Johnny Foreigner - You Can Do Better

…And it starts like. Well no, it doesn’t anymore. Where to start in telling the story of Johnny Foreigner doesn’t really matter anymore. On the closing track of their third full length record ‘Johnny Foreigner vs Everything’ there’s the words “Hey, 2009, that was always almost enough.” It’s a self-consciousness of what; in terms of sales and hype was their peak, ironically placed on an album of as good quality as the material that placed them there. This awareness doesn’t fade in record four in the slightest. Front-man Alexei Berrow introduces the record with the words “It was patience that choked us in the end” before (an ever vocally improving) bassist Kelly Southern joins the chorus.
No, You Can Do Better is not the kind of album that ignores its roots, but nor is it the kind of album that traces them back in panic nor pulls them out of the ground in search of an altered timeline.

It’s no secret that here at Sound Influx, we’re fans of Johnny Foreigner, but that shouldn’t diminish the following statement. This might just be their most cohesive record since the first waves of Waited Up… first brought our collective ears to their music. There’s the maturity to whack in a quiet section in without becoming boring, but there’s still the boldness to take on a huge sound and win, basically at will. Lead track Le Sigh is a monster of a building track whilst just two songs later Riff Glitchard’s (we do love a good pun) delicacy and attention to lyrical detail (“I might as well be an organ in your body, the damage I do when I do nothing”) leaves you feeling drained of all emotion just before The Last Queen Of Scotland re-energises for the rest of the record.

Of course, a complete self-consciousness of your surroundings can come across as paranoia and Wifi Beach’s mix of about five different song ideas thrown into one is as bad an idea as it is a good one both sonically and artistically. In other places, the blunt honesty of To The Death’s “I need a spell to stop my friends from feeling guilty every time they talk about you” and the entirety of album closer Devestator, will resonate with listeners not too dissimilarly than that of Keaton Henson or Manchester Orchestra.

There’s something to be said for making honest music with the relative ambition of consistently getting better. Johnny Foreigner have encountered both the highs and derailments of this acclaim, but with their fourth effort; maybe it’s time to stop trying to call them out on all that’s come before and all that’s come before them and just listen to what is simply a solid record from a band doing exactly what they should be doing at this moment in time.

8.2/10

Braden Fletcher

Cheatahs - Cheatahs

NB: We're aware this has been out a month, but some things need shouting about okay?

In an age that we’re told what to listen to by Capital Radio pushing their YouTube ads of Will.I.Am and The Wanted at us all, it can be refreshing, even for an audience with an increasingly pop taste to hear something that’s both nostalgic and forward thinking in terms of modern rock and roll.

Of course, rock and roll these days is sold to us on the front cover of the NME as Alex Turner’s quiffed head stares deeply into our souls, as he queries those who gave his band the Brits limelight and those who, en masse bought tickets to a huge Finsbury Park show alike “R U Mine?” Most of us look back with moderate tentativeness, before admitting that yes, we probably are. For bands like Artcic Monkeys, Foals and Kasabian, it’s been a lucky ride at times. Kasabian themselves admitted that their signing and huge promotional drive felt like being the last band to jump on the lifeboats to success whilst Sheffield and Oxford’s finest used the new-fangled media that was MySpace and relentless efforts of playing solid shows to make it off the sinking ship that we call the music industry. Once in a while, bands like The Vaccines, Mumford & Sons and The1975 are allowed to swim to the safety of Brixton Academy and beyond, but by that point, they’re just pop bands for those living in the aftermath of Generation X.

Now, it’s not like a reviewer is going to tell you that, amongst the colossal pile of what’s often referred to as landfill, Cheatahs are the one band you can count on; but when you take a live show as energetic as the London band’s (see aforementioned The Vaccines mixed with the relaxed anarchy of MBV) and mix it with the kind of sounds that we hear from slightly grimier success stories (see Blood Red Shoes and Drenge) of recent times; it can be accepted of you to vanish into a pile of fuzz pedals and declare your Topshop-purchased Nirvana t-shirt to be part of your gateway down the slippery slope to the last track of  this, Cheatahs debut and eponymous record.

Perfect? Far from it. The production possibly leaves out more edge than you’d desire from a record of such distortion to do whilst lyrically, there’s not so much as a whisper of poetry from the majority. Of course, it’s difficult to demand from shoegaze-influenced modern-rock, but if Sonic Youth could occasionally touch the heartstrings, you’d like an inkling of it from this record. It, after all, is a debut; something pained over through teenage years of angst and bad decisions.

