Feeder – Cardiff Coal Exchange 27th April
So as part of writing for the MMP, they let me review Feeder, which was rather awesome of them…
http://themmp.tv/live/feeder-coal-exchange-27th-april/
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“We’d like to thank the Feeder boys, well, men. Whatever they are,” said the singer of support band The Boy Royals, summing up the headliners perfectly. How do you classify Feeder these days? The sort of band that get wheeled out every time there’s a Welsh sporting triumph or a three (four when touring) piece who could pass as the Wombats’ crazy uncles? Fortunately, that’s what me and a full capacity Coal Exchange were about to find out.
First though The Boy Royals pitched up, coming onstage to whichever Who track soundtracks CSI:Miami, and for a band that have flown under a lot of radars they are very well-drilled…until the “ahhhh” moment when you are told that they used to be called Town. They were very pleasant to listen to, with energy and enthusiasm evident throughout. Perhaps some deviation might be needed to avoid lazy comparisons to the likes of Hard-Fi or a less politicized version of The Enemy.
To the main event then, and after warming up with an acoustic track it was straight into the distinctive opening of Feeling A Moment and collectively the crowd sang along and came together as one, cheering and trying to get the band to “do the Ayatollah.”
That same collective feeling turned into a small amount of indifference when they started to play songs from their Renegades period, but even the likes of Call Out and White Lines sounded somewhat familiar. And that’s the difference between Feeder and a band like James; where you might see people drift out after they’ve played Laid and Sit Down, here each song grabbed my attention and kept me wanting to hear the next, wondering which matey bassline I hadn’t heard for years was about to boom it’s arrival at me.
The crowd kept things moving at a lively, festivally pace and with the band enjoying themselves, even a timing error on the closing Just a Day didn’t spoil the mood. In fact, if I was to be super critical, it seemed that Grant and Taka were playing to the pace of the drummer rather than the song, although I suspect that people with more expertise on drums will be able to clarify the point.
To answer the question I posed at the start, it’s actually quite simple – Feeder are a quality British band who have so many forgotten hits and riffs that hearing the opening bars to any of their back catalogue behemoths immediately evokes memories of what you were doing the first time you pressed play. As an aid to memory, it was excellent. As a gig, fantastic.
Give Record Stores a Go
So I started writing for the Miniature Music Press after a cover letter that made them laugh. Always nice. So nice, in fact, they’re letting me review Feeder on Friday. They wanted something on Record Store Day, so I wrote this, but I don’t think what I wrote flows particularly well. Seems to judder around from point to point. The intro’s alright though.
Available online here – http://themmp.tv/features/weekend-word-give-record-stores-a-go/ and published on 23/04/12
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Finally a day that’s worth celebrating. After misogynistic rubbish – National Cleavage Day, really? – Record Store Day (RSD) is here to proudly thrust it’s chest out and flaunt it’s wares to a public that might just pay attention for at least one day a year.
Cast your mind back to when you last went into an independent record store compared to when you last walked into an established high street store or simply clicked ‘download’ online. I admit that I moved to Cardiff in October and am still yet to go to any of this city’s wonderful record stores.
I am ashamed of that, because record stores matter; certainly beyond the one designated day of the year.
Independent record stores are treasure troves of music and a throwback to the days when music was less disposable. Nowadays a lot is online, so being lost are those regular trips to the record store where you’d pick up a record, swap it with mates, share you thoughts with the owner and hunt for a recommendations.
Because of that, perhaps that’s why artists enthusiastically release music exclusively for RSD. There’s a side to music that seems to want to keep music special and give direct recognition to the role record stores have played over the years. With big names filling the shelves with exclusive content, it might get people that haven’t been before searching out the shop and making the store a regular fixture because of what they find.
