Live Review: Pulled Apart By Horses- Welly.

Pulled Apart By Horses' last scheduled tour of the UK at the tail end of 2012 never happened,  pulled apart by unforseen circumstances. The trip was cancelled on a promise of "exciting things in the pipeline" so as we approached Spring 2014, a long time has passed with little news forthcoming. It is with a lot of excitement then, that a couple of hundred Hullensians find themselves in the Welly Club on a Sunday night awaiting PABH to make the short trip down the road from Leeds for this, the fourth stop on their tour of smaller venues in lesser visited towns.

Like the tour itself, the show starts on a lesser trodden path as the band launch into V.E.N.O.M. B-side PWR. Its singalong 'Hey Hey Heys!' and clap along rhythms give the small but lively crowd exactly what they've been waiting for; something to dance to, sing to and slam to. The energy bounces straight back to the stage; PABH are four very watchable whirlwinds. Sometimes you feel it's a shame singer Tom Hudson is also playing guitar. How would his natural energy explode without the anchor of the mic stand? Early single Meat Balloon follows and as Hull continues to lap up it's awesome, radical and totally bodacious chorus, we realise that thankfully, this isn't one of those pre-new album shows where the favourites are eschewed in favour of an overload of unfamiliar newbies.

When the newbies hit though, it doesn't affect the energy one iota. The first of them to be aired, Hot Squash, is a stunner.  If we lived in a time where the youngsters were loving guitars en masse, it would be number one this summer for sure  A stadium filling pop chorus worthy of the Foo Fighters, but retaining a hard hard edge, it is going to be very interesting to hear how it translates to the studio. The new songs are slowly unveiled through the night and there is a contrast between them and the older material; the accessibility creeping into Pulled Apart By Horses' songwriting. The stop start structure of the tracks from their self titled debut just isn't there any more. Hot Squash and Wild Fire are both fast, full of energy. Grim Deal may slow down the pace, but it's stoner grunge-with-a-groove is still as unrelenting. The Pixies may continue to crap on their own legacy, but PABH take their loud-quiet-loud influence and transform it into loud-louder-loud. Yes boys and girls, subtlety, panache and crossover appeal can be achieved without sacrificing volume and energy.

The set enters the final stretch, and Hudson is standing on a table on the edge of the crowd looking out over them and not missing a note of High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive.  Whilst this is happening it springs to mind just how goddam young the band look. Guitarist James Brown and bassist Robert Lee inparticular look barely old enough to be allowed an 18+ stamp as they entered Welly tonight, but whether that's how old they actually are, or just their youthful energy playing tricks of the mind, who knows. An hour of stage time has passed once epic set closer Den Horn winds up, but both crowd and band are still feeling that energy in every chord, just like they were an hour ago. A more lively rock show you could not wish to see.

Pulled Apart By Horses soon to be announced third album could be the one to break them out, indeed should be the one to break them out. As fantastic a venue as Welly is, there's just no justice in a world where Coldplay are playing the Royal Albert Hall as an 'intimate' warm up show and the infinitely more exciting PABH can't quite sell out tonight for theirs. It would be only what they deserve if  the next time they announce a tour of much bigger venues those unforeseen circumstances don't show their head again.

Pulled Apart By Horses are giving away a free live download of I Punched A Lion In The Throat. Grab it here...

And there's still plenty of dates left on this very tour...

April
30 Oxford Art Bar

May
01 Norwich Epic Studios
02 Stoke Sugarmill
03 Leeds Live at Leeds
04 York YO1 Festival
06 May Cambridge Portland Arms
07 Aldershot West End Centre
08 Kingston New Slang @ McClusky's
09 Brighton The Great Eascape
10 Southampton Cellar
12 Exeter Cavern
13 Plymouth White Rabbit
14 Bath Moles
15 Cardiff The Globe

The Tuts- Time To Move On.

When I saw The Tuts live pretty much a year ago to this day my thoughts on Twitter afterwards were "Riot Grrrl if Riot Grrrl were invented somewhere just inside the North Circular." They were an explosion of far-from-virtuoso rock and roll dance punk performed by three proud feminists, who had as much of a blast dancing in the crowd to Kate Nash afterwards as they did during their own support set. Charisma by the bucket load, the crowd ate out of their hands.

A year later it seems that comment, meant as big praise at the time, was damning them with faint praise. New EP 'Time To Move On' shows the trio have done just that. Lead off track Worry Warrior keeps that rock and roll dance sensibility from last year, but showcases a pop vocal reminiscent of Lily Allen mixed in with the punk ethos. If you, like me, have thought that since her comeback Ms Allen has lost her edge, releasing sentimental pap and damp squibs one after the other, this is the track for you.

It's followed by a rendition of long time Tuts favourite Dump Your Boyfriend, and it's a shrewd move to include a live in the studio rendition as opposed to something more polished. Dump Your Boyfriend is a harsh punk ode to a shitty boyfriend and the 'safety blanket' of a relationship, no wonder how crap it is. It's a message us boys should heed as well. That message would have lost something in a glossy production, and  the tune is there as strong as it is onstage, the chorus' duelling vocals buried under a satisfying power trio crunch.

The quality keeps up during the EPs latter half too. No saving of quality tracks and filling up with throwaway B-sides here. Loving It is a one and a half minute smash of Tarantino soundtrack worthy twist rhythms. 1-2-3 brings to mind The Pipettes covering Symposium, which would be just about the most beautiful thing that could ever happen in music. The EP rounds off with a remix of Worry Warrior, all dubstep rhythms and autotuned vocal. It shows the original tracks strength that it doesn't just fit into this format but excels, it could be all over Channel U or whichever the current hip channel is with the kids right now. A wonderful genre clash highlighting The Tuts songwriting ability. 

Quite simply, 'Time To Move On' is an EP that shows how much the band have leapt forward from an already strong position a year ago. All the positives that oozed from the live show and the earlier recorded work is there, but moreso. It's poppier, it's punkier, it's more aggressive and it's just better all around.  Time to move on from whatever you're doing and listen. Now.

 The Tuts 'Time To Move On' is available from their Bandcamp Page  now.

Classic Cover- Jimmy Eat World and the Greatest Cover Version Ever.

Nuance. A subtle difference in or shade of meaning, expression, or sound. In 1996, The Prodigy unleashed their biggest beast, a number one hit, still an anthem today. Firestarter. A song which it would be hard to think was capable of displaying nuance. That is until five years later, when hidden away on the B-side to their cover of Wham's Last Christmas, Jimmy Eat World had a go at it. 

