Time for a roundup of recent singles I've downloaded recently........

Firstly In My Blood by Black Stone Cherry. A fantastic track which sounds like the single Skynyrd should have written sometime in the late 70's..... When you can include lyrics such as "when Tuesday comes, I'll be gone again" and a chorus blessed with a hook that could catch a whale it should have been a massive radio hit. Says a lot about the state of radio and record promotion when this remains a hidden gem but Kings of Leon are a commercial radio staple - such a shame


Now a song that was not designed for the radio - L'enfant Sauvage by Gojira. Confusingly a song with a French title by a French band but sung in English !!
This chugs along with a simmering brutality and vocals best described as an acquired taste. Sound is somewhere between Sepultura without the tribal drums and a heavier Apocalyptica
Worth a listen just to see what is happening across the channel in the world of metal


Regina Spector's single All the Rowboats is one my highlights of the year so far.... An ode to paintings hanging in museums, this is one of the cleverest lyrics I've heard in a long time. Some insistent piano in the background means comparisons to Tori Amos will be made but this is less self consciously kooky and with a harder edge. The unexpected ending with the synthesised drum crashes is strangely in keeping with the whole feel of the song


Fear Factory have returned (in case anyone noticed they had been away) but for a band that once was the cutting edge of metal, this is just treading water. Recharger could have come from any of the last 3 albums I've heard.... Whilst there is some melody in the chorus, this band ceased to be relevant many years ago. Check out the albums Demanufacture or Digimortal to hear the band in their prime rather than listen to this


Finally Kate Bush has released a remix of Running Up That Hill. Debuting at the closing ceremony of the Olympics, the first thing to note is the re-recorded vocals and then the fact that thankfully she hasn't tampered too much with what is a classic song. Whilst it always a delight to hear new material from Ms Bush this is probably the least essential thing she has done in years.

Finally a bit of a mis step..... Read some very good reviews about a band called Delusion Squared who I believe come from France

They are a prog rock trio with female vocals and so I bought the album II (the cleverley titled second album)

It's not a bad album in that you rush to turn it off but it's utterly forgetable once the last song finishes. The vocal are polite but nothing special. The opening track Double Vision suggests they may listen to a lot of latter day Marillion and the whole album feels like a bit of a Porcupine Tree homage in places

The music is all well played with some nice keyborads in places but there just aren't enough hooks to make you want to revisit the album on a regular basis

A shame but an album that fails to shine

Very rarely do I buy an album solely on the album cover but this proves the exception to the rule.....

Four heavily made up young ladies holding hands and dressed all in black with large brimmed hats - surely the  riders of the apocalypse younger sisters leaving the cowboy bar from hell

The Black Belles self titled album is an unexpected treat. This though is American Gothic and so these girls grew up on The Ramones and The Cramps rather than dry ice and the Sisters of Mercy....

of the 11 tracks only one last more than 3 minutes - short sharp shocks of primal guitar rock with attitude. There is nothing musically subtle here and those aren't the vocals of a X Factor contestant.

Lyrically it's not quite at the levels of male hatred that Emilie Autumn reaches but I would guess these girls may have been wronged by a few men in the past.

The swirling eerie organ on Honky Tonk Horror and Pushing Up Daisies add to the atmospherics and there is also a large dash of melody spread throughout the tracks. The Wrong Door has a surfin' feel to the guitars and is as catchy as hell.

Jack White produced the album and there is a White Stripes influence but not enough to detract from the band's own sound

This is how an all girl band should sound  - highly recommended

Now this can be considered a very odd thing to do... Porl King of Miserylab fame has created a side project called In Death It Ends

Clearly a vanity project to release some atmospheric and claustrophobic instrumentals, he chose a C60 cassette tape as the format on which to release the debut album !!

Though I missed out on the very limited cassette run there is a more conventional download available through the Miserylab website of the album Forgotten Knowledge.

The music is a pulsing, dark and menacing brew with occasional flashes of keyboard to alleviate the gloom..... Title are kept mainly to a single word - Covet, Evoke, Summon....

