MarcusErridge originally from Southampton, lives in South London and works for a University supporting human rights students and academics. His all-time favourite band is Pavement. He’s a Libra, enjoys Pina Colada’s and getting caught in the rain! 
‘Word To The Wise’ opens with sophisticated upbeat blues number ‘Bump Wood’, featuring some gorgeous lead guitar work by Kirchen and equally impressive Chicago-style blues piano courtesy of Commander Cody. The Merle Haggard song ‘Shelley’s Winter Love’ is a change of pace, featuring Nick Lowe in a downbeat ballad that will have you slow dancing across the sawdust. Elvis Costello features on ‘Man At The Bottom Of The Well’, followed by ‘I Don’t Work That Cheap’; a great knock-about rockabilly number. The excellent ‘Time Will Tell The Story’ rolls along with all-American open road wonder. It’s at about this point when you feel it’s time to swing yourself back up into the cab of your eighteen-wheeler and head for Texas. Country ballad heartbreaker ‘Husbands And Wives’ pours out of the jukebox at your Houston truck stop, then it’s back on the road, as this guitar virtuoso fills the desert highway with dusty country numbers ‘Open Range’ and ‘Arkansas Diamond’. The last few tracks on ‘Word To The Wise’, are a little dissapointing – the main highlight being ‘Valley Of The Moon’. Overall, this is an enjoyable road trip through classic Americana, with a showcase of talented old pros riding shotgun.
Bold and original, ‘Dear Author’ is a fabulous slice of psychedelic indie from the creepily titled L.A outfit ‘Darker My Love’. A flat, off rhythm chorus is reminiscent of Syd Barrett – with the simple bass and pounding beat carrying a rather slick melody. This is great retro indie, with palpable depth and flair; like Arthur Lee’s Love, with the shoegazing, stoner groove of The Jesus and Mary Chain. Darker My Love capture that slightly heading, engrossing quality of great late 60′s psychedelic rock. Despite the mildly stalkerish tone, this is a measured and extremely catchy number. The grungy rhythm section of Tim Presley and Rob Barbato honed their skills with a stint in The Fall, featuring on 2007′s hit and miss ‘Reformation Post TLC’ album. This is a sharp and exciting California rock – ‘Dear Author’ really gets under the skin of that great West Coast psychedelia sound – and carries it forward to the present day, adding contemporary bite.
Fitting snugly alongside the likes of Florence & The Machine, Victoria & Jacob and La Roux; School of Seven Bells’ second album includes some smartly crafted 80′s electro-pop. Opening with the lead single ‘Windstorm’ (which is reminiscent of Coco Rosie’s ‘Rainbow Warriors’) the tone is set for a sometimes fruitful blend of pop sophistication. This is taken a step further with the superior ‘Dust Devil’, which intertwines thrusting, layered vocals with 1980s drama / danger pop grandeur. ‘ILU‘ follows, with all the hallmarks of a classic pop single. Both sweet and melancholy, this is very respectable stuff and is among the real highlights of ‘Disconnect From Desire’. School Of Seven Bells seem to have tapped into a section of the late 80′s / early 90′s, with ‘Heart is Strange’, the excellent ‘Dial’ and the rather unfortunately titled ‘Babelonia’ . The flat, haunting harmonies of the twins also work especially well on the minimalist, David Bowie Scary Monsters-phase ‘Camarilla’. When peaking, classic acts like St. Etienne or The Cocteau Twins come to mind. But less inventive than, say, the Fever Ray debut of last year, it’s the over-reliance on Stock, Aitken & Waterman style drum machine and 80′s lacquer that is keeping School Of Seven Bells downstream.
Formed by the sons of Aerosmith axe-wielder Joe Perry, The Chrome Alligator’s, you imagine, wouldn’t need much of a ‘leg up’. But don’t let that take anything away from the solid collection of well crafted American rock songs that makes up Aerosmith: The Next Generation’s Zoo Noises. Tab The Band have a foot in the early 70s here with a brash, energetic and retro sounding rock ‘n’ roll album. Throughout ‘Zoo Noises’ you can hear the influence of The Stones, The Small Faces and Creedance. The alt-country harmony opener ‘It’s Over’ sets the tone of the album and leads us into rock number ‘Be My Valentine’ and ‘I’ll be Waiting’ has a real Rolling Stones Exile of Main Street-era sound to it, and builds into a likeable, feel good tune, with some slide guitar Keith Richards would be proud of. Highlights include off-kilter country ballad ‘Southern Town’ and the explosive ‘Drinka Cuppa Poppy’. ‘She Said No (I Love You)’, ‘Your Mission’ and the equally strong ‘Bought and Sold’ are all of high quality, and display The Moonshine Enema’s forte for excellent intros. ‘Bobby And Jane’ also stands out as a swirling and heady high-energy number. Good, solid stuff overall.
