Song reviews

Certainly singing and sounding older than her years, Jessica Woodlee treads an introspective trail with her song “By Now”. Her words do have more meaning than most and the end result stays resolutely in the shadows. A serious song indeed.

Solid is the perfect word to describe Ben Hemming as he chips yet another brick out of the rock wall. We are talking old school seventies style blues rock, of course, and “Holy For A Day” duly rumbles, emotes, purports and struts its way into the sunset.

As polished and processed as song of these times should be, “Let Go” easily makes the transition between radio and the dancefloor and back again with b0ka soon persuading your ears that not everything is as plastic as it might appear.

Nicely American in a nice way, Anna Goldsmith heads to the mall with her song “Miracle” and demonstrates that all those retro pop punk moves have not been forgotten and, as she takes it to the bridge, you want to jump with her. Candy it is.

I almost feel like I should be tripping to listen to a song like “Lemuria” by A.Wake. Looped all the way until dawn yet remaining simultaneously synthetic and organic, this song is a fine example of 21st century psychedelia on the rampage. Mood is where it is at.

It must be a Glasgow thing. Blush Club force all those angular post punk influences into “Calamity” and head for the chorus high on oblique lyrics and jagged guitar jangles. Call it coffee shop syncopation if you like but it is definitely a Glasgow style thing.

“Stranger” doesn’t stray far from the expectations of the mainstream and is none the worse for that with Adrian Delgado demonstrating enough confidence in his own talent to make the song worthy of a listen on your way to the shopping mall.

You can’t go far wrong with some straight down the line indie pop and Mystee gives us just that with her song “Hard Candy”. The lyrics exude sentimentality and duly maintain that old school feel good (but sad) vibe. Three minutes well spent.

If it ain’t retro then it ain’t happening and “Her Man” by Daryltron is nothing less than 100% retro with that seventies funk groove rattling the speakers like it would have done when flares were fashionable. It’s a down on the street kind of the song.

Swiss smooth jazz from Muralim with “Acho” being so easy on the ear that the song’s only true home would be the inside of a Bentley and, while there’s a saxophone way out front, this is combined musical elegance all the way.

Glasgow’s Martin Leary goes a bit melancholy with his song “It’s Time” mixing a whole pile of thudding drums and power chords in to counterpoint his way back in the mix voice. It’s a brooding song without a doubt but it does have a guitar solo.

A rumbling, grumbling, street strutting monster of a song, “Dionysus” is powered by pretty much the complete history of muscular, guitar led rock and decorated with some trippy, yet purposeful, female vocals. SunQ walk a well-trodden path but they do so with style.