Wednesday 8 October - OK, I wasn't out last weekend, so I'll treat you instead to a roundup of the platters that have been gracing the decks at Scary Towers. There's a few, so I'm not going to bore you with a track by track review, just a general overview of each.
No particular order but the first one on the pile is Long-View's Mercury with a bonus CD of re-mixes Subversions. We caught Longview (they've dropped the hyphen) at The Duchess on Friday 26 September, and jolly fine they were too. In fact I enjoyed them so much that I didn't buy a CD there and then. I went to t'interweb and ordered their album from (LAYP.COM, re-arrange these letters) where the album was £7.99 but only £4.99 if you purchased it with the bonus re-mix CD. How mad is that? Anyway, the re-mixes are OK, nothing to write home about, but the album itself is absolutely storming. Think very early Coldplay or anthemic Embrace at their peak. Top buy.
On the same night we saw Lecorum, whom we had seen before, I really like these chaps, so much so that I did dip my hand into my wallet to purchase a pre-release version of their Cartoon EP. A piano-led indie rock band, and I mean that in a good way, these are a bit like early Four Day Hombre. Another good purchase.
Now, the fact that Elbow won the Mercury Music prize 2008 came as no surprise to me as I already have their third and forth albums; Leaders of the Free World, and The Seldom Seen Kid. I was looking forward to listening to their first two offerings; Asleep In The Back, and Cast of Thousands. Sadly these didn't live up to Elbow's later work. I don't mean that they're rubbish, far from it, but they lack the rich texturing and sheer lusciousness of the later two. I think I've been spoilt by listening to them out of order.
At the same time as I acquired Elbow, I also got my hands on the Melvins' (A) Senile Animal, a different kettle of kittens altogether! This is the 2006 release from the American sludge metal band that first formed in the 1980s. I quite liked these but feel I will have to invest more time listening to them. They remind me of Tool or Mastadon, or rather, their sound has obviously influenced these bands 'cos the Melvins came first! More listening required.
Let's go back in time now. I've always longed to get my hands on King Crimson's 'observation' In The Court Of The Crimson King, and it finally bubbled to the top of my 'to buy' list. OK, it's pretty old, originally released in 1969. The band roster at this time comprised: Robert Fripp, Ian McDonald, Greg Lake (he left just prior to the album's release), Michael Giles, and Peter Sinfield. This is the2004 24-bit re-master. Frankly, this could have been released yesterday. The most well-known track is 21st Century Schizoid Man, but surprisingly this is the one track that seems at odds with the rest of the album and has aged accordingly. The rest of this brilliant CD consists of some of the finest jazz/rock fusion I've heard in a long time. Highly recommended.
And so to Laura Marling's Alas I Cannot Swim. What, you might ask, possessed me to make such a left-field purchase? I'm very fussy about my solo female singers. Well it came as a sort of recommendation. I'm a great fan of the highly readable Inspector Alan Banks stories of Peter Robinson. For one thing, the action takes place in the fictional town of Eastvale set in North Yorkshire, so there are lots of references to places in York and Leeds that I'm familiar with. Secondly, Robinson's character plays a lot of music as he solves various crimes, and his musical tastes overlaps my own an awful lot. It's pretty spooky. His latest novel, All the Colours of Darkness, references Laura's album. So I bought it. I can be quite impulsive. It's very good, with a quirky sound and great lyrics. But I don't sing/hum along, so it sort of fails on that score.
Next up two more bands that we've seen recently. The Dodos album Visiter is first off this pile. The Dodos are an American indie band, sometimes labelled freak-country, although I seen/heard a few bands that are a lot more freaky than these! Re-creating their live performances, this is, instrumentally, a rather spare work which means that when the electronic guitar is used, you really feel the benefit. It's a mixture of light psychedelia, intelligent pop, and dirty bluegrass. Long's vocals sometimes leave you wanting more but he really pulls it off in the album's closing track, God? with his nervous quivering and strident cries. Good stuff. The second CD from this clutch is an old classic, Alabama 3's Exile On Coldharbour Lane. Well, I say classic, but I'm not really into the acid-house dance scene, although live I enjoyed them immensely. Maybe that was because their music has seeped into my brain over a number of years (Exile was released in 1997), because I was singing along to Ain't Going to Goa, Woke Up This Morning, and Speed of the Sound of Loneliness (a cover of the John Prine classic). Singing along, so it must be good, even though I baulk at admitting it.
My next purchase was inspired by seeing the pocket-sized guitar wizard(ess), Chantel McGregor play For The Love Of God by Steve Vai. Now I like virtuoso guitar playing but have no albums of this guy, so I bought his 1990 album, Passion And Warfare. Basically this album is fourteen guitar instrumental tracks with a bit of chat/lyric here and there. If you like fretwork onanism (and I do), then this album is an essential purchase. I could listen all day to this stuff, if only there were more tissues in this damn box!
Coming more up to date now, Only By The Night by the Kings of Leon plopped through my letter-box in the last few weeks. It's pretty much what we've come to expect from KoL, especially Crawl, Sex On Fire, and Use Somebody, but I was a bit disappointed. Basically they don't seem to have progressed from their earlier work, this is just Because of the Times volume 2. Not a bad thing, but not a great thing either.
And finally, hot off the CD pressing machine comes, Oasis' Dig Out Your Soul. I've heard some withering comments about Oasis recently, and I know that they tread a fine line between pub rock and Beatles pastiche/homage, crikey, John Lennon himself appears on I'm Outta Time. However, it ain't 'alf bad, in fact it's pretty damn good. OK I could witter on endlessly about Oasis finally reaching the Beatles true psychedelic-era sound, but they do it so well that it sells itself. I don't care if it sounds like they recorded it in a haze of hashish and opium, I like it. There's a bit of George Harrison-like guitar work on I'm Outta Time, Dear Prudence at the end of The Turning, but also a bit of The Who in the mix, and even Pink Floyd on the opener, Bag It Up. So stick yer hands in yer pockets and yer fingers in the air for the return of the champs. Buy it.
