At The Heart

Of Midlands Music

HOME NEWS (updated 13/4/2008)

LOCAL

This is officially the last mention of ENVY AND OTHER SINS as winners of that T Mobile competition. From now on, following debut album We Leave At Dawn (A&M), they will be referred to only in the context of the music they make. It seems fitting that they should be signed to A&M since in world where there’s numerous pretenders to the Squeeze crown, the Birmingham boys have a better claim than most. Listen to the opening Morning Sickness and you’ll hear the sound of classic Difford & Tilbrook, likewise on the witty pop of Almost Certainly Elsewhere, and Man Bites Dog. Elsewhere they take on the Cure at their own Lovecats game with the overlooked single Highness while the burlesque flavours of Talk To Strangers calls to mind Madness with a hint of Joboxers and It Gets Harder To Be A) Martyr is a Britpop Joe Jackson crossbred with the Kooks and Billy Joel.
And between their inventive arrangements (check out The Company We Keep), infectious melodies, appealing soft burr vocals and the seven minute slow building to tumultuous climax Radiohead-like closer Shipwrecked, they are clearly destined for a place in the current pantheon of Brum music gods alongside Editors, The Guillemots and Misty’s Big Adventure. Someone should just tell the label to get their fingers out and give them the promotion they deserve.

ALBUMS

THE RACONTEURS - Consolers of the Lonely (XL)
Unlike their Broken Boy Soldiers debut, the second collaboration between Jack White and Brendan Benson wasn’t slung together, raw and bloody, on the hoof but more carefully polished in the studio. But they still make it sound like it exploded spontaneously from the speakers.
There’s a little less of Benson’s melodies and rather more of the blues riff barrages White cranks out with White Stripes, which means whole chunks sound like they’re remaking Led Zeppelin. Case in point the opening title track (with a touch of Free thrown in), Salute Your Solution, a cover of Terry Reid’s Rich Kid Blues and Five On The Five. Top Yourself may have a slide guitar and banjo, but it still has a ticket to the Misty Mountain Hop.
Of course, with 14 tracks (many focusing on themes of freedom and confinement) , there’s still plenty that doesn’t channel Plant, Page and co. Benson takes charge for You Don't Understand Me where Elton seems to be playing piano for The Beatles while Many Shades Of Black is a pure Queen swayalong and the back porch Carolina Drama (a bizarre murder ballad that might have been penned by Tarantino) and a mutant mariachi The Switch And The Spur spread out their shared love of country. Indeed, Pull The Blanket Off sounds like The Eagles rewritten by Jagger and Richards.
Talking of whom it’s surely the late 60s Stones of Their Satanic Majesties ( who occupy their thoughts on the psychedelic baroque folk of These Stones Will Shout rather than Plant’s imaginings of himself down the local Jug Of Punch. Of course, since they wear their influences openly, there’s splash of Who in there too, as there is on the fiddle underpinned Old Enough.
Meant to be played really loud, preferably in a sweaty club with beer-smelling sweat, its cheap thrills may not be ones you return to after half a dozen fixes, but while the high lasts they’re headily intoxicating. Mike Davies

PANIC AT THE DISCO - Pretty Odd (Fueled By Ramen)
‘We’re so sorry we’ve been gone, we were busy writing songs for you. You don’t have to worry, because we’re the same band." they sing on opening track We’re So Starving. Well, not really. They’ve shed the !, changed bassists and kicked their electro-cabaret emo dance rock and reinvented themselves as the new Sgt Pepper. Or at least ELO. Just to put a seal on it, the orchestrations were recorded at Abbey Road and they even slip in snatches of Lucy In The Sky, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever.
Kicking off proper with lavish Mr Blue Sky sounding single Nine In The Afternoon, it’s all resolutely sunny, spangly upbeat stuff. Whether poppy uptempo or more folksy balladeering. The Fab Four and their subsequent emulators are splashed all over That Green Gentleman, Northern Downpour (one of the few slow songs), When The Day Met The Night (with some Harrisonesque Eastern touches) and The Piano Knows Something I Don’t Know (that’s the Strawberry Fields bit you can recognise). The groaningly titled Folkin’ Around (cue fiddles) even sounds like a barn dance hybrid of Falling and I’ve Just Seen A Face.
Appropriately enough you might also find yourself thinking Beach Boys on the lazy dappled Behind The Sea while the acoustic based McCartneyish swayalong Do You Know What I’m Seeing? has a sunny theatrical predisposition of Magical Mystery Tour proportions and, I Have Friends In Holy Places even welcomes ukulele and carnival brass to their vaudeville sideshow.
By the time it gets to the galloping mariachi pop of Pas De Cheval, you’ll be wishing they’d just ease up a moment on the relentless bouncealong, So praise be to the merry go round minuet She Had The World (that’s a clavinet, right?) and, introed with string and woodwinds, the plinketty music hall of From A Mountain In The Middle of the Cabins before skipping off over the horizon with the gloriously sun-kissed surf pop and Savoy Truffles horns silliness Mad As Rabbits. Forget Flaming Lips, PATD are this year’s retro 60s psychedelia pop champion weirdos. Mike Davies

