The Limerick group release the first single from their forthcoming debut Sweeter Than Bourbon. The description could easily apply to this song, which is propelled by a weeping bass and intricate, silvery guitar scales. Lead singer Rob Hope is possessed of an agile voice that moves steadily up the octave before flinging itself headlong into a chalky falsetto in the chorus. This single and their victory in the 2006 UL Battle of the Bands bode well for the future.
If The Smiths had an even less salubrious address, they’d sound like Jonathan Ross-endorsed SixNationState. The vocals are like Morrissey with a gutter for a throat, and, while there’s a skiffly, Libertines-y feel to the verse, the chorus is pure, soaring Smiths. The crazy thing is that this isn’t their best song here – a fact that bodes well for their eponymous debut, out next month. Both the ska-vaudeville jaunt of ‘1,2,3,4’ and ‘Got It Right Got It Wrong’ – with its dark, freewheeling bridge – are addictive listens. Definitely ones to watch over the next few months.
London underground star Kingslee Daley scooped a MOBO in 2006 for his debut album It’s Not A Rumour. Judging by this single, he deserves another for its follow-up Freedom Lasso. His lyrical flow is as fast and as furious as the seething electro beat in the background. It’s like a live audio feed to a man’s frantic thoughts as he desperately tries to make up for a poor first impression. Luckily, the only one unimpressed with it is the inspiration of the song: I was floored.
I advise Bell X1 to hold onto him, because this boy can cut it on his own. While the jazzy piano shuffle of the song owes much to ‘My First Born For A Song’, its bleary guitar solo and ghostly backing vocals makes it closer to Cathy Davey. Geraghty’s voice is like a more rough-edged version of bandmate Paul Noonan’s – something that suits this song well. He even pulls off a finale reminiscent of The Divine Comedy at their most flamboyant.
The London-based singer-songwriter reprises the loveable funk, jittery, silvery guitars and sharp lyrics of ‘Starz In Their Eyes’, making this a worthy successor to January’s chart hit. It’s also the single that should keep him off the one-hit-wonder casualty pile. Could he be the new Jamiroquai – but with a soul under the plastic sheen?
This single provokes a troubling psychological question: is there any escaping the Oedipus Complex? Or do we just move onto someone else’s mother? For, according to the Black Eyed Peas frontman, “If the girl real sexy/Nine times out of ten she’s sexy like her momma”. Oh well. Lyrical content aside, the sliding indie guitars and well-timed bleeps and bloops make this a surefire hit – even if his look makes his studly braggadocio sound lecherous rather than anything else.
Part of me likes this because it’s so cloud-burstingly uplifting that it dares you to dream of a sunny September. The rest of me likes it because Nicole comes on like an indie Lady Sov, delivering observations worthy of Mike Skinner over guitars as crunchy as a Kit-Kat. The single also features a remix from CSS, which turns it into a squiggly, pulsing disco demon.
Oh Jesus. This reminds me of the time I got my Dad to rap. Granted, we couldn’t afford an expensive-sounding backbeat – unlike Brown, who puts a brilliant marriage of chugging strings and delicate harp arpeggi utterly to waste. The tooth-grinding rhymes and turgid flow are truly horrendous, and the best part of the song arrives in its closing seconds, when Brown lets guest star Sinéad O’Connor sing without his tuneless groan sprawling all over it.
The textured melodies and Bennie Reilly’s soft, mouse-sized voice make it easy to like the indie-folksters’ debut – and there’s even more that’ll make you love it. They can do pastoral just as well as The Earlies, with harmonies like wind instruments played by friendly ghosts (‘(She’ll Use You) Lou’). However, they can carry off the harder stuff equally well – check out the sludgy guitar of ‘Sleepwalking’. This EP feels like watching an autumn day from inside, and the songs are just long enough for you to lie back in them.
National Student Music Competition finalists Monitor’s follow-up to the ‘Higher Than The Sky EP’ (a former Hot Press Single of the Fortnight) is full of promise. It conjures up the same dark spaces as Editors, but fills it with the clang and chime of Boy-era U2. Indeed, the sound, songs and skills displayed here reflect a band who’re eager to get out of here and fill some stadiums. With songs as compelling as ‘On The Verge’, they could yet make good on that ambition.
Unique of voice and dextrous of guitar-playing, Wexford girl Wallis Bird’s singer-songwriter fare manages not to be music to get depressed to. While stately pieces ‘The Circle’ and ‘Oklahoma’ are a cut above most acoustic-led introspection, her skills are better displayed on ‘Moodpieces’ and ‘Beep Beep’ – semi-electronic tunes with acoustic playing closer to Four Tet than Ani DiFranco . A release that proves that being big in Germany can mean brilliance.
The Drogheda punks make their return, two years after being “chewed up and spat out of the music industry,” with a song more rousing than a sea-shanty. It reminds me a little of Queen’s ‘’39’, but it expresses the same sentiments as the Eels’ ‘Things The Grandchildren Should Know’. The song takes its title from the age at which Hendrix, Morrison and Joplin passed on, and this single’s one reason we should be grateful these boys didn’t do the same. With their Irish Johnny Rotten vocals and their rip-roaring energy, they deserve to get further than they did last time.
The lean, hobo visionary of old is gone: in his place is a suited bandleader, and his new song is almost brilliant. The sound is very Band-era Dylan, and Josh’s quicksilver lyrics evoke the same swirl of images the Big Zim’s always did. While the solo is wonderfully commanding, the ‘70s soft-rock chorus feels like a downward gear-shift from the verse. And so, once again, Ritter lacks the stratosphere-catapulting single he’s been looking for.
Are Ash reinventing themselves as some kind of Sparklehorse/Super Furry Animals hybrid? Because, on the strength of this single, you’d swear they’d pulled off just such a transformation. They’ve given free rein to their pop sensibilities with a chorus as wide as an open horizon, while the Beatles plunge that leads into the second verse certainly shivered my timbers. Elsewhere, the guitar solo flickers to a blaze big enough to convince us that the Ash we know and love are still in there somewhere. It’s a belter – the sound of a summer we haven’t yet been given.
Despite promises to the contrary, the Government has failed to invest adequately in services for young people with mental health issues, forcing volunteer groups to step into the void.