In fact, independent stores might be making something of a comeback. With BBC 6 Music announcing that they will broadcast a chart based purely on physical sales from record stores, could it be that the muso’s might be making a comeback? Even the people that normally document the number of sold Rihanna albums have something to say about the importance of record stores. Martin Talbot, Managing Director of the Official Charts Company said:
“We very much hope that the Official Record Store Chart will serve to harness the focus created by Record Store Day and help maintain it week in, week out, through the year”
There’s still a sticky point with all of this though: vinyl. Personally, I’ve never been attracted to it, but then there’s those people who love it – the feel, the smell, the colour and not to mention the sound. RSD is all bout novelties, bringing limited edition vinyl to the music lovers to symbolise the entire ethos of the day; to keep music special and personal.
To some, being able to have that tactile feeling of putting the needle on the music is what fuels their passion for the next track. That said, is vinyl ever going to go out of fashion? Digital music is portable and in some ways, democratic, with the vast majority of it being copied and shared. How do you measure the popularity of an old-school medium like vinyl on any other day of the year?
So without trying to sound like a charity appeal – ‘just 2 records a month’ – go visit your local record stores more than once a year, away from the scenesters who pitch up expecting something out a Nick Hornby novel. Not only are you likely to learn something, you might just pick up a record which no-one else knows and disconnect yourself from social networks and the rest of the internet, finding your own voice in the process.
That alone should be worth more than one day a year.
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Your Facebook Page is Changing…
Written for Sotic. The original version is here…
This means that your team or tournament page on the site will be changing soon and we have been sifting through the changes to see how you can best use them to your advantage and have implemented many on The RaboDirect PRO12 page that we manage on behalf of the tournamnet organisers as examples.
Cleared for Landing…
Pages that urge people to become fans of your page (the default landing tabs and fangates) will disappear. This means that your content will be visible to everyone, whether they’re fans or not. Content becomes even more important on your page, as pages will now have to deliver premium content, rather than fish for likes by promising it!
Make a Colourful First Impression
Replacing the landing tab is the ‘Cover’. This is a 850×315 image that sits at the top of your page. It sounds simple until you see the list of restrictions placed upon it by Facebook. You’re not allowed to put your contact details there, or anything else that should be in the ‘About’ part. You can’t include any calls to action, so phrases like ‘Tell your friends’ or even ‘click like’ are banned. Purchase info and price offers are also prohibited.
Some creativity is going to be needed for cover images to be Facebook-legal as well as engaging – perhaps a good starting point for a cover image could be the answer to the question ‘what makes your club or tournament unique?’
Twitter is also trialling a version of this with some pages too, with a smaller 835×90 pixel image. It may be worth thinking about this too.
Related to the cover image is your profile picture. If you currently have a skyscraper style image, you’ll need to replace it – the maximum dimensions for the profile pic are now 180×180 pixels. There’s no reason why you can’t have both pictures interacting with each other. For example, you could have a player sliding in for a try with a team-branded ball – when people see your logo around the site, they’ll see the ball, but they’ll only get the full picture if they click on your page.
As with all of the changes we are happy to advise on the best way for you to promote your club, and can offer our design services to produce new cover images if you require.
Tabbed
At the moment, tabs for pages are on the left-hand side. They’re now moving up to the top, where they’ll sit below the cover image. Some tabs such as Photos are automatically locked by Facebook to be in position one.
As the tabs are moving up, their logo size is also changing. Instead of the 16×16 pixel icon, you now have space to create a 111×74 image and make your tab really stand out!
If you’re a page with a lot of (more than 3) tabs, you may want to start thinking about the best way of getting people to click ‘below the fold’ and discover what’s on the page. Read on to see how we suggest you do this.
iFrames Expand…
Several of you already have iFrames on your Facebook pages. These are the pieces of content created and housed in the CMS of your site and displayed on Facebook (generally in the past behind a ‘fan-gate’.)
At present the size for iFrames is restricted to be no bigger than 510 pixels. The new timeline gives you scope to put a lot more information on your page by expanding it to a maximum of 810 pixels! Your current iFrames will still work but they’ll be centred, so they’ll be plenty of white space either side.
Think about content on your existing site which you may want to promote on the Facebook page but which you had to cut from your current Facebook page for space restrictions. Perhaps video can be a reality now with the wider size, or you can include the dynamic Ticket Information pages.
