance Ben's Brother are now officially my favourite band that nobody has heard of.

too much of everything is never enough

I'd started a review of the Pet Shop Boys new album, Yes, yesterday in which I had written that it seemed like the duo were making an homage to the Pet Shop Boys back catalogue. Various songs from Yes sound like the pair at various stages during their career - Vulnerable sounds like it has been lifted from Actually, Pandemonium from Very and King of Rome sounds like the introduction to Behaviour's Being Boring.

Overall, I said, it had just made me want to listen to their last album (2006's Fundamental) which provided that the Pet Shop Boys could still make superb, progressive, celever pop of the highest order.

Two listens later, and I have changed my opinion a bit. I don't think Yes moves the Pet Shop Boys forward in any way and it isn't as clever, nuanced or textured as Fundamental but what it does continue to prove is that there are very few acts in the UK today who can produce such polished, consistent pop music of this sort of quality.

Yes is the Pet Shop Boys at their most simplistic - electronic pop music with clever lyrics, catchy melodies and Tennant's trademark voice. It's poppier than recent efforts - the production input of long-time Girls Aloud collaborators Xenomania sees to that - but after several listens what initially seems like average pop fodder becomes likeable, deep pop music at its finest. From the football-crowd chorus of top twenty single Love Etc to the slow-paced snapshot of 21st century living Legacy the record ebbs and flows in a way only a Pet Shop Boys album can.

It's not their best work and neither will it convert any new fans, but even in 2009 an average Pet Shop Boys record stands head and shoulders above the morass of hopeless pop on show.

blame the broken social scene

Buying an album on the strength of hearing one song in the background on the radio is always a bit of a gamble, but with Fine Fascination, the debut from London five-piece The Red Light Company it certainly paid off.

From the introduction to the opening track Words of Spectacular this record grabs your attention and doesn't let go. It is one of those albums that manages to be both instantly likeable and that improves with several listens and I am really pleased with it. There are a couple of tracks here which I was vaguely aware of already - the sort of thing that must have been used on the BBC or that I have heard in a shop or similar without actually knowing what it was. This is particularly true of 2008 single Scheme Eugene and new release Arts and Crafts has also had some Radio 1 airplay.

Whilst their sound is familiar it's difficult to pigeonhole the Red Light Company. Vocalist Richard Frenneaux sounds reminiscent of Turin Brakes frontman Olly Knights but with influences including Radiohead and Elbow it's where the similarity ends. Their music is punchy, catchy and interesting but also richer than the normal guitar based indie fare we hear so much of.

I really like it, actually. I worry that they'll go the same way as other brilliant, one album wonders (Haven, Royworld, Morning Runner to name but three) and I am regretful I'll miss their Nottingham live show, but it's certainly well worth a punt at the princely sum of £6. A very promising debut.

a weapon of massive consumption

I'm a grown man, father of one and in his mid-Thirties. I am not entirely sure therefore that I am the target demographic for Lily Allen and despite not being all that enamoured with her debut album Alright, Still I was convinced to buy It's Not Me, It's You by the sheer brilliance of the lead single and number One hit The Fear.

I'd had Allen pretty much pegged as a fashion fad and a one-album wonder. I wasn't sure her cheeky chirpy Cockneyness would survive more than the one summer and I figured her perky brand of modern pop wouldn't stand the test of time.

How wrong I was. Despite not being a fan I loved The Fear from the first time I heard it. The album is, I am delighted to say, much more of the same. Allen seems to have toned down her affected accent a little bit and the vast majority of the material on It's Not Me, It's You is catchy, brutally honest and surprisingly downbeat (even the uptempo tracks are biting and melancholy). I'd also hate to be the person on the receiving end of some of her acerbic lyrics....

From the superb opening track Everyone's At It this record grips and hooks you. Its musical styles chop and change from traditional pop through a strange country and western number to so-called "nu-rave". and lyrically it is simultaneously socially astute and heartbreakingly personal. Allen has admitted to unconsciously borrowing the chorus of Take That's Shine for the song Who'd Have Known and the bubblegum poppiness of F**k You hides a darker lyrical message. I particularly like Allen in reflective mood as her voice suits the slower, more fragile tracks like I Could Say and Chinese.

I thought I would never say this but Allen has come up with really brilliant album here, setting the benchmark for clever, well-crafted and mature 21st century pop that others will do well to meet. Highly recommended.

White Lies - To Lose My Life.

The debut album from White Lies sits perfectly in the modern scene and yet could sound as easily comfortable had it been released at the back end of the eighties. And this is where it's beauty lies.

Short, sweet sounding and pretty much to the point, this collection of guitar driven indie and electronica influenced songs pay much homage to the wonderful sounds of times gone by without sounding dated.
Whilst the music in itself is crisp and polished enough to stand up on it's own, it's the lead singer's delivery that's most pleasing. With a style that draws comparisons from the likes of Echo And The Bunnymen, Julian Cope, Depeche Mode and at times Joy Division, to name just a few, there's a joyous sense of familiarity here without sounding like a crappy covers band that you'd expect to find playing a circuit of working men's clubs.
It's a dark and fairly gloomy sounding album (particularly with the lyrics), but that shouldn't put any potential listener off. Ok, so there are lyrical tales of suicidal tendencies, ghosts and death, mental breakdowns and even misguided kidnappings. Not the most uplifting of subject matter for any band to tackle, for sure. But the resulting songs of what sounds like a nicely polished set, coupled with some wonderful production, manages to give an uplifting and almost anthemic sensation, despite these stories of woe.

