The Jimmy Webb Northern Soul expansiveness is still getting us through many a day, which means we're finally getting to appreciate the emotional flux of the lyrics as much as the sweep of everything else. Have you really not bought this album yet?
Like STN favourites Anathallo's Floating World, The Crane Wife is loosely based on a Japanese folk tale, and like that album it takes some listening to fully appreciate, being that bit poppier and more folky than before. This Laura Veirs duet's the standout at the momnet
An immensely brooding, oddly hypnotic shot at the Interpol-flavoured end of the post-post-punk spectrum, knife edge tensions meeting sludge dynamics, from a highly promising collective including one of Simian
We trust you get the picture about her by now.
How do they keep doing this? In lesser hands than Brewis, Brewis and Moore this would err too close to the barrier marked 'too indebted to what's gone before', but the hooks are beefier, the strings lift the melodies and those harmonies still work out
We knew we'd been forgetting someone over the last few weeks! It's the surely soon ennobled Andy Falkous, as well as McLusky latter drummer Jack Egglestone plus Kelson off Jarcrew, and it features, well, jackknifing loud guitars, earth shaking fuzz bass and Falco going for it, as per
A title deserving of a slap, but Sam Duckworth puts so much effort into balancing out lyrics packed with meaning with laptop acoustics that don't cloy that it'd seem churlish. Never quite get the Dashboard Confessional comparisons that occasionally arise, because they're shit
Hmm, perhaps they are incapable of putting a foot wrong after all. Of course it's the mode of the day, but as usual there's something completely irresistable about what they put into it, as much emotionally as onto tape
Far superior live, everyone says, but it's hard to disagree with music so designed towards getting the hips a-shakin', like a more anthemic ESG or, more pertinently, a more post-punk Le Tigre
Danceable fun-loving of a different stripe now, Fyfe having described this as a paen to appreciating life. As great as the album is, this is the one moment above all others where their ambition and result properly meet
Wider attention's still shying away from Warmsley's door, which as you'll appreciate we consider something of a shame, but at least it means he has the space necessary to create this kind of offbeat wonderousness
Quality Blondie/New Order disco electropop from Rob Da Bank-affiliated label to watch Sunday Best. Suspiciously, the band's press release and Myspace disagree on the names of the rhythm section
We know the electro diva demon modern incarnation is hugely popular around such places as ours, but secretly we've always preferred the early version of analogue synths and literally Cold War vocals
Ah, they've restored the downloads. Anyway, the secret's out - supporting Broken Social Scene in Cardiff on Tuesday, London gig upgraded... Just before it really goes code red, Keep Hope Inside interview them
Wasn't it so much more fun when genres were so elastic? Oddball 1984 art school Proper Indie meets sardonic contemporary pop from notoriously fey, darkly glamorous never-quite-weres
As we've said before, we're sure it wasn't anybody's intention to polarise opinion so much when these settled on a style to excavate, but blogs and review sites seem to either adore or hate them with no middle ground. As ex-Kenickie fans, we appreciate this all the more readily
It's not really happening for T'n'T, as nobody calls them, in Britain, gathering not so much as the very shortlived attention afforded to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah despite having all the right credentials (American, Internet, forceful vocalist)
In truth, we're pretty sure we could have worded that question about lyrics better
They've recorded a Harry Nilsson covers album in their downtime, which kind of fits in in a way. The breezy melody and Mariachi horns don't really fit in with the Bows And Arrows atmosphere, but that's probably what they want to read
As we were saying, it's really over time that the manifold goodness of Voices Of Animals And Men really reveals itself. Note this track's restrained dynamic, the dark cloud intrigue and the heartstopping pause before House Of Lords takes the story on
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