Again we can create new iFramed layouts specifically for you – this may also be a great oportunity to include some content from your main site on the Facebook page for the first time.
One-to-One
Fans are now able to message the page directly. This feature can be turned off but is on by default.
You will have to decide whether you want people to be able to contact you directly, or whether email and public Facebook posting (or tweeting) is enough.
To help with all the changes, your page admins will get a special panel that acts as a one-stop dashboard. Here, you can see the most recent likes, messages and notifications, as well as seeing a quick insight graph.
Pick a Post, any Post
You’re also now allowed to push one of your posts at the top of the page. Similar to a ‘sticky’ on a forum, this update will spread itself across both the left and right columns and copies itself to the top (it will still be in it’s chronological place).
This is a great way to draw people to your key message. Perhaps you want to highlight your next fixture or ticket details. You can get a gallery at the top too, if you like. The only downside is you can only highlight one thing at a time. It’s marked with the orange flag at the top.
If you have lots of apps, you could put a stickied post once every few days with links to the apps!
There’s also highlighting. This allows a post to spread across left and right columns to give it some impact. While useful, it’s best done sparingly. After all, you wouldn’t want to see a page full of highlighter pen, would you?
A New Record!
It’s now possible to show people milestones. These landmark events automatically cover both left and right columns, can be back-dated and even geo-tagged. You can add a photo with them too. So if one of your players breaks the league scoring record, you won the league in 1963 or a British and Irish Lion comes from your side, you can record it in your page’s history.
This is quite an underrated feature that we think can be used in many different ways.
Also Known As…
You can now request a name change for your page on Facebook. If your page name changes – for example, a tournament with a new sponsor – you can fill out a very simple form and get that changed, within around 3 days. We think this is a crucial improvement given the nature of changing tournament names or club sponsors.
There are a lot of changes and the transition will likely be met with unpopularity – as all Facebook makeovers seem to be. However this is a strong opportunity to tidy up your page and give users a flavour of the history of your team or competition – it is a timeline after all!
Content will be crucial. The timeline is more media-centric than before, with photos, links and videos coming to the fore (to keep up with Tumblr and Pinterest). Sotic will happily guide you through these changes, whether you want us to design a new profile picture, adding milestones and highlights to even letting us take the pressure off you and fully manage your entire social media output, we can give you a bespoke service that will keep fans talking about you.
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I quite enjoy writing these things, makes for a nice change, and this drew a nice response from a couple of places too.
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Schizophrenic Sanchize
Written as a trial for UKJets.com, but I was never happy with it (not the site, but this article) and never submitted it…
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Schizophrenia
Hi, I’m Hash and I’ve never been completely sold on Mark Sanchez. Aaah, that feels good to finally say. I’m by no means demanding that the Jets bench him and start Mark Brunell or go into the open market for a new signal caller, but there are two sides to the starter – frustratingly great and greatly frustrating.
There are some standout plays in his career, mainly in the postseason. His second half against Pittsburgh in last seasons’ AFC Championship Game, capped with a 45 yard touchdown to Santonio Holmes didn’t do enough to mask the fact that he’s not entirely convincing. And yes, even though he was away from home, doubtless tired after a long season and having to face one of the best defences in the NFL, there have been too many times when Rex Ryan’s side have gone behind and I never think ‘it’s ok, Sanchez is under centre’ and he’ll be able to use his _____ to get us out of trouble.’
The blanks are deliberate. Most teams’ can say that their quarterback has one refined skill above all others that the franchise can hang their future on. The obvious qualities of Vick and Brady are their trademarks, but even underneath that, things like Matt Ryan’s composure or Roethlisberger’s ability to elude and if necessary power his way through the first rusher add things that the dreaded ‘game managers’ can’t. Those so-called intangibles that American pundits fawn over quarterbacks for having (and only the pundits are seemingly able to see), well, Mr ESPN, what is Sanchez’ main strength?
He’s an average passer – in 2 and almost a half years starting for the Jets, his completion percentage has hovered around the 55% mark and this should improve with the signing of Plaxico – three touchdowns vs San Diego doesn’t make a season, but it’s a start! Sanchez, at soon to be 25, is a credible redzone scrambler, but not someone that will force a defence to respect his threat on foot each down.