There seems to be a lot of breaking bands around, all tipping their collective hats towards a nostalgic eighties sound and if this is an indication of what 2009 has to offer, then in my opinion, we could be in for a very promising musical year.

Doom and gloom never sounded so good.

Death

The Price Of Love

To Lose My Life

they say i'm on top of my game

Top 10 Albums of 2008

1. The Seldom Seen Kid - Elbow (Bedshaped)

There’s nothing I don’t love about this album. From the cover design, to the lyrics. From the wall of horns that signal Starlings bursting into life, to the sentimental, heart tugging song about their friend who passed away. From the wonderfully clever use of metaphors and situations that twist and turn and spin around in my head as I’m trying to paint my picture, to his soft voice that meanders and croaks and sighs like a 40 a day smoker.

A wonderful sense of togetherness fills me when I listen to this album. It sounds like an album made by a bunch of people who all get involved and absolutely love what they do. I like to imagine them all sat in a dingy room, listening to the newly completed album track by track, then when the last track fades out, someone breaks the silence by saying, “Now that is just fucking amazing”.

What we have here is a collection of songs that go beyond the typical indie/pop line. Sure, at the heart of it lies a drummer, a bass player, a guitarist, a keyboard player and a singer. But then there’s violins and cellos. Church bells and brass. Samples and all kinds of weird shit. Clunks, clicks and boinks. All melting together, wrapping themselves around the soothing voice that tells stories of town crane drivers, lost love, lost friends, childhood stories and of course their hometown. And all the time, he sounds so genuine. You just can’t help but be pulled into his stories. It’s a rare and wonderful talent.

Favourite track....Damn...Starlings....No, Some Riot....No....Damn....Ok, if I have to pick just one, then The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver

1. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (Swiss Toni)

It was always going to take a pretty special album to keep Elbow from the top slot of my end of year list, and that’s exactly what the Fleet Foxes have delivered. The debut album by this hairy five-piece from Seattle was, for me, the most rewarding album of the year. They’re from the city, but the roots of this album are about as rural as it is possible to be, opening with a song about a squirrel, and going on to conjure up images of fields and backwoods and misty mountains.

The sound is almost timeless: the band themselves describe it as “baroque pop”, and although they are clearly influenced by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and the other members of the 1960s Laurel Canyon set, they also sound oddly as though they could be minstrels who have stepped out of the middle ages, with “White Winter Hymnal” in particular sounding like a medieval madrigal and “Your Protector” featuring a distant flute and conjuring up images of knights in armour. Perhaps it’s the medieval historian in me, but I really love that about them.

It’s the vocal performances that are ultimately the biggest draw here though, with Robin Pecknold’s remarkable voice either ably supported by the layered harmonies of the other band members, best displayed in “White Winter Hymnal”, or highlighted solo in the stark, acapella “Oliver James” that closes the album. To hear Pecknold in full flow is to hear a voice of great, unspoilt beauty and understated power. There’s been nothing else this year that sounds quite like the Fleet Foxes and neither has there been anything that sounds quite as good. A cool breath of crisp, clear country air. Superb, and my album of the year.

Key Track - White Winter Hymnal

1. Count To Ten - Tina Dico (LB)

I’m always slightly suspicious of lists such as these where people’s #1 choice is something obscure or random that no-one has heard of. To me it always seems slightly that people are flexing their individual identity by doing this and choosing a bizarre, unknown chart-topper is somehow a way of telling everyone else that they know something you don’t.

Clearly, though, there are instances where you sometimes find a diamond in the rough and whilst the rest of my top Ten albums sold in their millions, my number One is quite simply the most terrific album I have heard in a long, long time by a Dane who you’ve likely never heard of.

Tina Dico isn’t particularly famous outside her home country. Other than her appearances on a couple of mildly successful Zero 7 records you are unlikely to have ever come across her, unless you’ve been to one of her many intimate gigs up and down the land. It’s difficult to say what number album this is of hers, frankly, as her releases have thus far been an odd mix of album and tour-based EPs.

Count to Ten, her most recent studio album is simply fantastic from start to finish. It’s pretty simple really – girl with guitar doing a mixture of beautifully crafted pop records and acoustic ballads – but there is just something about Dico that sets her miles apart from her contemporaries. Her lyrics are interesting and emotionally direct, her voice is beautiful but also engaging and the quality of her songwriting is second to none. I could single out highlights but it is one of those rare records where every last second of it drips with quality and even though I must have listened to Count to Ten three dozen times I have yet to tire of any of it.

Sacre Coeur is typical of Dico’s music – a paean about her personal restlessness set against the backdrop of touring in France – and is simply beautiful. The gradual four minute crescendo of title track Count to Ten, the likeable On The Run and the cleverness of Craftsmanship and Poetry (“....ask yourself how much you care, about dining chairs and Beaudelaire? No craftsmanship or poetry can keep a young girl happy forever.....”) – it is difficult to find any fault anywhere here. Everything I love about Dico is best encapsulated in the stunning Cruel To The Sensitive Kind which not only spoke to me more directly than any other song in 2008 but is also time-stoppingly beautiful.

It might look indulgent and clever for me to pick a relatively unknown artist as my favourite album of 2008 ahead of the popular and critically acclaimed works before but I simply can’t ignore the fact that this amazing record blows everything else I have heard in 2008 out of the water. Simply, simply stunning.

Favourite track - Cruel To The Sensitive Kind