Song reviews

I am always suspicious of bands with a name that is also a literary reference and, indeed with "Flip", Dolores Haze prove themselves to be the voice of the trendsetters with their synthetic urban sound designed perfectly for iPhone playback.

I suppose that some might regard my classification of “Please Baby Please” by Awkward Family Portraits as teen Americana to be simplistic yet this Glasgow band are so obviously in awe of the past as to transcend the easy accusation of being a mere pastiche.

I would have thought that Britpop would have had its day by now but Brighton band 12 Stone Toddler have other ideas with their song “Heaven Was Closed” being infused with both lyrical acuity and left handed quirkiness. Good it is.

I can’t say that I am familiar with the past musical escapades of Edinburgh’s Vive La Rose but his song “Schiehallion” exudes enough maturity and alt-folk sensibilities to make me curious. Laidback he may be but he is clearly not short on purpose.

About a heavily processed as you can get without actually being a computer programme, “EGC” demonstrates that electropop duo TGC know that the sound of today is an entirely synthetic one but that our times still have need of a heartbeat.

Active Bird Community mix the raucous with downbeat successfully with their song “Sweaty Lake” with the result making the concept of mature indie rock more of a reality than any press hype could ever hope to do.

Happy songs are not in vogue these days so “Pink California” by Eden Warsaw ticks the necessary downbeat style boxes whilst adding enough electro rock influences to make all that brooding melancholy seem worthwhile.

As haunted by the ghosts of pop punk past as they are, Candy Ambulance nevertheless keep their song “Spray” on the rough-edged right side of the tracks for all of its two minute duration. The guitar, as is so often the case, says all there is to say.

One man and a song should surely be enough or at least that is what Nick Ferrio asks within the walls of his song “How Will I Know”. It’s a question many might also ask but at least our Nick has something of an answer with this pop rock pick.

The influence of that Americana sound cannot be underestimated and, duly, London’s own Copper Viper break out the fiddle and the sagebrush to give their song “Hung Up Alone” a touch of both technology and rose-tinted glasses.

Pretty much defining what is expected of a pop song in these forever cloudy days, GRAACE reaches for the heartstrings and plucks them all the way through her song “Last Night”. Some might say that this is a sign of our times and they would be right.

The rerun of the analogue synth sound as a musical staple continues apace with Roosevelt adding his particular brand of melancholy to “Getaway” but with enough emotions present to compensate for the closed looping that drives the song.