CLIVE GREGSON & CHRISTINE COLLISTER - Mischief (Gott)
The reissue programme continues with the duo’s 1987 sophomore release, the studio follow up their Home & Away live debut. A solid mix of Gregson’s writing and Thompsonesque vocals, Collister’s bluesy soulfulness and songs that slide between folk, blues and country inflected pop, it opens with a sterling cover of Bobby Bland’s I Wouldn’t Treat A Dog, a track that would be later released as a 12" single. It’s the B-sides (which also turned up on the US version of the album) that provide the bonus material here with the twangy country Everybody Cheats On You, the brushed pop I Wonder What Went Wrong with its 12 string guitar, and the slide guitar blues-country This Tender Trap, a Gregson showcase that he redid on Welcome To The Workhouse and still tends to crop up in his live sets.
However, while these are treats for longtime fans, there’s still plenty of incentives among the original album material to entice newcomers, most especially Collister’s tour de force I Specialise, the anti-Thatcher shanty Lost At Sea (apparently written for the Oyster Band who passed on it) and a song that would become a Gregson classic and which he’s, frustratingly, never recorded as a solo version. Mike Davies

JAMES - Hey Ma (Fontana/Mercury)
Resurrected and reunited with former frontman Tim Booth last year, the comeback tour now follows up with the comeback album, their first together in seven years. And it’s like they never went away. So, lashings of anthemic songs with soaring choruses and Booth’s tremulous warble, kicking off with Bubbles where he declares ‘I’m alive’ (as indeed they most certainly are), proceeding to the raggy waltz title track where they deliver a stinging riposte to the Bush administration’s response to 9/11 with a catchy chorus of ‘Hey Ma, the boys in body bags, coming home in pieces’ It might not replace ‘hey sit down’ as the stadium crowd rouser, but it certainly gives it a try.
Then it’s Waterfall, a brass punching, tumbling Lou Reed infused nugget that, again hooked on an irresistible chorus, sounds like classic James as Booth talks about watching too much TV and having too much baggage in his life.
And on through the 60s Merseybeat flavoured ballad Upside, a song about immigrant labour thinking of home that might have been sung by Gerry and the Pacemakers had they been in to that sort of commentary, the jangling White Boy (‘my mum says I look like Yul Brynner, too old for Hamlet, too young for Lear) where Pete Townshend hangs out with Dexy’s brass section, the crushing melancholy of semi-spoken shanty piano ballad Of Monsters and Heroes And Men and, again echoing Reed with its melody line, the closing singalong chorus despair of I Wanna Go Home.
There’s some patchier tracks (Boom Boom, 72 and the James by numbers Oh My Heart come to mind), but for the most, this is a jubilant second coming. Mike Davies

EMILY SMITH - Too Long Away (Spit & Polish)
Winner of BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year back in 2002 , the Dumfriesshire folkie’s since gathered several north of the border award nominations, gained an Honours degree in Scottish Music at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and became Scotland’s first ever winner in the USA Songwriting Competition with Edward of Morton. Two albums under her belt, she now returns with her third, a mix of the trad and her own numbers, delivered in that heather and honey sweet cure voice.
On the trad front, there’s the much visited Caledonia, Smith pumping away on squeezebox, a setting of Robbie Burns’ As I Was Wand’ring, a chunky folk rock primed May Colven that recalls the early days of Steeleye Span, and The Bleacher Lassie o’Kelvinhaugh that offers a chance to show off her unaccompanied vocals before the banjo, double bass and mandolin step in.
Her own relationship themed material doesn’t stray far from the trad pathways, either in her melodies or imagery, most notably on her revision of The Mermaid of Galloway from a poem by a neighbour of Burns and the co-penned Come Home Pretty Bird’s song for those away from home. She draws deeply from the natural world around her. The opening Sunset Hymn was written while soaking in her garden’s sights and sounds one summer evening while the pastoral hymn of the closing Winter Song stems from awaking one March to find several feet of snow. She’s clearly drawn to lives past and the wisdom they hold too. Audience Of Souls was inspired by the graveyard in an old church while the stand out Old Mortality with its wheezing accordion tells of Robert Patterson, a Dumfriesshire stonemason from the 1700s who spent most of his life looking after the gravestones of the Covenanter martyrs of 1638 and inspired the title of Walter Scott’s novel. Guess they’d better start polishing up another set of wards with her name on. Mike Davies

