Song reviews

There is not much on the way of melody to be found in Emma Jensen’s glacial electro pop song “Make You Mine” but her rather offbeat voice does have the stamp of originality all over it.

This is something quintessentially Scottish about “Dreams” with twee boy-girl harmonies, sugary sentimentality and a generous sprinkling of that Glasgow style jangly guitars sound giving Ewan Cruickshanks a guaranteed spot on the soundtrack to some never filmed Bill Forsyth film.

Some might say that “Paclew” by Moxi is an example of what the pop song has become in the 21st century and some would be right with the pounding rhythm of the urban jungle balancing the female vocals to power this song all the way to the finish line.

Hints of the glories of guitar pop season this distinctly understated song from New York’s Plastic Picnic yet “Bite” still evokes more the plastic perfection of the sequencer rather than the freedom that the fretboard brings.

Perhaps rather dated in their approach given the state of the music business today, Slow Buildings still have enough acid in their veins to add a bit of burning social commentary to their big city indie pop song “Me Me Me”.

A rather effective mix of urban style and jazz funk groove provides more than enough musical contrast to make “It’s been a While” by Normanton Street into the kind of song that cries out crossover and consequent success.

Ploughing the fertile fields of rock history once more are Maine band Five of the Eyes but, fortunately, they have learned that it is all in the drama with “Wasteland” ticking all the riffing guitars, pounding drums and intense vocal boxes that the fans of the genre demand.

Upbeat synthpop from Florida’s Priest with a rock solid sequenced beat making your feet pay attention as she plunders the pop thesaurus for lyrical motivation. A pleasingly commercial song, in other words.

It’s calm before the storm time as the drifting vocals of Karolina Komstedt cast a spell over the post-midnight crowd with the melancholy Sakamoto style electronic ambience providing them with another, near hypnotic, reason to pay attention.

A nicely polished midrange and mid-tempo modern day country song, “Blackberry Whiskey” provides The Darlins with the perfect opportunity to highlight their vocal harmonies and thus lift the song towards radio airplay.

Maybe it is a sign of the times but Seasonal Beast’s song “I Can Make You Disappear” seems deliberately disconnected with Yuli Beeri’s voice meandering through an electronic soundscape as if in search of something never to be found.

It’s been a week of offbeat indie pop with The White Russian throwing their hat into the ring with “B-Child” and making their mark by making far more effort than most do. One for the beard scratchers who favour a deeper lyric to savour.