Singles reviews for Monday 15th May
Sound Generator's Single Of The WeekNot for the first time, the superbly subversive
Archie Bronson Outfit take Sound Generator's SOTW accolade. Imagine, if you will, a bunch of druids performing some kind of vaguely disturbing pagan ritual dance around a nightmarish campfire in the dead of night. Now imagine three yelpy, beardy blokes playing electric guitars in the background. That's ABO. "Dead Funny" is a malevolent, hypnotic, nasty edged alt-folk classic.
The pick of the rest of this week's releases...
Placebo, "Song To Say Goodbye". Oh, if only it was. Brian Molko has been fraudulently trading on his pseudo-tortured, still-teenage soul for just a little too long now. You already know what this is gonna sound like: driving guitar, Fergal Sharkey-on-helium-wearing-a-clothes-peg vocals, etc etc. Molko has the temerity to reference Neil Young's "The Needle And Damage Done" in the lyrics, though he does partially remedy this heinous crime with the viciously stinging opening lines: "You are one of God's mistakes / You crying, tragic waste of skin". Something of a self-portrait, perhaps?
The Futureheads, at least, are making some kind of effort to move their sound forwards; "Skip To The End" - lifted from next week's sophomore album "News And Tributes" - retains their jumpy, ultra-catchy hallmark, but fuses the semi-soulful sounds of Dexy's Midnight Runners and The Knack's "My Sherona". The chorus, especially, exudes shiny, happy-clappy pop gem magic.
The Darkness go all Status Quo on us with "Girlfriend", based as it is around a chug-happy riff of which the venerably unoriginal Francis Rossi would be proud. Other than that, it's business as usual at Darkness HQ: Hawkins warbles, the guitars widdle, and the rest of us weep into our keyboards for want of fresh adjectives to describe just how soul-crushingly, awfully
wrong this band really are.
The broadsheet reader's favourite coffee-table crooner,
Jack Johnson, turns his acoustic-strumming hand to film soundtracks with "Upside Down", taken from his soundtrack to the forthcoming animated film "Curious George". Opening with a shuffling beat reminiscent of The Stones' "Sympathy For The Devil", the song quickly drops into the gentle, melodic vibes for which Johnson is famous. Inoffensive, laid-back and upbeat, yet monumentally unmemorable.
"What? What You Got" ask new Sheffield four-piece
Little Man Tate, over a curious combination of the riff from Rocket From The Crypt's "On A Rope", the monochrome, Ian Curtis-esque vocals of a band like Editors, and a chorus which adds more weight to my slowly strengthening suspicion that a Britpop revival is on its way. The B-Side "Young Offenders" gives the game away completely - it's less than a chiming guitar stroke away from mid-nineties indie stalwarts The Bluetones. Lord help us all.
