DaveAxbey is a minor character who became a series regular in season two. A London-based journalist and entertainment industry PR guy, he is depicted as a genre-savvy geek obsessed by videogames, anime and indie music. 
For all the attention they’ve garnered, Jersey rockers The Gaslight Anthem have never quite done it for this reviewer and latest single ‘The Diamond Church Street Choir’ certainly doesn’t blaze any trails. It isn’t a bad song by any means; but this bluesy slice of Americana is a little too dad rock to stir the blood. Devotees of Springsteen will like it, but why bother when you can listen to the real deal? The analogy that comes to mind is Stereophonics’ ‘Handbags And Gladrags’ cover; assured as hell but pretty uninteresting. Mind you, the über slick production on ‘The Diamond Church Street Choir’ doesn’t help; the rawer the better with your blue collar rock ‘n’ roll. B-side ‘Boxer’ is more to my taste – it’s still middle of the road, drive time radio-friendly stuff, but there’s an up-tempo bounce to the tune that makes it toe-tappingly enjoyable. Overall, The Gaslight Anthem come across as a comfortable band playing comfortable music, happy to recline into the deep, yielding armchair of classic rock.
The latest single from Rob Da Bank’s Sunday Best label, David E. Sugar’s ‘Party Killer’ defies the grey skies with a spot of sunny indie dance pop. Slightly louche vocals with a pronounced Estuary edge – ‘I liked you betaaah’ – slide on top of a funk-inflected assortment of bouncing electo beats with a light-hearted sense of style that promises good things from the upcoming album. As well as ‘Party Killer’s radio edit, we get the requisite album version; forgettable remixes by Disco of Doom and Adam Smith; and the unexpected treat that is the full-bodied, instrumental-heavy ‘Sunday Best Wig Out Dub‘. In addition, there’s B-side ‘Travel Light’, which is more of the same only not quite as engaging – still pretty good, but definitely the junior partner on this disc. Okay so, he’s trying a bit too hard to be a cheeky, chirpy London geezer, which might wear after a while, but ‘Party Killer’ leaves you in no doubt that David E. Sugar also knows how to make a summer floorfiller.
Ali Love’s full-length debut is professional, polished and dull as fuck. Bland dance pop with the requisite dash of retro synth, ‘Love Harder’ is not so much bad as pure filler. The album is full of the kind of songs you tolerate in the hope that the DJ will put something more exciting on next. Rising to brief prominence after guesting on the Chemical Brother’s ‘Do It Again’, Ali Love was promptly dropped by Columbia and the evidence suggests that the big boys knew what they were doing. That’s not to say there aren’t the makings of some good songs – ‘Smoke & Mirrors’ is a fairly catchy pop song; ‘Moscow Girl’ wears its ‘80s revival heart on its sleeve; ‘Done The Dirty’ benefits from vocals by New Young Pony Club’s Lou Hayter, and so on. But there’s nothing here that you can’t easily get elsewhere, and better. Part of the problem is that Ali Love desperately wants to be Prince, but my overarching beef with ‘Love Harder’ is that it’s fundamentally an empty experience. This is assembly line dance pop at its most automated. There’s not even much satisfaction in being mean to ‘Love Harder’ – it’d be like curb stomping an egg timer or telling a toaster to go fuck itself.
As might be expected from collaboration between a record/clothing label and a party-throwing fashion E-zine, ‘Kitsuné x Ponystep’ is an unprovoked act of chicness. It’s the sort of hipster dance played in Hoxton bars where Young British Artist types bang on about how working class they are over £5 pints of Leffe. This reviewer was ready to rage appropriately, especially after scoping out the artists’ names. D-Pulse? Act Yo Age? Fetch me my shotgun, son; papa’s got a job to do. Fast forward an hour and sound levels appear to have inched into annoy-the-neighbours territory. The volume started its inexorable creep towards hearing hazard with the Two Door Cinema Club’s ‘I Can Talk’, continued rising through Florrie’s poptastic ‘911’ and the electrodisco euphoria of JBAG’s ‘X Ray Sex’ and declared all-out ear war with ‘I Feel Space’, five minutes of retro stylings and dirty synth from Nordic electronaut Lindstrøm. Tunes such as Lo-Fi-Fnk’s irrepressible ‘Steppin’ Out’ and Berlin duo Booka Shade’s bouncy ‘Regeneration’ sealed the day for the forces of dance, the defeated enemy retiring from the field in disorder. Presiding over the victory is Kitsuné regular Jerry Bouthier, whose inventive mix goes a long way to making ‘Kitsuné x Ponystep’ a summery, upbeat joy, guaranteed to make your next overpriced pint taste better.
Plus One finds lively, emerald green caterpillar in her salad; Plus One complains of a migraine; Plus One heads home early, trailing clouds of thunder. Not the best build-up to a gig and one that left this reviewer somewhat crumpled at the edges. Fortunately, Stockholm duo Stefan Storm and Oskar Gullstrand were on hand to revive the corpse with an invigorating dose of ‘80s revivalist synth-heavy dance. Bolstered for the occasion by a drummer, a keyboard player and some rather nifty back projection, Sound Of Arrows filled Hoxton Hall with a warm electropop sound that nestles comfortably between indie and commercial – like fellow Swedes Peter, Bjorn and John, the group has already been pounced upon by the ad men – and has garnered inevitable comparisons with the Pet Shop Boys.