From being a three minute punk-dance blast, it became a six and a half minute emo-cresendo. If you sit and listen, really listen, you realise they've managed it whilst keeping every recogniseable part of the track in tact, musically and emotionally. The guitar riffs are there, the tune is there, the passion is there. The aggression is there, they're just making you wait four minutes for it, not spunking it all over the place with the opening blast. Listening to this, it's barely noticeable how the track has built from a delicate cry to a tower of feedback, the only hint of what came before a strummed acoustic beneath. Constantly changing, building a growing, an art in nuance as the subtle shades of sound pass you by. 

This is, in my opinion, the greatest cover version ever performed. After a couple of weeks infrequent blogging due to problems with internet connections, I wanted to bring the cover version back with a real blast this week. What do you think? Is this the greatest cover version of all time? What would your nomination be?

The 1996 Britpop Mixtape.

Radio One are broadcasting a special series of shows at the moment, celebrating 20 years of Britpop. No-one can deny that twenty years ago was when the scene really hit its stride. Blur, Oasis, Suede all coming to prominence, Pulp slowly breaking the glass ceiling after several albums of toil, Elastica representing the girls. These are the bands the public remember and the bands that shaped the charts for the next two years until The Spice Girls Wannabe appeared in June '96, signalling Britpop's end.

As a massive music fan, however, it wasn't the Britpop of '94 that helped shaped my musical taste for years to come. I appreciate it all, but it's rare now I'll choose to listen to Oasis, Blur or the others from that era. Given two years to grow, the Britpop of 1996 was a much more interesting place, a much more varied sound, and a much more enjoyable thing.  Here's ten songs and events that made 1996, for me, the vintage year of Britpop...

1. THREE LIONS



Oasis may have been the flag waving, balls-out Union Jack guitar playing representation of Britpop, but in terms of musicians capturing a moment, and uniting a country, nothing did it better than this. OK, it may only represent a part of Britain, but it's still wheeled out every few years as we hope and prey that the 30 (now 48) years of hurt may come to an end. The Lightning Seeds may have enjoyed a medium amount of success, but they deserved more. Gimmicky and tied to an event it may be, but it gave them their moment in the spotlight, and their place amongst Britpop's greats.

2. THE TRAINSPOTTING SOUNDTRACK

Scotland's place in 1996's cultural lore was secured by a group of actors and a director at that time not amongst the elite. How times have changed, as Danny Boyle, Ewan McGregor and Johnny Lee Miller and co win oscars, step into the shoes of legendary Star Wars actors, and do the best Sherlock Holmes ever respectively. The soundtrack had many gems old and new, but none better than Pulp's Mile End. From the first notes, recalling the Clockwork Orange soundtrack, Jarvis brought to life an East London that may have smelt of piss, but was proud of it's heritage.

3. THREE NORTHERN IRISH TEENAGERS GAVE BRITPOP A KICK UP THE ARSE


Ash were mere kids when they recorded and released their debut record, '1977' in May 1996. It was heavier than most Britpop, but also brought with it a childlike innocence missing from the scene since the Blur Vs Oasis wars of the previous year. Still going today, with no hiatus in the middle, no acrimony, and still a vital part of the United Kingdom music scene. It's difficult to imagine a lot of classic British rock albums of the last 20 years existing without Ash,  Hundred Reason's 'Ideas About Our Station'  for example.

4. SLEEPER HIT THEIR STRIDE


Louise Wener's Sleeper were the butt of many jokes, the term Sleeperbloke inparticular becoming a well known derogatory term for invisible guys backing a female indie singer. So when their second record 'The It Girl' was released on the same day as Ash's debut it became unfairly maligned, and has been for nearly twenty years. The first, 'Smart' was a fun pop record, but Louise's songwriting and skill as a lyricist came of age in '96. Single What Do I Do Now? the story of a couple falling apart reaches a peak in the last pleading verse as it weaves its narrative with an honest fervour


5. THE BAND LUMPED IN WITH BRITPOP THAT HAVE GONE ON TO BE SO MUCH MORE


Bis, famously, were the first unsigned band to appear on Top Of The Pops. Their lively, infectious Kandy Pop from the 'Secret Vampire Soundtrack' EP pushed into the top 30 on the back of the appearance. Many didn't enjoy it, writing it off as daft bubblegum pop, but over the course of their recently resurrected career, they proved adept at disco, electronica and everything else they turned their hand to.


6. THE FORGOTTEN CLASSIC


If you remember Good Intentions by Livingstone, well done. One of the gems of Britpop, I couldn't tell you if they did anything else, or achieved anything more. All I remember is a CD single with a rocket on the front. Where I've got it from I've no idea, and to be honest I'm amazed I found it on Youtube, although not in great quality and with lots of irrelevant pictures of vampires and skeletons.


7. THE BOO RADLEYS GO ROCK


Wake Up Boo quickly became very annoying, so it's not a surprise most people ignored the following album, C'Mon Kids. The title track itself is heavy, exciting, and full of attitude. This is what we really wanted Oasis to sound like, not the pansy-Beatles aping shite they released later in their career, isn't it?

8. BRITPOP EMBRACED OTHER INFLUENCES


Kula Shaker appeared with their debut record 'K' late in the year, and it went straight to number 1. The bands psychedelic sound and hippy look were different from anything else Britpop had thrown up so far, and they stood a mile above a lot of the other new Britpop bands of the era because of it.


9. THE LAST GREAT BRITPOP BAND WAS BORN


It was at the tail end of '96 that Mansun unleashed their greatest single, Wide Open Space, the album it appeared on 'Attack Of The Grey Lantern' following the next year. Out of everything here, Paul Draper and co sound the least of their time. This track could've released in '96, '99, 2002, today and it would still sound fresh and exciting. They were, and remain, the buffer between Britpop and the British indie bands of ten years later, the Kaiser Chiefs for example.


10. THE (FIRST) DEATH OF THE STONE ROSES

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There was always something hanging over British music in the early 90s. The influence of the Stone Roses. When they imploded at Reading 1996, Mani and Ian Brown the only remaining original members, what they'd do next, what they'd unleash on the world became less important. The last remaining great of the 80's may have underwhelmed with 'The Second Coming' but the fact they'd released that first record meant everyone was always on watch for their next move. Following this god awful performance, the fear of comparison to them didn't matter to anyone except The Seahorses. Ash even stole their pyro, using it at the end of their own set, or so the legend goes. The next generation took over now.

