Portfolio

Track Reviews:

Max Can't Surf by FIDLAR

'He's got dubstep in his veins!' One of the best lyrics of the year, easily - it's funny, it's surreal but it's venomous as well. FIDLAR seem to have a knack for bizarrely catchy lyrics, the out of place end to the song 'god knows/he's so ginger' coming at you like a punk rock punch straight to the grin. The LA skate-punkers are having fun, and they know that you're not, so they're trying to change that by writing songs that feel like you're in a mosh-pit even if you're on the bus to school.

Xanman by Pond

Xanman is squalling, intense rock 'n' roll as it should be, full of thumping riffs and vocals with the force of a bullet train. But, as with almost every new guitar song coming out, it's got a healthy dose of psych mushrooms swirled in - leaning closer to the Uncle Acid/Wytches darker toadstools, despite Pond sharing members with Tame Impala, whose break-out Elephant was as poppy a button 'shroom as they come. The eponymous hook is howled out like frontman Nick Allbrook has stubbed his toe, but is trying to give up swearing and using 'Xanmaaaan' as a substitute - but the guitars and punk energy make it more intense.

Sweet On You by Ellie Herring

Sweet On You is very different to Ellie Herring's recent album 'Kite Days' from which single Thinking JFK  shined through its layers of reverb and minimal drums. Sweet On You, on the other hand, is loaded with drums and samples, seeming far more scatterbrained and, perversely, far less interesting. It's decently put together, and the beat isn't bad but the song feels flimsy without the atmosphere of 'Kite Days' - without enveloping reverb, Sweet On You is empty.

Ya Hey by Vampire Weekend

Ya Hey is strange in the way it holds itself: high vocals are underlined by drums like soft furnishings , muted and squashy under the propulsive bassline. It's strange in how it deals with its subject matter: religious, but posed as a direct message to God. But even stranger is the way Vampire Weekend combine these bizarre elements, and chipmunk vocals, and a spoken word bridge, and a million other things into an amazing pop song.

Lemonade by Only Real

Only Real's best song is full of exactly what makes him exciting: guitars like clouds of coloured gas under a beat that thwacks with vintage dust flying skyward and rapping spaced out on sunbeams - imagine "shut the tide that took me far/the brushes in the grave now" like it's a ransom letter for the concept of winter being read by its author. But there's something else too; a playfulness that's not as apparent on his other tracks, shown in him laughing at 'roadside goonies' and retching like the seismic 'bluh!' in Jamie T's Sheila.

Wakin' On A Pretty Daze by Kurt Vile

How can this song be good? It's over nine minutes of fairly repetitive guitar riffs without the shifting tempos that most songs of this length survive on. But it's wonderful in the way it's played; with utterly remarkable laziness and calmness, bringing to mind Kurt Vile's image of a virtusio stoner. His lyrics are slogans without context: "phone ringing off the shelf/I guess he wanted to kill himself", but they have a gravity beyond their meaning in their endlessly quotable and undeniably cool air. And the song suddenly seems the perfect length; you couldn't imagine it being shorted, there's not one moment stretched out too much. The guitars interplay beautifully, making it hard to pick out the distinct solos - the whole track passes by like a heatwave in the middle of a bleak summer.

Donuts Only by Parquet Courts

Donuts Only sounds like a novelist doing a punk song, throwing 'a red-state's Baptist fervor' and 'the score played in my myth-steeped years' out with the intensity of someone bubbling over with even more, stranger, more surprising half-poetry. The lyrics are stumbled over, forced into the sub-ninety second song like meat through a grinder, then fried up with distorted squalls and agonised riffs. They serve the best for last: "in result his life was rubbish/celebrated, yes, but rubbish", a spitball of hilariously blunt reality fired at supersonic speed.

Album Reviews:

'Sock It To Me' by Coleen Green

Coleen Green's underrated debut has a strange wooziness to its dynamics: the Casio drum machines define the sound and seem to anchor the songs, but the contrast between the blunt humanity and warmth of the guitar is off-kilter and spiky. There's a willful naivety shining through in songs like Darkest Eyes, Coleen's voice smooth and hazed singing 'darker than a midnight on Halloween'. The album is maybe best described as the opposite of the Avalanches' debut Since I Left You - taking elements which are very standard, and pushing them apart rather than melding together pop songs from disparate parts. Unfortunately, the instrumentation is still limited, making the album feel a little samey, and that drum machine oddness makes it, while rewarding, sometimes a challenge to listen to.

