Song reviews

What’s the phrase I’m looking for? That’s right – delicately retro. The Skunnered are delicately retro with "The Thursday Millionaire" having the sonic signature of a sixties’ Cliff Richard record. Nothing to scare your auntie then but I don’t suppose that was the point and I have to admit that I liked the shoo-be-doo backing vocals.

With a beep and a chant, Glasgow’s We Are The Physics once more rock the Ikea decorated house with “Goran Ivanisevic”.  The song rattles along at a fair old dramatic pace and, for reasons verging on unknown, I was left with the impression that this is what Queen would have sounded like if they had done a Depeche Mode style change of direction. Thunderbirds are go and all that.

Wholesome sounding female singer loads up on the melodic metaphors and sets sails to a land of sensitive poetry and deeper meaning. There are many like her but nonetheless there is something positively endearing about Jo Schornikow’s wistful voice that keeps you listening to "Bird's Nest".

Lo-fi NYC songwriter  Scott Rudd sets his guitar and bare bones backing to stun in this short, angst ridden and angular journey into the trials and tribulations of relationships.  Ok, so "Bullshit Love" is a messy demo but, with a bit more effort, it could make for a very respectable bit of album filler.

Drawing heavily from Rage Against The Machine, Portsmouth hip hoppers throw in the riffs and rock beats to season their lively rhymes. “Dead Rabbits” does indeed sound like a RAGE clone but underneath it all is a very British sense of humour and that makes this song more interesting than you might have expected.

Girls with guitars always go down well with me and Eliza Jaye is no exception. “Big Tin Heart” treads the commercial rock path with surefootedness and a well developed sense of what counts as an influence as opposed to what counts as reinventing the past.  Just the thing to play in the car, I would say.

OK, this one is downright weird. I’d even go as far as to say that “Correction Number Three” walks past the wild side, sprints past avant-garde and ends up in some sort of parallel universe where minimalism has imprisoned melody. The song even manages to sound familiar – too much classical music in my youth often leads to this conclusion – whilst still being weird. I suspect there may be a truly twisted mind behind this one.

Contrary to its title, “Aggressively Stupid” is neither a stupid nor an aggressive song and, indeed, it leaves the impression that indie music in New Jersey is quite a restrained Weezer influenced thing if Slow Buildings are to be taken as representative. I assume that this is a demo as the directionless nature of the production and arrangements causes the song to drag noticeably.

Getting to be something of a regular on these pages are Glasgow band The Skunnered. “Raintown” highlights their smooth soft rock sound again in what might well be taken as a pastiche of that wholesome Deacon Blue approach to making adults sway in the breeze. Spark up that lighter now!

Big chested rock sounds from Finnish band Kickstart Rockers.  “When I Saw You” draws from eighties rock with the sensitive start, the chopping riffs and  the big Kiss style chorus all present and correct. Originality might not be this band’s strongpoint on the evidence of this song but the lead vocals are never less than convincing.

They might well be from Nottinghamshire but aspiring  rock band Desensitised sound altogether more American with Nirvana style riffs keeping “What I Was Thinking” from staying on this side of the pond while singer Charlotte goes all Evanescence just to reinforce that a transatlantic journey is on the cards. So, definite mainstream appeal and that might just be all they need to get by.

A prelude to an album of the same name it would seem, “Is Anybody Home?” is a lightweight, sparely arranged instrumental song that could best be described as organic. Handclaps drive the acoustic mood along nicely even it is more background than foreground listening.