A Tribute To The Ultimate Warrior.

April 1st, 1990, Toronto, Canada. Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior. Sixty eight thousand people watched on in the arena, many more worldwide. Wrestlemania 6.

Two and a half years later, a thirteen year old boy sat in a front room in Kent. At that time, Toronto seeming like an unbridgeable distance, but the time since the event meant nothing, I was mesmerised. A recent convert to wrestling, I hadn't seen 'Mania 6 before. To make it up to me that we hadn't managed to get tickets to Summerslam '92, I was taken to Woolworths and was bought 'Manias 6 and 7, and twenty years plus later, the purple lightning design on those cases brings a sense of excitement to me more than any remastered DVD, any Blu-ray, any watch when you like WWE Network can. The show on the whole was one of those old school Wrestlemanias with seemingly hundreds of matches. 14, in reality, but compared to today's 7 or 8 on a show an hour longer, it was loads. Of course, that meant the time of the matches suffered, but what drew me in was the spectacle, just how COOL everyone was. The Hart Foundation destroying the Bolsheviks in nineteen seconds! AMAZING! The guy who was so rich he had HIS OWN TITLE! BRILLIANT! The WWF I'd watched up until now was great, but it wasn't like this. The wrestling I'd watched up until now was good, but this was something else.

But all the matches that came before paled in comparison. When Hogan and Warrior stepped into the ring together, something magical happened. Now, with a lot more experience of being a wrestling fan behind me, I know these two were limited in the ring. But that didn't matter. The charisma didn't ooze out of them, it shone. It filled the arena, past it's walls, out of the city limits of Toronto, through not just space, but time as well, to England in the year 1992. The match was more than double the length of anything else on the card. They fought for over 20 minutes! They kicked out of each others finishers! NO-ONE KICKS OUT AFTER A LEG DROP! To me, this was the match that made me fall in love with the sport. No chain wrestling, no spring dives out of the ring, no bodies being put to ridiculous lengths to entertain. Even without the benefit of me seeing months and months of build up, the match in isolation told me a story, and when the victor, The Ultimate Warrior stood holding two titles at the end of the night, well, he out cooled everything else on that card, and pretty much everything I'd seen up to that point in my life.

In my opinion, that match is the template that every Wrestlemania great is now built on. The longest match on a Wrestlemania card to that point by over five minutes, the longest until the iron man match between Hart and Michaels at Wrestlemania 12. It's in that 20-30 minute bracket is where all the classics now sit. No need for a bad guy, this was for honour, paving the storyline path for the Undertaker vs Michaels matches from 'Manias 25 and 26. And for me, it showed me exactly what there was to love about wrestling. In 2014, I love a good pure wrestling match between two masters of the craft as much as the next fan, but that's not what draws me back time and again. What draws me back is the stories, the showmanship, the entertainment, and it was this match that really cemented to me how it should be done. The first 'Mania I ever saw, 8, saw the The Ultimate Warrior make his return. When I watched this, and 'Mania 7 afterwards, and I saw his retirement match with Randy Savage, I realised why it was such a big deal. This guy was the best. His work at Wrestlemanias 6, 7 and 8 made a lifelong fan of me. He made me believe that in wrestling you will never know what will happen next, who will turn up when, or where the classics will happen.

Without him, on Sunday night, I wouldn't have been sat up until the middle of the night with my head in my hands as the ref's hand hit the mat for the third time, the next step in the Undertaker's near 25 year streak storyline. I wouldn't have been jumping around the house, pointing my hands in the air, silently mouthing yes, trying to let off the emotion of Daniel Bryan's near-year long battle for the title, trying not to wake the rest of the house. And I wouldn't be sat in a pub right now, trying to explain in words what the Ultimate Warrior meant to me in the most positive way possible, without speculating about the events of the last forty eight hours, and how his health looked on Raw this week. It's the most shocking death in wrestling for a long time, overshadowing anything that happened on Wrestlemania 30, or could happen on any storylined programming WWE ever puts its logo on.

Many times The Ultimate Warrior made his return to the WWE, only to be gone again soon after, but no one expected this. No one expected him to be gone for good 24 hours after his final appearance in a Raw ring. The fact you weren't always there, like Hogan, the fact you weren't always having one more match like Flair made your legend grow, your mystique burn brighter, and it makes the small body of work you left us with all the more important.  We may not have agreed with everything you ever said, heck, we didn't even always understand it, but the one last  look we had at the man behind the facepaint this week will make us miss you even more and your humility in forgiving those who fought to tarnish your legacy is your last lesson to us all.

Rest In Peace. And Thank you. 

Sunday (Monday) Classic Cover.... Nickelback, Kid Rock and Dimebag Darrell

Let's get this straight from the start. I'm not a fan of Nickelback at all. Like a lot of people, I find them bland and uninspiring. They have their OK moments. Burn It To The Ground for example fit's just right as the theme of WWE's Monday Night Raw but I wouldn't choose to put it on at home. But there's one thing in their back catalogue that I am happy to do just that; their version of Elton John's Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting. From the first note it adds a beef and brawn to a track that, despite it's classic status and catchy tune, has always sounded like it needed the kick up the arse it's title suggests.

But it gets even better when Kid Rock appears just after the minute mark. As soon as he stacattos "p-p-p-packed pretty tight in here tonight", the cover moves up a level. It stops being a great revision of world class songwriting and starts drawing images to mind, images of bikers, booze, and brawling in a tiny bar somewhere off a Texan highway. To me, it signifies America. A pretty good achievement for a Canadian band. Oh, and the solo is a Dimebag classic. That helps too.

Who should be in Nirvana 2K14?

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has a rule. A band or artist cannot become a member until twenty five years after the release of their debut album. With 'Bleach' just past that anniversary,and today marking twenty years since Kurt Cobain's death, it's not surprising Nirvana have been voted in at the first time of asking. In five days time, at the Barclay's Centre in Brooklyn, Kurt, Krist and Dave will be inducted by Michael Stipe of R.E.M.

Every band entering the hall of fame this year has confirmed they will be performing themselves, or what tribute will have the honour, with one noteable exception. Nirvana. We had our first hint who it would be when a few days ago, Krist Novoselic stated on Twitter "Been playing those @HalLeonardBooks bass tabs to get up to speed. Muscle memory is good too. #PracticeMakesPerfect @nirvana". It was easy not to get too excited by this, the tweet was posted on the first of April after all, but it wouldn't have been a very funny joke. The surviving members of Nirvana do have recent previous, performing for charity in 2012 alongside Paul McCartney. But they didn't perform any Nirvana tracks. What if they did decide that twenty years marked the point at which they were happy to take that step, to perform together again, as Nirvana?