'The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The More I Fight, The More I Love You' by Neko Case

Neko Case is somehow still called a country singer, even after a decade of stellar power pop with The New Pornographers. Her voice is maybe what links her still - it has the country gut and body, but seems far more seasoned and with more range - she can do far more than Honkey Tonk Hiccups from her debut would suggest. It's a godsend on lead single Man, a marvel of a million blaring guitars and clashing rhythms that still play second fiddle (or drums, or keyboards) to the lyric "I am the man in the fucking moon". It's a brash and outgoing track that she whips to shape, turning hook after hook into a distinctive punch to the throat. Then she does it again - past dodgy opener Wild Creatures the album is hit after hit, Man bookended by the dance-hall elegance of Night Still Comes and the relaxed romanticism of I'm from Nowhere, pop masterclasses coming in later with Bracing For Sunday and City Swan.

But the best song here has none of the mash of instruments that sometimes (Wild Creatures again) can overpower the emotion in the song - Nearly Midnight, Honolulu is mostly a-capella and shoots past the poetic metaphors of the rest of the album to deliver a crushing tale straight to the heart. The whole song is minimal but "Get the fuck away from me/why don't you ever shut up" adds a ghostly echo, making the message even more numbing. It's her bravest and most successful song, even showing up the countless Pornographers' gems as the simple tunes they are. Honolulu is unforgettable, and so it's surprising it's not a closer to the album - rather, the record flails a little, not quite nailing the hooks of the first half. Still, 'The Worse Things Get...' is an album you need to experience.

'Where The Heaven Are We' by Swim Deep

Sure, Swim Deep aren't perfect. Francisco shamelessly rhymes 'forever' with 'forever' in its chorus, they left off Orange County, the B-Side to Honey, solidly better than some of the songs on here, and Make The Sun Shine is a flimsy mess. But why should that matter when there are so many highlights, like the peerless atmosphere on King City, the dazing She Changes The Weather and the lazy pop absolution of Red Lips I Know? Swim Deep's sound is so utterly wonderful that they get away with a little sub-par songwriting: Where The Heaven Are We is pure escapism, dreamy release into blue skies.

Other Stuff:

AM First Impressions

Do I Wanna Know is by far the song I've talked about the most over the past year, so there's not much more to say. Cool riff, solid chorus, classic Monkeys.

R U Mine has been re-recorded with a more immediate and intense sound that I very much like, up until the end when a poorly chosen  murk of feedback fills up the formally clean finishing notes.

One For the Road has more falsetto than we've heard yet from the band, the whole chorus meshing high against the low beat. Turner is fast and confident, showing off a little even though the tune isn't up there with the previous two songs.

Arabella is weird. The drums clatter around in the chorus, stop-start guitars sounding angular and clever rhymes thrown out the window because a better one's coming up - this song is maybe the best we've heard so far, especially with the corny analogue solo at the end.

I Want It All is very riff-based, even more so than R U Mine and continues an AM lyrical trend I don't like: '2000 light years from home' sounds less Phillip K Dick, more Phantom Menace and it's a bizarre theme for Turner to go to after so much success with ultra-grounded songs like Mardy Bum.

No.1 Party Anthem instantly sets into an anthem in the vein of fellow Sheffield musician Richard Hawley. The guitars in the chorus have a touch of Suck It And See glitter and are a breath of fresh air among the quite intense verses that see Turner following fairly standard patterns above low-swinging guitars.

Mad Sounds starts off by turning me away with a very personal guitar sound that I'm sick to death of - think of every 80's band's corny anthems and you'd come close. But the bass gives it a new life and Turners lyrics speed the song along until the breakthrough 'ooooh la la la', making the end of the song a little reminiscent of, surprisingly, the Supremes.

Fireside surprises me - it's got a shuddering, intense rhythm that I wasn't expecting given the ballad-like name. The soaring and sliding guitars midway through the song are really nice and the fairly repetitive riff changes meaning through its repetition, similar to LCD Soundsystem's masterful All My Friends. It's not quite as good as that, but it's still one of the strongest and most distinctive songs yet.

Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High was a surprise when we first heard it - a follow up to the slightly unbelivable comments by the band on it 'sounding like Dr Dre'. In the context of the album the rap beat is more effective, but the song still suffers from being a little messily put together. It could also be a little longer.

Snap Out Of It is one of the most poppy songs yet - the chorus comes quick and catchy and the riffs simple and effective. But it's twisted away by the raw riffs at the end of said chorus that lead into a nice break-down (it reminds be a little of a song from a musical, but it still fits well). More forgettable than other songs, but still good.

