The Twang - Love It When I Feel Like This

It’s ironic that just as Tony Blair shuffles out of Downing Street, eulogy and insult ringing equally in his ears, the Twang’s debut album hits the shelves. Blair swept into power in 1997, riding a well-manipulated wave of ‘Cool Britannia’, Noel Gallagher and a subsequently quite miffed Damon Albarn dragged along for the photo-shoots and the step into a brave new era.

A decade on, false dawns and broken promises have led to Jarvis Cocker lamenting that ‘cunts are still running the world’, no self-respecting rock star would be seen dead hugging Call Me Dave Cameron, and the Twang are finally sounding the death knell for Britpop.

It was hard to see how much further the ‘indie revival’ could stumble, but when the Twang are seen as The Next Big Thing, we should all surely know its time to pack up and move on. The world does not need another Ocean Colour Scene.

Even the title, though, does not bode well for the Twang’s ladrock credentials, Love It When I Feel I Like This suggesting a Ronan Keating b-side more than a swaggering, posturing nod to the days when we all wanted to live like common people.

Opener Ice Cream Sundae rhymes ‘sundae’ with ‘fun day’ (seriously) before diving into a typically Be Here Now-era Oasis ditty about having it my own way or some such. Vocals sound like a bad Brummie impression of Ian Brown. With a sore throat.

Wide Awake keeps you anything but, except for the unstoppable guffaws upon hearing them sing about ‘milfs’ who are ‘filth.’ The mainly soliloquy The Neighbour is an awful deluge of blandness, except when they swear a bit cos they’re all hard ‘n’ that. Its often the case throughout the LP that the only thing setting the Twang out from Magic favourites like the Feeling is their contrived foul mouths. Their lyrics consistant in their awfulness, ‘cat sat mat’ rhyming structures not even worthy of the ‘sixth form poetry’ insult. ‘Funny’ with ‘money’, ‘home’ with ‘alone’, it goes on and on, and there’s no saving grave musically, as it remains insipid and tiresome; say what you will about Oasis, and I usually do, but their early 90s catalogue at least includes some memorable tunes. Twang efforts like Push Away the Ghosts achieve no such thing, which is nigh-on impossible when you’re stealing half of the bassline from Gary Numan’s infectious Cars. Loosely Dancing continues the 90s feel, but only in reminding you of Five.

If the album starts bad, by the time you reach closers like Two Lovers and Got Me Sussed, time appears to have stopped. Reap What You Sow is about a party or something. I think. Moving your body and all that. Not that you would move anything to any of this. If you want to party like its 1996, this may be your bag, but that’s only if all of the parties you attended in 1996 were mind-numbing affairs filled with over-reaching Brummies.

Two old ones. Whey, I know Field Music was as well.

Malcolm Middleton - A Brighter Beat

Falkirk’s Malcolm Middleton is a foul-mouthed miserabilist who likes the odd drink; when not perpetuating tired national stereotypes, he makes rather good music.

A Brighter Beat is Middleton’s first album since he stopped being the bass-playing half of Arab Strap, and his third in all, following the overlooked (and stupidly titled) 5.14 Fluoxytine Seagull Alcohol John Nicotine and critically lauded Into The Woods. Like its predecessor, it begins with an unsuitably glorious statement of depressive intent.

“We’re all going to die.”

Where Into the Woods began with the pessimistic: “you’re going to break my heart / I know it,” this time out Middleton starts on a jazz-tinged forage into mortality, declaring the one thing he wants in the afterlife is his trusty duvet. That’s only if eternal life exists, though, ‘cos he’s not convinced.

Despite We’re All Going To Die’s initial morbid tone, Middleton’s usual acerbic wit and deft touch remain, with a refrain so addictive you’ll find yourself unintentionally threatening murder on the bus (whilst lamenting that your tuneless wailing isn’t compensated by the lulling tones of his backing singers, who regularly juxtapose beautifully with his world-weary growl).

The rest of the album continues in similar style, although Middleton’s focus shifts back to his traditional themes of love and boredom, his dark humour shining through as he complains that he’s four cigarettes away from having to leave the house. Fuck It, I Love You’s honesty and stoicism makes it another of the refreshingly real love songs Middleton has long excelled at, even if it isn’t quite good enough to overcome the cardinal sin of lyricism, that of rhyming ‘phone’ with ‘home’ and ‘alone.’ This album also returns to a more traditional, folky style, shunning the subtle electronic traits of Into The Woods. Whilst this could be seen as a step backwards, it does make it more easily classifiable, and, equally, accessible. He doesn’t swear as much this time, either, but becoming more Mam-friendly hasn’t been to the detriment of his deeply personal, poignant style, aptly illustrated by the title of one of the highlights, Death Love Depression Love Death.

