Cursive - The Sun And Moon

Cursive feel like a band who have been around for years but still retain their same original freshness and excitement, hardly surprising considering they’ve been making music together since 1995. After the darkness of 2009’s ‘Mama, I’m Swollen’ the band are back with follow up ‘I am Gemini’. ‘The Sun and Moon’ is the first track from the new album and it sees Cursive seguing into a slightly more mainstream rock vibe, leaving behind some of their post-hardcore roots. Starting with a familiar drum beat and guitar riffs it sees lead singer Tim Kasher rejecting his usual mumbly vocals for clarity and even some falsetto. Segueing from section to section the song twists and turns in a fairly enthralling manner managing to build up excitement before hitting a group chorus of crunchy guitar chords. Think ‘Pork and Beans’ era Weezer but still retaining the angsty undertones which have defined Cursive over the past decade or so.

By Jessy Parker

Gunning For Tamar - Chocolate Hooves

Gunning for Tamar - Chocolate Hooves by alcopop

Further proof that Oxford cant stop pumping out exciting new artists is Alcopop records' new signing Gunning For Tamar. Far flung from the recently hyped carbon-copy 'new saviours of guitar music' such as Tribes and Howler, Gunning for Tamar have crafted a sound much more individual yet ferociously quick-fix. 

New track 'Chocolate Hooves' starts off gently with melodic guitar plucks, with lead singer Joe Wallis claiming "I am crippled, I am stranded where I landed" and asking tunefully yet urgently "Hurricane Hurricane, send me on my way". Things then pick up the pace a bit, and a full blown meaty Biffy Clyro style rock chorus bellows out of the track's chassis. The guitars are loud and uncompromising, and the vocals impassioned, making for a welcome release from the restrained poser-rock being flaunted elsewhere in music at the moment.

Gunning For Tamar fire on all cylinders and will be unavoidable if they keep producing tracks like this. 

You can catch them live on their forthcoming UK tour with another great alcopop band Jumping Ships (Dates Below)

March:

Monday 19th - Beercart Arms, Cantebury

Thursday 22nd - Avondale House, Southampton

Friday 23rd - The Louisiana, Bristol

Saturday 24th - The Cellar, Oxford

Sunday 25th - Old Blue Last, London

Tuesday 27th - The Hope, Brighton

Wednesday 28th - Buffalo Bar, Cardiff

Thursday 29th - Trinity Bar, Harrow

Friday 30th - Shipping Forecast, Liverpool

                                                 Saturday 31st - Chameleon, Nottingham

By Toby McCarron

Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory

If a record sets out to be flat out lo-fi American college rock, and then it is, surely it has achieved all it’s goals and therefore can’t really be faulted for not being the most adventurous of records, or for not being remotely ground breaking, and so on. Now, we could take a tangent and discuss whether or not there is much place in this world for such music. Music that is potentially out dated and stale before it has even been written.

That argument is, of course, ludicrous. There is clearly a place for exciting guitar music in the world. Just because a band is open about their influences doesn’t reduce their artistic merit, surely? Take ‘Attack on Memory’, the second “full” album from Cloud Nothings. On the face of it, it’s a record that is about 15/20 years too late as it flicks between sounding like early Radiohead (opener ‘No Future/No Past’), Nirvana, and really early Green Day (‘Fall In’). That’s just the opening 3 tracks, of which there are only 8.

The rest of the record continues in a similar vein, and yet whilst it’s perfectly enjoyable it struggles to get beyond that. Sure, the chorus of ‘Stay Useless’ is fantastic, and there’s plenty of energy here, it’s certainly not boring it just lacks any staying power. But again, it’s a record that is so open and honest about it’s influences that you can’t really criticise it for sounding “just like mid-nineties lo-fi American college rock” because it knows it sounds like that, yet it is because of this that it fails to make much of an impact. It struggles to take the genre any further than just echoing the past, there’s very little sense of progression.

Saying that, the band has built on the sound of their first record, the production is clearer and as a result ‘Attack on Memory’ feels like a more well-rounded effort than their self-titled debut. Beyond that though? An enjoyable 30 minutes of guitars and drums that makes for pleasant and easy listening but little else.