Knee Socks needs to be pretty damn good to live up to its wonderful name, and it comes pretty damn close with the sharp opening riff. However, the verse proper is more tame and the chorus flicks into falsetto again, similar to the rest of the album. Then again, as with most songs so far it's got a defining moment that saves it - the bridge is completely unexpected and brilliant, echoing into the final chorus like a dance song, the comparison further backed up by the metallic clashes and handclaps as it finishes.

I Wanna Be Yours is essentially the John Cooper Clark poem of the same name set to calm, thick swirling music reminiscent of Favorite Worst Nightmare finisher 505. The lyrics are near impeccable because, y'know, it's a poem, conjuring up a wonderfully tiny love scene that the Monkeys haven't really reveled in since their first album.


AM seems like a damn good album. Almost every song on it has something that stand outs and shows off the band's creativity, even five albums in. It's very interesting to see the different influences - rock, rap, a little bit of dance and glam segue into the standard Monkeys indie, and the album is certainly more varied than Suck It And See, without loosing an overall sound. I'll have to see whether the album is weighed down by weaker tracks like Why'd You Only Call Me When you're High and One For The Road or whether they'll grow on me, but so far, it's sounding good.

'I hear everybody that you know is more relevant that everybody that I know'

It's a strange name, isn't it? At first, for one of those reasons that seam valid at the time and are incomprehensible looking back,  I confused LCD Soundsystem with legendary prog-pop band Electric Light Orchestra. Or is the reason so hard to understand? An LCD is an Electric Light, while a Soundsystem could be an Orchestra, if you paid enough. But the difference is reality. An LCD is a product, a technical acronym that's slipped into common use only because people wanted to know what screens were made of, while an Electric Light is vague enough to be a pipe-dream, fitting nicely into the long, archaic name of an early 20th century World Fair piece showing the world of tomorrow, today! Similarly, an Orchestra is grand and expansive, sounding like it is spilling over with energy and power while a Soundsystem is a metal box with a maximum volume and knobs to twiddle. LCD Soundsystem is LCD Soundsystem: precise and limited.


Some clarification is needed. Precise is sometimes a bad word, and limited always is. But here it's not meant in that way, because of the nature of LCD Soundsystem's music. And you may be wondering why I've gone off on this personal tangent entirely based off a misconception I had. Why bother including it, especially since my vastly superior readers won't relate to the mistake? Well, one, because I think that the link works as a nice intro and I'll be damned if I'm going to dump it, and two, because this piece is about a very precise and very limited reaction to LCD Soundsystem: mine.


So I was confused between ELO and LCD, and thought both to be 70s groups that had no relevance to my diet of recent indie and the standard handful of older legend stuff. But, as I discovered The Mountain Goats,  Vampire Weekend and many other songs that had an emotional impact beyond a yearning to play them on guitar, I started looking on Pitchfork more often. What? It was apparently the only major music site that covered Mountain Goats albums. I had a look on their '500 best songs of the 2000s' list and, as every person keen to listen to new, exciting music would do, I skipped straight to the top 20, even then skimming past the first five or so. The Knife, whatever, 99 Problems, cool, yeah. But I recognised Losing My Edge, at No. 13, from LCD's name. So I queued that up on Spotify, along with All My Friends, which sat at No. 2. First listen? Horribly dismissive, I hate myself: Losing My Edge is really good, and All My Friends isn't bad. And then Losing My Edge took me.


I listened to it on the bus to school and back from school, and a little bit in school because I had exams and I had between-test 'study' leave time to kill. I listened to it while going to sleep and after waking up, on the toilet and while eating. I listened to it whist the obligatory decrepit country band was playing on Jool's Holland and I listened to it on the train, travelling to other gigs. Losing My Edge was so great because it was The Coolest Song In The World (a title I rarely award), but the problem with it being the coolest song in the world was that it took the piss out of people who care about how cool a song is. Through a million references and a million sharp insults, it punched a hole through my mind. Losing My Edge is so great beyond its coolness because made me doubt myself and I loved it. I was doubting my arrogant opinions as an 'indie fan' because of the biting lyrics, but more so I was doubting my evaluation of this indie music I was a fan of due to how good Losing My Edge is. So of course I wanted more songs from LCD that had that sort of impact. Then I listened to LCD Soundsystem's second album, Sound Of Silver, and everything changed again.


