The Cellophane Flowers – Yes I am/If I Was A Girl (Double A-Side Single)

Reviewed by James Tabbinor

The Cellophane Flowers return! Or so I’m led to believe. Never bloody heard of ‘em. The press release would also have me believe that these guys have their own unique sound, which they don’t; their ‘catchy but merciless guitar riff [...] will not soon be forgotten’. All lies, I tells ya. Can’t remember it already, and I don’t care enough to attempt to.

Anyway, enough about yet another boring band with yet another boring single that I’m always FORCED to review (sort of), because I really can't be bothered talking about the music anymore. It’s time to take the label (Blurb Music PR, hello@blurbpr.com) to task on their press release. Specifically this particular sentence: ‘Italian leading lady Francesca Corradini joined the band after auditioning on the day of the 7/7 bombings’. Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? In what way is that relevant? It really wound me up, because there’s no reason to mention that she auditioned on that particular date. I don’t get why the press release would include that titbit of information at all. Unless it’s just to make the authorities aware she was in the country on that date?

I think you all know what I mean. Case closed (and the world’s worst review with it).

The Hush Now – Contrails

Reviewed by James Tabbinor

This review is gonna be short, because this band are crap. They sound like they’re fresh off the indie assembly line, the singer sounds like he has flu or something, and it’s just really shitty boring music.

If you’re a fan of Skins (isn’t your life just like Skins? Yeah! Awesome! I’m totally partying and having emotional difficulties ALL THE TIME) then you’ll like this, probably.

2/5.

Alternative review:

INDIE KIDS INDIE KIDS
INDIE KIDS INDIE KIDS
INDIE KIDS INDIE KIDS
INDIE KIDS INDIE KIDS
INDIE KIDS INDIE KIDS
INDIE KIDS INDIE KIDS
INDIE KIDS INDIE KIDS
SKINS SKINS SKINS SKINS
INDIE KIDS INDIE KIDS
INDIE KIDS INDIE KIDS
INDIE KIDS INDIE KIDS
INDIE KIDS INDIE KIDS

The Strange Boys – Be Brave

Reviewed by James ‘James’ Tabbinor

There’s not a lot to say about this new release by young Texans The Strange Boys, and it’s not particularly favourable. I’ll start off with the bad stuff, so they can have the good stuff for pudding.

Essentially I have two major problems with this single; for starters, the vocals. They’re terrible. Ryan Sambol (lead vocals) cannot sing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of plenty of bands/artists where the singer cannot sing, but they’re voice has something quintessentially gripping and charismatic about it. This guy doesn’t have that edge, he just screeches into the microphone, trying to get a raw, Jagger-esque sound, but just doesn’t pull it off. It’s not pleasant to listen to, and you can barely understand what he’s actually singing.

Now, I’ll go on to the second bad point about this single, which may cut Sambol some slack. It’s the recording, specifically (once again) vocals. Everything else sounds pretty great (which I’ll come to shortly) but the quality of the vocals is shocking. Both the lead and backing vocals sound really, really tinny, a bit like Sambol is singing down a phone line. This single, and it’s poor recording, really doesn’t bode well for the forthcoming album (also entitled ‘Be Brave’). Might I add that if this tinny sound is intentional, then it was a really poor decision production wise.

Now, those are the two things that got my goat, and it’s a real shame because the rest of the single actually sounds pretty good. It’s got a really nice bluesy riff that’s reminiscent of The Rolling Stones, or even Chuck Berry. Listening to this was actually really refreshing because it sounds nothing like the sort of bands that are coming off the indie assembly line at the moment. It’s just a massive shame that this has to be hindered by what is essentially a poor singer.

All in all I’m gonna split my score in two; what was essentially nice bluesy rock n’ roll was let down by shocking vocals. As such the music gets a 3/5, and the vocals a 1.

Ivor Game - Small

Reviewed by James Tabbinor

Ivor Game is a little known London based singer/songwriter who’s been around for a good decade or so, and has had a string of well received albums and singles. You may not have heard of him but he’s managed to tour the UK and Europe, sometimes going as far as America to play gigs. Having said that, they obviously can’t have been massive tours otherwise we’d have heard more of him, so he can’t be that good, right?

Well you know what, this isn’t half bad. It’s actually quite good, and different. It isn’t mind blowing or musically revolutionary, but it isn’t trying to be. The lyric ‘There’s something quite remarkable in being small’ sums it up, and I suppose that reflects his career; he’s not been at the top selling platinum albums, but he’s quite content and happy not to be. He obviously just enjoys making music, and fair play to him, because this is a lot better than some generic basement band shite that sings about making it to the top and the like. This is just a nice song with decent lyrics and a gentle guitar piece backing it, and it doesn’t claim to be anything else, so you can’t really fault him for that.

3/5

Mercurius – Come On In

Reviewed by James Tabbinor

The press release for this debut album from Mercurius claims that they have a fresh sound that is ‘purposely meandering off the course of current music trends’ and I’d have to agree. Yes, this album does have a sound that is different to what we hear on the radio these days, but only because it seems to have revisited the trends of pop/rock from a decade or so ago. It sounds very outdated, purely because at times the lyrics sound as generic as those of Oasis, other times the lead guitar sounds like a cross between James and The Charlatans, it all combines to create the feeling that you’ve heard this record before.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not terrible, but it isn’t great either, it’s just frustratingly competent and I’m afraid to say at times a bit formulaic. I’m not saying that on an album each song should be strikingly different from the one preceding, but there’s only so many times you can listen to a song that begins with hard hitting chords and riffs, brings it down for a slow middle eight, then returns to hard hitting chords and riffs. Lather, rinse, repeat.

‘Comfort Zone’, which I’m led to believe will be the debut single, is alright but to be honest the standout track on this album was ‘Confidence’, because it did sound different, at least to the rest of the album, and admittedly there was sporadic glimpses of this freshness throughout, but never consistently enough to warrant the claims of being ‘distinctive’ and ‘original’. Decent they are, groundbreaking they ain’t.

3/10

The Lancashire Hotpots – The Beer Olympics

Reviewed by James Tabbinor

Well, there isn’t a great deal to say about the latest single from The Lancashire Hotpots, because, being a novelty folk band, it’s very much a novelty record. The lyrics are all comic and tongue in cheek musings on a beer drinking event at the 2012 Olympics, in which binge-drinking Britain would undoubtedly triumph with help from the wisdom of personal trainer Johnny Vegas. The B-sides are much in the same fashion, with ‘Mek Us A Brew’ being a lament to drinking tea, and a scathing attack on fancy latte serving coffee joints, and the dance mix of ‘The Beer Olympics’ is again tongue in cheek, with the backing track being in the vein of ‘Cotton-eye Joe’ and other such cheesy dance.

It’s funny, I’ll give them that, and people might say I shouldn’t take it so seriously but I can’t give them anything more than a poor score, purely because like most novelty records the novelty wears off long before you’ve reached the end of the track, sorry lads!

2/5

Track Listing: Speciality, it’s novelty folk for Christ’s sake!