Who would front the band? The frontrunner at the moment appears to be Stipe. Stipe was a close friend of Cobain's who, if rumours are to be believed, was collaborating with him on early demos for the fourth Nirvana LP at the time of his suicide. Stipe would be able to pull off Kurt's occasional incoherent mumble was aplomb. He was the instigator of the art in American Alternative rock. But he couldn't be trusted with the raw, animal screams and howls that Kurt was known for. Stipe is one of the greatest frontmen of all time, charismatic and engaging with an audience like no one else, but he doesn't have the versatility to switch gears from About A Girl to Teen Spirit to Heart Shaped Box, for example.

There's only one option, surely. One of the two men being inducted alongside Kurt, Dave Grohl. Not everyone would be happy with that option for sure. It would be easy to say that he was trying to assert himself as the bigger name than his former bandmate after twenty years, or that he was making himself out to be a bigger part of the bands history than he was. Yet in terms of the being one of the biggest names in rock today, with the status worthy of fronting Nirvana, who else wouldn't feel shoehorned in somehow? He was the only other man trusted with fronting Nirvana whilst Kurt was alive, on B-side Marigold, so why should that be any different in death?



His vocal versatility is up there. He's got a soft, delicate voice when he needs, as witnessed on many Foo Fighters hit, but look at early B-side Podunk, or White Limo from latest album Wasting Light. He can do the scream too, and it's a scream with attitude and feeling, not a by the numbers hardcore diatribe. With his confidence as a vocalist and frontman having visibly grown in public over the past two decades, Dave could pull it off, crucially, without it turning into a Kurt tribute act. That just leaves the drumming question.

If Dave's up front, who takes the stool? Chad Channing could, and he'd be the obvious choice, being the only other person to drum on a Nirvana LP. Like Stipe though, it's unlikely he'd have the chops to make it believable. He may have been a great choice for the early, basic, punky sounds of 'Bleach', but when it comes to the hits, he just doesn't have the raw power to push along what became one the greatest rock bands in the world. Plus he's already made it known he won't be present. Here's a controversial one. How about Taylor Hawkins? Grohl often calls the Foo Fighters drummer his little brother, and having witnessed the drum battles the two perform live, he is every inch the equal of his more revered band leader behind the kit. Whilst Grohl would be the man stepping into Kurt's shoes, whoever drums would be the man new to the band, the man whose induction would not be into the hall of fame, but into the biggest rock band of all time. Hawkins has the presence for that, having performed on some of the grandest stages in the world with its most revered names.

Some say the Nirvana legacy should never be touched again; left well alone, but there'd be a symmetry to this line up that would be somewhat beautiful to see. Exactly half-Nirvana, half-Foos, it would be an eye to the past AND to the future. Grohl wouldn't be the name he is now had he not joined Nirvana. Scream and Dain Bramage were far from commercial, further from successful. By Grohl fronting Nirvana we would be celebrating not just Kurt Cobain's music, but the influence he had on the rock music of the following twenty years, the fact a whole generation, and now that generations children are still soaking up his music, and those that followed on in style, attitude and successes.

Wednesday Classic Track- Coheed and Cambria

The idea of a concept album is one which sends chills into the hearts of many. Yes' 'Tales From Topographic Oceans' anyone? Coheed and Cambria, it must be admitted are a concept band. Their entire output so far telling the story of Coheed Kilgannon and his wife Cambria Kilgannon in the Amory Wars. There's even, at one point in their arsenal, a song seen through the eyes of a man having a conversation with his beloved bicycle. A series of graphic novels written by frontman Claudio Sanchez pad out the story.

The long song titles, albums split into two parts, the mythology the band wrap around their work can be polarising, and those that don't like it are missing out on some classic rock songs, which in isolation are incredibly accessible. A Favor House Atlantic, from the Album 'In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3' is just one of many I could have chosen for this week's Wednesday Classic Track to highlight that fact. I've chosen it over the others mainly because I like the way Claudio's hair blows in the wind in the video.



P.S. If you're a fan of Muse and you've not heard Coheed and Cambria before, it'll be a revelation. They're a bit like your favourite band, but talented.

Would You Make The Same Mixtapes?

With the blog now called The Same Mixtapes, I want to get some mixtape action going on! We all made them in our youth. We still do now, if not physically, then as Spotify or iPod playlists. Another part of the romance of music lost to the digital. No longer are we tied to the rules we ourselves imposed. No more than one track by the same band! No longer are we restricted to the rules the format allowed. Ah, crap, that track pushes it to 46 minutes!

So lets celebrate the mixtape, lets celebrate the mix CD. Email me at bigcatmerv@googlemail.com if you've got a mix you'd like to share. Did you make it for yourself? Did an anonymous girl or boy make it for you? I don't need you to send your precious memories physically, but tell me the tracklist and send some photos of the sleeve, and I'll do my best to recreate it digitally via Spotify or YouTube, assuming the tracks are available. We'll share in each others embarrassments, delight in each others fab teenage taste. Once I've built up a few, it'll be a new regular feature at The Same Mixtapes. I look forward to hearing and sharing your teenage delights!

Album Review: Matt Stevens- Lucid

Instrumental prog-rock musician Matt Stevens is a man who has built a following his own way. Until recently, his entire back catalogue was available via bandcamp on a pay what you like basis, and even now, you can pick it up for just a few pounds. He worked Twitter the right way, following and actually interacting with people he thought would like his music, not just disappearing off in a huff if you didn't follow back straight away. After finding an initial success on his own, self releasing both his solo work, and that with his four piece band, The Fierce And The Dead, he has now started to take a more traditional path, The Fierce And The Dead's 2013 record Spooky Action the first of his work to be released by a label.

Lucid also treads that path, being put out on respected prog label Esoteric Antenna. How the record was released is not, however, the only path we can see Matt tread. This album is a continuation of the story of a man growing in skill and confidence with every single record. Opener Oxymoron is surprisingly bombastic for a man whose solo work is normally full of such subtlety and nuance. Rhythmically it's Matt Stevens, but in terms of tone and power, it recalls Mogwai's 'Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will'. The post rock references never really leave over the albums whole 40 minute running time, but everything else is added into the mix too- there's barely an instrumental genre not touched upon.

