So, another thirty days have come and gone already and here we are with our roundup of the records that have piled up in the office this month without getting the benefit of a full review.
Within the opening few bars of the first track, and first single from the album, ‘Clean Coloured Wine’ my ears prick up. I’ve developed a well-honed instinct over the years and can generally spot something I’m going to really like within a few seconds and ‘Three Fact Finder’, the comeback album from Engineers, has just landed slap bang in the middle of my radar.
The ’85 Bears were probably the best team in the recent history of the NFL and to boys of a certain age, like myself, names like William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry are indelibly inked in to our folklore. Whether this has any bearing (pun unintentional) on where this band derived their name I’ve no idea but I just thought I’d mention it.
Exuberant, that’s the only word I can think of after slipping the new album from That Fucking Tank in to the CD player. So much of post rock these days is so po-faced but not these boys. The album has a massive streak of mischief running all the way through it and they go at it with a massive amount of energy and huge grins. This is music with such vibrant life it’s impossible not to smile whilst listening to it.
Placebo have returned. Three years on from the rather patchy ‘Meds’ they’ve hooked up with Tool desk jockey Dave Bottrill and recruited a new drummer in Steve Forrest. One or the other, or even the combination, seems to have given the band a fresh impetus, ‘Battle For The Sun’ is a wholly more satisfying listen than either of the last two offerings.
Well, another month has come and gone without us being able to make much of a dent in the pile of unreviewed CDs that populate the Echoes And Dust office, so here goes with our attempt to roundup some of the highs and lows of May...
Plants and Animals are another product from the fertile music factory that is Montreal. In 2008 they released ‘Parc Avenue’ to critical acclaim in Canada, now they head over to these shores with their debut release 'With/Avec', a four track EP.
Fashoda Crisis hail from that increasingly, if unlikely, fertile hotbed of musical talent, Southend and play a very ‘now’ brand of hardcore / post punk with smart, bright tunes and intelligently politicised lyrics.
Their name gives away the fact that this is no mere pop band we’re dealing with here, taken from a territorial dispute between Britain and France in the late 19th century that brought the two nations to the brink of war.
By some strange synaptical misfiring, I can’t think of Maybeshewill without also thinking of 'Murder She Wrote', odd I know but there’s nothing I can do about it. However, I suspect there’s nothing much about Leicester’s Maybeshewill that Angela Lansbury would approve of and therefore plenty to interest us.
Throughout The Lemonheads long history there has been a rich vein of cover versions, from Proud Scum's I Am A Rabbit on their debut EP 'Laughing All The Way To The Cleaners' and 'Amazing Grace' on the Hate Your Friends album, right up until 'Outdoor Type' on Car Button Cloth and a whole plethora of covers on the accompanying singles.