PARKA - Attack Of The Hundred Yard Hard Man (Jeepster)
Take a pinch of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, some early Stones and a lot of Franz Ferdinand, and you’ve got another bunch of Scottish indie funk n punk rockers who play full tilt with the rhythm section on speed and guitars cranked to overdrive.
Certainly if you’re looking to throw yourself around the room, then Bosses And Bastards, Disco Dancer, DJ In The Corner (a bit of Blockheads here), and the swaggering crunch of There’s A Riot Going On then this will do the trick. The bouncing Scotpop Wake Up Call, I Don’t Want To Fight You Tonight (a bit Big Country/Skids this one), a Men Without Hats like If You Wanna? and Hoxton Hair lay out the punky pop inclinations to equally catchy effect. You’re No Geezer (But You Try) suggests they should scrap further thoughts of a slow ballads future, but they’ve certainly got the modern highland fling thing sorted. Mike Davies

REM - Accelerate (Warner)
Following the less than rapturous reception accorded Around The Sun four years back, when Messrs Stipe, Mills and Buck reconvened for the follow up, they roped in producer Jacknife Lee who told them they should get back to the sound of their early albums. You know, straight forward crunching chords, ringing guitars, hooks, circling melodies, warbling vocals and college radio friendly songs.
Well, as the opening tumble of Living Well Is The Best Revenge shows, they clearly listened to what he had to say. They’ve not sounded that energised in ages. With a running time of 35 minutes, there’s no fat here, no noodling experimentation, just a heads down reminder of who REM were and are. What you don’t get, however, are the instantly memorable classics that positively leaped from those early albums. Certainly the muscle flexing Man-Sized Wreath works hard to establish its Green credentials, with its slashing riffs Supernatural Superserious tries to persuade you it could have come from Reckoning and the Stonesy folk-pop lurking underneath Mr Richards from Document. But they still feel like REM working at sounding like REM. Indeed, the thrashy I’m Gonna DJ surely wants to hold hands with It’s The End of the World As We Know It for that big live show crowd stomp and singalong.
Only three tracks really emerge with the sense of unforced inspiration that warrant reservations on future best ofs. The darkling 60s psychedelic folk of Until The Day is Done, Hollow Man’s emotionally anthemic surging verse/chorus self-criticism and Houston’s biting commentary on the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, with its organ drone behind the brooding guitars, a namecheck to Glen Campbell’s Galveston and the final throaty feedback.
So, no Green 2 then, but there’s enough fire and sense of reawakened passion here to certainly declare it the best REM album since Automatic For The People. Mike Davies

HOME NEWS (updated 27/3/2008)

A handy chance to refurb your Two-Tone collection, Coventry pioneers THE SPECIALS are compiled on EMI’s The Best of the Specials, gathering together 28 audio cuts from Gangsters to the album version of Nelson Mandela by way such skanking hits as A Message To You Rudy, Nite Klub, Too Much too Young, Racist Friend, Rat Race and, of course the seminal Ghost Town. On top of which it comes packaged with a DVD that includes live and promo videos and film of 15 numbers, including a moody War Crimes, the witty promo for What I Like Most About You is Your Girlfriend, a rowdy live club performance of Enjoy Yourself and the black and white promo of Gangsters.

Former Kings Heath resident now living in rural Wales, breathily reedy voiced thumb piano playing KATE DOUBLEDAY finally releases her long awaited second album, Belonging (Copper) with a further mix of jazz, folk and African, Irish and Balkan influences evoking comparisons with Sally Oldfield, Joni Mitchell, Anne Briggs, and the spidery aspects of Kate Bush.

