Sebastian Grainger – Yours To Discover

Believe it or not, there was once a time before The Ting Tings made two-piece bands a must for every major label roster. Now they’re ten a penny. Not all bad, but they are appearing in record numbers. The recent increase in popularity has probably got something to do with Japandroids ‘Album Of The Year 2012’ and the upsurge of positive exposure that soon followed.
However, back in the early 2000s, whilst Anastasia was explaining that she’s ‘Not That Kind Of Girl’ and we all wished Crazy Town had stayed in their cocoon, a Toronto-based noise punk band were starting to emerge that would ignite the upsurge of the duo.

Death From Above (the 1979 was added later) came and went faster than one of their furiously fuzzy riffs, and in the blink of an eye, with only one incredible full-length release, the band announced a hiatus. They didn’t resurfaced again until 2011.
Their eventual return was coupled with the exciting announcement of a new album; so how surprising it was to discover that Sebastian Grainger (the bands energetic drummer) was planning to release a record on his own. And more unexpectedly, it would be packed full of guilt free, fresh-faced pop songs.

Yours To Discover introduces a new element of musical expression for Grainger, and to be fair, it is most welcome. His seemingly effortless approach to producing an enticing pop song, without the need to lie to yourself about how much you enjoy it, proves to be very refreshing for the ears.
The hook-filled, 80s-esc powerhouse, ‘Going With You’ sounds delightfully glossy compared to Grainger’s past. But his distinctive grainy voice, coupled with a dishing of flirty, over-produced guitar solos and elegant pulsing synths forms a brilliant structure for the albums highpoint. There are moments that feel slightly disjointed, presenting a trivial unease (see ‘Waking Up Dead’), but those feeling are instantly overturned by tracks such as ‘The Streets Are Still A Mess’ and ‘Some People Are Ghosts Too Soon’. Which in comparison are constructed like the Shard, as appose to the Indian Commonwealth Games of 2010.

It’s clear that Grainger isn’t going to get a whiff of mainstream success from this album, despite its gratifying approach to the world of pop. But we are ok with that. Because what he has produced is something that is much more worth while for society; a pop record that holds firmly onto its own integrity, whilst providing an honest and genuinely enjoyable listening experience. Go forth and discover people. 

7/10

Rob Bramhill

The 1975 - Music for Cars EP

How much material is it safe for a band to release before their debut record? Do you simply do a run of singles in the wind up or do you release one or two EPs to generate hype? For the1975, this question has been made even more difficult in that they’ve been a series of other bands before finally settling down . As such, they’ve been sat on a lot of material for a while, becoming a stronger unit in the process. Now ready to unleash a record on the public in May, the Music for Cars EP is the third in a series of releases that have stood out but not quite shone.

The Facedown EP featured their first heatseaker in The City and demonstrated their quiet side whilst the Sex EP’s hit was its self titled track (She’s got a boyfriend anyway) and You also proved to be an indication that they could be a big band without necessarily having to make the ‘big tracks’.

So why a third EP on top of this?  The hope that the music will do the talking starts to make some sense in Anobrain. Sounding like an electronic version of the band Frightened Rabbit before kicking in to be standout track Chocolate, its pretty much the same as we’ve come to expect from a 1975 EP. Chocolate’s feel of auto-tuned edges lets it down comparatively to Sex and The City, but it’s still got a big feeling around it; the kind of song that will most probably ignite crowds at the many festivals the band have booked so far. The same can hardly be said about Head.Cars.Bending though. Whilst we’re all aware by this point that the1975 are using these EPs to experiment before launching an album that has been ready for months, you’d just like them to skip to that point.

EP closer Me serves as a sort of part two to the Sex EP’s You. A wind down with the kind of feel you’ve come to expect of Snow Patrol should they have reached their synth influenced phase towards the front of their mid-twenties. That’s not even a criticism really; whilst Snow Patrol aren’t everyone’s idea of exciting and groundbreaking its hard to question Lightbody’s song-writing abilities.

Maybe that then is the problem here, and it begs two questions.
Could the1975 have put Chocolate on the Facedown EP instead of Antichrist? Probably. Would that have meant that two condensed EPs were significantly better than three? Most likely.

Still, they’re one of the hottest properties to keep a watch on and its worth doing it before the album comes out if you fancy keeping hold of the contents of your wallet. The1975 are on their way up and all it’s going to take is the removal of some filler.

6

Braden Fletcher