Song reviews

If you desire the honesty inherent to rock music of the old school, then you will appreciate “Watery Grave” by Canadian band The Jailbirds with solid guitar riffs and strong vocals easily providing enough buoyancy to keep this song afloat.

No one can deny that Marle Thomson is easy on the ear and her song “Surf Rising” duly drifts amiably through your consciousness on the way to a better tomorrow. This one would make an ideal soundtrack to summer in the city.

“Silver Fingers” by Edinburgh’s The Son(s) is the kind of song that answers the question about what summer bands like The Byrds would have sounded like if they had traded in their jingle jangle guitars for a hit of rainy day melancholy. Hear and understand.

Carla J Easton must have been feeding her synths with steroids and, consequently, has muscled up her pop sensibilities to, in turn, make “Get Lost” into the kind of robust pop song that could crossover to the both the dancefloor and the charts.

Indie rock needs to fully charged to work and Birmingham’s Future Fires clearly have enough in the way of blue collar conviction and power chords to light up their song “Halfway Down”. A song for a Friday night, without a doubt.

This one is going to be deep. With cascading guitars, spiralling lyrics and led by a voice that has the mark of a poet in recitation mode, Cosse take their song “The Ground” for a walk though the arthouse forest in search of salvation.

Everybody likes a song with a message such as “Wallflower” and Laur Elle is the kind of songwriter who likes to do songs with a message. She is also quite adept at adapting the message into a form that will attract both ears and mind.

If you like, as I do, a sugary musical snack then you will find it no hardship to consume “September” by Lucy and The Rats. It’s power pop with punk on the side and, in 3 minutes, it will surely satisfy your appetite.

Chemicals is probably the buzzword for the weekend these days and “Chemicals” by SG Lewis rounds up all those synthetic sounds and shapes them into a cool groove that makes the walk home after the last bus so much more rewarding.

A sentimental singer songwriter moves a bit of mellow jazz closer to his heart and, with all that he is duly displayed on his sleeve, Slye then aims his song “Waiting For You” at those who feel his pain like he does. Nice guitar solo as well.

“Song For A Baby Girl” was bound to be all fluffy and sentimental and thus ideally suited for the indie pop treatment but this time a professional polish has been skilfully applied by Cassandra Kubinski and the result is predictably inspirational.

A rather appealing hybrid of urban moves and sensitive singer songwriter sentiments gives Anjulie the wings to fly “FUYL” high above the clouds of mediocrity. If she has more songs like this, I reckon that the sun will shine on her for a very long time.