cd reviews: march 2007

Bloc Party : A Weekend In The City (Wichita)

Try as I might, I found it very hard to like this album. Bloc Party’s success as one of the most feted bands of the last few years leaves me scratching my head. What is it that’s so special about them? Okay, so they’re young, fiery and have drive and ambition. “Is it so wrong to crave recognition?” asks singer Kele Okereke on one of the album’s better songs, “The Prayer”. And that drive has pushed Bloc Party ahead of some of their peers, enabling them to snap at the heels of the Kooks, Arctic Monkeys, Razorlight and the other great white hopes of the last couple of years.
The production by Jacknife Lee, is clever and helps the band a lot - building up their muscles with dance rhythms and more than the occasional nod to Radiohead. But it’s in the melodies that Bloc Party fall down. Radiohead, Tchaikovsky and Abba are all very different creatures, but they all understand the power of a good tune. Bloc Party, unfortunately, haven’t sufficiently developed this skill, and the result is 11 songs that, for the most part, are rather forgettable and hovering too close to “average”. It’s clear they have ambition in spades - they just need to develop an ear for a melody. miles salter

THE NICOLES : PENETRATE ME

This two song disk has been waiting a long time for a good going over, and I’m happy to be doing it. I am reminded now of just how talented these young lads are. Its indie with the most exquisite hint of grunge and this band have more than just a spark to entertain the clones dancing at various pubs and clubs within these City walls right now. The Nicoles themselves and their instruments are a sparkler firework embodied, raining down light and fire on our, at times, eerily quiet town.
Yes this is New blood, but it won’t be sucked until deceased, it will thrive and it will conquer. These boys will leave the City, rock out and return triumphant. They have potential to be the biggest York export since THAT band, something about gardens?..seven of them??? Shed…what now?
Opener “X-Box & Food” reminds of The Killers with more bark and bite, Placebo’s infecting guitar weaves it’s way past our immune system, while the drums act as a nice support. Basic but proud “Bang, Bang, Bang we’re all playing X-Box now” is a nice chorus for people to shout out loud.
That’s a very good start, it goes down easy, and I can imagine it being sung at a certain festival in Leeds in a few years time…Yes, I’m confident… I’m proud of these kids. I’ve got reason to be, just listen. “Birds” works well to follow on. A slightly more laid back and less commercial effort. It works much better live let me tell you, but the guitars and vocals serve to create some great suspense and add atmosphere to the song on a recording that is far to brief and makes me want to hear so much more. That said, this is alive with potential. All I need now is an X-Box to play on, and a whole Nicoles album to listen to while I do it. www.myspace.com/thenicoles. dom smith

Heathen Foray : This Is The Call

If you were a knight, or anybody riding into battle (as long as there is a horse involved)….this would be your soundtrack. Though there are some definite advances to be made in terms of production, this is a gritty and fine first effort from a fine bunch of Yorkshire lads. Of course the danger of a lot of Power Metal is that it sounds the same, on some efforts the band do fall into this category, only in terms of the vocal variation in this context. However, throughout there is some excellent guitar and hard rock drums to provide a more than adequate backing for the rough vocals.
Some excellent tribal drums on “Unearther” make it a very attractive effort, and for this effort alone I will detract my above production statement. This would go down as well on a live stage as it does on record. These guys are like-minded and passionate about making music that can bring life to a deserving genre. “Heathen Battlecry” is without doubt the standout of the disk, this is a true anthem for modern power metal. If the band can consistently create material like this they will be a fixture on “Bloodstock” in a few years. The keyboards, guitar and drums work powerfully in congruent with some nice battlecries from lead vocalist Glyn.
The suggestion with this collection of songs is that this band are very much about the live experience. It’s nice that they can do it on record too, but the band already have a dedicated following ready to help them into battle, which is what matters. www.myspace.com/heathenforay. dom smith

ROJOR : FAINT SIGNAL

Rojor is undoubtedly an incredibly talented individual – vocals, guitars, painos, samplers, bass, he plays them all, he writes all his own material and he produced this self-released album. If that sounds like working up to damn him with faint praise, well, I’m afraid it is. His is the kind of singer-songwriter material that’s very in vogue at the moment, folksy and earnest but enhanced with thoroughly 21st century electronic ambience and the occasional tasteful sample (the bagpipes that end “Spittal Song” for instance). My problem is that the music really isn’t exciting, it doesn’t really go anywhere or do anything, and it strikes me that in his pursuit of atmospheric and ambient style, somewhere the content has got a bit lost. A couple of songs, “Liquorice Seas” and “Spittal Song” in particular, do get close to capturing the misty, slightly eerie feeling that I’m sure he was aiming for, but most of the time the tracks simply slide by without a ripple. That said, the whole album is impeccably played and the production is unbelievably good – you wouldn’t know it was a self-release. Rojor’s voice is also good, quite husky, but again I don’t think he does enough with it, barely getting above a slightly gruff semi-whisper. If this sort well-crafted, careful music is your bag, then you should certainly give Rojor a listen – I’d put him on in preference to, say, Keane, but then that is damning with faint praise. tim procter