Trevor Lines reprises his bass duties from the debut album while this time the line up welcomes percussionist Tom Chapman, guitarist and leading UK kora player Daniel Wilkins, producer Joe Broughton on violin and Pamela Pinnock and Tina Barnes providing backing vocals.

Together they create an intoxicating brew, rich in layered and sinuously subtle arrangements hewn equally from the musical traditions of West Africa, Irish backwaters, the Mississippi and the hayricks of England.

Adorned with images from flora and fauna, her songs treat on love (Do You Not Know, Sweet Dandelion), political hypocrisy (the chant structured Follow Through), nature (Wild Poppies), grief and forgiveness (Watch The Flowers), her daughter (the tinkling trad folk In Full View) and the ephemeral nature of life (a tranquil watery Silver Blue). Songs like the sensual Eucalyptus (where she invokes Aboriginal vocalese) and the choral African hymnal title track, curling through the blood, it's an album that seeps inside you, taking root in the soul.

Based around Solihull, GIOVANNA & THE SANDS draws its six piece line up from California and Poland as well as closer to home. Fronted by Mexican-Italian one time Marilyn Monroe impersonator Giovanna Olvara they blend together blues, funk, ska and West Coast soul, all to be found percolating through their three track EP with the itchy jazz lounge sultry swing of Feel It, Walk On By’s infectious meeting between Nelly Furtado and Fiona Apple and the bubbling hot butter sinuous coffeehouse r&b of Little Games.

ALBUMS

THE BLACK CROWES - Warpaint (Silver Arrow)
In the seven years since Chris Robinson and co last gathered in a recording studio, there’s been many an outfit looking to ride their coattails, but if you’re going to have a band that refuses to admit music has moved on since Sticky Fingers, then you may as well have the best. So, here we are back with another dose of Stones, Allman,Creedence, and Faces influences and riffs, fleshed out a little more muscularly with the addition of Adam MacDougall on keyboards and guitarist Luther Dickinson replacing Marc Ford.

Those who like what they know will be happy to hear that Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution, a swaggery Movin’On Down The Line, Wounded Bird and the Spirit in The Sky clappy cover of Rev. Charlie Jackson's God’s Got It are all solid good time Crowes numbers. Those who reckon seven years should have wrung at least a few changes will be pleased to learn that Evergreen suggests they’ve borrowed a couple of Cream albums and that Walk, Believer, Walk is a sludgy Zep blues. And those who reckon they were always at their best with Southern countrified ballads will be pointing the program butter in the direction of the slide guitar and piano taste of the Band-like Oh Josephine, the mandolin tinged Fogarty-ish Locust Street and the noodling acoustic country blues There's Gold In Them Hills. Ignore the truly crappy cover that looks like something from a bad 70s blues-metal outfit, inside you’ll find the Crowes have got their feathers back and are flying high again. Mike Davies

HOME NEWS (updated 29/2/2008)

Their first release since winning the Mobile Act best new band competition, Highness marks the debut A&M single for ENVY & OTHER SINS. A live favourite with its skittering beat and mix of Lovecats Cure with a smidgen of Dexys, it’s paired with Orient Express which, as the title hints, comes with a camel jockeying rhythmic sway underpinning the Madness echoes many will hear.

CAPTAIN WILBERFORCE seem to remain a closely guarded secret, but with upcoming new album Everyone Loves A Villain (Blue Tuxedo), it’s hard to see how they can be ignored any longer. The album’s not out until June, but members of the Leeds Music Forum (leedsmusicforum.co.uk) can download it for free for two weeks in March. There’ll be more details nearer release, but suffice to say it sounds like one of the best albums Squeeze never made with No Strings Or Ties, Confetti, Champagne & Roses (love that guitar intro), Born Again Brand New Man, and the acoustic The Twilight Kids just a sample of the diamonds awaiting your ears.

Formerly trading under the names of Buick 6 and The Toques during which time they were frequently their own worst enemies with their apathetic approach to self-promotion, Anna Russell, Campbell Docherty and Craig Hamilton are now known as FRIENDS OF THE STARS and have found someone who understands that the best way to get people to write about the trio is to let them hear them.

Recorded late 2005/early 2006 and released on their own Commercially Inviable label with Phil Robinson behind the drums, Mexicolas man Del Carter plaing bass and a guest appearance from Toys Hearts’ Sophia Johnson on dobro, Lighting & Electrical continues their love affair with Americana.

