I was wondering what the hell this lot had been up to for the rest of 2009! And with good reason: I was very, very impressed by London act The High Wire’s short but sweet Coldplay support slot when I caught them in The O2 last December. Quite an impressive live act, their debut mini-album ‘Ahead of the Rain’ wasn’t too shabby either. The band have spent the year beavering away at newmaterial, and a single is due out next Monday: ‘Odds and Evens’. The group peddle quite a good line in psychedelic pop… but ‘Leave Me In Love’ is by far the best thing they have done to date. A simply glorious track that really shows how far the band have come in a year: the addition of synths and handclaps, small as it may seem, has done wonders for their sound. This augurs very well for full-length debut ‘The Sleep Tape’ due in March 2010; consider our appetites well and truly whetted.
The affirmed highlight of ‘Kings & Queens’ arrives in technicolour, as cheeky Jamie T rides golf carts, walks the streets and just generally “hangs out”. This is a fantastic choice for a single, and hopefully the big-time DJ’s will take note and get playing.
ALBUM REVIEW: Mumford and Sons – Sigh No More Words: Gareth O’Malley
First of all, this album really is going to come into its own as autumn heralds winter, so ‘Sigh No More’’s release has been timed perfectly. It is the kind of album that is perfect for this time of year: lush and upbeat, but with a dark heart.
Mumford and Sons is comprised of Marcus Mumford (guitar, drums), Winston Marshall (banjo, dobro), Ben Lovett (keyboards, organ) and Ted Dwane (double bass). All four take vocal parts too, and this leads to the creation of the foundation of their sound: harmonies, like the one heard at the end of (not to mention, during) ‘White Blank Page’, an uplifting four-minute wonder.
The album gets off to an exceptional start with the rousing title track. Mumford’s vocals may be seen as an acquired taste by some, but he puts in a brilliant performance here, particularly as the song nears its end.
Lyrics-wise, the theme of relationships features strongly here (‘Love will not betray, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free’ is the rallying call on the aforementioned ‘Sigh No More’), and taken on their own, they can be quite moving. ‘My head told my heart, ‘Let love grow’ / But my heart told my head, ‘This time, no” – lines that feature on the Arcade Fire-esque ‘White Winter Winds’.
So, the album hides the starkness of its lyrics behind soaring melodies, to great effect, not least in lead single ‘Little Lion Man’, a truly anthemic track, with great singalong qualities, and one of the finest climaxes I have heard this year. ‘It was not your fault, but mine / And it was your heart on the line / I really fucked it up this time, didn’t I, my dear?’, runs its chorus. The song has ‘hit’ written all over it.
However, while the single might be seen as the strongest track here on first listen, as you give the album time, you realise it is simply one of quite a few strong tracks. The album moves into darker territory with a song that can only be described as stunning. ‘Thistle and Weeds’ is an absolute triumph, the band’s best song to date: a sprawling mini-epic which is unlike anything else on here… except, perhaps, penultimate track ‘Dust Bowl Dance’. A bitter song, as evinced by some of its lyrics (‘How can you love what is is you have got? / When you took it all from the weak hands of the poor? / Liars and thieves, you know not what is in store / There will come a time I will look in your eyes / You will pray to the god that you’ve always denied’), it builds to a rocking climax that shows that the band aren’t afraid to go all-out.
Of course, to finish the album on such a dark note would have been unwise, even if, in my opinion, ‘Dust Bowl Dance’ would have done an excellent job of wrapping things up. That task is left to the aptly-titled ‘After The Storm’, an uplifting acoustic song. By the end of the record, one thing is clear: Mumford and Sons are damn good at what they do. Consistent from beginning to end, ‘Sigh No More’ is a very good debut indeed.
It’s been just over a month since we came across The Drums and my word, things have progressed fast. Not only have they just played their first show in London, but even Boy George turned up to take a peek. It’s funny how even from watching low quality footage of this gig, labelled by the band as their best of twenty shows so far, you get the fullest sense of how far this group are going to go.
It all feels slightly reminiscent of the rapid growth of The Strokes in the early noughties, only without the dry patch in music prior to their arrival. Things might be dire financially for most of us, but music’s still having a laugh. Although you do feel like The Drums have timed their entrance to perfection. By 2010, which will no doubt be “their year”, they’ll be welcomed with open arms.
photo source: klipomaniaco
As Summer turns to Autumn, Jamie from the XX has suitably transformed Londoner Jack Penate’s hot-and-sweaty summertime anthem into a night-time, dubstep classic.