There are some sampled female vocals in the tracks Rite and Forgotten Knowledge which catch the ear and one track, We All Die, with vocals from Porl.

The sound doesn't differ too much from Miserylab (both are musical visions from the same individual so what do you expect ?) but there is enough interesting differences in both the rhythms and overall feel to make this a worthwhile purchase

Having finally got a turntable in place I can review my Record Day Store purchases from April....

First up is a double A side 7" from Nerina Pallot. You have to wonder what this lady has to do to get more airplay - Side A, All Bets Are Off, is a string laden piece of summery pop which Radio 2 and the commercial stations should have on heavy rotation. And to top it off you have Bernard Butler contributing a short but sweet guitar solo in the middle. Side AA, Butterfly is more forceful and features a guitar intro from Butler which curiously sounds a bit like it was lifted from a 80's track by The Cult. Throughout Pallots' world weary vocals are spot on and she should be such a bigger star.

Second up is remix 12" from Simple Minds. Curiously the tracks come from different albums but is in keeping with their current nostalgia for their early albums. Moby has remixed the instrumental, Theme For Great Cities from the Sisters Feeling Call album. The main difference seems to be to update the track as a shiny piece of dance music. Having re listened to the original I can't say the remix was at all needed. The flip side is John Leckie's remix of I Travel from the Empire And Dance album. If anything this mix is even less essential - I've sat and listened a couple and times and struggle to even work out if their is any difference to the original.... Great to have this 2 songs on vinyl but the remixes are a complete waste of time.

Finally a 9" EP from The Smoke Fairies to celebrate their forthcoming second album. The opening track, The Three Of Us, features some gorgeous swampy slide guitar and a full bass/drum compliment which makes this their heaviest rack to date. The second track, Radio Clicks On dials back the heaviness and has a bit of a west coast vibe.
Bells is the track that sounds most like an outtake from the debut album, all acoustic guitars and fabulous harmonies. The final track, The Wireless, carries on the mellow acoustic feel.
The opening track suggest a harder, heavier direction which could be really intriguing if it's carried forward onto the new album - Can't wait.

I do have one more purchase, a 7" from the Civil Wars featuring their cover of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean but the record is currently sat in Bristol waiting for me to collect it !

Had this album hanging around for a while but recently reminded to do a review by the band offering free downloads of all their albums last week..... Blueneck come from Bristol and manage to make it sound like the most desolate place on earth

Repetions is their 3rd album and is continues from where the magnificent last album, The Fallen Host, left off. It's in an exercise in melancholy and wanting yet you never quite understand what the yearning is for. The album contains huge swathes of piano and strings which ebb and swell to magnificent crescendoes of noise. Song titles such as Pneumothorax, Venger and Ellipis are meaningless but somehow more simple titles would make it feel less otherwordly.

Repetitions contains a lot more vocals than previous albums but they are not there to be listened to or deciphered to convey a mood. In a couple of songs the guitars come to the fore most noticeably in The Last Refuge but there is less of a that apocalytic thrashing heard on The Fallen Host album

A quite brilliant album and if you got for free then bargain of the year. Play with the lights out but never at the end of a bad day.

Based solely on a couple of reviews I bought Boys & Girls album by the Alabama Shakes only to find that everyone else knew they were the hot new thing !!

This is proper R&B rather than the Rap& Bling version.... A proper band with real soul and rythmn, all topped off with the most amazing voice. A version of Janis Joplin for those too young to remember
Beware though, there is nothing 'new' on here but they borrow well from history.

The first 3 songs include Hold On and Hang Loose which are prime examples of this bands potential. They groove with really purpose and highlight what the hype was about. The album is too long though and suffers badly towards the end were the enthusiam and ideads dry up before ending with the upbeat On Your Way and a flurry of cymbals

Brittany Howard's vocals are the real star quality on this album. She is no X Factor wannabe but someone singing from the heart even when the lyrics sound like they were the put together at the last minute from the Penguin book of song lyrics. The Chorus on Hold On really shows off her power

A fantastic vinyl album on side 1 but trailing off on side 2 - Interesting to see where they go next