The only departure from his unrequited-love-and-having-nowt-to-do formula comes on closing track Superhero Songwriters, a sideways swipe at the soapbox utopianism of many of Middleton’s singer-songwriter contemporaries. He isn’t interested in saving the world, as he’s resigned himself to it being crap.

When it sounds this good, who are we to argue?

Fall Out Boy - Infinity on High

Throughout the history of humanity, we have been presented with many problems and unanswered questions. How do you stop being left with the powdery bit in the bottom of a Pot Noodle? Is a Jaffa Cake a biscuit? Why do old people get on a bus and not tell the driver where they want to go, but how much they’re going to pay?

And take the continued popularity of emo forefathers Fall Out Boy. I don’t care where you take it, just take it somewhere. Please.

‘Eagerly awaited’ new album Infinity on High mainly succeeds in managing to expose ‘emo’ as the myth it is. There’s barely a single sincere emotion evident anywhere beneath the saccharine knob-twiddling, further proof that their armies of oh-so-in-touch-with-my-feelings pseudo-American fans are little more than clothes-horses, liable to drown in tears if ever presented with the heartstring-snapping work of the likes of Elliott Smith or Conor Oberst. Or, for that matter, Leonard Cohen, given how much Fall Out Boy defecate all over the timeless Hallelujah on this fourth album (which will probably also mean Jeff Buckley is now spinning in his grave at roughly the same speed as Ian Curtis after their criminal Love Will Tear Us Apart cover).

The album begins with Thriller (thankfully not yet another cover), with its woeful spoken-word pop at their critics, followed up with all of the usual ‘pained’ vocals and heavy-handed attempts at an FM chorus that we’ve heard too many times before. It also features Jay-Z. Seriously. It’s rare that such a contrived plummet into posturing postmodernism succeeds (remember Grindie? Exactly).

For instance, the Clash could get away (just) with such unashamed pillaging of the black music scene, mixing their true punk ethos with the soul and catchiness of reggae on seminal tracks like White Man in Hammersmith Palais.

Fall Out Boy, though, are not the Clash.

Nor are they NSYNC, which makes lead single This Ain’t A Scene, Its An Arms Race even harder to understand. Somewhere behind the shiny production is a godawful attempt at irony which sees the band becoming a caricature of themselves, a boyband for the 21^st Century, with more in common with Take That’s overblown comeback than anything remotely interesting. We can only pray that curtains never make a Barlow-esque return.

Various pieces of charmless emo shtick inevitably follow, and it’s hard to make out any notable tune or differentiate between one shallow mess and the next, your ears only picking up when assaulted with clumsy, egotistic atrocities like, “I’m alright in bed but I’m better with a pen.” You can only assume from this that they once used a Biro as a makeshift screw-driver or to help a nice little bunny rabbit with a broken leg, because they certainly didn’t use it to write lines like ‘you’re a canary, I’m a coal mine.’ Conversely, they must have gone through an entire Parker warehouse to scribble down the amount of self-pitying they come up with.

“I could learn to pity fools as I’m the worst of them all.”

No argument here. They also tell us that they saw God cry. If you were an all-seeing, all-knowing deity, you probably wouldn’t be wasting your time fannying around with Fall Out Boy, would you?

Field Music - Tones of Town

One of the striking consistencies during the emergence of the North East music scene a few years ago was the focus upon the instant and the frenetic. Maximo Park, the Futureheads, even the tenuously-Mackem Franz Ferdinand focussed on poppy post-punk, a trend continued via the emergence of the dubiously punctuated Kubichek! and DARTZ!

Lurking in their raucous shadow were Field Music, more interested in creating heart-warming hooks and soaring, melodic pop than in call-and-response choruses or NME pigeonholes, whilst having to contend with all-too-regular accusations of blandness and ‘Heads cronyism. Although it was true that they never seemed at their best in cavernous surroundings like Newcastle Academy, and especially so in some rain-sodden field filled with drunken festival types, in more intimate settings they remained tight and never less than charming. Fortunately it was this side that made it across on their eponymous debut LP.

And it’s an even greater slice of multi-layered near-perfect pop that the Brewis brothers and Andrew Moore have managed to transfer to the Wearside-produced Tones of Town. Toying piano loops cascade seamlessly with harmonic vocals, taut rhythms and strutting beats across eleven tracks of joyous retro-chic which evokes The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and, whisper it, Phil Collins, although its doubtful the ex-Genesis MOR-master would ever take to the beat-boxing adorning the Modest Mouse-esque Sit Tight.

