Crap name... crap band?

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Any thoughts I may have had this band would be boring were blown away the first time a stick hit some skin here. A blinding little drum intro perked up my interest like a meerkat surveying the savannah. Danava are from some part of America. They sound like they should be from the deep south and sick of it. Big riffs, pounding drums and a trippy, psychedelic singer should really annoy me. Especially the 'big riffs' part but it's hard not to listen and even harder not to enjoy. I mean I listen to punk music so anything over three minutes should be carcinogen to me (apart from "The Decline" by NOFX and "At The Mall" by Pansy Division). The real test will be if an album of seven tracks ranging from 4:13 to 13:21 in length can stop me from turning it down to find out who the killer is on CSI. They don't manage it. 3:22 seconds into track 2 (when a good song should be finishing) some crap organ comes in. Bad choice, even for an outro, it reminds me of Yes. I hate Yes,...

Looking back at music past

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The Triffids formed in Perth, Australia in 1980, led by vocalist and song writer David McComb. Across the 80s they released several albums, beginning with Treeless Plain and ending with their final release, Black Swan in 1989. This review concerns their 1985 album, the strangely titled Born Sandy Devotional. Taking the folk by way of the Velvet Underground sound that they had harnessed on earlier albums, on Born Sandy Devotional the Triffids give it a big melodic sheen without losing any of their melancholy to 80s pop technology. Recorded in London this was the band’s biggest moment, even getting them on the cover of the NME. But there’s little of the noise and thunder of London or indeed any city to be found within the songs of Born Sandy Devotional. Seabirds, Esturary Bed, Lonely Stretch and Wide Open Space are just examples of how the titles alone conjure up images of Australia’s immense out back and rugged coastline. Reissued now in 2006 by Domino, the album’s original...

Pop punk from the uk

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Second album from London/Berlin based pop punkers.

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AN: Happy new year from AN, how did you spend Hogmanay? Ricky: Thanks, Hogmanay was brilliant for me, I was doing a solo show opening up for Cheap Trick in LA, it was an amazing way to spend it as they are legends and I'm a big fan of the band. AN: It's coming up for the 20th Anniversary of The Almighty Ricky: It's scary

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What a strange little jewel of an album. VietNam's self-titled debut album is a retro sounding amalgamation of Dylan vocals, hinting at the Mark Knopfler/Leonard Cohen at times, over a Velvet-Underground-meets-Sonic-Youth sound. Okay, now I've got the music wankery out of the way (all true by the way) I can get down to business. This is a lovely wee collection of songs. Really. The words are cowboy blues meets the drug-ravished streets of the underground scene and, I have to admit, I have a soft spot for the storytelling style in a lyricist. Mr vocalist, Michael Gerner, has one of those cracked voices beloved of singers who inhabit that low-light, claustrophobically small, whisky-as-payment type of bar that, in my head, you find taking up where jazz bars left off. The music is a 60's psychedelica sliding into the Sonic Youth-esque screaming, clashing approach which means there's always something to process. In the more melodic areas the almost-orchestral sound hints at...

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The Kills. Rubbish name for transatlantic duo Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince who’re here to unleash new single U.R.A. Fever which is a verbal gag even New Bomb Turks would think twice about. Minimal dirty electro n’ roll song that’s mopes along, wired with tension and you wait with bated breath for something to erupt but it never does. Stuck in a rut U.R.A. Fever won’t even give you a slight sniffle. Sounds like remixed Royal Trux bside. YouTube - The Kills - U R A Fever

Metal left-overs as selected by fanbase

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It would be easy for me to dismiss this collection of Mudvayne merely because of the source of the music, that being the band Mudvayne who wear stupid outfits and play shouty, prog-inflected metal. Yet putting aside my snobby hat, which comes in both blue and yellow Egyptian cotton, there are some at least head nodding moments to be found on this Epic release. The album has an odd set-up, compromising tracks that were chosen via the band's website interspersed with commentary from the band themselves. The commentary might be interesting to some but let's face it, a demo is a demo and a live cut is just a recording of a band playing live. The album opens with a razor sharp live version of their song Dig, complete with dodgy crowd banter. It sounds BIG and has a riff the size of a brontosaurus shit. Can't argue with that. Equally as memorable is the power ballad type Forget To Remember with its Eastern flavour to the chiming guitars and the other live cut World So Cold, a...

Indie rock anthemics

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I know nothing about British Sea Power. Insert English cult act label here. I have always been half aware of their existence but have never knowingly heard a note of their music, until now with their fine new single Waving Flags. It can only be tagged as muscular pop music, riding a throbbing, tuneful wave of elegant shiny keyboards with big punchy drums tapping out a forceful rhythm beneath. The production reminds me of The Beach Boys, it sounds BIG yet sweet at the same time. Frontman Yan's vocals ruin the moment after the intro has been and gone as you're back in meat and potato indie land in a disappointing Doves fashion. Not his fault, you can only use what you're born with. The band are off-kilter enough to get away with it. The tune makes up for it, a stirring anthemic waltz that would even sound good good on AM Virgin amid Robbie and Snow Patrol. Speeds up towards the end with a nifty early Catherine Wheel type guitar solo. As good as music can get in ruddy January.

DEP return with their firat album in 3 years, and its superb.

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Mathcore is a horribly horribly geeky name for a genre but for The Dillinger Escape Plan it seems to fit perfectly, and that is coming from someone who wholly detests the way a "new" genre seems to appear every month. This album is a cold and calculating beast that clocks in at a strangely satisfying, yet short by modern standards, 39 minutes.

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I have reviewed BC Camplight before and as I previously said, this is a happy go lucky sound of a band that is clearly influenced by 60s flower power and the Brit Pop revival of that sound in the mid 90s. It is inoffensive and initially appears to be rather bland. The musical happiness disguises the songs darker lyrics and, whilst this may be thought to be a clever ploy by writer Brian Christinzio, I find it just a little too forced. Sunshine pop is perfectly good and breezy tunes have a place in music, but to add dark lyrics this just seems to be a writer trying to be clever for the sake of it rather than writing songs because they come from his heart and soul. However, Christinzio has a history of mental illness and has been in and out of hospital to try and help him resolve this. Maybe for this writer, mixing the breeziness of flower power with the lyrics akin to Thom Yorke makes sense. Whilst the traumatic lyrics may be hiding behind the poppy tune, this is Christinzio’s...