Song reviews

Coming straight down the interstate from Dallas are Sloth Fist with their loud and proud guitar powered rock until dawn song “Too Old to Rock. You’ve heard it before but, surely, that’s the point and are Sloth Fist really past their best? I think not.

Old style and old school soul from Nathan Johnston & the Angels of Libra and “All Your Love” duly ticks all the cool style boxes. In the matters of poise and performance, both singer and band never put a foot wrong. Take me to the river.

Moody vocals and synth riffs? That might well be a retro style move aimed at the trendies but there is much more depth to “Saturday Night” than that and Major Parkinson demonstrate that experience in the art of making music still counts.

You can’t dislike a song that has both whistling and offbeat vocals and the quasi country rock quirkiness that Burn The Louvre have used to season their song “Achilles Heel” duly made a positive impression on these ears. It’s Canada dry, baby.

Even the most cynical ears can surely hear the surfeit of style in Transviolet’s “Love and Power”. Moody and deep in meaning, words and music intertwine as the song leads us to the bridge that we don’t really want to jump off. Supreme montage music.

Superficially fluffy but probably not, “Beachy” proves, once again, that The Aquadolls can do sugary sweet singalong pop songs that aren’t sentenced to be forever imprisoned in a shopping mall playlist. I worship them. Really I do.

Taking post punk angularity as their style signpost, Glasgow’s Blush Club duly walk the walk of ironic indifference with “Spices” reminding us all of the true value of an art school education yet, somehow, they get away with it. Cappuccino drinking bastards.

Jessica Woodlee must surely be a big city girl on the evidence of “T.O.M.L“and, with her finger firmly on the pulse of coffee shop society, she successfully uses urban angst and some bad boy riffs to take her song towards radio nirvana.

You know the music business is in a sorry state when the best song of the week is a gospel one. Robert Hawkin’s tones down the God references enough to highlight that the fact that he has the talent to fill his song “Things Will Work Out” with soul. I hear and believe.

No idea who Garrett Paknis is but he sounds like an escapee from the dancefloor with “Bad Behaviour” echoing around the VIP lounge like a sleazy slice of Pet Shop Boys reinvention remixed for post-midnight socialisation. It’s a style thing.

As usual, it is back to the nineties for Bony Macaroni and “Hollow” is, once again, a neatly constructed and executed song that pulls all those Weezer references back out of the ether and puts them to singalong use. Time to turn the radio on!

Clever lyrics reference everything you’ve heard before yet it that, almost ironic, polish that gives undeniable ear appeal to the Nashville radio friendly “Mixtape” and Gabrielle Metz clearly knows how to make it all sound sincere. Commercial, it is.