Song reviews

As decidedly retro as the style gurus of synth pop decree, Night Drive still manage to inject enough emotion into their song “Rise And Fall” to make that late night journey across town in your BMW worthwhile.

On first acquaintance, you might find yourself ready to dismiss “I’ve Told Lies” as just the product of another white girl trying to squeeze into the confines of the urban genre but Dani Le Rose instead exudes more the scent of the adventurous than the avaricious.

Seems like female fronted guitar bands never go out of fashion with Alexa Dark duly keeping the faith all the way through her song “Empty Drinks” while adding just enough street corner charm of her own to keep you interested.

“Nothing But Dreams” takes a while to get going and relies heavily on repetition just like bedsit electronica tends to but Eden Sela also throws in a great big chunk of artistic pretension and that very act saves the day.

Laid back to about 15 degrees above the horizontal, Masasolo coolly takes his song “Idaho” for a walk on the eighties river side with a few Style Council references keeping him company.

Texas band The Human Circuit appear to have learned well from their influences with their song “Juxtaposition” exuding the kind of alt-pop class that bands like The Hush Sound had back in the day. In other words, they are really rather good.

Robust and curiously old-fashioned, “Everybody’s Trying To Steal Your Heart” is the kind of song that sounds like a song should with a hook, a chorus and enough Springsteen style mojo to lift Fast Romantics right into the attention span of the discerning.

Ubër cool Scandinavian electro pop is what we have come to expect from Cajsa Siik and she never disappoints with “White Noise” having the mark of class stamped upon it. May she be worshipped!

Just when you thought it was safe to go out in the sunshine again along comes Livingmore with a slice of saccharine power pop called “Cocoon” that could only have come from California. Throw in a lovely sandy beach guitar riff and I have all I need to get by. Apart from sunglasses, of course.

I might be doing Nightwave a disservice by calling her an escapee from the dancefloor - probably not though - yet there is something curiously hypnotic about the blitzkrieg of antique analogue drum machine sounds that powers “Bucky Bomb” all the way from the off licence to the subwoofer of the proverbial, and probably now mythical, Peugeot 205 GTi.

Bands haunted by the ghost of Americana are hardly in short supply but at least Twin Bandit - Hannah Walker and Jamie Elliott – have a certain, rather ethereal, charm going in their favour with “Everything Under The Sun” proving enchanting to the ear.

Even though his song “Vanilla Blue” takes a while to get going, it nonetheless remains a fact that Canadian musician Alex Bent has enough power in his voice to make you wonder what he could do with better material.