6/10
By Sean Collison 

The Maccabees - Given To The Wild

2007 saw the arrival of South Londoners The Maccabees’ debut album ‘Colour It In’, a chirpy effort that would soundtrack first relationships and adolescent years. 2009’s ‘Wall Of Arms’ showcased The Maccabees’ affinity with horns, a horn section would feature on several of the album’s tracks, showing a more mature and developed sound, with help from renowned producer Markus Dravs. Now in the early stages of 2012, their long-awaited third album ‘Given To The Wild’ has been released. Have The Maccabees suffered from the difficult third album or have they created the album that should catapult them to great success?

The album begins with the ominous, minimalist title track, Orlando Weeks’ lullaby vocals overlapping the cascading drones. A horn section features on both “Child” and “Ayla”, the former being a beautiful track from start to finish, and an early indication of how sonically gorgeous this album is, and the latter being more upbeat, with an uplifting piano and vocal melody. “Feel To Follow”, opening on layered vocals and a drum beat, grows into a hyperactive crescendo, cymbals and guitar lines crashing against each other. “I’m a child to your voice” Weeks croons on the opening line of “Forever I’ve Known”, a heartbreaking plea to a former lover. “Pelican”, the first single to be released from the album, opens with sudden fervour, only taking a moment to catch its breath before launching back into frenzied excitement. It’s The Maccabees’ ability to balance the silent with the resonant, the slow with the quick, and the gentle with the raucous, that makes the songs on this album more impressive.

The only real flaw with ‘Given To The Wild’ is that many of the tracks, especially on the later stages of the album, drag on a bit. “Go” is quite breathtaking when the initial reverberated melody kicks in, but grates slightly as the song carries on. Most of the tracks on ‘Given To The Wild’ were created from the same outline of quiet to loud, however it isn’t a massive concern considering the melodies and the musicianship showcased.

Now onto the all-important closing track; ‘Colour It In’ had “Toothpaste Kisses”, ‘Wall Of Arms’ had “Bag Of Bones”, and ‘Given To The Wild’ has “Grew Up At Midnight”. Both of the previous closing tracks were gentle, quiet odes to a different form of love or beauty, whereas “Grew Up At Midnight” is more centred around childhood and innocence. The song starts as a whisper and builds, “We grew up at midnight, we were only kids then” being shouted as if two friends were reminiscing about the times they shared as kids. It is a fitting close to the album considering the amount of times the world “child” is used throughout the album.

It may only be the first few weeks of 2012, but “Given To The Wild” is already one of 2012’s musical highlights. This should be the album that catapults The Maccabees to greater things, whether it’s higher chart placements or bigger festival crowds, it will guarantee one thing; more fans of this beautiful music.

9/10 

By Calum Stephen

Alt-J - Fitzpleasure

A fair few people have commented that Leeds based Alt-J are going to do well this year, and on the evidence presented so far it’s fairly easy to see why. Musically fascinating but relatively accessible at the same time, they appear to have it all.

‘Fitzpleasure’ only serves to encourage the “hype” (as it were). Looped vocal shouts are quickly met by throbbing bass and Joe Newman’s highly individual vocals, before instantly dropping back into a beautiful guitar led melody, and from there it builds. More than anything though, it’s the sound of band releasing exactly what they want to release, there’s no constraints on the music at all. It feels so free and unpredictable, and yet the band manages to avoid getting lost in the experimentation almost (it would appear) with ease.

By the end of this track, you struggle to find an argument against this being Alt-J’s year (at least within the small indie band scene). With wonderfully crafted music, the band have created a sound that is staggeringly individual without coming remotely close to alienating the listener from what they are trying to achieve. The only issue that could be foreseen is that the tracks they’ve put out so far follow a fairly similar pattern and style, but given the inventiveness displayed here, changing it up a bit shouldn’t be too much of a struggle for them. With UK tours supporting Ghostpoet and Wild Beasts on the horizon; the future is bright for this lot, make no mistake.

