Song reviews

Whilst “Red Stripe Remedy” plays out like a fairly energetic attempt to do something anarchic with that very familiar indie rock vibe, Lock-In still manage to sound like someone else. I didn’t need a watch to know this one went over the three minute limit.

Where is today to be found but in yesterday and Norwegian band Laughing Stock duly take us on a journey of enlightenment back to the fuzzy days of prog rock with “A New Home” woozily swaying in a breeze of late sixties rock influences. Groovy!

Helen Townsend jumps in at the deeper end of the Americana pool with her song “Battlefield”. The song is, of course, a love song of the broken down blue collar variety but it’s nicely put together in a seventies folk rock kind of way.

It must have been a long week as I don’t normally go for quirky indie pop yet there was something, almost manically, appealing about “Get Atomic” by The Creachies. The song is all sugary and fluffy but, although we don’t admit it, we all like candy floss.

It is getting to be the time of year when the sentimental duet becomes once more popular. “Years” is indeed such a duet that definitely strolls on the showtune side of the street but the elegant Shaw and Kent vocals make the whole thing worthwhile.

Rhea plunder the retro rock vibe with their song “Creeping Through My Head” and, if you like your guitars loud and your choruses singalong, then this one will be for you. A song that should sound good through a stadium sized PA system.

The first time I heard “Chemical Oblivion” I thought that some American band had discovered British indie rock and decided that it needed even more power chords. Fortunately, REDSMITHVII are both British and also do literate lyrics. Play loud!

No problems with this song. Pelos takes the melodic and melancholic as inspirational energy and that keeps his song “Rise and Shine” rolling like it was bathed in the light of the setting sun of the seventies. Maturity wins again.

Unexpectedly boisterous for a song of these days, “Never” solidly rocks out to the tune of a positively manic guitar and Denzeity’s taking it to the bridge vocal. Like I said, really not of this time and all the better for that.

Outblinker have been in the time machine again and have returned this time with a mid-eighties psychedelia meets the dance floor song that must surely inspire juvenile delinquency even in these desensitised days. Aortarota adds her voice to the "Cold Star" trip.

In something akin to a stylistic throwback to the days of seventies rock, Kelsey Montanez struts her stuff like a lady on the guitar powered train and “Rolling Stone” does indeed roll like it is always on the right track. A bourbon for breakfast song.

Rusch simply exudes class with her song “Simply Be” pulling all the best bits from mainstream eighties soul music and mixing them in with a dash of supper club jazz. Elegantly performed and easy on the ear.