Song reviews

You turn your back for a moment and, lo and behold, you get a trampled by a surfeit of indie pop. Holding their collective head high amongst the crowd however is Family Photo and their song “Eureka” is a fine example of intelligent indie pop with aspirations to the oddball.

So resolutely alt-rock that they must be one of the trendiest band in their native Brighton, Wolf Like Child nonetheless take their decidedly straightforward song “Wars” and infuse it with both a political edge and an oblique feel that is almost French. On balance, I think this band may be too good to be trendy.

Old fashioned but honest in their approach are Belgian band Sweetstone. Their rough sounding demo of “OCC” treads a path familiar to those who have listened to any rock music at all in the last 30 years but their enthusiasm for the task in hand shines through nonetheless.

From the seemingly bottomless pit of retro sounding electropop that they seem to have in Sweden comes yet another practitioner of the ways of pop’s past glories. To her credit, iida makes light work of using her emotive voice to fog the underlying repetition of “Hands” but I would still guess that this will not be the song to break her into mainstream success.

Entertaining manic slice of manic pop cake from Glasgow band Dr Cosmo’s Tape Lab who add a generous amount of sixties psych pop influences as the icing on “Pin The Tail On The Donkey”. Wait a minute – a Glasgow band that isn’t miserable? Could Dr Cosmo’s Tape Lab be the band to finally bring the sunshine back to this no mean city? I think that they could be.

Perhaps because of their fondness for ancient technology from the good old days of analog, Crashfaster seem seriously retro although the electro/rap hybrid “Pro Tempore” also has the relentless momentum characteristic of the best of the past thus keeping your attention clearly focussed right up to the end.

“When Tyson bit Holyfield” is something of a time travelling exercise with Army Defense drawing as much from American seventies soft rock as they do from more British influences like ELO. Yes, we actually have melody and harmonies in the same song and that is something to celebrate in these days of autotuned mediocrity. Respect is duly given.

With a voice made oddly appealing by the infusion of a certain childlike innocence, Boggie successfully floats her song “Don’t Wanna Be” high above a less than synergistic backing track although the lyrics seem almost too old for her singing style. That said, this song, and her voice, would really benefit from the support of a sensitive string arrangement.

Although I would suspect that “Radioactive Respective” is actually the work of one Canadian rather than an actual group that does not detract from the melodic maturity of the song. Mountain Radio are therefore indie pop with the twee surgically removed and replaced by a good old fashioned chorus. Methinks it is time for me to sing along whilst I stroke my goatee.

At last we have some sophistication. “Between Worlds” is an extended musical mediation between a cello and a wordless female voice and its bleak elegance is a credit to the skills of Canadian duo The Visit. It is the perfect soundtrack for those times when the Devil has called you by name.

It is actually refreshing to hear that simple American style pop punk sound again and Naked Sunday provide just that with their upbeat song “Rockstar”. Naked Sunday rock it like it was yesterday and your dial had been permanently tuned to AM radio.

Mainstream polished and distinctly generic as a result. “Rules of Science” won’t help make a case for promoting PictureHouse into your aural affections. Even the sonorous male vocals are dragged into the mire of mediocrity by this turgid song.