John Cooper Clarke : Zip Style Method - Expanded Edition

Good old John Cooper Clarke – one of British music’s true eccentrics. It’s tempting to pigeonhole him with other acts like John Otway and Jilted John under the pile marked “oddballs we have loved”. In the late 70s he opened for The Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello and others, but the appeal and delivery was always leftfield enough to keep him from being a musical hero. But you can’t help liking this re-issue of his 1982 album “Zip Style Method”, on which Clarke brought his spoken word rap poetry (not unlike Ian Dury’s rhyming tones) to a set of breezy tunes. Some of the tracks here feature an unfortunate penchant for early ‘80s drum machine and synths, but “The Day My Pad Went Mad” features a proper band all pelting along as Clarke relates a tale of urban weirdness. “Midnight Shift” is a lament to bedsit land and the paranoia of the modern city. “A Heart Disease Called Love”, if done with a proper melody, could be an outstanding song. Several tracks here come from a John Peel session, and a time when music was a little more adventurous than it sometimes is now. Boyzone would throw their hands up in horror, which is all the more reason to applaud Cooper Clarke’s attempts to broaden the musical universe, rather than to narrow it down. miles salter

THE POPPERS : BOYS KEEP SWINGING (RASTILHO RECORDS)

The Poppers are from Portugal (that’s Portugal the country, not Portugal-on-Ouse – quite how this self-released album made its way to THE TALK HQ I’m not sure, but hey, that’s what the European Union’s for!). With a title like “Boys Keep Swinging” (an old Bowie tune) you’d be forgiven for expecting glam stomping or camp cabaret, but actually what you get is Sixties-tinged guitar pop that’s done with a fair dash of zip and zing, that at first seems easy to ignore but which keeps pulling you back with its catchiness and enthusiam. I’m guessing they’re fans of early Beatles, and there’s a garagey rock ‘n’ roll feel to quite a few of the numbers, while the acoustic songs have a breezy, summery quality and are jauntily sweet without being sickly or cloying. The production is occasionally a bit thin, but this isn’t a big budget album, and the lyrics come across as a bit forced, but let’s hear some Brit bands write a song in a second language. To jaded British ears overloaded with next big things and endlessly hyped bands, The Poppers may on first listen seem hopelessly niave and out of date, but there’s a genuine sense of fun and happiness here. Fans of simple, feel-good guitar pop could do a lot worse than tracking this down and keeping the trade balance healthy (start at www.rastilhorecords.com). tim procter

Obsessive Compulsive : The Corpses Of Thought

A truly anthemic vortex of sound, Obsessive Compulsive grab you by the ear and twist…it’s a weird sensation, but whatever you’re into in our delightful alternative scene, it’s something that most of you will agree with. Punchy first effort “God Shaped Hole” really grabs the listener. This disk starts as it means to go on, firing on all punk, metal and rock cylinders. There is a lot on offer here, Kellii’s vocals punch a hole through the heart, and seduce you while you bleed. There hasn’t been a British female vocalist in recent memory in my eyes that can match Courtney Love with the same vigour and conviction. “Dying, Dying Dead” is a punk rock firefly that will buzz in your memory for days.. Influences shown here range from The Pixies to The Smashing Pumpkins with some truly metallic kick drumming to add some spice and spit into the mix.
With an infectious “ditty” like “Blood Everywhere” to follow, this band have and seemingly deserve the cult following that they now entertain. With truly raw “Playground Voodoo” we see the spirit of Obsessive Compulsive come out for a dance in the circle pit: “Thought I couldn’t get any stronger, but I did…” the start to a truly uplifting rock song.
Similarly, “Ennui” shares the convention set by the first songs catchy riffs coupled with some excellent drum work complete with the a grand chorus: “so turn the world on before I die of boredom.” Check these guys out live, and on record. For fans of: The Misfits, Hole, Amen. www.myspace.com/obsessivecompulsive. dom smith