Albino – I Love Everyone

Reviewed by Mark Corcoran-Lettice


Look, I don’t like playing the scrooge. Despite all the tack and the tastelessness of it all, I’m still a sucker when I hear A Christmas Gift For You All burst into life over the speakers, or when the tree gets puts up and decorated.
This, however, is just bollocks. Their press release claims influences from the likes of The Smiths and The Magnetic Fields, but this just sounds like a Salvation Army choir fallen upon bad times. Built upon a slightly sea-sick rhythm, the track’s built out with one of the most horribly cheap organ sounds every conjured by a charity-shop synth, some blaringly bad horns and, acting as the arse-scented cherry atop this shit-encrusted tart, lead singer Ben Tucker’s painfully out-of-tune vocals.

And the worst part of this? ‘I Love Everyone’ isn’t even a new effort: it’s a re-release of a song they first put out two sodding years ago (and, quite honestly, it’s not hard to comprehend how it flopped the first time). So don’t give them any false hope by buying this, because otherwise they’re going to re-release it again in 2011, when some other poor sod at NSR is going to have to listen and review the damn thing. There’s going to be plenty of crappy releases for them to plough through without you adding to the pile.

0/5

Animal Collective – Brother Sport

Reviewed by Mark Corcoran-Lettice


I’m not even going to pretend to be impartial here. I absolutely adore Animal Collective – ever since I stumbled upon a copy of then-current album ‘Feels’ four years ago, I’ve found myself addicted to the many weird and wonderful records this band has put out, and in that time they’ve only got better.

Coming from this year’s triumphant leap into dance textures, Merriweather Post Pavilion, ‘Brother Sport’ is nothing less than six minutes of pure adrenaline: from the very first exuberant yell to the final, dizzying fade-out, it’s energy distilled into a pure, pristine cut of euphoric, joyous music. While it does perhaps work better as the conclusion to an epic full-length than as a stand-alone cut, it’s still a remarkably frantic piece of work that distils everything that made fans, new-comers and critics across the world fall hopelessly in love with Merriweather when it came out all the way back in January.

With Animal Collective currently re-grouping and planning their next move after their busiest, most successful year to date, ‘Brother Sport’ acts as a well-earned victory lap: a final display of brilliance, and a perfect way to close up this chapter in the AC story before they return to surprise us all once again.

Atlas Sound - Walkabout

Reviewed by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Well here’s one for the picture book. Bradford Cox and Panda Bear, both standard bearers for the school of American Alternative Rock, Class ‘08-’09, have both been touring partners and mutual fans for a long time, but ‘Walkabout’, the first single from the Atlas Sound (Bradford’s solo project) record Logos, marks the first time the two have appeared together on record.

Riding largely on an organ sample from the Dovers’ ‘What Am I Going To Do’, the celebratory nature of the track initially appears much more a product of Panda Bear than Atlas Sound, boasting an optimism and lightness of feel rarely found in Bradford Cox’s tense, claustrophobic work. But the devil is very much in the details, and amongst the duo’s jubilant chanting, Cox’s trademarks slowly appear: a slightly worn, faded production style that renders the sound nostalgic and sepia-toned, the chiming delayed guitars quietly subverting the blasts or organ in the back of the mix and the sudden, unexpected fade-out all bring the track back in line with what we might expect of the Atlas Sound moniker. Bradford Cox may have spoken of Logos being an attempt to produce a more extroverted record, and certainly ‘Walkabout’ does see his music step gloriously into the sunlight – just don’t expect there not to be at least some residual fear there.

The Maccabees – Love You Better

With so many of the gang of 2007 having fallen fowl of second-album syndrome (hell, even the NME can’t stand the new Enemy one), it’s hard not to suspect that Brighton tykes The Maccabees must be feeling the strain a little. But to their credit, new single “Love You Better” is a pop gem as delightful as any they’ve release to date, with Orlando Weeks’ vocals as impassioned and memorable as ever. While it’s no quantum leap from their debut, the horn arrangement that builds over the song’s three minute is a smart, impressively restrained addition to their arsenal, and with their imitable brand of slow-burning anthemics as sharp as ever, “Love You Better” bodes very well indeed for the full-length comeback ‘Wall Of Arms’.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Passion Pit– The Reeling

