In Case You Haven’t Heard… Sam’s Town By The Killers

Its 2004 – Facebook is launched, Tony Blair is still questionably Prime minister and Marlon Brando has sadly passed away, presumably after stuffing too many cotton balls in his cheeks. Its also the year that radiowaves and playlists alike are dominated by the Killers, with their infectious anthems (Mr. Brightside, Somebody Told Me, and Smile like You Mean It) from their indie disco- debut Hot Fuss. They came out of nowhere, or rather, Las Vegas, and paved the way for the big time, quite before the release of their second album, Sam’s Town, an unmissable and progressive rock album of clever re-invention.

So, while Hot Fuss bled out British shades of pounding bass and spacious synth the likes of David Bowie’s Low and Morrissey’s Viva Hate, Sam’s Town finds frontman Brandon Flowers looking at his American roots, imitating (almost to a tee) Bruce Springsteen’s songwritten stories of small-town escapism. The guitars are crunchier, the vocals are rawer, and the polished synth of Hot Fuss is pushed into the background, with the exception of the neon – drenched “Read my Mind” and the incorrigible whistle of “Bling: Confession of a King”.

The albums feel itself is rougher, with a song of Flowers’ uncle’s Cocaine addiction “Uncle Johnny” with its shrieking guitar riff (reminiscent of R.E.M’s “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?”) and deep dirty bass lines, to the frustrating opening lines of all-American indifference in the titular opener ‘Sam’s Town’; “Nobody ever had a dream round here but I don’t really mind that it’s starting to get to me/ Nobody ever pulls the seams round here but I don’t really mind that it’s starting to get to me”, which has Flowers’ smooth voice pushed a number of times to the edges of hoarseness. The only thing that doesn’t differ from their debut is the catchy choruses and infectious hooks.

It seems that the band wanted to become more white knuckle rockers; when the album was first released it divided opinion on whether it was the genuine article or just an over-bombastic attempt to rock it out with the proverbial out. It’s hard to see the latter, since many of Rock’s greatest -Queen, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin etc. – were overly bombastic (“FLASH! King of the impossible!”) and perhaps that’s what makes them so memorable. The album’s Enter and Exitlude seem to cheekily underline this, welcoming the listener to the Hotel ‘Sam’s Town’, named after the Vegas hotel Brandon Flowers used to work in, wishing them they’ll enjoy their stay, a concept used in one of the most successfully experimental albums of all time – ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. Not that I’m comparing.

Yet there’s something endearing about this album, it encapsulates the feel of the outskirts and transparent glamour of Vegas’s well known underbelly, yet also explores the end of youth and the beginning of mid-life, within ‘For Reasons Unknown’ – “I packed my case, I checked my face, I look a little bit older, I look a little bit colder” and even more so in the stroke of brilliance that is “Why Do I Keep Counting?” a song based on a technique Flowers uses to abate his fear of flying by counting, which turns to the existential as he wonders “If I pave my streets with good times, will the mountain keep on giving? And if all of our days are numbered, then why do I keep counting?”

In what could come off on the surface as more of a tribute to the great Rock influences -Springsteen, The Beatles, Lou Reed, Bowie – all of which you can imagine stood in the studio when it was recorded, underneath the mature songwriting and layered melodies really make rock their own, and set them apart from the image they created with Hot Fuss. A brilliant re-invention, in case you haven’t heard.

TheFinalLastReviewer

Album Review – Parquet Courts (or Parkay Quarts) – Content Nausea

Velvet Overground

To be somewhat successful in the music industry, you have to be different from everyone else, yet somehow be the same; sound similar to current bands yet do something in such a way that you might get noticed (this rule generally applied to the countless indie bands of the mid -2000’s). So when it comes to Brooklyn based shoegazer – rock band Parquet Courts, you have to ask just how many things are they doing differently. Is it frontman Andrew Savage’s furiously dazed spoken wordplay? Is it the simplistically catchy riffs coming from Austin Brown’s guitar, or the DIY sound the band creates that suggests it comes straight from a small, sweaty crowded basement somewhere in Brooklyn? It’s hard to know. Yet they are just different enough from other psych Americana artists out there to be refreshingly original.