The Other Side breaks away from a gently strummed opening section to a jaunty eastern theme that proves prog doesn't need to resort to complex time signatures and musical complexity to surprise it's listener. Untitled has a riff Steve Albini would be proud of whilst at the other end of the spectrum KEA's plucked Spanish guitars recall lazy days by the pool. At near 12 minute's the album is anchored together by The Bridge. Like the album in microcosm in it's structure, it's initial threatening guitar melody gives way to an equally threateningly repetitive acoustic section, before that bombast returns to see the track out. Even if the track's title wasn't inspired by the Scandinavian crime show, it is its equal in bringing tension to the fore before the release of emotion.

Speaking of titles, the name 'Lucid' perhaps highlights the records only flaw. Meaning easily understood, completely intelligible and comprehensible (to quote dictionary.com), that's not a phrase that can be applied here. Listening to the album out of sequence to bolster notes for individual tracks whilst writing this has taken nothing away from them. Each of the eleven stand up, and some will be returned to again and again. The Bridge, The Ascent, Untitled all primes examples that a song doesn't have to be given words to tell a story. But perhaps some could have been saved for the next The Fierce and The Dead recordings. There are several tracks that sound more like that bands work than what is normally associated with Matt solo. That juxtaposition of the two sounds, and the varied instrumental genres showcased gives 'Lucid' a somewhat disjointed feel.

To focus on that would really be unfair though. Matt Stevens has crafted a record that few others could have. It's a work of massive ambition that nearly every step of the way is fulfilled. He says he took 3 years to release 'Lucid' as he wanted to make sure it was a big move on from Relic and Ghost, his previous two solo records, and that is without a flicker of doubt what he has achieved. With the Fierce And The Dead to fill in the gaps in the meantime, here's hoping he waits five years before the next one, because that could be scarily good.




'Lucid' is available now.

Sunday Classic Cover- Vic Chesnutt

Arming oneself with an acoustic guitar and a pop song then dutifully playing its chords and singing its lyrics is one of the most overused methods of cover version creations there is. For every Elbow appearing on the Live Lounge, there's 25 of these. But every now and then, this method creates something beyond beautiful. I had intended to write about Vic Chesnutt's oddball cover of R.E.M.'s It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), but for the first time, I'm instead writing about another of his covers which I only discovered tonight during my research. To be honest, it's knocked me sideways.

Vic Chesnutt was a long term fixture on the same vibrant Athens, Georgia scene which spawned R.E.M. Whether working on his succession of solo albums, or with his band Brute, everything he put his name to was tinged with fragility, his vocal bleak, distant, and captivating. Yet nothing was ever quite as fragile as this, a cover of Kylie Minogue's Come Into My World from the soundtrack to the movie Mitte Ende August.

On Christmas Day 2009, just months after its release, Vic Chesnutt was dead, taking his own life, an overdose of muscle relaxants successful. He had suffered years of being refused cover for medical insurance, $50,000 dollars in debt for treatment needed after a car accident at age 18 left him confined to a wheelchair and with limited use of his hands. Thanks to an American healthcare system which is thankfully finally under scrutiny, Vic Chesnutt simply could not afford to live, so he took the decision to die. It's difficult not to hear this cover as a cry for someone to look at how this system worked, how a man who worked hard, released sixteen albums in nineteen years could be treated this way.

He was always upfront and honest in his own lyric writing about his battles, but after his death, said to be his fourth suicide attempt, this song's "I've been chasing the life I'm dreaming, now I'm home" takes on a much darker subtext than anything songwriter Cathy Dennis could have imagined from the song.

Here's Vic's R.E.M. cover too. Don't expect the scattergun pop of the original. I like to think of it as a jigsaw puzzle of Michael Stipe's dream led lyrical vision.

Whatever Happened To The Mini-Album?

Any fan of British rock and indie music of a certain age will look back on the mini-album with a certain fondness. We were spoilt with a lot of classics. And I mean, a lot. Feeder's 'Swim', Idlewild's 'Captain' and Symposium's 'One Day At A Time' were probably the three biggest examples, in terms of commercial popularity, but they represent just the tip of an iceberg of what was out there in terms of musical achievement. Cecil, Seafood, The Junket and many more released classic mini albums of between 6 and 8 tracks.

Released after a couple of singles, but before the first album proper, they served as the introduction to these bands for the majority of fans. I remember getting hold of a copy of 'Swim', and being absolutely flabbergasted that a band from Wales made that. A few years later, when I got hold of 'Captain', I was in love. It was, and remains to this day, one of my favourite recordings. The reason, for me, that the mini-album worked was that there was enough there to get me hooked, without giving away too much too soon, losing the mystery of what was coming next.

But what happened to the mini-album? None of the British rock bands with any level of mainstream popularity today have them in their back catalogue. From those at the heavier end of the spectrum, your Enter Shikari's or your Biffy Clyro's to the bands at the other end, The Vaccines or Los Campesinos, nor anywhere in between. Of those four bands, the closest we get is Los Campesinos' 'Sticking Fingers Into Sockets'. It was 6 tracks, but 4 of the six tracks on it had previously been released on their two early 7" singles. The remainder were a cover, and a 35 second long track. It's referred to by the band as an EP.

So could it be that the mini-album still exists, but it's all a matter of whats in the name? 'One Day At A Time' was an 8 track record, but four of the tracks were available elsewhere. It would have been five if there hadn't been a disagreement over the rights for the track "The Girl With The Brains In Her Feet", meaning its pulling from the record at the last minute. Like the Los Campesinos record, a lot of the material on it wasn't new, and it was a mixture of A and B-sides that made up the existing stuff. The difference lies in the fact material was missed off. Like a debut album proper, the singles were there, but B-sides were missing. That, to me, means the record was sequenced like an album, tracks that fitted the running order carefully chosen, and that's what made it a mini-album. The Los Campesinos release was more of a mini greatest hits so far- everything was there, on CD for the first time, with a couple of sweeteners for those that already had the 7" records.

Then there's the number of tracks. Where do we draw a line. Downwards seems fairly easy. Three or four tracks is a single?  Six is where we stray into mini-album territory. Where does that leave 5 tracks? Five alone can't be the famous EP. As much as we deride Wikipedia, there is a very interesting point on the article about the Extended Play. It says the EP is composed of tracks of equal importance, whereas a single has a lead track and B-sides. That's why Oasis' seminal series of singles released around the time of Definitely Maybe weren't EPs. There were clearly defined A-Sides and B-Sides, as much as those B's were often easily the equals of the more famed tracks. The same argument can't be made when the number of tracks creeps upwards though.

