Song reviews

“It Ain’t Over” is a delightful piece of summery pop music that cleverly mixes some bleak humour into the kind of upbeat confection about obsession that might seem sweet enough  to rot your teeth but, in fact, is destined to capture your heart. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that “It Ain’t Over” is the kind of song that Kate Nash thinks she can write. She can’t but Miss Li can.

The Skunnered return here with remarkable regularity. It’s like they enjoy pain or something. Anyway, "The De'il's Awa' Wi'The Exciseman” sets them on course for a mellow pub rocking Burns Night somewhere in probably not very sunny Glasgow. As usual, the song is performed in a good natured, easy on the ear way that will no doubt excite the ears of the sherry drinkers amongst you.

Instrumental jazz isn’t really my thing but it is undeniable that the Jurek Jagoda Trio have the practised fluency of talented musicians and “Swobodna” emphasises that fluency in a manner that Dave Grusin would surely approve of. Music for grownups, as they say.

Anything by Ken Stringfellow (of the Posies) is going to worth a listen but, even with that said, “Doesn't It Remind You of Something” is no less than a gem. In a tale that encompasses drug dealing, credit card fraud and domestic violence all delivered in deadly laconic tones, Ken and Charity Rose Thielen turn themselves into a modern day Nancy and Lee crashing their country powered car on the highway of life. Glorious!

In something of a contrast to their boisterous previous output, “Lost In You” is instead an emotional, and rather conventional, rock ballad. Chris Woods throws his heart into his vocals but, even so, the song ends up sounding a little flat. Nice enough but a better arrangement would have given the song more impact.

Sounding older than they probably are, Dundee band No Egos go all walking, talking rock style with “Hope”. You could, if you were prepared to abandon your inbuilt coolness, even sing along with this one and the impassioned male vocals readily seal that deal. So, a good song done well and you can’t ask for more than that.

A strange one this. “Island Girl” sounds like it should have been a trip down Barry White street if it hadn’t been for the cheesy looped backing track and some off putting vocals that sound artificially lowered in pitch. Either that or King Loverr goes flat at the bottom end of his range and has been rather brutally autotuned.  Either way, King Loverr needs to try harder.

"Fy Wnaf" is about as melodramatic middle of the road as you can go with a laptop and good intentions. Donna Davies - she is Welsh as you may have guessed - has the voice to carry this song (and any other) off even if the plastic production makes her sound more karaoke than she ought to. The potential is there, therefore, but money needs to be spent in order that Ms Davies can be saved from a future on Saturday night television talent shows.

“Spirit of the Rain” is to be part of a concept album – so it says here – and, perhaps unsurprisingly, sounds like it is a small part of something bigger. It’s an instrumental too with our Mr Verrasto’s guitar quite rightly to the fore in best soft rock style whilst he makes a sterling effort to stop the song being dragged into the abyss of background music by the rather leaden backing track.

“Polaroid” is one of those mid paced songs that sounds just right. The backing is understated and Carmen Smith simply runs the show balancing confidence and passion with a polished professionalism in her vocals. In days gone by, this song would have been classed as radio friendly but nowadays, it is more likely to have soundtrack to a major movie stamped upon it. Credit is duly given to a song well done.

Not much to comment on here as "Girls Are Fun Again" is little more than a lot of looping and uninspired laptop trickery. Duller than Aberdeen, in other words.

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.