Maybe his biggest stat is to win when it matters and to live in the magnified New York glare. There aren’t many players that have led their sides to road playoff wins. New England last season was dreadfully tense and you could see that that game was the side’s Superbowl – beating Brady was great, but it was too much for any quarterback and team to recover from and the entire side looked punched out by the time they arrived at Heinz Field. Maybe as he develops and there are less and less unique situations to face, he’ll be more at ease and spread the ball around.
Jets football in the Rex Ryan era has to me, been built on three central tenets: outworking the other team, a great ground game and hard-hitting defence. How boring does that sound? It’s not going to make NFL Films breakout anything fast-paced for montages is it? Not that it matters, with consecutive Championship game appearances, strong(ish) drafts (jury out on Kyle Wilson, Wilkerson could be a leader), why is the team changing that identity in favour of putting the future in Mark Sanchez’ right hand?
This is not intended as a slam. I quite like him, and from the 2009 QB class of Stafford, Freeman (who could have been a Jet) and Sanchez I think he still has a chance of being the best of the three. There’s no reason why the Jets can’t win the superbowl, if not this year, then the year after. And even if we remain fruitless, it’s apparent that Sanchez is going to be calling the shots well into this decade. But I want to be convinced and I don’t think I’m alone. Watching us comeback against the Chargers was great, but why put ourselves in that position? With the team, and the stadium we’ve got, very few teams should be able to take one and two score leads over us.
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The Attic People
Written for The Bay Magazine – http://www.theswanseabay.co.uk/articles/4/Lifestyle-Leisure/165/TheAtticPeople.html
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Take some innovative minds, give them a fair bit of spare time and a stipend of money every three months and with enough drive and enthusiasm, you should be able to create something unique.
In this case, it‟s a band comprised of students. Folk(ish) band The Attic People met at uni and developed in venues across the city, as Crystal (vox) explains: “It started growing after an evening out, Katie showed me some of her lyrics and we started experimenting,” she says. “I joined the band she was in at the time for a gig. After a show we got talking to some lovely ladies who were on our course, who wanted to get involved…so then came Alice, Kareni (both vox) & Suvi (djembe drum) to practice with. We went to MilkwoodJam to do our first open mic. Friends came to watch with other friends, among them was Anton who said he could play guitar, and Steve (keyboards), meaning that they came to practice too.
There are more in the band too, which certainly adds something a little different, according to Finnish Suvi: “We sound down to earth and that we are really having fun with this band thing.” Alice elaborates: “I still feel a little shell shocked about how it‟s all come together so quickly,” she says. “It‟s really exciting and I think our excitement comes through in our music and gigs.” And while The Attic People are an enthusiastic posse, being students presents some unique challenges, as Katie (guitar, vox) explains: “It’s pretty difficult to practice when we’re not in Swansea,” she says. “With two of us over the ocean, and the rest of us dotted around the UK, it’s a big commute for a jam! But we all keep coming up with new songs, music, and lyrics individually. Swansea‟s just where all these elements are brought together, and luckily for us it works out brilliantly.”
One of those overseas members is Toronto native Steve (keyboards), how does it compare with South Wales? “It’s obviously much smaller than Toronto, but Swansea is a perfect example of „quality over quantity,’” he says. “It’s lively, but not so busy that you’re constantly watching to make sure you don’t walk into a stranger. And then there’s he sea…”Steve also notes a difference in the way bands are here, compared to Canada: “It might not be the biggest, but it’s really refreshing when you play music in a place where everyone shares the same common goal of simply spreading some musical love,” he says. “On the other hand, while Toronto’s band community is massive compared to Swansea’s, it’s sometimes so painfully obvious that every up-and-coming indie band is trying to top the next, and it’s less fun for everyone that way.”
The Attic People even recorded their demo in their friend‟s attic, but Katie cites another student restriction when it comes to EP‟s and albums: “We did our first recording in our friend, Sera Rabbett‟s attic but we’d be very excited to do a studio recording and get our music further afield,” she says, “but at the moment we’re all studying hard as well as playing around South Wales.