Having burst into the public eye after the song “Sleepyhead” from their ‘Chunk Of Change’ EP was featured on MTV adverts and tipped in the BBC’s Sound of 2009 poll, expectations are high for the boys of Passion Pit, and while new single “The Reeling” (the first from their full-length debut ‘Manners’) might not be as immediate as its predecessor, it’s still a delightful piece of dancefloor-ready pop. Kicking off with 80s-inflected synths that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the last M83 album, “The Reeling” may be a more retro-minded effort for the band, but the wonderfully messy chorus keeps things rooted in the modern day. The jury’s out on whether they’ll break out MGMT-style as some predict (and, one would assume, their record company hope), but “The Reeling” is a great little single in its own right.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Hockey – Learn To Lose

Portland, Oregon new wave revivalists Hockey have been making big waves already after only one single, and as such their second release “Learn To Lose” carries more than a little hype on its shoulders. As flailing Talking Heads guitars engage in a tug of war with frontman Benjamin Grubin’s vocals, the track quickly races into a chorus that shows that the band’s much more on the ‘Small Creatures’ side of the fence than the ‘Remain In Light’ one. While it’s a fun enough song, the overwhelming air of preppyness gets very grating after several listens (I mean, didn’t we only just get Vampire Weekend to shut up?), and this reviewer fears that this isn’t going to be the last we hear of this song. Enjoy the tune by all means – it’s a decent ditty, after all – just don’t be surprised when you want to throttle the fuckers by the time the year’s out.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Sebastian Tellier – Kilometer EP

Despite having made something of a splash in his native France (with Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk producing his most recent album ‘Sexuality’), Sebastian Tellier, confusingly, remains something of a cult concern elsewhere, even after a memorably daft Eurovision entry last year. Aiming to blast him out of his current ghetto then, his new EP ‘Kilometer’ packages his original track with five new remixes. The original, while a fun piece of pop, is a curious choice for a single: slower and less exuberant than much of his other material, it’s hard not to feel that choosing something a bit looser, more up-tempo and, frankly, more Tellier might have been a wiser choise. The main meat of this EP is found in the remixes though, which prove to be something of a mixed package. Aereoplane’s two mixes – the Radio mix and the Italo 84 mix – prove to be the record’s highlights, both cranking up the pace and danceability of the track. The Ed Banger-isms of the first remix may be more comercial, but it’s the more retro-minded second mix that really stands out, with disgustingly slick synths and vocodered-beyond-understanding vocals brining out the sleazy core of the Tellier original to delightful effect. The remaining three remixes, the A-Trak mix, the Donovan mix and the Moulinex mix, fall somewhat short of this standard – the first two prove somewhat forgettable, while the funk basslines and orgasmic groans found on Moulinex’s effort take the sexuality theme just a little too far into the realm of self-parody. While it’s got its moments of pleasure (pun intended), it’s hard to work out exactly who this record is for: current Tellier fans would rather have more of the man himself, yet it doesn’t prove an easy entry point for any new listeners either.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Castrovalva – Castrovalva

Like, woah dude. This bass-and-drums duo may hail from Leeds (home to many other wonderful experimental rock acts like Bilge Pump, That F***ing Tank and big-new-things in waiting Pulled Apart By Horses), but it’s the sounds of the American underground that Castrovalva pay homage to on their debut mini-album. Using the sonic arsenal of Lightning Bolt to power Melvins-esque sludge riffing, in under half an hour Castrovalva manage to conjure up the sound of the Earth’s bowels loosening in terror: short, sharp noise bursts like “Bison Scissor Kick” and “Triceratops” boast a primeval stomp whose visceral impact most certainly isn’t for the faint hearted. Although there is a tendency for the tracks to blur into one mass of stampeding sonics (only the mercifully short ambient interlude “London Kills Me” and Leemun Smith’s insane wailing over “Bellhausen” alter the formula at all), for a record of this length it’s hardly an issue – and frankly, when it’s a sound this powerful, it’s not much of a complaint to begin with. With a full-length due later in the year and a variety of support slots lined up (including one with doom-gaze maestros Nadja), 2009 looks set to be a good year for Castrovalva, and this mini-album starts things off very un-nicely indeed.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Alex Roots – Fake

Alex Roots – FakeOh dear. On her debut single “Fake”, Ms. Roots clearly aims for the kind of teasing pop brilliance previously touted by Blondie, but on this effort she barely counts as the new Katy Perry. Combining nauseatingly clichéd lyrics that wouldn’t be that misplaced this side of an Avril Lagvine song, utterly characterless vocals and some of the most bland drum and guitar parts ever to be laid down by beings of flesh and blood (although with something this cloyingly plastic, you can never be too sure…), the song’s a train wreck from the off, and it only gets messier and bloodier over its 195 seconds. At least you (or, more to the point, I) probably won’t have to ever hear her again. Fingers crossed, eh?