Having released two well received albums, Light up Gold and this year’s Sunbathing Animal, they have quickly followed up with the experimental Content Nausea, under alter -ego Parkay Quarts, as the drummer and bassist are off either starting families or completing degrees. It opens with muddled creeper ‘Everyday It Starts’ with both vocalists moodily chanting ‘Everyday it starts/Anxiety /And I go to bed but I never sleep.’ It’s an audio representation of insomnia through worry, and a somewhat poor choice of opener to the album, and almost puts you off listening to it altogether.

Thank Christ then for second track ‘Content Nausea’ with its accelerative galloping rhythm and constant build up, topped off with Savage’s breathless quick delivery of a hell of a long page of lyrics, which cleverly and cynically attacks the internet, modern consumerism and its effects -‘Just one more thing to replace/one more way to block your face/too much data/ too much tension Life’s lived least when less is mentioned/’. Savage talks about technology being a drug we use to ignore life and how it is tragically taking our humanity – ‘For this year it became harder to be tender/ Harder and harder to remember/ Meeting a friend/ writing a letter/Being lost/ antique rituals/All lost to the ceremony of progress’ .

Things straighten out for a cover of 13^th floor elevators’ ‘Slide Machine’ and the band’s own ‘Pretty Machines’ both of which have steady trance-inducing rhythms, the latter again decrying modern urban lifestyles (if abit more cheerily), – ‘Pretty Machines/ Expensive magazines/I’ve been tricked into buying quite a number of things’ – It’s a song for someone trying to find individuality in a society that upholds conformity.  Things get more experimental on ‘Psycho Structures’ with its ringing, telephone- in- a -cave sounding synth, the fuzzy white noise-athon of the ‘The Map’ and the odd yet amazing presence of a saxophone heavy cover of ‘These Boots Are Made For Walkin’’.

Overall, this is a deceptive side project; made in two weeks, it is short, yet its lyrical depth and simplistic, catchy music compel relisten after relisten. While this maybe an acquired taste, anyone looking for something really different from their playlist will not be disappointed.

TheFinalLastReviewer

Film Review – The Hobbit – The Battle of the Five Armies

Exit the Dragon

It’s been 11 years since director Peter Jackson closed J.R.R Tolkien’s fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings with The Return of the King; a modern epic brimming with climatic scenes, battles  and an almost never –ending….ending sequence. Since announcing he’d be taking us there and back again to Middle – Earth with the much beloved prequel The Hobbit -which also turned into a trilogy – An Unexpected Journey, The Desolation of Smaug then Battle Of…, the question on everyone’s lips was “how can you turn such a short book into a three films?”. Most of those who said this were not familiar with the work of Peter Jackson, or his extended cuts of his films that last over four hours.

Jackson’s ‘Hobbit’ is both the story of The Hobbit and other material from Tolkiens’ extensive and often mind -warping appendices, moulded together to create a fresh narrative.  It’s almost breath-taking just how much Tolkien wrote of the history of his fantasy world, and the attention to the scale of it is something both the book and the films share, and while An Unexpected Journey felt like it was stalling for more time, Battle of the Five Armies is a rush of a conclusion, tying up each of its multiple threads with the streamlined finality of Return of The King, topped with the realisation that this is definitely the last time we see Jackson’s Middle Earth.

So, we are dropped quickly into where Desolation… left off. The dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield (A show- stealing Richard Armitage) have completed their quest to reclaim their lost mountain home of Erebor from the dragon Smaug, only to accidently unleash him on the nearby (And oddly Dickensian) Lake- Town, which burns until Smaug is rather quickly brought down by Bard The Bowman (Luke Evans) who uses his son as a bow. You’ll see. It’s slightly sad to see Smaug be brushed off so quickly, especially since he was so integral to Desolation…and the original story. Still, I guess we have a battle to get to. Now that Thorin his reclaimed his home and the heap of gold within it he is overcome with ‘Dragon Sickness’ – an unhealthy obsession with his wealth that drove his father and grandfather before him mad, leading his companions concerned and the citizens of ex-Lake town, as well as an army Elves led by Thranduril (An Excellent if David- Bowie sounding Lee Pace), turning up at Erebors’ door demanding their share. One of the most intriguing parts of the story is Thorin’s struggle with madness and greed, which is played out brilliantly in a dreamlike sequence that ultimately leads to redemption, which re-creating interest in the battle as he and his companions charge into it, when all they’ d previously done is sit about quietly – James Nesbitt only gets two lines.

Meanwhile, Gandalf (Ian Mckellan) is prisoner in the lair of Sauron the Necromancer, but help is on the way. This thread is brushed aside quickly aswell, which too is disappointing, as the build up to it in the other films now just seems like hot air. Still it leads to quite a trippy face off. It seems most of the other stories are wrapped up hastily so we can get on with the main battle, which is a large and lengthy one, filled with inventive action sequences (Legolas does so many amazing things it makes you wonder if he was even bothered in the Fellowship) yet lacks the same feel of The Return Of The King’s Pellenor Fields, which has a powerful theme of light v. dark. The point of the five armies in Tolkien’s book is to underline the horrors and futility of war, whereas Jackson’s feels like it could have been imagined by a slightly to bloodthirsty child, one populated with Ray Winstone- looking trolls and a Distractingly CGI-ed dwarven Billy Connelly ( ?!? Why did they ask him if they were going to CGI his face? Comic relief? There’s a serious actor talking to someone that looks like his face has melted.)

Another annoying distraction is in the form of Alfrid (Ryan Gage) cursed from the start with the least Middle- Earth name ever, he  is to The Hobbit what Jar Jar Binks is to Star Wars.The film thunders to its finale with face off upon face off, with multiple characters squaring off against chief orc villains Bolg and Azog.

One of the reliefs of this film is that we see much more of The Hobbit himself – Bilbo Baggins – than we did in the last one, with Martin Freeman slipping as easily into his role as Bilbo slips on the one ring. He takes centre stage once more at the ending, returning to an empty home, telling his thoughts in one impressively complex expression.

Overall, it is a spectacular finale to a trilogy that will sadly always sit in the Lord of the Rings’ shade, but this is a compliment as the film features a tremendous cast, vividly gorgeous cinematography and a good solid ending to a story which, like its filmic predecessor, will now forever be in our history.

Album Review – Superfood – Don’t Say That

Food for thought?

To be ‘Retro’ has become something of an over-used angle in the current music scene, whether its recalling sounds of 50’s/60’s rockabilly (The Strypes, Jake Bugg) or 80’s style synth (HAIM). Is it simply to emulate the bands from the era, or a way to stand out from the overflowing number of artists gunning for a record deal? In the modern age of corporately manufactured music, are the majority of artists looking back to times when music was simply about the music; about expression and the joys of simply creating something? This approach seems to apply to Superfood – a band who takes themselves about as seriously as their name suggests, and whose influences, while ranged, mainly revolve around madcap 90’s Britpop.

Their debut album ‘Don’t Say That’, is buzzing with positive adolescent energy throughout, starting with ‘You Can Believe’- a rousing, sleeves – up approach against negativity, which followed swiftly by the eponymous track ‘Superfood’, with a bendy- guitar chorus that could have been played by ‘Country house’/’Parklife’ era – Blur.  Many of the influences to ‘Don’t Say That’ can be heard easily –the shared shouted vocals of singer Dom Ganderton and co. sound like they could sing all of Supergrass’ songs to a tee, and the picked guitar progression would sit in with Oasis’ Definitely maybe. It’s not the most original an album – the thing that stands out about it is that it’s just abit of fun. It has a dreamy energy that conjures up images not unlike the Beatles’ ‘Hard Day’s night’ movie montage – simply running about and being daft.  Many of the songs that feature are mostly about daydreaming or adventure – standout track ‘Right On Satellite’ is about going away; ‘Good To See You’ personifies a garden. They get most experimental on ‘Melting’ which for one reason or another breaks into a piano and bass stomp exactly like ELO’s’ ‘Mr. Blue Sky’.

Overall, ‘Don’t Say That’ is an album of things we’ve all heard before in indie, yet mashed up and blended in such a way it could be called unique. While it may get samey after a few listens, and not really be endearing because it doesn’t feature successive clever wordplay or makes a statement about current times, it’s the refreshing view of ‘Hey, isn’t everything about life amazing?!’ that makes Superfood’s debut a noticeable standout from the rest.

TheFinalLastReviewer

Gig Review – Band of Skulls/Bo Ningen – Leadmill/Sheffield – 03/11/14

“Sing- along if you know the words, Sing-along if you don’t. We’re all friends here” mumbles Band of Skulls’ lead singer/guitarist Russell Marsden, mid -set just before breaking into rock stomper ‘Brothers and Sisters’, one of the tracks from their third and latest album ‘Himalayan’. The venue is packed to the brim, but not sold out, and while the crowd aren’t jumping around to some of Band of Skull’s faster tracks, every song encourages a sea of nodding heads and raised arms when the trio reach one of their inevitable rising harmonies.

There’s a relaxed atmosphere to the gig; which is surprising considering the crowd witnessed the total awe inspiring mind-fuck that was support band ‘Bo Ningen’, a transvestite Japanese metal/punk band that, while getting a few laughs at first, played songs with such brilliant speed and intensity that towards the end of their set they could have asked the crowd to march on parliament, and they would have done. It’s rare that a support act is a tough act to follow, and it was good to see, yet better was to hear Band of Skulls, that while looking and sounding like the other family members from Kings of Leon come from South-Hampton.

They don’t really have their own distinct sound, instead shifting between T-Rex inspired Glam rock to the low-fi garage sounds of the White Stripes, with the occasional slow and melodic song that would sit well on a hypothetical modern Led-Zeppelin album. This isn’t a bad thing though; the angst-y word play and melodies of Marsden’s song writing make them unique, and the intertwining vocals of his and bassist Emma Richardson give each song they share a grandiose feel, especially on set opener ‘Himalaya’.  It’s interesting rock and roll, blended between new and old, and while people looking for a gig to throw themselves around at may be surprised, they won’t be disappointed. Especially for when the band go into an instrumental with such crunching guitar and bass it felt that the crescendo threatened to turn the venue into a gigantic smoking crater. Now go and see them.

TheFinalLastReviewer

Film Review – Fury

Apocalypse Nope

It’s the closing days of World War Two, and the allies are pushing into Nazi Germany, among them the battle hardened crew of Sherman tank ’Fury’. The Sergeant of which – Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier (Brad Pitt) has seen them through everything, and only wants to make sure they all make it through to the end. However, the arrival of a new recruit Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), is a problem for Wardaddy, because Norman’s lack of war experience threatens the integrity and therefore lives of the crew, so he resolves to quickly educate Norman in the harsh brutalities of war…

The film’s premise is promising, even moreso since it’s written and directed by David Ayer, who’s also made such gritty and gripping thrillers and End Of Watch and Training Day, it’s a film that could really turn the genre around from Film history’s previous clichés of romanticism of camaraderie and heroism in war, as is its’ aim. The problem with ‘Fury’ is that it is tries so hard to do this, and ends up unsubtly covering a lot of things that have (as horrible as it is to say) already been done in war cinema.  There’s the tank crew – a religious man (Shia LaBeouf), a tough guy who turns out to be nice in the end (Jon Berthernal), a hispanic gunner who regularly jokes about his stereotype (Micheal Pena) and a captain who just wants to end the war and go home. This is the group of American soldiers in Saving Private Ryan, only they had more character and less screen time.

In Fury, you don’t really care for any of the main characters. The only thing we really know (and this is overplayed) is just how far they’ve gone as a unit and how many terrible things they’ve seen. You don’t even care for the plucky recruit who does and witnesses so many disturbing things in the space of a weekend that close to the end we don’t know if he’s toughened up or has just gone mad. We certainly don’t care for him any more than we did at the start of the film, where he cleans bits of his predecessor’s face out of his gunner’s seat. The only truly original part of the film is a tense encounter between the crew and two beautiful German civilian women, which narratively takes a left turn from where we all assume it is going, instead turning into a dinner scene so bizarre that to take it seriously is laughable. The whole film murkily plods to a brave last stand scenario against a superior force (Platoon, Saving Private Ryan again), where grenades don’t work like they really would, SS  German soldiers are unrealistically stupid, and Norman the recruit completes his fate you could see coming from the beginning.