Keeping the balance between work and play is crucial, but it will be another story once we’ve graduated!” Alice describes their live shows as “involving the audience and showing our appreciation for them coming to see us, and trying to make everyone feel welcome and happy.” They‟re playing at the Vault on the 16th.
Catch them on myspace.com/theatticpeople and facebook.com/theatticpeople.
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Ghost of the Highway – Hope and Other Four Letter Words EP
Written for Soundscape Magazine… weblink to follow. 27/10
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Surrey, wonderfully poa-sh, isn’t it? Guildford conjures up images of Joanna Lumle
y prancing around leafy suburbs where they still have weekly bin collections and people thoroughly embrace that whole Big Society nonsense. So it seems entirely incongruous that Ghost of the Highway would base themselves there.
You see, from the opening riff of ‘One Night Stand’, Ghost happily position themselves as a band who enjoy sticky floored gig venues, sickly shades of unidentified liquids splashed on walls and a general middle finger and an amp full of invective to the Neighbourhood Watch.
The three-piece share vocal duties, according to their bio, and to be honest, I couldn’t tell one from another, not that that’s a bad thing. That opener I mentioned earlier sounds like the Vines at their raw-throated best with the chorus aggressively shouted at you – if they ever remade Road Rash, this would be the soundtrack to you clubbing someone over the head and nicking their bike, it’s not just uneasy, the driving guitars immediately take an adversarial stance and don’t care how you react.
Those guitars work against each other on ‘Vultures’, with another smooth riff, a less polished Audioslave, although the vocals are plenty effected, the old standard of hi-pass and echo being used for atmosphere, and against the claustrophobia of the guitars, it works surprisingly well. Until the odd, choppy break about 2 minutes in – not sure why they bother breaking up the flow with it, and it doesn’t really add anything special. That lapses into an extended instrumental coda which doesn’t do anything, although as a means to showcase how good they are with their instruments, they’re plenty proficient.
Metronomic drums and swirling guitars take us into a proper chorus anthem in ‘Hail! Hail!’, that quickly fades to annoying faux-American accents – it’s perfectly acceptable to sing in Estuary English, fellas – and doesn’t really live up to the promise of what is a fantastic intro. It doesn’t last particularly long, and after the nodding approval of the opening 20 seconds or so, most of it lapses into indifference. That opening is probably the highlight of the EP for me, which is why it’s such a shame that they can’t maintain that quality.
Which brings us to the finale. ‘March of the Pigs’ begins as an altogether grungier affair, Nirvana by numbers if you will. Chorus seems to borrow the same vocal pattern as Umbrella-ella-ella which was unnerving in itself but ignore that and it isn’t too bad, cleaner vocals showing that in this case, lower production actually adds to the track. There isn’t really a swinging destroy the drumkit finale though, just a couple of bent chords and a sudden stop.
There’s a swagger to Ghost of the Highway, that confident growl and presence is there in spades and but for a few foibles, which as a band develops (they’ve been together a year), they’ll iron out. I get the feeling they may have to leave the sweatbox venues behind and into leafier digs. Encouraging.
7/10
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Coldplay – Mylo Xyloto
There’s been a long break. Yes. I got a job (which I really really really like) and while I was settling into that, I took a break. Until now…
Written for roomthirteen.com – http://www.roomthirteen.com/cd_reviews/12359/Coldplay__Mylo_Xyloto.html
24/10
Uplifting Stadium Indie
It’s Coldplay. Anything from 10 to 13 because it’s proper stadium rock by a massive band. Done. Move on, it’s not like I’m going to be able to give you any unique insight into one of the world’s biggest bands. And it’s not like what I write will have any impact anyway on them! Honestly, you’re better off reading about one of the smaller bands and learning something. Don’t let the fact that I asked to review this skew your perception either.