Seth Lakeman’s new album is a surprisingly rich blend of bluegrass and Irish folk. Some excellent string arrangements offer occasions of genuine depth and atmosphere. The recession-busting opening title track offers up the rousing chorus “Hold your hands up to the sky and stand together to survive”. Add to this a winding, high energy violin, and it might make you want to riverdance on a banker’s face. ‘The Watchman’ follows, which is more of a stripped-back ramshackle ballad. ‘Tiny World’ is a jolly little ‘chase a piglet round the garden’ kind of number, which sees Lakeman heading along traditional folk ditty lines, with a Levellers / Pogues feel. ‘The Preacher’s Ghost’ adds a rolling, foggy drama to the otherwise rather surface tone throughout much of ‘Hearts & Minds’. Despite the over-reliance on the sort of pseudo-spiritual lyrics that seem to go down so well in coffee shops on both sides of the Atlantic, the fact it all sounds suspiciously like the Bon Jovi soundtrack to Young Guns II, and tight black T-shirts aside, there are some commendable high points here.
Yes it’s that Charlotte, daughter of French legend Serge and the recent star of notorious horror flick ‘Antichrist’, Gainsbourg. In that movie she apparently takes a pair of scissors and…well lovely music fans, I wouldn’t want to put you off your cornflakes! ‘Time of the Assassins’ contains five different versions of the same single. Though it’s perhaps not a track strong enough to warrant four remixes, the third version – the ‘XXX remix’ is pretty damn funky. With a pulsating dirty disco beat, and lashings of head-nodding groove, this is a six-minute electro-pop gem. Gainsbourg’s smooth, but rather flat vocals are complemented by an intricate and exciting rhythm. The ‘Time Of The Assassins’ song on it’s own is actually rather bland. The chorus goes: “In the time of the assassins they say hallelujah, it’s doesn’t take a miracle to raise a boat from the depths”. Now I’ve nothing against lyrics that don’t make sense, but seriously, what the fuck does that mean? The radio edit contains fuller verses, with lines such as “I sift through the ash, I look for a sign, I open the room, it keeps me in line”. Any clearer? – me neither. Finished eating?
‘Sashimi’ from Tuung hails a branch out into bolder and more imaginative realms. There’s an awful lot going on in this fabulous little sparkler of a single. From psychedelic ‘la la’s’, to great rock guitar riffs with twisting electronica, it’s very hard to get a track this quirky to work as a palatable single, but Tuung pull it off. Starting with a simple acoustic guitar lead, a jumbling keyboard and bass beat follows a Flaming Lips ‘Pink Robots’ style vocal. A lovely break down a little over two minutes in, returns us to the opening acoustic, before exploding into a psychedelic climax. A steady keyboard and rich guitar add a funky, rhythmic thread, holding the whole thing together. It’s a summer Bobby Dazzler, indie with a brain. Lyrics seem to follow a slightly bamboozling dream state, seemingly half chasing an elusive love and half confused adventures into the unknown. A tale of look before you leap perhaps? ‘Sashimi’ should win a lot of people over, ‘along the same lines of MGMT’s ‘Time To Pretend’ or Super Furry Animals ‘Inaugural Trams’, a truly catchy pop tickler.
‘I pin this badge upon my chest’ hollers lead singer Will Ray half a dozen times, before direct and confrontational rock number ‘The Great And The Good’ bursts into life. ‘Conscious exists now even in the wicked’ screams the chorus and these two messages are repeated throughout! Along the punkier end of American rock that seems to be developing well on this side of the pond, Max Raptor follow on a similar vein to Green Day. ‘The Great And The Good’ is a single full of youthful exuberance, a pokey little rock number that would have any respectable mosh pit chockfull of sweaty limbs, and is certainly worth being accidently elbowed in the larynx for. The cover has a suited figure with a dinosaur’s head – a great logo to have at your disposal and well worth a t-shirt! This is dynamic stuff from the Derby rockers, without having too much to sink your teeth into.