The redeeming feature of Fury is its’ art direction and visuals. A pancaked corpse goes under the tank tracks. Among the German prisoners is a woman in a wedding dress. Through costume and props it’s very believable that we are in WW2. There’s a lot of mud and smoke- it’s dirty, and the actors look very –un-hollywood. Apparently Shia LaBeouf didn’t wash the entire time he was on set, and even pulled out one of his teeth for authenticity. Which is probably why his character ends up crying in every scene he’s in. All the actors do pull off great performances, it’s just too bad the script doesn’t hit what it sets out to be – a gritty and realistic envision of war and its’ effects on the psyche (Apocalypse now, Platoon, Saving Private Ryan). Disappointed?  Watch HBO series Band of Brothers, or Clint Eastwood’s heart-wrenchingly brutal Letters from Iwo Jima, as they are both what Fury should have been.

TheFinalLastReviewer

Film Review – Gone Girl

Chasing Amy

Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) comes home on the afternoon of his and his wife Amy’s (Rosamund Pike) fifth wedding anniversary to find she’s gone missing. Signs of a struggle lead to a highly publicised police investigation, with the media perpetually pointing at Nick being the lead suspect. Just where has the Gone Girl…gone?

It’s important to know that David Fincher, who has directed such tense thrillers as Seven, Zodiac, the American adaption of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (A  book  that was originally titled ‘Men who hate women’ – something  which is an integral theme in Gone Girl) and the stylistic brutality that is Fight Club, is at the helm for Gone Girl as well, so those familiar with his work may know what to expect – a tense, clever yet brutal thriller that grabs the audience by the scruff of the neck and doesn’t let go until the credits start rolling. Just don’t try to guess how it might end.

The film is told from two perspectives – Nick and Amy’s. Nick’s perspective tells of the present investigation into his wife’s disappearance, and the immediate pressure put on him to look…innocent. He may or may not have killed his wife, but Nick is a hard man to read, he doesn’t know how to act for the situation, and the media doesn’t help. People accuse him of being a ‘wife killer’ for awkwardly smiling next to a picture of a poster of his missing wife, and again for genuinely helping a blind man at a drive for volunteers to help find his wife.

While Ben Affleck’s acting is often the brunt of criticism itself (There was a multitude of online petitions to stop him being cast as Batman in the upcoming Batman V Superman/ Justice League / Avengers Assemble mimic film) it is utilised well here, the character of Nick is a wooden one; his feelings are hidden in a middle ground so we can’t tell who he really is, and what his (sometimes questionable) motives are. As all is revealed another realisation is how good an actor he is, even if at times he sounds a little like he’s channelling Game of Thrones’ star Peter Dinkledge.

Amy’s perspective is told through diary entries that detail the couple’s first meeting, romance and eventual marriage. This is a sort of rom-com blooming romance, the words they share are witty, smart and at times superficial, they go on anniversary day treasure hunts and buy the same gifts for each other (‘We’re so cute I want to punch us in the face’ Amy remarks at one point) but then throw a recession, two job losses and troubling times at the couple and things take a darker turn. Both Nick and Amy are much more than two dimensional characters, our perceptions of them are twisted constantly and Rosemond Pike plays her part brilliantly – while Amy is ‘gone’ she is the centre of attention up until the end. They’re backed up by an excellent supporting cast , including Neil Patrick Harris, who you’ll never see in the same way again.

So Gone Girl is what should be expected from David Fincher, a suspenseful thriller that also explores just what public appearance is to people, especially couples, and what a marriage would be like if there was no little secrets from each other, just bare honesty. Is our media- lead society lacking in humanity? Gone Girl answers this when a journalist shouts ‘louder!’ as Amy’s stricken parents give their first appeal. This along with the age old battle of the sexes is a major subject.  Talkshow host Ellen Abbot (Missi Pyle) is so ruthlessly ‘desperate’ to expose Nick as a wife killer solely on conjecture makes you question what the reaction would be were Nick the missing one. The only thing that seems to be lacking is that after the constant build-up and theoretical climax of the film, the story keeps going, and winds down into a conclusion that has already been given already, making the ending seem overly insistent in a film that doesn’t need to be. I mean would it really be necessary to have another scene after Seven’s ending, or Fight Clubs?  This is a small thing in an otherwise great film, and is definitely worth a watch. Also, f your one of those that sees the twist coming, you should probably consider becoming a detective…

TheFInalLastReviewer

Gig Review – The Libertines – Dusseldorf, Germany 05/10/14

What Became Of The Likely Lads…

“What the hell are we doing in Dusseldorf anyway?!” Yells Pete Doherty as The Libertines take to the stage, before tearing into shambolic track ‘The Delaney’ that sends a wave machine –style ripple of excited jumping fans through the crowded Mitsubishi Electric Music Halle in Dusseldorf, Germany. Good question Pete; he shouts it as though he had a hell of a night out in England only to wake up in Germany 15 minutes before the gig starts – and while the band are in top form tonight he occasionally forgets the words to certain songs (most ironically during ‘The Saga’, which is about certain ‘problems’ that led him away from his band and his friends) but we can’t hold that against him. It’s charming. A simple hand –to –the forehead glimpse to the crowd every so often has them roaring with excitement, and why not?  As cult bands go the Libertines are definitely in the top few, there was a huge turnout when they announced their Hyde Park comeback slot earlier this year, a gig that featured a crowd crush that left a fair few people hospitalised – and while the crowd in Dusseldorf are throwing themselves round, it’s all good. Even when Doherty headbutts an elephant-football mascot that wanders onstage during ‘Albion’, and  a mosh pit the size of a black hole forms for favourite ‘Don’t Look Back Into The Sun’.

It’s not a greatest hits sort of set, they play nearly everything from their catalogue, with two new songs thrown in, presumably for the new album that they’ve said will ‘probably happen’. Otherwise it’s all for the band’s nostalgia, they come on to ‘We’ll Meet Again’, old photos light the stage screen, other frontman/guitarist Carl Barat and Pete share a fag while talking to each other about ‘basement days’, and the rest of the band sit around on stage while either of them  do a solo acoustic song  – the gig itself seems more like a rehearsal and everyone’s just wandered in. It’s great for everyone, except bassist John Hassall who wears an expression for the entire gig likes he’s left the oven on at home or something.  Drummer Gary Powell closes the gig epically by adopting a stance that suggests he’s about to flying kick the audience, then roaring ‘DUSSELDORF! YOU WERE GREAT! YOU’RE ALL LIBERTINES!’  Just after Carl promises everyone that we’ll be hearing from them soon. If they continue with gigs like this one, I certainly hope we will.

The FinalLastReviewer

ALBUM REVIEW – JAMIE T – CARRY ON THE GRUDGE

Jamie’s addiction

It’s been five years since Jamie Treays – Jamie T – released his second album, energetic indie/rap combo ‘Kings and Queens’, with its sharp lyrics on going-nowhere urban youth and society’s cold shoulder to the working class who are colder because of it (‘Stone, glass, concrete and gravel, all we’ve got to keep us together’– The Man’s Machine), intertwined with catchy indie rock choruses.

So when he announced his comeback and new album – an announcement that made some of his fans combust with excitement (probably) did they expect more of the same? Because his five year absence has definitely brought changes. It’s not said what Jamie T was doing while away from the spotlight, but ‘Carry on the Grudge’ is an album full of darkness; not only through thoughts of characters over the edge – but also the pieces to form an underlying personal  story of the descent  into addiction.

Many of the albums’ tracks tell of the fall from grace, opener ‘Limits Lie’, with its twinkly trance – like keyboards and murmuring vocals outline someone on top of the world, someone thinking they’re unstoppable, causing a friend’s overdose. ‘Don’t You Find’ is a song of obsession with mournful chants and a catchy string break, while ‘Turn On The Light’ is a bleak, metaphoric decay of a couple struggling to survive together – “Got a Good looking corpse hanging onto me tightly/ through this land I rot” – the lyrics are reminiscent of Kings and Queen’s views on the down and out, yet they are sharper, un-compromising. It’s a great, intense start to the album, an intensity only momentarily broken by ‘Zombie’, a festival crowd -friendly track that echoes Jamie T’s most popular track– ‘Sticks and Stones’ – and maintains energy whilst he sings of being a mess.  Then it continues to ‘The Prophet’, which slurs like a hung-over  Kasabian  about witnessing a desperate, crack-addled woman being thrown out of a pub, while he himself confesses that ‘It can’t be any worse than what I’ve been up to’.