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Still here? Okay, let’s do it. “Mylo Xyloto” is supposedly a concept album, about two people, possibly getting it’s name from the reject bin of Chris and Gwyneths’ offspring. It’s remarkably happy, with the opening prologue lapsing into ‘Hurts Like Heaven’. Admittedly, this sounded like ‘Headbutt’ by The King Blues, especially with Chris Martin’s vocal delivery, which is sweet and scattergun at the same time. The song seems written with big, emotional stadium choruses in mind and people falling over themselves to declare that their ‘heart is a weapon’.
That lapses into what was the second single and to me, standout track of the album. The intro to ‘Paradise’ sounds like Ratatat jamming with Patrick Wolf before dissolving into easy indie swing – it’s very pleasant to hear – Chris Martin is almost superfluous on this track, with his ooh’s and storytelling almost coming second to the music – there aren’t many frontmen that would allow that, and my cynicism began to soften at this point.
It almost disappeared on the start of track 4. ‘Charlie Brown’ sounds like it should be headlining MOTD2 but after 2/3 listens and staying with the love story concept, this is the start of a relationship. That first defiant, magical kiss when you think your relationship with this person will be different to every love story ever told. So upbeat and uncontrollably positive, you’ll smile listening to it.
There’s a change of pace on ‘Us Against the World’, the chord changes on a minimally-produced acoustic being heard, all transient fretboard movements and vulnerable vocals. It’s far more in the vein of Parachutes’ more intimate moments. It’s authentically sugary but ultimately forgettable.
There’s another short interlude before the electro stylings of ‘Every Teardrop is a Waterfall’ and in unlikely vocal comparisons, I start pegging the opening verse of this to ‘Miami 2 Ibiza’ before building into something unique and singalong. Imagine tens of thousands of people shouting that they’d rather be a ‘comma than a full stop’ while the electric guitars build easily scalable walls of noise – it’s accessible, housewife indie, but I get the feeling that far beyond a marketing tool, it’s just 4 posh blokes enjoying the fact that they get paid to make music. How can anyone begrudge them that?
That’s the end of the album’s first half. Part two begins with ‘Major Minus’ which is more layered, clever and there’s a slight edge. Frantic and slightly unsure of itself, it to me symbolises the horrid beginning of the end phase of being with someone. Although after that, my cynicism returned, quickly. ‘UFO’ is another stadium hold up your lighter anthem which is forgettable and then OMG! Rihanna! LOLZ! ‘Princess of China’ starts somewhat electro and before the Barbadian bores you with more teasing, it’s the boys that sets the tone, Rihanna’s a bit part and it honestly, could have been anyone. She adds very little.
After the forgettable ‘Up in Flames’ there’s a sudden jump from morose to happy by way of another short interlude. Perhaps Mylo and Xyloto have reunited and via the last 2 tracks, both are sweeping and happy, an optimistic coda to what is a genuinely happy album. It deserves a happy ending, strip away all the marketing and off-stage rubbish and what’s left is a superb body of work that deserves to be their best known work.
Look, it’s Coldplay and this is going to be fawned over by critics, fans, bands, your mum and everyone else. The thing is, they’re all correct. There are some forgettable moments on this, but ultimately, there’s definite progression on “Mylo Xyloto” and in an era where you can hear almost every aborted B-Side by a band, that isn’t easy to do. This is strong stuff.
12/13
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The Adelines Profile
Written for The Bay Magazine – http://www.theswanseabay.co.uk/articles/4/Lifestyle-Leisure/133/BayBeats-TheAdelines.html
Having a revolving door of band members who juggle a job and other commitments can be a killer, so how do bands deal with it? Swansea-based The Adelines have been together in various forms since the start of the year, although there have been several changes as Dave (guitars/backing vocals) explains: “I had just parted ways from my old band KD Knows My Name and Jennie’s old band The Vintage Sound had split up.” Jennie (lead vocals/guitar) takes up the story: “We put an ad out for a drummer and bass player with Ray and our original bassist answering.”
After what seemed like a settled line up, their bassist left, an experience Ray described as a catastrophe. But they managed to turn his replacement into a positive: “We managed to get Dai (bass) in on real short notice, and with his input into the newer songs we’re starting to sound a bit different again.” He says. “We had very little time to find a new bassist and train him up. We were determined to not pull any of the gigs that we had lined up, and we managed to get Dai up and ready in time. From his first gig, we sounded great and got loads of positive feedback.”