Both these artists have a lot going for them. When you’ve got just one member of the XX blasting out these underground remixes from all sides, anything can happen. Jack Penate has meanwhile strengthened his credibility tenfold with a turning-heads second album.
ALBUM REVIEW: The xx – XX
words: Jamie Milton| scribed for thisisfakediy
The xx defy the claim that gadgets kill intimacy. The base of their sound comes from a sampler, manually applied with tight, short-spanning rhythms and deep bass notes. Amongst this are delay-enhanced guitar patterns, adding bulk to a lost, spacious atmosphere. But in Romy Madley-Croft and even more so, Oliver Sim, we find soul coming from all sides. Their softly spoken vocals feel inches away, close enough to hear an inhalation, a whimper even. And their debut album offers a simple input on love, the most human of subjects. This all adds up to a unique entity: Whilst one can draw parallels audibly with the likes of Burial and Interpol, neither of the aforementioned venture into vulnerability quite as much as The xx.
“I think we’re superstars, you say you think we are the best thing“. With love, Sim and co. offer very little lyrically in terms of wallowing in self-pity and wandering into territories as dark as the sound behind the words and this contrast works perfectly. ‘Vcr’ is untouchable, convinced of its own triumph. When love takes a turn, as it does in ‘Crystalised’, instead of it being a stereotypical tale of “sob, sob, he doesn’t love meee!”, the song covers the strain of being asked to do too much (“Do I have to keep up the pace, to keep you satisfied?“). Tension in lyrics is amplified ten-fold by the pitch-black minimalism, the interchanging voices of Oliver and Romy, the gigantic, James Bond-esque chorus melody. ‘Crystalised’ is fully aware that the listener is on their knees, begging for everything to explode, and the song teases the listener, tempting them, before unleashing on two magnificent occasions.
Whilst it’s easy to address the youth and inexperience within the energy, the expert crafting of nanoseconds of priceless silence is so valuable and rare. Nothing on this record is overdone and this assures the stand-out elements become even more powerful. ‘Islands’ blossoms because of this routine, interlocking floor-shaking bass rhythms with acute, knife-edged guitar. Sim and Madley-Croft chant, “I am yours now, so now I don’t ever have to leave…” in unison. As a pack, both vocalists emerge as the brains behind the sound, or so my gut instinct tells me. However, assimilated in the soaring, 4am energy, Sim shines on his own vocally, lost in the darkness and reverb of ‘Fantasy’. His companion is just as effective in ‘Shelter’, the most basic pop song on the record: a driven, tidy plea, Madley-Croft offering to “make it better, with the lights turned on“…
“Basic Space’ however, is the defining focal point of the record. As proficient as they are in tidying up anything that sounds too exaggerated and overblown, nothing is quite as beautiful as this 21st century lullaby. Near-silent drum patterns occasionally invite themselves in between scarcely found warmth and this soulful charm we mentioned previous. Slight but stainless.
Prepare yourselves for a forthcoming decade, one with the xx’s name set in stone already. Taster or not, leaving aside what they have in store for us next, ‘XX’ is a manifesto, a declaration and a masterclass in how to apply silence and beauty at the same time, with such ease.
“Directed by David Wilson in very special collaboration with Fabian Berglund and Ida Gronblom from Wieden + Kennedy. Produced by Blinkink. Shot over 2 days and stop frame animated from 4,816 still images without a single moment of video footage!”
The latest single from the London trio who remain one of the most exciting UK bands for years. This video highlights their inventive talents, distracting you from the haunting electro pop sonics.
ALBUM REVIEW: The Horrors – Primary Colours words: Jamie Milton
Two years ago, Faris Rotter got beaten up on the streets of London for looking out of place. That same week, his band The Horrors found themselves on the front cover of NME. But still, opinion on the band’s music was severely divided, so much though that cynics or sceptics went as far as giving the proverbial “fuck off” to ‘Strange House’. Today, the band are proverbially embraced, returning to the front cover of the NME, Rotter is shaking hands with the masses, instead of receiving an earful and an eyeful.