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

U2 – No Line On The Horizon

Thirty-three years, more than 140 million record sales, 22 Grammy Awards, 13 studio albums. By this point, it’s impossible to place U2 within the standard parameters of the ‘rock’ band: they’ve been innocent, religious post-punk underdogs, earnest political songwriters, hyper-ironic sonic adventurers and, since the turning of the millennium, the self-proclaimed best band in the world. Their fans are numerous, as are their detractors– you’d be forgiven for mistaking them for a religion, a government or a business, such is their ubiquity.
How, then, are we supposed to their thirteenth studio album, ‘No Line On The Horizon’? Well, let’s look at the statistics again and see what we find. Their first album in five years, their seventh to feature production from Brian Eno, five different formats (including a magazine format: an advertorial, a manifesto or a religious pamphlet?), eleven new compositions and a running time of just under 54 minutes. These, at least, we can take as truths.
This time round though, U2 seem less interested in statements of subjective truth, a la “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, or in the questioning of objective truth found on ‘Achtung Baby’, and it’s certainly being promoted as one of the vaguest U2 albums yet. Bono’s spoken of his attempts to create characters to deliver the songs rather than relying on the first person, and the sedate nature of tracks like “Moment Of Surrender” attempt to avoid the obvious. But for far too much of the album, U2 don’t even sound like they’re on autopilot – they just don’t sound like they even turned up to the studio. The nauseatingly leaden lead single “Get on Your Boots” is a patronisingly contrived attempt to marry White Stripes fuzz to their standard arena stylings that sounds not like the work of four flesh-and-blood beings but a room full of marketing executives, pie charts in hand (or, considering how ham-fisted that chorus is, just a roomful of pies and distortion pedals).
And that’s why U2 exist only in statistics now – there’s no reality left to them. Every song here has no other reference point other than the ghost of U2 past: the title track’s percussion is pure “Mysterious Ways”, while “Unknown Caller” is their latest attempt to top “One” (brief spoiler: they don’t succeed). Doubtlessly, this album will add another million or two to their bank accounts, bump up the record and ticket sells into the realms of the truly absurd, but that’s all there is of note about the record. Long gone are the days of Zoo TV and genuine risk (remember for a second that this the same band that used to call up Sarajevo during their concerts and picked Public Enemy and The Fatima Mansions for arena support slots), and in it’s place there’s nothing but the distant hum of a cash register ringing.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Doves – Kingdom of Rust

It’s always struck me a strange thing to pity the stars, those who get to make their livelihood doing what they love, but when it comes to the Doves, it becomes a little more understandable. While hardly lingering in obscurity, they’ve never made the jump into the mainstream, Metro Arena world that’s been predicted for them even since ‘Lost Souls’ back in 2000. Well, it’s 2009 now, and perhaps inspired by the Elbow have been clasped to the nation’s collective bosom in the last year, they’re back with the first single and title track from their fourth album, ‘Kingdom of Rust’.
Yes yes, all well and good…but how does it actually sound? It’s in possession of the same driving beats and yearning vocals the Doves have always possessed, but there’s a distinct rockabilly-via-Alex-Turner sensibility to the verse that doesn’t entirely befit the band. When the strings kick in though, it’s immediately evident that they get Scott Walker a damn sigh better than the aforementioned Alex and his mate ever have, and the song slowly morphs into the kind of stampeding epic that they’ve always excelled at. Although not at the same level as career highlight “There Goes The Fear”, the track’s very much an extension of the post-millennial angst of its parent album ‘The Last Broadcast’, with only the occasional nod of the head to the changes in the rock landscape since 2005’s ‘Some Cities’. It’s a good tune alright, but unlike – and apologies for bringing them up again, but it’s just too good a comparison to avoid – Elbow’s comeback “Grounds for Divorce”, it doesn’t quite go for the jugular in the way that Doves perhaps need to right now. “Kingdom of Rust” is bound to find a place in the heart of any Doves fan, but sadly their brand of populist ambition seems set to appeal only to the converted in the age of landfill indie. Sigh.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Chris Cornell – Part Of Me

