"Breaking The Ice" is the taster single for British alt veterans
Mojave 3's fifth studio album, "Puzzles Like You". Indie-rock in the mould of The Lemonheads, it's infused with gorgeous melodies and shimmering guitar peaks, while a tumbling piano adds to the bittersweet whirlwind of instrumentation. This band have been around for more than a decade; this is the song to open your ears to their sheer wonderfulness.
The pick of the rest of this week's releases...
Taken on face value,
The Streets' "Never Went To Church" is another example of Mike Skinner's deceptively simple lyricism, ruined by a poor backing track (this time a halting approximation of "Let It Be"). On a deeper level, the song is a touching ode to Mike's deceased father, with an almost spoken-word verse ("Sometimes I think so hard I can't remember how your face looked"). In spite of the below-par music, this will touch a nerve with anybody who has lost a loved one; Skinner's skill in expressing human emotion knows no bounds.
Welsh four-piece
The Automatic unleash their "Monster"; a slavering beast composed from the slashing rhythms of Bloc Party, the adrenalised punk guitars of The Subways, and a demented take on the keyboard hooks of The Killers. Tethered to a vaguely punk-funk backdrop, this is another storming single from an incredibly exciting prospect; let's hope forthcoming debut album "Not Accepted Anywhere" can match up to their output so far.
"Let's Tango", from Swiss all-girl trio
The Delilahs, borrows heavily from Britpop-era contemporaries Elastica, featuring as it does breathy vocals sliding over a kiddie-simple punk riff and beats. It's stripped down and undemanding, and ultimately pretty dull. B-side "One Nil At Home", meanwhile, is vaguely amusing for about thirty seconds.
Has it really been almost three years since
Nelly Furtado's last album release? How has the world managed without the pure-voiced pop songstress for so long? Never fear, for Nelly's third album "Loose" is almost upon us, and "Maneater" is the first single to be plucked therefrom. No doubt this is meant to sound sultry, sexy and slightly menacing; in fact it sounds like Salt 'n Pepa's "Push It" bolted onto a chorus lifted from Hall & Oates song of the same name. Not quite as bad as it sounds.
The Research, "Hard Times". Nondescript indie of the most pointless kind, you'd call this song 'disposable', but that would imply it had a use in the first place. A flimsy, keyboard demo of a tune, this could possibly find a home as the soundtrack to a pre-school TV programme. But only if the producers had incredibly bad taste.
