Category: New Music Reviews

While the Yadas bio mentions the influences of Pavement, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Flaming Lips, “Oceans”  has all the earmarks of the classic mid-western power pop sound, namely it’s melodic, hook-laden and features a big fat guitar line. It brings to mind the kind of thing so heartwarmingly served up over the years by Material Issue, and Cheap Trick, as well as easterners, the Gigolo Aunts. The Yadas hail from Durham, England so not sure if they’ve indulged in any of that stuff, but no matter, this thing can stand among the giants proudly.

This song is trouble. The vocal sounds both like a maniacal Brenda Lee ( country legend from back in the day) and an actual freight train, and can be likened to the sensation of getting pummeled in the face for 2 minutes, then slowly sliding down a wall, which is to say it totally kicks ass.

Hey you quiet/loud crunchy guitar 90’s alternative throwback, I have a crush on you and can’t take you off repeat…but anyway…Small Talks are out of Myrtle Beach, Florida, and this one is kind of like peak era Juliana Hatfield with uh…balls (seriously), and is exceedingly great.

Suggesting the Pet Shop Boys at their most lost, and ineffably pretty, “Thirteen” is solely comprised of  synth and sadness, and unquestionably built for staring wistfully out train windows, and playing on repeat.

Imagine if an austere 80s / 90s British TV police drama made an album. Cracker or something like that. It’s tempting to think that Robbie Coltrane’s cynical title character might have created the album in question using various yard sale synths and a 4-track during his younger, marginally more optimistic days before becoming an overweight jaded detective, but I don’t mean that.I mean if the show itself made an album. Its whole environment – the concrete skies, the whimpering tea machine, the energetically melancholy whine of the rusted playground swing and every one of the poor bastards who’s suffered through the monochrome mire of Cracker‘s world, week in, week out. That album might sound something like Kudos to The Bomber Jackets. I mean that as a sincere compliment. Buy it.

This song wants to hug you. The debut single from Superego is straight up melodic joy, joy, joy. It’s featured star is a massive, shiny guitar that’s let loose to run amuck in a green grassy field under, of course, the bluest of blue skies.

Bloxx are described in their bio as a “4-piece indie band from London”. True enough but what they really are is a f*cking great “4-piece indie band from London”. The situation “Coke” relates is full of frustration, regret, and resignation, but it’s all enveloped in a swirling, sticky, swampy guitar line ( which reminded me for a second of the ravishing “Slide Away” by Oasis), and blessed with a singalong chorus, and as such, is nearly impossible to evict from your head once you’ve heard it.

Here’s a little “Coke” live, and yeah, it’s really, really good :

I’m a sucker for “Right On’s” in a pop song. The best ones in history ever, live within the intro to Marvin Gaye’s classic “What’s Going On” and they are love. Which brings us here to Mulch’s “Baby Blue”, which has a generous helping of them, and exudes earnest warmth, love, and confusion about family and the universe in the most tuneful way possible. In addition, it also possesses the most bitchin’ guitar break.

“Sand Dunes” (the other track above) is a lo-fi amalgamation of Prince, Shuggie Otis, and Brian Wilson. It’s a little demented, a little romantic, and has more hooks than a tackle box ( Okay, I sincerely apologize for that last bit but it’s true). To summarize, like “Baby Blue”, it’s pretty damn good.

Oh yeah. This is some fine and glossy pop, festooned with a bit of boogie guitar, and a heavenly vocal that I swear sounds like Judee Sill, semi-mysterious, revered 70’s singer/songwriter of all people. Anyway, all of this together makes for a pretty heavenly sound, and a welcome new entry into the pop church hymn book.

And here’s the aforementioned Judee Sill to have a listen to if you haven’t before. She remains forever unbelievable, and otherworldly.

This jangles sweetly, swiftly and ever so desperately, and is not a million miles away from 80’s babes Aztec Camera, from the Roddy Frame-esque vocal, right down to the the romantic optimism of the title…which is all to say it’s a bit of a throwback and is eminently lovable.