Song reviews

Playing the chords like a band with a purpose, Barking Poets might well draw some inspiration from the days of punk but “Make Me Strong” is more about melody than anger. That said, if I heard them in a pub, I would definitely buy them a drink or two.

“On My Own” is indeed a conventional song yet Pepperdreams make this one work well. Starting off slow gives Susanna Lepori time to line up her target so when the songs goes big, she can make it all seem real. Uplifting all the way to the bridge and beyond.

Muscular pretty much describes “Draw The Line” by Ballamona with this Manchester band flattening their song into the loud and proud missile that make midnight at the club a much better place to be. Enough for an explosion? Oh yes!

A song that simply exudes class and literacy, “Comfort” is yet more evidence that Sailing Stones -aka Jenny Lindfors – has the ways and means to enchant your ears. Grown ups with a taste for the poetic will like this one.

Punk pop never dies with Single By Sunday resurrecting that sound with their song “Debbie” and, whilst almost annoyingly catchy, this band nonetheless prove that spending three minutes or so in their company will inevitably lead to a smile.

Whilst Kadeema might seem like the kind of band that are more interested with what is inside the box, their song “Good Lies” provides enough in the way of emotional evidence to prove the band’s true intent lies outside of said box.

If a song could, or should, be written about a sigh then it might, in all possibility, be Blair Lee that would write it. Her song “Less Or More” drifts with sadness in a winter’s breeze yet, by the end, it has made you, well, sigh.

Something classy from the ever melancholy Man of the Minch with his song “Circles” holding a steady emotional course all the way towards the chorus while the ever present fiddle tries to take you the bridge one more time.

There is something kind of refreshing about this modern day take on punk with Smiling Assassin infusing their song with enough old school Mr Angry vibes to make “Coping” seem like a song suitable for the next revolution.

“An Ocean With No Waves” is about as far from being in your face as a song can get yet, with the hypnotic vocal talents of Yasaquarius adding the emotion, this low key song manages to both capture and hold your attention.

It’s actually refreshing to find a band that values impact over tidiness and Paper Tigers are such a band with “Flames” bouncing fussy, fuzzy riffs and the rhythms of rock of the walls in search that first foothold on the wall to success. Play LOUD!

Some songs sound serious and this seems particularly true of “Together (In The Pink) by Emperors Night with some post rock stylisations being added to this mix of casually paced poetry and meandering musical extemporisations in order to further the band’s intentions.