Why Chris, why? As a profoundly introverted and socially inept youth, Soundgarden were rock royalty to me: hell, I even went as far as to buy that terrible second Audioslave album (although at least I didn’t waste anything on the third…). ‘Superunknown’ is still one of the best unashamedly, full-on rock albums to come out of America in the nineties, but it’s hard to hear this as anything else but a full-on sonic kick in the balls for my fourteen year-old self.
Teaming up with respected hip-hop production maestro Timbaland might have seemed good on paper, but when both sides of the equation are well past their prime (Timbaland’s never going to top his early collaborations with Missy Elliot, while Cornell’s not been worth a damn since the first Audioslave record), it’s a recipe for disaster. Which, unsurprisingly, is exactly what ‘Part Of Me’ is. Desperately searching for something to re-ignite his creative spark, Chris Cornell’s got Timbaland to fart out some embarrassingly dated beats of a calibre he would have been ashamed of a few years back that, when combined with Cornell’s increasingly hack-like Robert Plant-isms, actually rip a hole in the space-time continuum to several years back (where, for the record, this would still be unforgivably shit). By the time the chorus’s lament of “That bitch ain’t a part of me!” rolls around, the only possible reaction is to bury your head in your hands, while remembering that this used to be the guy who sang “Jesus Christ Pose”. That no one thought to burn the master-tapes for this atrocity and spare everyone involved the embarrassment of inflicting this upon an unsuspecting public is frankly astonishing. If there’s a worse attempt at career-invention this year, then I’ll personally bite my own arse off.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Animal Collective – My Girls

They’ve been beloved by the internet community and various pockets of industry insiders for years now, but it’s only with this year’s magnificent ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’ that Animal Collective have had their first chance at real, crossover success. Hoping to capitalise on the rave reviews and unprecedented (for a band as experimental as Animal Collective) attention surrounding the album, Domino Records have selected “My Girls” as a single to try and sell their unique sound to the masses.
Well, “My Girls” is, if nothing else, an incredible piece of music. Building up from a simple synth arpeggio, the track slowly gains momentum over its almost six-minute run-time as Panda Bear’s ecstatic vocals leap into the stratosphere and the band’s trademark tribal percussion ratchets up the tempo. And there’s that instantly memorable chorus: “I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things / Like my social status / I just want four walls and adobe slabs / For my girls”. Honestly, when was the first time you heard something of such unadorned love and passion in a song? It’s a universal sentiment, but this expression of familial love and rejecting the rat race is, in 2009, powerful belong reckoning. It’s here that the real genius of not just this song, but its parent album also, lies: the music treads a fine line between Beach Boys melodocism and avant-garde electronic experimentation, but the thing that makes it such a compelling reason is the great beating heart at the core of the album – there’s not been any music so nakedly human and humane in years. Whether Animal Collective continue to be a cult concern or whether they’re destined to hit the big leagues by the year’s end, there’s very little chance that there’ll be another song as powerful and jubilant as “My Girls”.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Micachu and the Shapes – Vuitton Blues

Have you ever listened to a record and had no idea whatsoever who it’s meant to appeal to? Well, that’s the experience this reviewer went though while listening to Micachu and the Shapes tackle Laurel Collective’s ‘Vinton Blues’.
Seemingly the work of some especially strange executive at Double Six Records, who’ve already released a fairly naff Laurel Collective take on Micachu’s ‘Golden Phone’, this cover of ‘Vuitton Blues’ seems like some attempt to try and thwart the careers of two bands in one fell swoop.
Giving the song an unfortunate nu-rave makeover, Micachu take out the fizzy, Associates-esque appeal of the original artist and replace it with a load of ugly, neon bollocks (the synths in particular sounding especially hideous). Although in theory they should be given credit for not just doing a lazy, tribute act run-through of the track, that seems a little akin to rewarding a kleptomaniac who’s managed to avoid stealing anything, but’s punched an innocent bystander in the throat for a giggle.
A truly terrible idea that’s really not much better in execution, the advice here is two-fold: firstly, just check the fairly fun, breezy indie-pop of the original, and much more importantly, don’t listen to bands with names like Micachu and the Shapes. They’ve pretty much bound to be terrible.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Marmaduke Duke – Kid Gloves