Usually, a band clocking in an entire album at little over half an hour would be hailed for energetically ‘rattling through’ their songs, but such a cliché would not give Tones of Town’s antithesis to vacuous three-chord tunes the credit that it deserves. Despite the short running length, Field Music still manage to cram in enough ideas, and well thought-out ones at that, to fill many band’s careers, each listen revealing more previously undiscovered nuances amid the waves of commendably-produced musicianship. The confidence evident in almost every second of Tones of Town proves Field Music’s true arrival to the North East music scene is finally here, their second coming cementing their place as Sunderland indie poster-boys and suggesting that in future, they may be rewarded with a review not mentioning the ‘F’ word.

Justice - †

Apparently pronounced as Cross, or Dagger, to prevent it falling into the !!! trap of Brilliant But Impossible To Google music, this is the first album from the French duo still riding the wave of last year’s crossover smash We Are Your Friends.

The apparent religious connotations of † seem to give the possible crucifix explanation more weight, especially when featuring tracks titled Genesis, Let There Be Light and Waters of Nazareth. You could, of course, be overly analytical, and see † as the long-heralded ‘resurrection’ of dance music. Because that’s what it is.

That’s no more evident than in aptly-named lead single, D.A.N.C.E., which continues the spiritual peace-and-love message, its playful Motown style vocal imploring us to forget the world’s troubles and get onto the dancefloor, possibly wearing one of the inevitable spin-off t-shirts from its video. Such cheerful nature means the music remains organic and soulful, eschewing the basic Futureheads-go-synth sound of the New Rave bandwagon with more beats then you can shake a glowstick at.

DVNO is a surefire single with a dance-craze friendly handclap, and One Minute To Midnight conjures up romanticised views of the 80s, proving retro-chic is back. Again. The two-part Phantom gives a harder edge to proceedings, while Stress samples music video pioneers Devo, somewhat ironic given the pair’s secretive, shadowy nature, and Valentine features their own remix of Me Against the Music by LA layabout and sometime pop princess Britney Spears, a move toward genre-bending continued with the vocals of Ed Banger cohort Uffie on The Party.

When coupled with the debut from their monkey mates at Simian and the excellent Idealism, it appears that critics were too quick to proclaim the death of electro. The superstar DJ may thankfully have gone, but the tunes are back, and Justice are taking them overground.

Dizzee Rascal - Maths & English

Dylan Mills has always treaded the fine line between gun-toting gangsterism and the equally nauseating hip-hop-with-heart of the likes of Miss Dynamite, the streets’ self-appointed moral saviour. Looking over the tracklist to third album Maths and English, you can’t help but worry he’s lurched head-first into misogyny; Suk My Dick and Pussyole aren’t exactly titles likely to earn favour with the WI.

In truth, we get more of the same. Dizzee rescues himself from being pigeonholed alongside his stale US peers with typically British grime and an honest portrayal of the feelings on the streets of Bethnal Green, as urban UK falls apart. Critics of the record have damned what they deem to be Dizzee’s ‘Americanisation’ of his style, once so quintessentially modern Britain, with Maths & English’s US guest rappers and the supposed rise of egotism, but even on Showtime, he was telling us about having his name not only on ‘the flyer’ but on his ‘trainers.’ Somehow, be it through his charm or his scattered references to Eastenders and such, he gets away with it, although the occasional awful rhyming couplet grate far more. Multicultural unease post July 7^th, gun crime and inner-city deprivation are all also touched upon, although the sideswipes at faux-ghetto wannabe gangsters don’t really work when accompanied by Lily Allen, the Queen of Mockney, even if it is spot on in sentiment and in lyric.

The Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner also pops up with a guest vocal, his instantly recognisable but limited voice jarring uncomfortably with Mills’ on Temptation. Suk My Dick is actually surprisingly, perhaps shamefully, catchy, though fortunately aimed at his detractors, rather than the female population, and the edge is removed slightly as he continues his inappropriate sampling history with Yankee Doodle Went to Town. Ode to summertime, Da Feelin’ will bounce from many a soundsystem and clapped-out Astra, its adage that “I don’t believe in fate / life is what you make it / make it great” following his previous encouragement to the streets it will air in. Stand out track is Excuse Me Please, a plea for peace peppered with a somewhat juxtaposed‘fuck it’, over an effectively simplistic rhythm section.

However, you get the feeling its a few tracks too long, with the undoubted highs stretched too far. The repetition of certain phrases and nods to the predecessor appear conceptual rather than jaded or lazy, but musically he hasn’t changed things too much. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” of course carries weight in this industry, but eventually you may have to.

For now, with M.I.A.’s sophomore also on the horizon, the golden children of brithop are still showing their tired American counterparts how it’s done, but you have to wonder how much longer that will last.

Now then, now then

Settle in, settle down.

What the bloody hell am I doing here then?

Cake. First thing that came to my head. I like cake. I may or may not be talking about the new super drug from Czechoslovakia.