The album then loses its momentum as it throws out tracks that seem like a distraction if anything else, ‘Trouble’ sounds like his own ‘Rock The Casbah’, yet ‘Rabbit Hole’ plays to Jamie’s strength of delivering a catchy indie chorus, yet offers little difference as it sticks to the theme of descent and loss of self-control.

Then we hit ‘Peter’ a dirty blues-stomping standout track that cleverly personifies Jamie’s bad choices, self-hatred and negativity as an alter ego. ‘Peter doesn’t like this song/Peter doesn’t like my friends/Peter wants to fuck your girl/ Peter wants to fuck the world’ It’s a roaring chorus and the lyrics are snarled with contempt –‘Peter doesn’t think he’s pretty /in fact he knows he’s ugly’ – it’s a direct attack on the internal confidence struggle we all have, and on an album full of great tracks it is by far the standout.

After that, the darkness of descent brightens as the last three tracks go into a positive mood, one being ‘Murder Of Crows’ a beautiful song of perseverance which contrasts the album’s previous pessimism.  ‘Sticks a roof down on a meagre frame /It’s hard on the guts/ I’m gonna grip to the rail/I’m hung and I’m hooked, fixing a sail’ It’s the realisation of having hit the lowest of the low, and resolving to be better again, no matter what.

The young, in your face confidence of his previous albums may have faded, and the rap has been cut out or slowed down, but Jamie T’s song-writing is still just as intelligent, maybe more so, and ‘Carry on the Grudge’ is solid proof of its strength. The uncompromising realism of his storytelling evokes real emotion, and the album is definitely worth a listen.

TheFinalLastReviewer

Album Review – The Allah La’s – Worship The Sun

Easy listening just got easier…

If you were one of those that managed to catch a listen of Californian rockers Allah La’s self-titled debut back in 2012, you should be familiar with the breezy, retro sound they produce; a sound driven by catchy guitar hooks and relaxed, upbeat tempos. If you weren’t, then not to worry, for their second album, Worship the Sun is pretty much more of the same. And by no means is this a bad thing.

Of course, a lot of pressure is put on a fresh band for the ‘difficult second album’, especially for those that have made a solid debut, because it’s hard to tell what to improve upon, what to change. They haven’t. And this would be considered a risk, if the Allah La’s sound wasn’t so mellow as to make you wonder if the band members ever knew of or even felt the pressure.

And so, images of palm trees and sand, a hell of a lot of sand comes to mind as we’re brought back into to the relaxed, 60’s dream of chilling out in the sun through clean-cutting guitar rhythms and high clear lead notes. “All the people you’ve abandoned/ Voices carry through the canyon” singer Miles Michaud chants lazily on opening track ‘De Vida Voz’, backed by uplifting harmonies from the rest of the band. The lyrics are reflective throughout the record, nostalgic (‘Had it all’ is someone recalling a time when, you guessed it, they ‘Had it all’) and at times melancholic, especially in the middle track ‘Nothing to Hide’, with its mournful vocals and echoing guitar, bringing the album out of its easy going consistency, if only momentarily.

The album is pretty samey otherwise, with the exception of ‘501 – 415’ which brings out more of a modern psychedelic/shoe gazer sound than the 60’s nostalgia of the other tracks. Two instrumentals also feature – the free-ride ‘Ferus Gallery’ sounds like it should be part of the soundtrack for a Jean Luc Godard movie, while the brooding pace of ‘No Werewolf’ – the second to last track, threatens to close the album on a bit of a low, so thank god for ‘Every Girl’, the hedonistic closer reminiscent of the Kingsmen’s drunken college anthem ‘Louie Louie’.

All in all, this is solid, simplistic sounding yet intricately crafted music that’s great to relax to if nothing else. Give it a listen and it’s guaranteed that by the end of it you’ll feel the sand between your toes and the breeze of the east coast Californian Sea on your face. Even if you’re just sat on the bus….

TheFinalLastReviewer