There's two records released around a decade ago that really bring into question the number of tracks on a mini-album. In 2005, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly released his self titled debut EP. No lead track, but five tracks of sheer quality. A year before, My Awesome Compilation released 'The View Is Amazing'. Similarly wonderful, again no lead number, but six tracks. Both releases have always been referred to as EP's. The first I think, 'what a great EP', the second I wonder why it isn't called a mini-album. There really is that much of a psychological divide based on the number of tracks, having several years earlier been treated to the amazing mini-albums of the late 90's.

When it comes down to it, it all comes down to how a release is marketed. Sam Isaac's 'Sticker, Star and Tape'  is a nine track record, marketed by Alcopop! Records as a mini-album. Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip's 2014 album 'Repent, Replenish, Repeat' is also nine tracks, but undoubtedly their latest full length album, not a mini-album. But because Alcopop! called it a mini-album on his Bandcamp page, it's a mini-album. Because 'Repent, Replenish, Repeat' is not called that, it is not. Simple. Everywhere we turn today we are subject to advertising, and the record industry is obviously no exception even when it what we refer to a record as even after we've made the decision to buy it.

Tim Dellow of Transgressive Records is of the opinion that "in a media industry now entirely focused on results both critically and commercially of your debut album, (the EP or mini-album is) a chance to explore an artists sound and develop in public with an audience." But is that necessarily a good thing?  Of the six bands mentioned at the beginning of this article, only three went on to release more than one album. Sam Isaac retired from music entirely after his first album proper (save for an all-too-brief comeback last summer). Contemporaries of those bands such as 'A' and Hundred Reasons never released mini-albums and went on to release four full lengths each. Perhaps the classic mini-albums we were treated to forced those bands into the 'difficult' second album too quickly. All their best early work was pushed into that smaller release, leaving the debut album proper lacking. Feeder combated that by taking two tracks from Swim, placing them on 'Polythene' as well. Idlewild, by the time of their biggest commercial successes were nothing like the band who released 'Captain', an every evolutionary band. Seafood, the third of the trio who went on to release several records after 'Messenger In The Camp' never had chart success, seemingly content with their reputation as a solid, hard-working touring band, always respected never commercially massive.

But Symposium released the 'On The Outside' record, then imploded. Cecil released the sub-par 'Subtitles', not a patch on the outstanding 'Bombar Diddlah', briefly reimagined themselves as Voy, then were never heard of again. Transgressive has tried a slightly different tactic. Both Foals and Pulled Apart By Horses released live mini-albums before the debut proper. In my opinion, a great compromise. Fans get access to tracks they've heard before, and new tracks, in an album setting, but the band does not have the pressure of deciding whether to then include those tracks elsewhere. Foals are going from strength to strength, headlining Latitude 2013, and recently headlining the Royal Albert Hall, Pulled Apart By Horses are one of the most consistent and exciting rock bands to come out of Britain in the last decade. It's worked for them.

When I started contemplating writing this, I desperately wanted the mini-album to come back. It held everything I loved in music within it's 6-8 perfect tracks. I wish more records were mini-albums. I played a game with myself, and edited some records I like but not love down to 6-8 tracks. They needed some re-sequencing, but the quality of the record was massively increased. Anyway mini-albums still do exist, just to a much smaller degree. Labels like Alcopop! put them out all the time, LightGuides' Samba Samba Samba from a couple of years ago a particularly fine example, but Jack who runs the label is very much a child of the same time as me. It's obvious he holds the same romance for the format as I do.

If they ever did make a comback on a wider scale, I'm sad to say that the romance would be gone. I don't listen to music in the same way that I did. I rarely get the chance to sit down and actually listen to a record, and take it in start to finish these days unless I'm reviewing it, regardless of format. Coupled with the onset of downloads and fact that an album is often nothing more than a collection of ten or twelves singles which, if I really wanted I could pick or choose my own favourite 6 or 8 from anyway, I think 2014 is the year I finally give up on them and stop hoping for a mass return to the format.

 
It's time to say farewell the mini-album. I'll always remember the little sticker on your sleeve proclaiming what you were. I don't blame you for making the first album difficult for some of my favourite bands. You'd have still been there anyway, amongst that full debut, but you'd have been bloated, filled out and ruined. You were perfect as you were, and I loved you for it, so I'm letting you go. Swim away little buddy, Swim away.

Album Review- Speedy, News From Nowhere

Seventeen years ago, during the year 1997, you would imagine many bands imploded, never to record together again. However, very few of them would have released a succession of successful singles, recorded a debut album, and then been dropped, leaving said album sat unheard by the then Britpop loving hoards. As unlikely as it sounds, that is exactly what happened to Speedy.

Fast forward to 2014, and the people behind the 1p Album Club, a blog dedicated to the albums you can buy on Amazon for just 1 penny, and Alcopop Records, the label responsible for putting out some of the best records in the last seventeen years have decided they need a new club,  The Lost Music Club. This new label will be unearthing those albums and recordings that time forgot, and presenting them, all shiny and new to the public for the first time. As unlikely as it sounds, this is exactly what is happening to Speedy.

At the album's start the 'lost' nature of the record itself manages to get a little lost. The first two tracks proper, Anytime Anyplace Anywhere, and Heard Seen Done Been  were released as a double A-side single, so hearing them again one after the other, feels a little like having dug that single out of the attic. Truth be told it's a little anti-climatic after waiting this long for the record, but that doesn't take away from the strength of the songs. They're two belters, which nicely set the scene for the album to come, and it's the next, middle section of the record which mainly houses the majority of the unfamiliar material. The lyrical themes introduced with the singles remain right through. Images of grim Northern council estates never far from the surface, female characters being held down by society, or their boyfriends, or both. Lads on the lash. The musical themes are similarly constant too.

Speedy are a band with their own sound. It's one that's been influenced by their peers and their city, Sheffield, but it's their own. They don't have a sound akin to any particular one of the Britpop bands, big or small with whom they shared Shine Complilations. A Day In The Life Of Riley is an insanely catchy tune easily the equal of The Lightning Seeds near-named Match Of The Day botherer, and the bands use of brass sounds so much more natural than it did in most of Britpop, particularly on Time For You and their biggest hit hit Boy Wonder. This is a band who've used it in their songwriting process, it hasn't been placed there by a producer looking to spice up the sound. Yet it's singer Philip Watson's voice that resonates most. His semi-croon is at odds with the subject matter, adding a suave, debonair edge to images of single mothers abusing the benefits system. These aren't love songs in any traditional sense, but he sings them like they're full of the most tender, loving sentiments in the world.