So, the story goes something like this: a little-known but highly praised Scottish post-hardcore outfit release three rather fine albums to little success. Their frontman, perhaps a little jaded by their lack of commercial advancement, forms a bizarre side-project based around a fictional duke whose debut album flits from brain-crushing insanity to acoustic loveliness at whiplash-inducing speed – so far, so good. Then, however, the first band finally achieves some well-earned success, only for their music to go…well, pretty shit in fact. Their frontman reacts by reviving his old side-project, hoping perhaps to revitalise his song writing.
In case you hadn’t guessed, the band I’m referring to here is one Biffy Clyro, and it’s Simon Neil’s Marmaduke Duke side-project (formed with JP Reid of Sucioperro) that’s come out of suspended animation with their new single ‘Kid Gloves’. But has Simon’s music found a new lease of life with this track? Well, swapping crunching guitars for chiming synths and funk rhythms just show a man realising that his old tricks have lead to something of a dead-end, but ‘Kid Gloves’ never moves beyond initial promise. The song seems content to hit autopilot as soon as the first chorus has been and gone (and given that it’s a chorus that sounds suspiciously like ‘Folding Stars’ on a cheap Casio, that’s an even more damning failure), and when compared to the gleeful experiments of earlier Marmaduke Duke material, ‘Kid Gloves’ sounds anaemic to say the least. It’d be foolish to write off Simon Neil and his band(s) just yet, but after several disappointing singles from the Biffy, ‘Kid Gloves’ suggests a man whose inspiration is running out.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

White Lies – To Lose My Life

They’ve been hotly tipped by just about everyone imagine (as well as a few who aren’t), they’ve supported the likes of Crystal Castles and Glasvegas: really, is it possible for a band to be more in vogue than White Lies currently are? ‘To Lose My Life’ is only their third single, released to promote their forthcoming debut (also called ‘To Lose My Life’ – clearly hype prevents you from actually coming up with names for things), and while it may not exactly justify some of the more ecstatic praise they’ve been getting, it’s an enjoyable enough song in its own right.
Kicking off with an insistent bass hum and frontman Harry McVeigh’s darkly romantic baritone, ‘To Lose My Life’ is an arena-sized three-minute epic, with a soaring chorus that begs for vast auditoriums and vastly overpriced, piss weak lager. While they are undoubtedly another band far too in thrall with Joy Division for their own good, they’ve still got some undeniable melodies, and they manage to avoid the painfully dire lyricism of an Interpol or the plain tedium of an Editors quite capably.
Over hyped? Good God yes. But enjoyable regardless? Actually, yes to that as well.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Clinic – Tomorrow

Released to help promote their upcoming ‘Planetarium of the Soul’ tour, “Tomorrow” shows everything that’s made Clinic such a unique act, and kept them that way even a decade after their formation. Jittery, pastoral acoustic guitars subside to the psychedelic pulse that drives so many Clinic songs, while Ade Blackburn’s distinctively muffled voice vibrates with barely contained violence. It’s yet another fine song from one of Britain’s most consistent bands – and as per usual for Clinic, you can expect it to vanish without a trace commercially. Sad, really…

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice

Deborah Shaw – The Big Bang

While it might be easier to distribute music and get into the public domain now that MySpace has become an integral part of any act’s promotional push and the internet’s allowed for the (theoretical) democratisation of music, it has, in its way, made it harder to stand out from the crowd.
This is the problem that Newcastle based singer-songwriter Deborah Shaw faces like may others, and it’s readily apparent that her first EP ‘The Big Bang’ is very much an attempt to stand out from the crowd. Certainly, the influences that abound these five tracks – a hint of Regina Spektor here, a touch of Tori Amos there – are a welcome relief from the stifling rock canon of the Beatles, the Stones and Dylan, and her determination to try and avoid the obvious is a true relief. However, she is guilty of relying on her idols a little too much, with first track I Didn’t Catch Your Name, while catchy enough, sounding just a little too close to Spektor’s “Fidelity” for comfort. When she leans a little less heavily on such sounds though, the results are rather impressive: the melancholy, reflective ballad Fly in particular is very promising, showcasing her emotive vocals and suggesting at a much more singular creative vision. While it’s not without its faults, ‘The Big Bang’ is an intriguing and diverse debut release that’s dramatic and forceful enough to make Deborah Shaw a name to look out for.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice