After a start that could legitimately be described as coldwave, “Singing In The Mirror” takes the turn towards the pop sphere with Nicole Atkins arming herself with more than introspection and duly emoting successfully all the way to the chorus.
You can’t really go wrong with a cover of a song like “Landslide” and Diana Schad duly and steadfastly decorates her version with some suitably fluent piano playing and the kind of vocals that make you believe in her. Classy.
That’ll do it. “Vultures” starts off all meaningful and melancholy before strident guitars and rather more freeform lyrics reminds us that this is the music of Origami Horses and, as always, they will be doing their own thing.
There seems to be a lot of catharsis in the air recently and Rita Vala has enough catharsis in her song “Not A Daddy’s Girl” to make it fit neatly into the crowd with her suitably dramatic approach to performance scoring additional points.
Although staying musically close to that post punk meets indie rock playbook, Dead Air Radio Empire still manage throw some trippiness into their conceptually oriented lyrics and “Stabilise” duly sounds like it should be part of something bigger.
Credit where credit is due. RUB take an individualistic approach to creating a lyric and “City Pop” also demonstrates that this is a band that can shift tempos whilst keeping that groove going. This one is almost existential.
I’m reasonably certain that ”Pretty Boy” should qualify as an example of the sound of the streets with acerbic lyrics, brutal beats and the half rapped half chanted vocals being combined into a karaoke weapon for Stickman.
At least Lauren Moon doesn’t shortchange us on the emotion with her song “Running Low” containing enough in the way of drama and positivity lyrics to qualify her as a time traveller from the rock heyday of yesterday.
They say that Bad Optics are an art-punk band but, on the evidence presented in the sub three minute “Ladrones”, this Seattle outfit are actually off on a laidback guitar laden trip to yesterday on one of those Greyhound buses.
After a muscular start, “Secret Futures” neatly segues between post punk influences and west coast rock stylisations whilst staying just within the three minute boundary. False Flowers are almost on a shadowland trip with this one.
Throw some untidy guitars on top of a solid backbeat and decorate with some half spoken half emoted words and you get “Trampoline Girl” by Hecojeni. It’s more like a demo but a playful one and the song doesn’t overstay its welcome
Summer used to mean fun but not anymore. Huw Cadwaladr abandons any thought of going to the beach and instead hits the road to a town called broody introspection. “I Believe” is deep and dark and forever covered with clouds.