Song reviews

Another adoration of the better days of American power punk, Bony Macaroni nearly overdose on retro irony but you can’t argue with the simple fact that “Doom” would be a suitable soundtrack to your ice cream powered dysfunctional mood.

You don’t get many songs that mix menace and angst as well as “They’re Cheap” but, then again, Skating Polly are a band so much better than our corporate times deserve. Hit me one more time with your power chords for I worship thee. Yes, I do.

I almost thought this was yet another indie rock band but Doncaster’s The Hudares have enough grit, especially from Dave Howard’s roughhouse vocals, and grungy guitars to take “What’s in a Minute?” right out of the end of their street and onwards to a wider audience.

Playing out like steroid pumped indie pop, HAVVK kicks the door down with her song “Always The Same”. Perhaps a bit too polite for a song with a sharp edge, HAVVK nonetheless gets her point across with a fair amount of style.

“Monochrome” ticks all the urban style boxes for Ama with her rather sweet and innocent voice lifting this song above the technology that created it. It is more of a groove than a song but her charm carries the day.

I’m a sucker for this kind of low-key electronica and duly I took Sumner’s “Put It Out” into my cold, cold heart. Whilst it is true that no musical chances are taken here, the song just makes you feel fuzzy all over. That’s good enough for me.

Blues believers ElectroBluesSociety drag in the stalwart voice of Boo Boo Davis to give that authentic Chicago blues vibe to “Tell Me”. The result is traditional but anything with Boo Boo Davis in it will do just fine for me. Solid as a rock!

Silverbacks take the boisterous path with their song “Just in the Band” and duly throw in enough youthful untidiness and ragged post punk influences to make the result seem more organic than you would expect of a modern day band. Angular, but in a good way…

A song that will undoubtedly find friends in more educated circles, “Hamburg” struts out strongly for Only Yours and shows what you can do when you make more effort than most will do in these sequenced times. It’s a good one.

How about that? Rough edged indie pop powered by angst and a splash of anger just like the good old days? Thumbs up therefore to Badflower for injecting “x ANA x” with enough life to get your heart beating and your feet tapping. Anguish me now!

At last! A cover version that manages to be so much more than a copy. Anne Marie Almedal’s restrained take on The Cure’s “Lovesong” extracts maximum emotion and turns the song into something new in the process.

It is kind odd how the past gets to seem fresh if you leave it long enough. Eckhardt and the House take the retro route to the New York of the eighties with “Funeral” and, while some might even call this song self-consciously stylish, it works nonetheless.