list.co.uk/music
RECORDS Music
INDIE POP FRENCH WIVES Dream of the Inbetween (Electric Honey) ●●●●● GARAGE POP-ROCK PAWS Misled Youth (Fat Cat) ●●●●●
What a satisfying thing it is to hear a pop song that bypasses the tyranny of the chorus and sticks to its guns with a series of ear- warming verses. ‘Younger’, the shoulder-high stand-out track from the debut collection by French Wives (actually Scottish with only one-fifth having the potential for wifery), takes this plunge with agreeable abandon. The downside is that it serves only to highlight the relative conservatism of the remaining tunes.
‘Sleep Tight’ refuses to conceal its Strokes-like properties, while Elbow nudge their mark onto ‘Halloween’. But with an assured lyrical content and a solid central performance from Stuart Dougan, Dream of the Inbetween is an astute and highly promising opening salvo. (Brian Donaldson)
Grrr, Paws are good. Be it gigging in weird places (the Glasgow trio have played in bathrooms, skate shops and on top of double decker buses) or the bedroom recordings released on hand-numbered cassettes, this gorgeously noisy bunch are much more creative with their output than your average new act. And it’s not just their DIY approach that makes them stand out; these latest five tracks of lo-fi squall are pacey, frantic and melancholy in a mini-Graham Coxon kind of way, with frontman Phillip Taylor delivering ‘sarcastic self-analysis’ and ‘painful home truths’ over harsh, ragged riffs and pummelled drums. And selfishly (all love is selfish, boys), The List hopes life stays tumultuous for Paws if it produces scorchingly promising music like this. (Camilla Pia)
INDIE POP THE JUST JOANS Buckfast Bottles in the Rain (weePOP!) ●●●●●
Naming themselves after an annoying tabloid columnist might be mistake number one, but it isn’t the worst of The Just Joans’ crimes. Claiming to have created an ‘audacious artistic undertaking’ of Bowie and Zappa-like proportions is a valiant yet preposterous boast. If your idea of audacious amounts to putting lyrics over the Steptoe & Son theme tune and rewording the chorus of Russ Abbot’s ‘Atmosphere’, then Buckfast Bottles in the Rain may well blow your mind. But if a ‘concept’ album about the unoriginal idea of growing up frustrated by smalltown life reeks of a booze-soaked let-down, you’ll be spot on. ‘What Do We Do Now?’ asks the final track. It would be cruel to offer the appropriate response. (Brian Donaldson)
INDIE ROCK ZULU WINTER Language (Play It Again Sam) ●●●●● With their unabashed love of Czech new wave cinema, Steve Reich, TS Eliot, Ayn Rand and modern dance troupes I won’t even pretend to have heard of, I expected something more adventurous from Zulu Winter’s debut. There’s a Foals-y dark shimmer to standout ‘Small Pieces’, they throw in a bit of Wild Beasts-inspired falsetto on ‘Let’s Move Back to Front’, and ‘We Should Be Swimming’ and ‘You Deserve Better’ both boast an otherworldly beauty and simmer scintillatingly. But the delivery of these smartly constructed songs is so restrained and the production so polished, that Language just sounds a bit lifeless. ‘I keep you with the words, the words I wield’, frontman Will Daunt croons, but he’s wrong; intellect alone is not enough. (Camilla Pia)
ROCK HOLY MOUNTAIN Earth Measures (Chemikal Underground) ●●●●● FOLK-ROCK TWO WINGS Love’s Spring (Tin Angel Records) ●●●●●
INDIE ROCK JESUS H FOXX Endless Knocking (Song, by Toad) ●●●●●
What we are basically dealing with here is a delirious, hirsute rawk mob – a cacophonous, riff-driven Glasgow trio who’re as heavy as Led and thrice as cool. Notorious for combustible live shows (they once blared out the back of a van, with a cigarette lighter-powered amp), Holy Mountain sought to capture that same fervour, spontaneity and psychedelic chaos in their debut release. And lo, Earth Measures was made in 17 hours. While their savage axe-mastery and vintage spirit dredges up an American terrain – the searing rock’n’roll of MC5, the incendiary noise of Lightning Bolt – they locate themselves firmly in Scotland with droll titles like ‘Bolting Bastard’ and forthcoming single ‘Swifty Fuckwit’. Turn it up to 11. (Nicola Meighan)
The strident classicism of Two Wings may come as a surprise to those familiar with the avant-folk of Hanna Tuulikki’s other group Nalle. That project’s eerie soundworld is replaced by a warm-hearted fusion of vintage Americana and English folk-rock, complete with brass fanfares and soaring guitar breaks. Tuulikki and songwriting partner Ben Reynolds work through rock tradition with aplomb, even mustering the chutzpah to borrow from Dylan and Chris Isaak on the splendid ‘Just Like’. It’s ultimately Tuulikki’s remarkable voice that lifts Two Wings above the retro-rock pack, her keening soprano capable of sky-borne vaults and coquettish trills. If they haven’t quite come into their own yet, then it’s only a matter of time. (Stewart Smith)
‘I’ve waited two bloody years for these muppets to finish this album,’ writes Song, by Toad boss Matthew Young in an amusing note accompanying the debut by Edinburgh’s Jesus H Foxx. We’ve shared his frustration in anticipating a record that’s been ‘weeks away from completion’ since August 2009. The band’s perfectionism is admirable, but the final offering feels laboured. Listen again to their early demos, circa 2007, and you’ll hear the qualities Endless Knocking lacks – chiefly punch, individuality and vitality. Pale production, curiously dialled-down lead vocals and a vacillating attitude to style are the self-conscious hallmarks of a band who have agonised to near death what should have come naturally. (Malcolm Jack)
AMERICANA STAR WHEEL PRESS Life Cycle of a Falling Bird Self-released ●●●●●
Bonnie Prince Billy is not the only alt-country bard to have dibs on Glen Lyon. Americana heartbreakers Star Wheel Press are based in Aberfeldy and have quietly amassed a dedicated following since their lovely debut, Life Cycle of a Falling Bird. Following a limited run of homespun CDs, the album is being re-pressed on vinyl, to find more ears and meet demand: Life Cycle. . . was Avalanche Records’ biggest-selling album of last year, and shows little sign of letting up.
Lovingly driven by pedal steel, banjo, porch-swing guitar and opiate baritone, and defined by gorgeous, slow-release chamber- folk psalms, Star Wheel Press have crafted a timeless album to fall for again and again. (Nicola Meighan) ■ starwheelpress.bandcamp.com
26 Apr–24 May 2012 THE LIST 83