This then, is the start. Lord only knows what it’s the start of, but for Cheatahs, let’s hope it’s the start of something that lasts. When you can centre a record around two singles (The Swan and Cut the Grass) that don’t even sound similar, the sky can be the limit. Here’s hoping there’s another raft on its way that will pick up these feline rule-breakers.

7.9/10

Braden Fletcher

Crywank - Tomorrow is Nearly Yesterday and Every Day is Stupid

James ‘Crywank’ Clayton is on his third record. He’s a DIY artist from Manchester and he’s written some of the most honest and frankly oft self-depreciating music of the last decade. Of course, in that time, Frightened Rabbit released Midnight Organ Fight, The National became a huge force and The Antlers became one of the cult bands of the new-sad revolution that saw us creased up into our own pillows in a way that ‘emo’ had only just seen us leave; but Crywank emerged in the anti-folk side of the spectrum, completely opposite the fictional creations of Laura Marling’s critically acclaimed records.

That’s not to say he’s not had some success on the way though and Tomorrow is Nearly Yesterday and Every Day is Stupid, his third record has proven to be Bandcamp’s #1 selling record of the week just finished, at the price of just £1 (or more).

The music itself hasn’t changed much aside from appearing to gain some production value, if not a lot. The opening lyrics of “Everyone I love is gonna die and I will die as well” mixed with Crywank’s trademark acoustic guitar is now joined by the tapping of a wooden drum box and mild reverberation on James’ vocals.  It feels like nothing’s new here, but at the same time, James’ time as an artist has led him down a slightly more fluid path of songsmanship, making TiNY a much easier listen, even through track two’s Song For a Guilty Sadist which needs little description.

Overall, the record shows growth; from an artist that both revels in borderline juvenile emotions in a genre that’s never attempted to be progressive, TiNY… is a sign of maturity and for that, it should be lauded. Crywank is a shining example of why we so desperately need Bandcamp as a platform, even if he’s the most self depreciating artist we’ll listen to all year.

8

Braden Fletcher

The 1975 - The 1975

The 1975 are the kind of indie story as old as the genre itself. Spend a few years on the egde, holding back your best material and then release it all in one to create almost overnight success. This formula has yielded Bastille and Alt-J in the last year alone, but for Drive Like I Do, Talkhouse etc etc, the 1975’s past has been slightly more littered.

Every time the buzz built, they went away again. This, their final form made up of some big singles and a long lasting partnership with Dirty Hit Records (Ben Francis Leftwich, Little Comets) has proven to be the one that stuck.

Four EPs down the line (the fourth of which wasn’t in ‘the plan’) and two top 40 singles under their wing, the 1975 have finally got round to making a record. Starting with their trademark atmospheric-electro sound, so trademark in fact that it shares their name, it gives way to debut single The City . It pulses with power as mission statement before becoming the chilled out pop sound of M.O.N.E.Y. Echoing with the kind of sound that features across many of Bastille’s album tracks before breaking out into Chocolate, its easy to see how the 1975 have created success. Chocolate’s still as infectious as it was when Huw Stephens first caught wind of it on Radio One and yet it’s still not the biggest track on the record. That accolade’s left for their recently re-recorded single Sex.

Old time ’75 fans will have seen this develop from noisy bedroom recordings to the highly produced monster it is now. As with much of the record, it’s in danger of being too shiny, but it’s hard to deny how catchy the “She’s got a boyfriend anyway” is.

After this, its onto the easily forgettable Talk! and yet another 1975-mosphere minute before indie’s answer to the Drive Soundtrack, Heart Out opens the second half of the record. It’s begging for a remix driven by the bassline and chorus but as a standalone track, it just about works as counter-culture-pop. The same can be said for the offbeat Settle Down in which you can practically see the teenagers on eachother’s shoulders during the chorus. 
Robbers proves to be the surprise of the record. Another track taken from the Matt Healy history vaults, the quality of his vocals resembles that of KIGH’s Aled Phillips (and that’s a compliment).

From here sadly, its relatively predictable. By putting 16 tracks on their debut effort, the 1975 have put themselves in danger of creating too many tracks that should have been B-sides. If left at a 10/11 track, this could have been one of the standouts of the year, but left to trail off in the way that this does, all those years of preparation has been let down by a lack of leaving some of their children to die, the 1975 have let some of their great ones down.

7/10

Braden Fletcher