Thomas White’s latest solo effort gives us five nicely diverse covers, opening with the song that lends the EP its title – Warren Zevon’s ‘Accidentally Like A Martyr’. Already heard ‘The Maximalist’, the former Electric Soft Parade co-frontman’s gentle version of the 1978 ballad hits the spot; it’s no radical reimagining of the Zevon classic, but taken as a straightforward homage White’s version is rather beautiful. His interpretation of Mission Of Burma’s ‘That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate’ kicks things up a notch, with two minutes of energetically punky indie that suits White’s smooth vocals better than you might expect. Third track ‘We Have All The Time In The World’ is the weakest on the album – a tedious slice of cheese that loses out to both of the Fun Lovin’ Criminals’ versions of the Louis Armstrong love song – but White’s stripped down take on Sparklehorse’s ‘Little Fat Baby’ sees the EP get back on track. The album ends on a high point too, with a likeable bash at Isham Jones and The Ray Miller Orchestra’s 1920’s hit ‘I’ll See You In My Dreams’ complete with retro-sounding echo. Perhaps a touch too smooth in parts, but a worthy addition to any covers collection nonetheless.
They may not have released an album yet, but Everything Everything already have the hype machine chugging away on their behalf, with the Manchester four piece heading out on the festival circuit again this summer and numbering the likes of Zane Lowe and Marc Riley amongst their fans. So, how does their second single from their upcoming, unnamed album stack up? Well, once you get used to the relentlessly fast-paced falsetto vocals, the answer is pretty darn well. Sporting a quirky time signature and playful whistling, ‘Schoolin’ is a jagged, bass-heavy pop song that manages to inveigle soul-inflected hip hop and Friendly Fires-esque alternative dance into bed for a cheeky threesome. Smart, full of ideas and self-consciously hip, ‘Schoolin’ is a polished track by a band that knows that it’s going places.
Having heard all about Pulled Apart By Horses’ mighty live reputation, this reviewer was interested to see whether the Leeds foursome’s spirit could transfer intact to their eponymous debut album. Short answer: yes. The first three songs – ‘Back To The Fuck Yeah’, ‘The Crapsons’ and ‘High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive’ – provide solid proof that PABH’s balls-to-the-wall indie rock/pop metal is firing on all cylinders. Tom Hudson’s raspy shrieks combine with deliciously meaty guitar riffs and hi-octane drumming to create a triumvirate of immensely catchy, hook-filled tunes any one of which could cut it as a single. It’s also good to see that ‘Pulled Apart By Horses’ isn’t a one-note affair, with styles ranging from the anthemic explosion of ‘Back To The Fuck Yeah’ to the pop-tinged ‘Yeah Buddy’ and ‘Meat Balloon’ to the straight up metal of ‘Den Horn’, one of the few songs on the album to significantly top the three mark. More mental than experimental, PABH’s debut is dumb as a box of rocks and proud of it; the ideal album to put on at someone else’s party, where you don’t have to worry about the spilled beers and broken glass.
It’s understandable if Bloc Party front man Kele Okereke’s debut solo venture ‘The Boxer’ comes as a bit of a shock to the indie rock outfit’s fans; at times it seems as if Kele is trying to get as much distance between himself and Party’s spiky post punk guitars as possible. Nowhere is this more evident than opening track ‘Walk Tall’- a call to arms packed with heavy synth, dub-step and electro beats. This dance ethos rolls on into ‘On The Lam’, which sees Kele’s voice unsettlingly pitch shifted to sound female, and album single ‘Tenderoni’, a mainstream club tune that’s garnered comparisons with Wiley’s ‘Wearing My Rolex’. And Kele’s foray into dance is nothing if not wholehearted – in fact, ‘The Boxer feels at times like a grab-bag of styles, from dubstep to garage to club friendly house to the downbeat trance vibe of ‘All The Things I Could Never Say’. But while this may mean that Kele’s first solo adventure has more width than depth, it also ensures that the experiment is an interesting one.
Are The Shills being pretentious or tongue-in-cheek when they hit us with quotes like “We hate the insipid music that is the soundtrack to 21st life. We stand against the evil that is banality”? Serious or not, the Cambridge five piece have certainly been doing their bit to kick banality in the teeth lately, catching quite a few eyes on the indie scene along the way. The title track – three minutes of sharp, crisp post-punk brings The Smiths to mind. If front man Tom Yates’ voice has been likened to Costello and Strummer, lyrics such as “Yesterday I met a girl/Now everything is wonderful/I got my end away” are deep into Morrissey country. Add a catchy tune, and you’ve got the EP’s most immediate song – and, in truth, its best. Here’s an analogy for the kids – ‘Sweet Inertia’ is Terry-Thomas in ‘School For Scoundrels’; a show-stealing British classic surrounded by likeable but slightly unmemorable character actors. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go, my time machine’s parked on double yellow lines…
