Power pop
Album Review: Purple – Bodacious
Texas three piece Purple have released their latest album Bodacious, through PIAS. If you’re unfamiliar with their work, think noisey, frayed at the edges power-pop, with a heap of punk attitude and some wonky arty chord progressions thrown in for good measure. It’s this mixture of the quirky and the catchy and the sour that …
Track: Turtlenecked – Mondrian
Harrison Smith, aka Turtlenecked hails from that musical hot spot of Portland, Oregon and makes music that is noisy, frayed at the edges indie rock. Apparently written in the show, his new track is Mondrian, taken from his forthcoming album Pure Plush Bone Cage, out on Good Cheer Records on August 19th. Over these insistent, …
Track: Black Surf – Sink
After forming through the wonders of facetime and dropbox over vast distances – Yorkshire and Sydney to be exact, Leeds based Black Surf have revealed Sink from their forthcoming EP Let’s pretend its summer – out August 26th via Cowboy Records. Recorded at Greenmount Studios (The Cribs, Pulled Apart By Horses, The Vaccines), vocalist Ali …
Album Review: Leapling – Suspended Animation
When an album opens with several bars of naked kick-snare you know you’re dealing with a supremely confident artist. ‘I Decide When It Begins’ isn’t a song title that sounds like it is lacking in authority, and while it’s deciding, the intro continues to rise tauntingly, introducing crunchy fret-noise on the beat like a funk-loving …
See: Summer Scouts reveal new video for Vessels
‘Family life and norms change dramatically after the death of a parent’, say Allentown, PA power poppers Summer Scouts of their track Vessels, before continuing “The home itself takes a drastic shift in its overall aura, a shift that’s slowly continues for years after the death, forever losing its original feeling. While the family’s personalities …
Track: Dead Stars – In My Mind
In My Mind, the new single from Brooklyn trio Dead Stars owes a lot to the 90s indie (power) pop of the likes of Weezer, Dinosaur Jr and The Lemonheads, but there’s something more than that. There’s still the wash of guitars and the slacker rock vocal lines and the slightly angsty feeling that permeates …
See: Graham Parker & The Rumour release video for Railroad Spikes
Graham Parker and the Rumour’s second post-reunion album, Mystery Glue, is due out May 18th. The Rumour was pre-punk singer-songwriter Graham Parker’s backing band from 1975 to 1980, consisting of Andrew Bodnar, Bob Andrews, Brinsley Schwarz, Martin Belmont, and Stephen Goulding. Brinsley Schwartz alone is noteworthy as one of Britain’s best power pop/pub rock guitarists. …
Track: Furs – I Wanna Know
If you’ve been out to see Gaz Coombes on tour recently, the likelihood is you’ll have seen London quartet Furs as well. Certainly Coombes has been lavishing praise upon them as they go. Ahead of the release of their debut album later in the year, the band are back with a new single, I Wanna …
See: Ghosts Of Eden release video to “Happy”
There’s nothing too groundbreaking about “Happy”, the new song from New York quartet Ghosts of Eden, but its just the sort of power pop / rock that impossible not to like. There’s this rollercoaster riff, driven on by the drums and garnished by vocalist/guitarist Tom’s gruff delivery. Suddenly though, right in the middle of a …
NOT FORGOTTEN – THE POSIES – FROSTING ON THE BEATER
Over time tastes can change. When I was a child I hated the taste of cheese and onion crisps, preferring the sharp bite provided by salt and vinegar, however the onset of adulthood brought with it a distaste for my former favourites and their overpowering attack on my tastebuds and I started to find the …