Song reviews

Classy accurately describes “Angélique” by Karen Myatt. She has a voice that burns with civilised emotion and behind her elegant presentation is an arrangement that would make Dave Grusin fans go all dewy eyed.

I got to thinking that “Polaroid of Pain” was some sort of time warped hybrid of alt-pop and lo-fi folk musical sensibilities which, as it turns out, is no bad thing with Gurry Wurry easily taking the melody all the way to the endearing chorus.

There is evident maturity in the words of “Struck To The Heart” and those impassioned female vocals keep the intensity going for the duration of this song with a power chord infused guitar solo included if words are not your thing.

Putting on the retro style is Darling Nikki and her song “Stay” duly sounds like it came from a time when productions were big and full of drama with her voice steering a steady course straight to her destination in less than three minutes.

“Traposphere” is clearly a song with a point to it even if said point is disguised by some energetic indie rock musical moves. Bau Cat nonetheless sound like the kind of band that you would want to meet in a basement club after midnight.

There’s nothing quite a little bit of emotional catharsis of the modern variety and Indigo Syndicate duly inject that into the veins of their song “Howling At The Moon”. The relatively simple arrangement helps keep the message at the forefront.

It would indeed be fair to describe “Something To Say” as commercial as Dizzy – from New Orleans it would seem – have set out to get your feet moving whilst staying right on track with the musical expectations of visitors to that fine city.

After a start that could legitimately be described as coldwave, “Singing In The Mirror” takes the turn towards the pop sphere with Nicole Atkins arming herself with more than introspection and duly emoting successfully all the way to the chorus.

You can’t really go wrong with a cover of a song like “Landslide” and Diana Schad duly and steadfastly decorates her version with some suitably fluent piano playing and the kind of vocals that make you believe in her. Classy.

That’ll do it. “Vultures” starts off all meaningful and melancholy before strident guitars and rather more freeform lyrics reminds us that this is the music of Origami Horses and, as always, they will be doing their own thing.

There seems to be a lot of catharsis in the air recently and Rita Vala has enough catharsis in her song “Not A Daddy’s Girl” to make it fit neatly into the crowd with her suitably dramatic approach to performance scoring additional points.

Although staying musically close to that post punk meets indie rock playbook, Dead Air Radio Empire still manage throw some trippiness into their conceptually oriented lyrics and “Stabilise” duly sounds like it should be part of something bigger.