So what is it that distinguishes The Adelines from the rest of the city’s bands? “I guess what makes us different is we don’t fit into just one genre like some,” says Dai. “Individually we’re influenced by different genres and it becomes apparent when we play our songs live as everyone is different to the last.” Jennie agrees: “We have a distinctive sound; it’s both mainstream and alternative.”
Although there is a general consensus among the quartet that leaving Swansea is a pre-requisite for success, the city does have a unique advantage: “People aren’t afraid to come up to you after gigs and offer advice,” says Jennie, “or even just to say that they’ve enjoyed your set. There’s a friendly vibe.” Dai continues: “It’s going to be real hard to beat the community in Swansea.” He says. “In our short time we’ve made some really strong bonds with other bands.”
While the bands are close-knit and there is a sense of community, the audience is lacking: “It’s hard to get the word around,” says Dave. “But the local promoters are trying their hardest to put on great shows and they always give it 110%.”
With one well-received EP already (recorded with local producer Dan Angelow) under their belts, and a second on the way, the band harbour differing long-term ambitions ranging from an American tour to world domination, but Jennie recognises the level of the challenge ahead for them: “I want to be touring with a fantastic album,” she says. “But the band will go as far as the effort that we put in.” Dai agrees: “Hopefully our unique sound will keep attracting more support in the future.”
To find out more about The Adelines, you can hear them on their Facebook page and on Twitter @TheAdelines. Their next Swansea gig is at Coyote on the 14th September.
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Luke Aaron Clark -Paper Tongue EP
Written for RoomThirteen.com – http://www.roomthirteen.com/cd_reviews/12103/Luke_Aaron_Clark__Paper_Tongue.html
Lazy, Summer Soundtrack
Brighton-based Luke Aaron Clark has released a ridiculously chilled out EP. This, his first, was recorded in Nashville, although he has resisted the tendancy to fill “Paper Tongue” with Country and Western. What he has tied these five songs together with is laziness. But not in a bad way.
Opener ‘Oh Isn’t Life Pretty’ has a faux-Disney quality to it, with harmonicas and harmonies gambolling in the background to his clean vocals and acoustic guitar work. It’s the scene in the animation where the glass slipper fits. All schmaltzy and absolutely no edge to it whatsoever. Not that Clark is seeking one. I got the impression that if he becomes known as the nerd who can play a song, he’d be quite happy.
Following that is what appears to be a track about a break up. ‘Just OK’ is incredibly simple, minor keys and strings backing a tortured voice which tries to let you in to the positives of a dissolution. It’s somewhat forgettable and needs an extra something that would make it a little different. Now ‘You’ is another story altogether. Maintaining that trademark laconic pace, there are more layers and an authentic emotional vocal performance from him which prevents the track becoming sonic mush. It’s a love song, but almost a credible one and probably a brilliant one to someone less cynical than me.
He brings in the backing twangs that country music favours on ‘Peace in Our Lives’ as he laments about “conflicts still going on”. This is the slowest song of the five and has a defined un-British streak to it, with Clark showing that he can adapt to a bourbon-soaked style if he needs to.
The final track, ‘Paper Story’ has hints of Beirut on it, a more eccentric tone to the three minutes, with untamed strings and accordions giving a gypsy quality to the song. It’s a rare moment of improvisation in what is quite a sanitised environment. It doesn’t last long as he fades out on a positive note, highlighting the overall disposition of these five songs.
Your mileage may vary, but “Paper Tongue” is a record which you may need to be in a certain mindset to listen to. This is the comedown from a heavy weekend or the soundtrack to an evening with a loved one and a bottle of something intoxicating. If you like stuff loud and anarchistic, this isn’t for you. Luke Aaron Clark is a singer who enjoys his role in the system, judging from this. Don’t expect revolution, but what he does isn’t a bad take on the archetypical bloke with a bit of plywood, some musical friends and a mic.
8/13
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