Song reviews

The robust voice of Michael Tomlinson adds some dignity to “Burn Together” and Many Things, despite some electro rock seasoning, are most likely to remind people of Deacon Blue at about the time they sold out and became megastars.

Possessed of an unaffected voice, Sweden’s Jenny Hansen sets out to convince us of the benefits of her naturalistic approach to performance with “Wanderer” being as much of the lost heart of folk as it is of the barren wilderness of urban electro landscape. Spiritual, for once, is the word.

“Sweet Death Polka” rambles like some parody of the madrigal form before striking out energetically for the prize of best extended impersonation of the excesses of seventies folk rock and, if you can handle all six minutes of that, you will surely believe that scarecrows have souls. God bless Glasgow’s Trembling Bells for their injudicious consumption of “organic” mushrooms.

If you like your rock insistent and persistent then Texas band Seek Irony might well make you break into a sweat with their song “Devil In Me” pushing all the right commercial buttons whilst testing the effectiveness of your deodorant. Best enjoyed with the volume turned right up but you were probably going to do that anyway.

Danny Darko returns to his preferred dance floor rhythms with “Hurricane”. As you might expect, it’s all in the groove but Julien Kelland’s confident vocal gives the song some soul and consequently takes it beyond the plastic.

“I’ve Got You” is nice example of middle of the road soft rock with Troy Doherty, apparently also an actor, clearly setting his sights on the big money to be found in Nashville. It’s a safe, if busy, path for him to follow.

Sounding like a slowed down escapee from the dancefloor, Kami-O takes the minimalist approach to his ambient composition “Drift”. Not a lot actually happens but that is surely true of any club when the doors are closed.

“Black Tie” is the kind of song that might just give mid paced melodrama a good name with Brendan Dafters, front man of Glasgow’s very own Nieves, milking his time in the spotlight for all it is worth. If a bit of radio airplay is forthcoming, this could become a housewives’ favourite.

Those fertile fields of Scandinavian electro pop have produced yet another crop. Anwai’s rather fey “Move Along” sounds like a looped and sequenced take on the Snow Patrol sound but, nonetheless, the song remains easy on the ear.

Jade The Moon clearly live on the dark side of the electro pop moon with their song “5 6 7 8” tripping out on a music box melody, looped vocals driven by isolation and dystopian doom. Naturally, a song like this does not end. It just stops. Just like the world will one day.

Somebody has got the recipe book out for dark electro pop soup with GØSPEL’s “Ain’t Gonna Let You In” sequencing its way through Sakamoto and the special seasoning being Beth Anderton-Allen’s laconic yet still passionate voice.

There is always room in my iPod for some more slick electro pop from Scandinavia and Linnea Södahl provides just that with her song “Two Is An Army”. Her voice has an appealing effervescence that balances out the rather bleak concept behind the lyrics with the resulting musical concoction tempting me towards a comparison with Fallulah.