Here's where I'll be less scatter-brained for a while, because Sound Of Silver deserves a song-by-song evaluation, starting with Get Innocuous. This didn't really hit me in the same way as Losing My Edge, as the lyrics were so minimal but the music was still very catchy and varied - it was more similar to Daft Punk Is Playing At My House or Beat Connection. Time To Get Away was similar, only even more catchy and there was an element of the knowing, mocking tone of Losing My Edge in Murphy's repetition of the title lyrics - high and stylish to a point, just his delivery of that line brings up an image of a fake break from the daily lives of the city hipster who doesn't know how good they have it. The song itself is apparently about Murphy's old manager, but to me there seems to be a self-deprecating spin on it.


North American Scum is better than both songs however, and laden with sarcasm. It plays with stereotypes and revels in imagined xenophobia Murphy is clearly taking delight in being the scum of the title, who don't have magazines about 'all the kids that wan't to make a scene', whose 'DJ gigs aren't as fun'. It's bizarrely structured, but works amazingly well, steel drums tapping along to low riffs and cymbal clashes. The next song, Someone Great, is even better. It has the tendency to get old after repeated listens, but on it's own  it's one of the most powerful songs I've ever heard. The precision on the lyrics gives them a real emotional punch, and when Murphy starts talking about how 'the worst is all the lovely weather/I'm stunned, it's not raining/the coffee isn't even bitter/because, what's the difference', the cleverness of his words clashes with the terrifyingly sad subject matter to create a masterful cocktail of emotions. The glockenspiel melody accompanying all the lyrics is the part that grates after a while but it's essential, adding an element of childish innocence to the very literate, confident lyrics. The song is so complex, both in the instrumentally varied riffs and the many interpretations of the song: Murphy has famously refused to give the full story on the song, but people still try, citing exes, spouses, stillbirths and psychiatrists as the departed member. Someone Great is one of my favorite songs ever, and like the best songs I couldn't imagine it not being that.


But on my first listen, Something Great didn't grab me. As with All My Friends, it initially just seemed to be a nice song, not the emotional juggernaut that I was hit by later. So my focus has to now turn to All My Friends, the song that crippled me in seven minutes. I was sitting in the chair I am now, looking at the front garden I am now. There was, and still is a roughly oval-shaped tree directly in the middle of the window, and it's always freaked me out because it seems to be slightly more focused, closer than the surrounding trees. It's the only 3D thing in a view of two dimensions, and it was this I stared at while comprehending All My Friends. It seemed like the most important thing in the world, like nothing I've ever seen before, and this was part of the effect All My Friends has had on me - the realisation that some things are just wonderful, without needing a reason. I'm listening to the song as I write this, just so I know exactly what lyrics to quote and how best to describe the song, but even in my assumed cold critical mindset it's still making me feel like no other song has. There's something about the melody and the lyrics of certain songs that just clicks, slots into a hole in my mind and stabs right into me - most songs only, if ever manage it momentarily, for example'and you smile as you ease the gun from my hand/and I'm frozen with joy right where I stand' in Going To Georgia and 'shoveled up like muck and set the night on fire/wombles bleed truncheons and shields/you know I cherish you, my love' in Time For Heroes. All My Friends clicks, and then clicks further, throughout the whole song - every lyric, every new instrument introduced. The insistent keyboard riff is so insistent it carves a grove into the brain where it will sit like a fifth child - another emotional load upon you and one that you, logically, don't need, but you still know you need it. 'That's how it starts'. All My Friends is just better than anything else in the world. It's the most powerful satire because it's satirizing time, and it's the most devoted prayer because it's not a prayer to an idea, or a mindset, it's a prayer to happiness.


I don't want to continue writing this piece. I want to continue listening to All My Friends. So I'll need to fob the rest of Sound Of Silver off as another three brilliant songs in the vein of North American Scum, Watch The Tapes being another favorite. The album's closer, New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down is a scarily accurate wrenching of the sounds that nostalgia is made of into a gut-smashing ripping apart of the world's culture - 'maybe mother told you true/and there'll always be something there for you/and you'll never be alone/but maybe she's wrong'. But it's just a life-changing song like Someone Great, not All My Friends, so it has to be passed off. LCD haven't made just one album of course - their latest, This Is Happening, sounds great and I Can Change and Dance Yrself Clean are other life-changing songs, but I still haven't listened to the whole album yet. I will one day, before it's too late.


This isn't a piece of writing (or an essay, or review, or whatever you want to call it) just about LCD Soundsystem, it's a piece about how music can change me. It's a piece about the relationship between precise, genius songwriting and the something that it so rarely manages to reach. It's a piece about ignoring rule-of-threes, about nothing mattering except tonight and tonight's specific regrets, about music, not as it's meant to be, but better.