Great Expectations

Summer weather awaits – so, why don’t I suggest some nice Northern CDs to keep you company indoors while it rains?

Around 18 months ago, Tom McShane, [pictured] guitarist with Roque Junior, tip-toed into solo-dom with an impressively doomy EP called ‘Songs Are Sad’. Never the most extrovert of beings, Tom’s material didn’t stomp its feet and demand your attention – rather it hung out in the corner and left it to the listener to make the first move and join in.

‘Scene at the Citadel’, his latest release, may not be in any cheerier a mood – Tom’s take on the inevitability of romantic failure can sometimes make Bill Callahan sound like Stevie Wonder – but it’s a good deal more approachable than its predecessor. Loose-limbed, imaginatively coloured by moody organs and xylophones, and propelled throughout by some authentically plaintive guitar, it is an EP which shows that all involved are steadily raising their game. We should monitor developments with Tom – he’s here for the long haul and, with a few extra colours on his palette, could deliver something truly special.
Clone Quartet have been ear-marked for quite some time now as the class swots amongst the current crop of Belfast bands. Unfortunately, their home-work has never quite matched their class-room contributions – perhaps because, up until recently, getting them to sit still in the one place has been difficult. Settled now, the band are starting to deliver the goods – mixing up driving analogue rhythms with smart, Pavement-esque digressions. ‘Archives: Session’ is an enthralling, and dizzyingly pounding collection of songs that show-off both a high IQ and impressive capacity for caffeine. Go along, but make sure you bring an aspirin.
Remember Edgeweather? No? Well, that’s hardly your fault. The four-piece released a truly peerless EP during their first term at university and then, the odd gig aside, promptly disappeared. Blame the coursework and subsidised lager.
As with all such sabbaticals, the big fear was that all that youthful promise would dissipate and come to naught (or, as the case may be, end up pulling pints in town). News that the band had called it a day, therefore, was as predictable as it was dispiriting.
However, anyone impressed by Edgeweather’s prodigious knack of producing big, rousing melodies that never lost their light-and-shade emotional punch, will be delighted to hear that three quarters of the band have regrouped under the we-mean-business tag of Fast Emperors. They will also be relieved to know that, on the evidence of some early shows and a hair-raising demo doing the rounds, those responsible seem determined to pay off the good faith initially invested in them.
This is ambitiously accomplished stuff – replete with loads of emotion-drenched, vivid rock moves, which, in less sure hands, could leave folk uncharmed by Snow Patrol and Coldplay running for the nearest exit – carried off with an audible swagger.
We await to see if an equivalently big heart beats inside the undoubted talent. If so, then watch this lot enact their imperial designs.
I’ve written recently about the first Duke Special LP, and ‘Letting Go’ by Panda Kopanda – introductions to either will leave you light-headed and feeling good about the world.
And isn’t it great to find that finally, at long, long, long last, Hello, My Captor, the debut album from The Amazing Pilots has made it onto the shelves. I’ve been living with this record for over a year now, unable to believe that, in a world where The Others and The Kaiser Chiefs manage to exist outside the limited imaginings of their frontmen, something so unarguably wonderful could languish in limbo.
Thankfully the people at Décor have recognised that the ever-inventive, multi-instrumentalist, self-producing Wilkinson brothers present as secure a long-term bet as is available in these choppy commercial times.
Three cheers, because now you can bag yourself a copy of an album containing ‘The Price Of Winter’, a song that deserves to have a statue built in its honour. Even in the summertime.