Currently keeping Little Green Cars, Foy Vance and Two Door Cinema Club company on the Glassnote Records roster are Montreal trio Half Moon Run, a folksy, harmony-led guitar band who couldn't sound any more different to mainstream's favourite folksy, harmony-led guitar band Mumford & Sons (who also happen to be part of the Glassnote family). Where Mumford's sound is irrepressibly fiery, Half Moon Run's 'Full Circle' is endearingly gentle - the meandering melodies are delivered in a gorgeous, silky whisper, rather than a bellow. A +. Posted 19 April
TELL YER LOVED ONES
As the troll-dotted YouTube community has rightfully pointed out, 'Tell Yer Loved Ones' has a vintage Radiohead feel, but there's nothing copycat about Tandem Felix's new cut, which combines swooning psychedelia with soft melodies and shapeshifting, experimental guitars. Taken from the Dublin foursome's new Popcorn EP, it's a gently haunting prog rock ballad, brimming with unexpected charm. Posted 19 April
GENERATIONALS
PUT A LIGHT ON
[Polyvinyl Records]
Tour buddies of the above-mentioned TDCC, Louisiana duo Generationals have a deliciously clunky hit on their hands with 'Put A Light On', an intensely addictive, sample-led pop rock trip, brimming with twee funk and boasting
a singalong chorus so summery, it might just propel us out of this ghastly winter... we hope. Regardless of what season you're joining us from, a single spin of 'Put A Light On' should be enough to tempt you onto the Generationals bandwagon, especially if crowd-pleasers by chart-topping bands like fun. and Grouplove left you cold. Posted 19 April
I'M YOUR VINYL
FOR YOU
[Self-Released]
Dana Donnelly and Ken McHugh's electro pop project goes tropical just in time for the hottest Irish summer in recorded history (hey, a girl can dream, can't she?) with the irrepressibly breezy 'For You', a mesmerising mix of space-age electronics, dreamy alt. pop melody and sultry, whispery vocals. The laid-back party vibe is a tough one to get right, but I'm Your Vinyl have managed to pull it off, and without a bongo or a ukulele in sight. Posted 19 April
KELLY ROWLAND
KISSES DOWN LOW
[Universal Republic Records]
While I'm understandably miffed that Destiny's Child-turned-X-Factor honey Kelly Rowland didn't accept my title suggestion for the song currently known as 'Kisses Down Low' (for the record, it was 'Oral
Sex, She Wrote'), I can't deny the catchiness of this supersonic R&B jam, no matter how many rimming references I have to put up with when I choose to dance around to it in my kitchen. I guess I’m just a sucker for good, old-fashioned, high- energy, low-brow fun. Posted 19 April
THIRD SMOKE
PEACOCK
[Self-Released]
Plundering guitar riffs, hooky background la-la-las, lightning- speed crooning and party-starting cowbell, Dundalk's Third Smoke have pulled out every failsafe indie pop trick in the book on 'Peacock', and miraculously, it's worked, making this track a danceable echo of the best output of mid-decade chart- toppers like The Kooks, The Fratellis and The Strokes. Posted 19 April
JOHN LEGEND FEAT. RICK ROSS
WHY DO WE THINK WE ARE
[Sony]
'When was the last time you got to be 100% real, y'all?' John Legend howls in the live intro to 'Who Do We Think We Are', the first single from his forthcoming Love In The Future album, before breaking into a refreshingly earthy Motown-style ballad featuring the unsuitably flashy Rick Ross (who, I'm guessing, is about as "real" as his gold chain and yacht- filled Instagram account suggests). Still, if the guest rhymer on this track doesn't exactly fit the subject matter, Legend makes it believable with that unstoppably earnest, soulful vocal of his. Posted 19 April
THE HARD GROUND
BAD FAITH
[FIFA Records]
It almost comes as a shock when Pat Carey's gritty croon barges in on 'Bad Faith', the new single from Cork art rockers The Hard Ground (their first on local label Fifa Records), but rather than trampling over the candy-coated melodrama spouted by co-vocalist Marlene Enright, it actually serves as a very clever plot twist. Nothing can take the spook out of the band's meandering, mournful sound, but the contrast of Mr. Carey and Ms. Enright's voices makes 'Bad Faith' all the easier on the ears. Posted 19 April
30 SECONDS TO MARS
UP IN THE AIR
[Virgin]
Taken from Thirty Seconds To Mars' forthcoming fourth LP, Love, Lust, Faith And Dreams, 'Up In The Air' is, as the name suggests, a seriously lofty affair. Big guitars, big drums, big falsetto and big choir-led chants come together to form one frankly gargantuan song, which will make the humble commute seem like a hair-whipping, dust-busting trip along Route 66 when it comes on the radio. Posted 19 April
CRY BEFORE DAWN
IS THIS WHAT YOU WAITED FOR?
[Reekus]
One of the more successful comebacks in recent years, the Wexford '80s legends pretty much picked up from where they left off when they reformed in 2011
- impressively selling out decent- sized venues around Ireland. This, their first single in two decades, is a reworking of an unrecorded earlier song that has become a recent live staple. Instantly recognisable as a 'Cries' creation, thanks largely to Brendan Wade's familiar rousing vocal and the band's widescreen sonics, it's an epic song on an epic scale with a big '80s drum sound, reverbed guitars and thundering bass. Posted 19 April
TYLER THE CREATOR
IFHY
[Music Video]
I thought I'd be blisslessly rotting in my cold, cold grave before
I heard foul-mouthed messer Tyler, The Creator spit a line like,
'I love you so much that my heart stops beating when you leaving', but here we are, three albums into the renegade rapper's career, and
I can scarcely believe my own ears. Even more bizarre than Tyler's heartfelt outpouring is the accompanying video, which takes place in a fabulously freaky dollhouse. Posted 19 April
LANA DEL REY
CHELSEA HOTEL NO 2
[Music Video]
After the 10-minute melodrama that was 'Ride', the video for 'Chelsea Hotel No 2', a cover of Leonard Cohen's 1974 ballad, seems positively minimal. Showing
a po-faced Lana engulfed in shadow, crooning gingerly into a microphone, it's a startlingly simple affair, but one that leaves plenty of room for lines like, 'We are ugly, but we have the music,' to command the limelight. Posted 19 April
EATENBYBEARS
REMIX EP
The ever-changing sound of Belfast indie-pop pros EatenByBears gets
diced up and stitched back together again by five of Ireland's finest musical experimenters on this free remix EP, which invites you to listen in delight as the subtly sinister 'Your Pet Is Dead' is ramped up to triple-figure BPM by The Bedroom, and as the fiendishly peppy 'Simple As Hell' is taken to a place of groove-led chill by Screendeath. Posted 19 April
JAMES BLAKE
OUR LOVE COMES BACK
With the release of second album Overgrown just days away, musical innovator and modern-day quivering bloke James Blake continues to tease, this time with a live recording of LP closer 'Our Love Comes Back', which is free to download from amazon.com. A sensuous, stripped-back ballad with a swoonful, lilting melody, it proves that the young Londoner can be just as powerful sat at a piano as he is drowning in electronics.
Get it here: amazon.co.uk/Our-Love-Comes-Back Posted 19 April
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE
MY LOVE
With comeback cavalier Justin Timberlake off giving his fellow pop stars a masterclass in media blitzing, countless nostalgic beatmakers have been digging into his back catalogue for remix inspiration, including Galway fiddler Dathi. Through boundary-pushing distortion and some tropical accessorising, this (quite literally) deep house rejigging of 'My Love' makes mainstream's classiest class act sound simultaneously cutting edge and throwback. Posted 19 April
