Song reviews

Ginesse stars as the uptown girl that keeps on making good with this mainstream ballad that transcends its plastic heritage by intelligently injecting enough heart and soul to put the coffee shop crowd into spasms of synchronicity.

It might seem rather strange to describe a song as “oddly human” yet the term seems nothing less than appropriate when considering Skyscraper Stan’s song “On Your Corners” with his fractured Americana influences soon being overcome by glorious old school sentimentality.

“Leaning on Myself” is another slice from the cake of bleakness much favoured by minimalist Scandi electropop bakers like Anna of the North. The song is, of course, nicely executed but seekers of happiness will have to look elsewhere.

Make no mistake about it, “Disappear” is an endearing song that stays just this side of offbeat with Paria playing with your ears like a supercool jazz cat would play with a ball of wool. If I were a multinational technology giant, I would license this song for my next commercial. Believe it!

Now this is more like it. Say no to subtlety. Say yes instead to kicking the walls down and, with this full on power chord barrage of a song called “Boogie”, Norwegian band Wet Dreams do just that. Originality is often overrated but attitude is forever and ever the answer to everything.

Although moody to the point of melancholy, HAVVK throw enough guitar muscle power into “Bird On A Wire” to turn the female vocals into the perfectly designed, and almost wistful, counterpoint. The art house crowd will undoubtedly like this one.

I have to admit to finding “House On A Rocky Road” by Maya Lavelle endearingly quirky. I’m also sure that some will find the song irritating but any musician who strays away from the sequenced norm will always find favour with me.

So relentlessly downbeat as to make Leonard Cohen seem like S Club 7, Jim Clement takes us on a musical journey to the oblivion that is apathy with “The Advice Song” and I suppose that makes it as much a song for today as you are likely to get. Curiously appealing, for all that.

Canadian alt rockers Still Eighteen take a shot at capitalism with the lyrics to their song “Carnivore” yet still fill the sonics up with all the power chords and take it to the bridge in a Camaro attitude that The Man likes. You will probably like it too.

“Call Me” is exactly the kind of high emotion ballad that makes the playlists of the better class of radio stations on both sides of the Atlantic these days. Does that make Sarah Klang the new Adele? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

Too clever to be conventional, Secret Treehouse take the electro pop vibe and decorate it with wistful drama and the type of melodic insistence more readily associated with rock music thus making their song “Kind of Special” just that.

Those who favour a fair degree of synthetic brutality in their electronic music might well find “Imma Be” by Watgood to their taste as the song resonates with right angled dancefloor influences and chopped up samples. This song made we want to steal a Subaru.