What gives? ‘Sea Within A Sea’, that’s what gives. Everything the Horrors had been working towards since the pre-dawn backlash came down to how people responded to the eight-minute-long song. It was evident that they cared, that they were there to prove something. ‘Sea Within A Sea’ may be the least indicative track in terms of what occurs during ‘Primary Colours’ sound-wise, but it draws you in with an expectation of how special the Horrors might have become. Their influences, from Neu to, like it or not, Joy Division, shimmer in the background of the varied sound-scape, ranging from sensitive ambient slow-burners to the full-frontal, obnoxious and edgy evil twin of the record. Everything about the album is moulded to help achieve the band’s goals, particularly the recording process: tracks were played in an underground studio, devoid of windows or sunlight, helping to contribute to this gloomy, garage output.
‘Primary Colours’ isn’t just here to prove a point, though. Something could have been released mid-way, to suggest a smooth transitioning of ideas and output, but instead this sophomore release sounds more like a goodbye album, capable of diminishing any initial criticisms for good. Maybe Rotter and co. have more in them, but you get the sense that their masterpiece is right here, right now. It’s that unique feel to the album that doesn’t begrudge them that compliment. If in twenty years time, ‘Primary Colours’ is listen as one of the most iconic albums of all time, any newcomer wouldn’t have to listen long to see where people are coming from. It’s one of a kind in mastering the post-punk period that so many acts have woefully attempted to incorporate into their sound.
The best things come from nowhere and to say you expected exactly this dramatic shift would be point-blank lies. Yet as unexpected as it is, ‘Primary Colours’ sounds authentic, truthful in its intentions. ‘I Only Think Of You’, the elongated, drawn-out centrepiece of the record, is the frankest and boldest move the band make. Near-on-reversed strings dominate a spacey, psychedelic atmosphere, becoming oddly beautiful, as wrong as that might sound.
This exposed view of the record is restricted by a more streamlined and up-close majority of the songs. The title-track is an up-lifting venture into the more optimistic side of the songwriting, utterly compelling, almost replicable by Coldplay were it not for the dreary background garage noise and the fascinatingly darker break section. In contrast, the rest of the more pacey tracks restrain when it comes to putting on a smile. ‘Three Decades’’s free-flowing synths are distressing. ‘Do You Remember’’s disjointed guitars are equally as uncomfortable to listen to and ‘New Ice Age’ quite forcefully grabs hold of you with a striking disposition: Rotter’s opening line of “The AGONY!” is the most eye-opening split second of the entire album. However it’s when The Horrors combine gleeful sounds with miserable lyrics that victors can emerge. ‘Who Can Say’ is an anthemic tale of break-up, a theme so trivial to an on-looker, yet somehow bolstered into something huge by the crunching guitar line and Rotter’s outstanding vocal contribution. A spoken-word break to proceedings (“and when I told her, her kisses were not like before, she cried”) is capable of bringing a black tear to the eye, before luring you back into the chaotic frenzy: “Although it’s hard for me to say, I know you’re better off this way.”
And yet when ‘Sea Within A Sea’ finally arrives at the climax, as familar as it may sound to you, it remains fresh, eye-opening in comparison to the moody bliss that has a firm grip on the rest of the album. It’s still there to prove the point, to keep reminding you of how much The Horrors have changed and where their priorities lie. ‘Primary Colours’ is a rare treat in that it’s 1.entirely consistent and 2.a second album by a British band that renders their previous work obsolete. And to think, ‘Strange House’ isn’t even a terrible record. It’s just, ‘Primary Colours’ is phenomenal.
All mp3s posted on Music Fan's Mic are posted after gaining the relevant permission.
Jamie Milton began Music Fan's Mic in 2006 as a means of publishing and collecting his reviews for other publications. Since then both Milton and Gareth O'Malley are co-running the blog and posting the best new music on a regular basis.
Boom-box-in':
Yeasayer - Odd Blood LP
Final Fantasy Heartland LP
Beach House - Teen Dream LP
These New Puritans - We Want War
Gigi - The Old Graveyard
jj - The xx Intro
Toro Y Moi - Causers of This LP
Liars - Sisterworld LP
Vampire Weekend - White Sky
Los Campesinos! - In Medias Res
rankest and boldest move the band make. Near-on-reversed strings dominate a spacey, psychedelic atmosphere, becoming oddly beautiful, as wrong as that might sound.
MFM @ HYPEM