Sadly, not everything hits the spot. Time For You, whenever the epic brass is absent just fails to get going. The Sporting Life could have been missed off the album without anything being missed,  nothing from it's near-grim up north cliche title, to it's plodding sound hitting the mark. That track was always going to have a hard time of it on the running order though, following Boy Wonder, which sounds as fun and as invigorating as it did back then. If this album had never seen the light of day and Boy Wonder would have been the thing for which Speedy would have been ever remembered, they still could have been a rightly proud fivesome.

Things do pick up again after The Sporting Life, through Karaoke King and Going Home, and into the absolutely outstanding title track. A mid tempo number, it showcases Philip's voice better than anything else here, and the hammond organ riffs and fills present throughout add a rich dense layer to the track, marking it out as a little different from anything else here.

The album, quite simply, sounds better for having been put on the back burner all this time. In 1997, News From Nowhere would have been a little lost in the britpop mix, as the band themselves were, and undeservedly so. It's a fantastic record. It well deserves to see the light of day after all this time, and hats off to Lost Music Club for unearthing it. With it being released now, it sounds fresh, and different to what classes as mainstream indie music today, and will serve as a reminder to younger music fans that Blur, Oasis and Pulp were not the only bands that represented the Britpop sound. There was a lot more depth to it than the big three, and this, the best Britpop record in seventeen years, showcases it better than a lot of records that sold millions back in the day.



News From Nowhere is available to preorder now from the Lost Music Club Shop

Live Review: Tragedy- Hull Fruit

A man called Lance is standing on a stage. He's wearing a white jumpsuit. He has a red flashing light strapped to his head, and is waving around, although not using, a megaphone. A near naked man has followed him onto the stage. He's got a dirty face, and is carrying a flute. This is the drummer, a man named The Lord Gibbeth. Not a note has been played yet. It's time to accept that this isn't going to be one of those shows where its all about the music. There may also be an element of theatre. Confirmation of that is when Andy, Mo'Royce, Barry, and their 'adopted brother' Disco Mountain Man, all dressed in spandex and sequins, join their nearly naked drumming 'father' a few moments later and launch into a version of Night Fever the likes of which you've never heard.

New York's Tragedy, you see, are the world's foremost all metal tribute to the Bee Gees. The glam rock look they bring to the show, the glam rock sound they bring to the tunes may sound at odds with the disco source material, but pretty early on, it looks like it might just work. As Night Fever ends, some technical difficulties cause a brief interlude, and the eerie quiet in the hall suggests Hull wasn't turned on by the idea of it though, especially on a Monday night. Fruit has seen busier days. Jive Talkin' gets the party going once more, and to Tragedy's credit, it's easy to forget they're playing to 40 people. They are rocking like this is Donington 1980, Rainbow couldn't make it and they've been drafted in to headline . Lance, a sort of silent hype man, is running around on stage, dousing the front rows with glitter and mopping the brows of the already sweat laden band with his ever present red towel.

The show is bookended by Bee Gees classics, yet the middle section sees the band leave their pure Gibb-inspired template. Their most recent albums, including 2013's Death To False Disco-Metal expand their repertoire into other wedding disco fodder. The Grease soundtrack, Disco Inferno, and Islands in the Stream are all visited tonight. Here and there amongst the tunes, you catch little bits of famous metal riffs you might recognise too. Ooh, was that Sabbath? That was DEFINITELY Raining Blood at the beginning of It's Raining Men. It's the most surreal game of guess the intro you've ever played.

As for the theatrics, they're ever present, yet the joy of them is in their subtlety. Yes, there are some large set pieces, Lance playing his Flying V Ukelele being a particular highlight. It's keeping an eye on what's happening elsewhere that the real belly laughs occur and these little things always involve Lance. He headbangs his way through Disco Inferno, then has to stop and give himself a little neck rub. Mo'Royce and Andy are trying to make their guitars make sweet love, and it all gets a little too much for Disco Mountain Man's little eyes, so Lance kindly shelters his eyes with his trusty towel. Disco Mountain Man himself, a glam rock hermit, is a vocal revelation. He takes a more low key role during the Bee Gees tracks; keyboards and cowbells his limit, yet he takes lead vocals on a fair chunk of the wider set list. He is one hell of a frontman. The wild man character suits the show perfectly. He's here, he's there, he's in the crowd, he's not missed a note doing it.

As the show nears it's conclusion, after an hour of classic hit after classic hit, Barry promises a lesser known Bee Gees number, before launching into Staying Alive, and then the evening's very entertaining entertainment is rounded off by one last little medley of disco hits (including the wittily done We Are Tragedy). The crowd have, for the most part, lapped it up. As they leave Fruit, one man is heard saying 'I've seen all three of the best covers bands on the planet now' but it would be difficult to imagine two more as good as Tragedy. Going right back to the days of the Greeks, tragedy and comedy have gone hand in hand. Tonight, the Comedy was in Tragedy, and the tragedy was that there weren't more people there to share in it.

Sunday Classic Cover- Biffy Do Buddy

The first time I saw Biffy Clyro, opening Reading's second stage in 2001, I never pegged them as headliners 12 years down the line. After another live experience in 2003 seeing them support Limp Bizkit, and not really rating debut record Blackened Sky, I didn't return to the band again for some time.

And it was a cover version that got me back on the bus.

In 2006, Kerrang! Magazine included the High Voltage! A Brief History of Rock CD as a freebie. Although long out of my regular K! buying days, I remain a sucker for a free CD, especially one that offered much promise, current rock and metal bands covering the tracks that influenced them. Some of them are the most unadventurous covers you have ever heard. Fightstar's attempt at The Deftones' My Own Summer a particularly limp example. But come track 5, I took a step back and realised what I'd missed by ignoring Biffy in the previous three years. They they were absolutely slaying Weezer's Buddy Holly. In The Smiths special last week I said that I believe a cover should Capture the spirit of the original, in the style of the band making the cover, and I'm including this today to show that being achieved pretty much perfectly.

The cover showed me that Biffy had honed their own sound. Looking back now the progression over the second and third albums was out of this world. Infinity Land in particular is an album that delights in showcasing contradiction in music, at once pop and prog, heavy and heartfelt, beauty and beast. This cover retains those contradictions. What we hear is Weezer's heart, Biffy's soul.

