Song reviews

Should you ever need proof that there is something, or someone, in Scotland that a greedy multinational record company would want to exploit then look no further than Sophie Rogers. Her song, “Devils in the Details”, is comfortably mainstream in aspiration yet, in its emotional subtext, bears comparison with the music of our beloved Jill Jackson. That works for me.

Deliriously enjoyable if only for their reverence for the glory days of huge pop songs, The Deadline Shakes use “Slipping From Your Heart” to demonstrate that all you need is an arrangement and a copious amount of talent. Pay the extra, go large and you too could create a song as good as this.

The ever unpredictable Girobabies pull another minor musical miracle from their trick bag with “Brain Rocket (and the Evolution of Turtles)” ripping up everything in sight and sticking it back together with nothing more than skewed inspiration. If only all Scottish bands were this creative.

Sounding like a homage to the heyday of electro rock, Tom Levin injects his gruff tones into “More Than A Song” and, despite some less than poetic lyrics, successfully salutes the days when radio airplay could make your career in the music industry.

“Wake Up” was written by nineteen year old Nicky and demonstrates a lyrical maturity quite unexpected of someone of his tender years. His voice, likewise, seems much older than he actually is. One to watch out for, methinks.

“Nympho” is a surprisingly sentimental song for a modern day r’n’b artist and Bethany Anne, to her credit, sings with more than enough subtlety to make those words work. It might well be an old school approach but you can’t argue with the result.

Bleak poetry is a more than adequate description for Jamie Flett’s “Piss and Rust”. After a meandering start, the words soaked in intellectual melancholy briefly escape the shadows before a lonely violin leads the song back into the eternal abyss of the soul. Maturity and sadness all at the same time.

Blessed, depending on your point of view, with either a theatrically affected voice or a distinctly original vocal style, Fritjof Norrmo proves to be something of an acquired taste even if his song, “Traveler’s Dream”, is clearly motivated by mainstream Americana.

Another Swedish band with a liking for indie pop, Honeymilk demonstrate that they know all about the past throughout “Let’s Talk About Compassion”. An energetic performance lifts the song above the mundane but the cynical amongst you might regard this song as simply a reflection of someone else’s glory.

Although at times veering dangerously close to twee pop territory, Postcards From Jeff use “Veronica” to demonstrate that their worship of late period popsters like Marshall Crenshaw is a good thing even if the lyrics sometimes stumble into queasy awkwardness.

Something, Someone are a Scottish folk trio with an appealing line in sentimentality that runs like melted chocolate through the lyrics of their song “Waltz With Me”. It’s a boy meets girl kind of song, of course, and the winsome and sugar sweet female vocals provide the cherry on the cake.

Untidy in execution and liberally decorated with an oversupply of grim undertones, “Doll/Torso”, which might be one song or two, shows that Yawning Dog can take the post punk baseball bat and use it to beat art-rock to a pulp. That’s a job that needed doing.