By Sean Collison

First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar

There is not quite so much power in most music as there is in First Aid Kit. Although only a (foolishly) passing listener to their music, every time I listen to their music I am over-powered by it. Their majesty is remarkably sincere and anthemic. Like a gospel choir of two, they command their sound with such a beautiful power that is rarely heard of. Their comprising elements all add up to such a harmonious end, from their perfectly tuned harmonies, to the subject matter of their lyrics, tackling such things as religious preaching and, in the case of ‘The Lion’s Roar’, from what I’ve deduced, how hard it can be to be a simple cog of a wheel that is going down a wrong and corrupt path. But then again, I did just watch V for Vendetta, so my perception is a little rebellious right now. And so it should be.

I cannot mistake my love for this song, and I am very much looking forward to the upcoming new LP of the same name (I have in fact just preordered it). It is quite unbelievable how so much can come out of so few; a Swedish two piece of sisters, First Aid Kit are very much a band of their own doing. Not reliant on the movements of another, they are very sincere musicians, clearly focussed on their craft and what that means for their place in the world. In their sound, I feel like I am brought into their home.Like with any folk, this music commands the soul in such a bold way that you are never quite sure what it is, but you know it is spiritual and not physical.

Their subject matter defies convention, and their beautifully commanding approach to folk music is both very distinctive and very fitting. Do preorder the new album. If this is telling of anything, it is telling of what could be one of the best albums of 2012.

By Eliot Humphries

(www.bl--dsp-rt.tumblr.com)

Zola Jesus - In Your Nature (David Lynch Remix)

Contain your excitement everyone. David Lynch, Godfather of weird, has remixed Zola Jesus’ “In Your Nature”. With Lynch being a huge influence on Nika Danilova’s music it’s a match made in heaven. The remix, which is the B side to the “In Your Nature” single, also ties in rather nicely with the fact that Sacred Bones are reissuing the soundtrack to Lynch’s Eraserhead on deluxe vinyl later this year.

Unsurprisingly Nika Danilova isn’t fond of remixes. She feels they’re rarely an improvement on the original song. With “In Your Nature” being one of the strongest tracks on “Conatus” with its thumping dance beats and high pitched strings anyone can see why Nika would be protective over her music but in her own words “when David Lynch asks to remix your song, you let him”.

The David Lynch remix follows the same structure as Zola Jesus’ original but the strings and synth beats are replaced with vocals that echo over steady drum beats, chilled guitars and Twin Peaks-esque keyboards that give the track an eerie yet uplifting feel. It could perfectly soundtrack the infamous Roadhouse’s Pink Room scene in Fire Walk With Me.

David Lynch has managed to make the song into something that competes with the beauty of the original track but still has his distinctive surreal and dreamy feel to it.

By Eden Young

Scissor Sisters & Krystal Pepsy - Shady Love

When I think of Scissor Sisters, the first thing that always springs to mind is their performance at the Brit Awards in 2007. Watching a band burst out of giant eggs embellished with glitter wearing only leather lederhosen then cavorting with large, bright pink Emus is not something that someone forgets in a hurry. Therefore I’ve always associated the band with being bright, brash, slightly tacky, and with having a fondness for falsetto vocals so shrill that they could shatter mirrors from miles away. However Shady Love, their first offering since 2010 shows a new side of the band. All of the above elements (well, apart from the falsetto vocals, but even they’re kept to a minimum) are gone. This single is slick, upbeat, catchy, and so totally different from Scissor Sisters other material that it’s slightly unbelievable that it is in fact their song. 

However it all makes sense when you add to this the fact that Boys Noize, who was also responsible for Spank Rock’s new sound, produced the song, and that it was written by now infamous up-and-coming rapper Azealia Banks, who features in the song under the guise of Krystal Pepsy. Any fan of Banks will instantly recognise her influence on the track, and that’s what stops me liking this song as much as I could, because whilst playing it, all I could think about was how it sounded like a poor imitation of Banks’ single “212”.

 

Nevertheless I have to be honest and say, despite being quite scathing of it when it was first released, this song has grown on me with each listen, and I sincerely hope that this song gets it’s fair share of plays in the clubs this year – if only so that more people can enjoy the novelty of hearing Jake Shears rapping. Against my better judgement, I’m looking forward to seeing where Scissor Sisters go from this song… so long as it doesn’t involve any falsetto.

By Grace Barber-Plentie