Song reviews

You can truly feel Son Of The Descent’s determination to keep their song “Roomful Of Heroes” firmly on the lo-fi track with the grey vocals, instrumental fog and ten bob looped beats painting a sonic picture that has no sunshine in it whatsoever. It’s deep.

It takes a lot to make anything that might fit into the Americana genre cool yet that is what Monica Queen has done with “Why Not Your Baby” and her, rather unique, voice casts a spell that makes the song resonate far beyond its simplicity. I sigh once more.

What would a protest song sound like these days? Perhaps it would be powered by brooding electronica and have words that drift between the purposeful and the fanciful? If so, “Swaying Pelvises” by Elenne May might well be one.

Cernichov (ЧЕРНИХОВ) add “Obey Diptera” as their entry in the Euro noise category of the ambient noise genre and duly sweep all before them with a combination of distortion and dramatic sonic swells of sound effects and synthetic samples. Solar flares everywhere!

Only You are nothing if not muscular and they top “Battlescars” up with reverb laden vocals, big guitars and strutting down the street lyrics. It’s a be proud song as you would expect of a Glasgow rock band on the way up and they do it well.

Double neato and coffee shop friendly, “SOS” stays close to the expectations of polite synth pop society yet, if you listen closely, Ena Mori has surreptitiously inserted a splash of subversion and duly turned her song towards the stars.

While it is your basic loop and roll approach that Edinburgh’s Slim Wrist use to kick start their song “The Soft” into motion, there is something hypnotic and endearing about the way they do the things they do. Robots have hearts too.

Both super smooth and endearingly electronic in style, Julia D’Angelo right clicks with the mouse of good taste and selects the option to turn her song “Point of View” into ear candy. Once more I feel the urge to emote the sigh of approval.

If a song could indeed be mean and moody then “Sinistry” would be that song. Cascading guitars and tormented man vocals swirl on top of the mix as if to provide further proof that “Miirrors” are ready to take their place in meaningful rock playlists.

Almost a guilty pleasure, “The Return” gives Sleep Signals the opportunity to import a whole bundle of melodic metal moves into their distinctly theatrical oeuvre. Crank it up and you feel an inexplicable urge to wear mascara (but in a robustly stylish way).

Those proven retro analogue synth sounds provide Fluo Sobre with the means to turn “Je t’attends” into something hypnotic with the sultry voice of Ljuba De Angelis emoting the lyrics in the French equivalent to siren enticement.

Starless buys a ticket to Never Never Land and duly sends her song “No No No” on its way into a world of pastel colours, sequenced loops and grey shadows. Without a doubt, this is a journey inwards but the audience for this song will feel synchronicity with her pain.