Sunday Classic Cover- The Smiths Special

Ever since Christmas, I've been trying to read Morrissey's Autobiography. The fact it's not really an autobiography, more a list of things he likes occasionally punctuated with, like, just how much he totally hated school and it was so bad there means I've still only made it to page 63. Asking for it so much I ended up with two copies is a bigger regret than my first marriage. But something dawned on me during the half an hour I was reading page 59 this evening.

Whenever someone says, "I don't like The Smiths" it is invariably followed up by some sort of musing on the man himself. "I just can't stand his voice" or "he's so depressing" are two that you hear quite regularly. No one ever says "Urgh, I hate The Smiths. It's Andy Rourke's bass playing that bugs me" or "I just can't get past how much I hate Mike Joyce." I'd even venture as far as saying that Johnny Marr would be a national treasure on a level with Brian May or a Suggs, if it wasn't for his association with the world's most famous morose vegetarian.

That got me thinking about How Soon Is Now?, and how many cover versions there are out there, and how a lot of them are incredibly incredibly faithful, but with one major difference. The Voice. Every single one of the five versions of the song in this countdown, a kickstart for the regular Sunday Classic Cover feature, start with that familiar chiming guitar sound. None of them try and mess with the rhythmic structure of the song. Yet all are different vocally. Even if you're not a Morrissey fan (which is a high possibility, let's face it) you may find one you enjoy.

 5. Paradise Lost

Released as a B-side to the single which spearheaded their polarizing change of direction, Say Just Words, Paradise Lost's How Soon Is Now? is the closest in tone on the list to the original probably due to frontman Nick Holmes never being the most cheerful. I have very distinct memories of him calling the audience at Donington '96 'Motherfuckers' because they weren't really getting into his band, but they were never going to really work in blazing sunshine at 1pm on a summer Saturday.

4. t.A.T.u

 
From the closest in tone, to the farthest away. How Soon Is Now? was always going to be an odd choice of song for inclusion on the Russian 'lesbians' debut English language album 200km/h In The Wrong Lane. Yet, somehow, it works. Although the pretense that the two girls were lovers has been long since dropped, the lyrics seemed somehow apt at the time. "I am human and I need to be loved" is about as radical a call for equality that could ever be allowed in the Russian media.

3. Hundred Reasons 

Taken from the outstanding How Soon Is Now?: The Songs Of The Smiths tribute album, which also featured Million Dead's Girlfriend In A Coma, ThisGIRL's Shoplifters Of The World Unite, and many more. This, musically, could be The Smiths, there's that little in it. It sounds like a remaster more than a cover. Colin Doran sounds a bit bored, like he's trying to do a Morrissey impression, but just can't quite bring himself to do it, and he wants to be himself. It's a super cover, but you do wish Colin had let himself go a bit more.

2. Snake River Conspiracy

Jason Slater and Tobey Torres' criminally underrated early 2000's industrial metal band not only included their cover on the Sonic Jihad LP, but also released it as a single (which contained as a B-side the outstanding track Coke and Vaseline, and is well worth picking up if you ever see a copy). Torres' breathy menace brings an edge to the track none of the other versions do. Plus, you have to love those, dare I say it, uplifting electronics added to the chorus. 

1. Quicksand

Although, again, musically, nothing much has changed, the vocal melody here is completely different. It says a lot about the enduring popularity of this that it's the one thing from Quicksand's arsenal that is still played live on occasion by Walter Schreifels' Rival Schools. Schreifels is massively influenced by the Smiths, and one of his other projects, Walking Concert, appears on the tribute album mentioned previously under the name Walter Walter. Both the version of Ask that appears there, and this do exactly what a cover should, to my mind, do. Capture the spirit of the original, in the style of the band making the cover. Over the coming weeks, that is what I hope to showcase with the Sunday Classic Cover. 

Johnny Foreigner- You Can Do Better Review

Muppet Babies, as I'm sure you recall, was a cartoon which reimagined Kermit, Gonzo and friends in their infancy. Not a far stretch for the imagination, and that was why the show worked. Equally, it's not a far stretch to imagine Johnny Foreigner as children. Aged five, they'd have been the kids at the party who were gleefully commandeering the boxes that the birthday boy's gifts came in, carefully laying it out on the stairs, and throwing themselves down headfirst.

The largest part of the band's output so far has lived by the same ethos. Fast, fun and with a small risk of broken bones. You Could Do Better is no exception. Lets get this straight now, there's nothing new to the Johnny Formula that's going to convert those who aren't fans, and there's nothing to alienate those already in the gang. The catchy guitar riff which gives way to frontman Alexei Berrow's slightly fragile Stephen Fry does Stephen Malkmus followed up by the shouting duel with bassist Kelly Southern are all present within the first sixty seconds of opener Shipping. The similarities to their past work do stretch a little far sometimes. There's parts of recent single Stop Talking About Ghosts that I thought actually were 2008 single Eyes Wide Terrified.

However, there's something here I've never spotted in a Johnny Foreigner record before, perhaps a little cynicysm sneaking in? Is big city life and the grind of the independent music industry starting to wear on the band? In Capitals seems to suggest so. "Everyone's hiding something" and "Back in the real world" muses Alexei, before warning us "there is no hidden door at Leinster Gardens, there is no London below." It's a stark warning that despite the rumours of streets paved with gold and dreams being made in the city, that really there's nowhere to hide.

In Capitals is quickly followed by the records stand out track. Actually, scratch that, Johnny Foreigner's stand out track. Riff Glitchard, a title which perhaps gives a nod to Biffy Clyro, goes beyond anything that band have produced in the way of subtleties. The track builds and builds around a Kelly vocal, with a rhythmic pattern akin to something from American Football's classic self titled record. The last thirty seconds of the track move back into the standard style, and it is slightly dissapointing. However, the tracks slow crescendo shows that there is more to the band than 2 minutes and thirty seconds of pop-punk.

You Can Do Better is the best Johnny Foreigner record since 2008 debut Waited Up 'til It Was Light. That record introduced the formula, this one perfects it. If you like the band there's nothing to dissapoint over the records ten tracks. That number in itself shows for the first time there's been some much needed self editing in place; the second and third records slightly overstayed their welcome at 15 and 17 tracks long. There may be hints of a different, darker, more thoughtful future, both lyrically and musically , but the thing that drew so many to the band in the first place, the risk of the broken bones, is still there in abundance. What's the point of growing up when you're having so much fun throwing yourselves down the stairs?