Opening with Russell taking lead on the slow waltzing Old Souls, it sets it stall proudly among those of Gram Parsons, Emmylou, the Dillards and Jayhawks. So step up and sample such fine goods as the 60s sunny summer of love Dragonfly, the old fashioned country harmony lilting Feelin’ Blue with its sly musical quotes, melancholic barroom swayer Nobody Out There and the backporch Handsome Family flavours of Sharpening A Blade’s keen murder-minded break-up song.

They’re not exclusively dedicated to music from across the water, though. Behind its banjo dappled colours, oddly titled acoustic closing track, Why Are The Movies of Jane Seymour? harks to leafy English folk with Russell conjuring the taste of wheatfields and haystacks amid hints of Cara Dillon. Then there’s Monday Morning which, borrowing a melodic refrain from Softly And Tenderly Jesus Is Calling, sounds like it could as easily be a hymn from the Welsh valleys as an Appalachian lament.

There’s a few rough edges around the production, but otherwise this is a rather splendid reminder that some of the best alt-country bands around are actually homegrown. These Friends are well worth making your musical buddies.

The much anticipated sophomore follow up to Through The Window Pane, Red (Polydor) sees THE GUILLEMOTS reaching even more ambitious and musically diverse heights. Opening track Kriss Kross is a massive melody drenched orchestral pop song that makes Jeff Lynne sound lo fi, then the album’s electronic bias kicks in with Big Dog, a slice of sleazy Prince funk with an Eastern riff and a huge chart friendly clattering chorus grab.

Take it down then for the first ballad, the plaintive 80s with ethereal wash and brushed drums Falling Out Of Reach, before pumping the energy back to a noisy Glitter Band glam stomping Get Over It with its shouty title line and wooo oooh backups.

More electro then in the bleepy marchalong Clarion which swells into a sort of latter day Brill Building tower of pop with George Michael peaks and Oriental ripples. The dance floor takes prominence on Last Kiss, a concoction of throaty bass, Anita Ward disco and medieval cum oriental shades behind a strings laced Toxic beat and unstoppable barrage of drums. Exhaustingly good.

Hitting the home stretch, lush cinematic soaring ballad Cockateels is a James Bond theme for a Bollywood 007, Words a restrained aching stadium folk ballad with harmonica and tinkling keyboards, Standing On The Last Star another pinch of Eastern spice sprinkled over falsetto soaring midtempo Johnny Marr big pop, and Don’t Look Down a padding percussion. starry sky number that lulls you with a gentle, folksy set up before suddenly Greig Stewart’s drumming fireworks explode all around you as it takes off into the universe.

And that just leaves Take Me Home which, borrowing the intro to Mandy, sees the album off with a glorious slow surf into the twilight heavens, firebugs twinkling in the sky, fading away to Fyfe Dangerfield’s baying at the moon. Truckloads of sales and Mercury Music Prize nomination No 2 on the way, then.

ALBUMS

SHERYL CROW- Detours (A&M)

Maybe it’s taking stock of things after surviving breast cancer, breaking up with Lance Armstrong and adopting a son, but having lost her way and audiences over recent years with slides into AOR pop rock and country Crow’s latest finds her looking back to her early roots with an album of the sort of chunky, funky bluesy swagger that made her name. Indeed, there’s times when she sounds as though she’s recycling the All I Wannna Do riff in an effort to jog memories.
She’s also dug into her political manifesto for songs about the Iraq war, the environment, the Bush administration’s failure to tackle Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath and the oil crisis. The latter provides one of the album’s worst moments with Gasoline, a bluesy funk plodder in which sings about price of petrol protests when "gangs of Mini Coopers took the battle to the streets" in London. What news reports was she watching.
There are songs that do have the old fire and sparkle. God Bless This Mess is a simple acoustic number that moves from the story of a soldier returning home from Iraq to a savaging of a war based on lies and a President shedding crocodile tears. Love Is Free is a laid back loping strummed guitar shuffle from the Jack Johnson campfire tapes, the title track a lovely countrified ballad in which she sings ‘mother teach me to love with a paper-thing heart’, Motivation a sharp put down of the privileged with a strong melody and Lullaby For Wyatt a tender hymn to her son that rises beyond maudlin sentimentality.
But she spoils any good will with some lazy throwaways (Peace Be Upon Us), overwrought dramatics (Diamond Ring), clattering calypso pop banality (Out Our Heads, a song where you’re forever dreading the arrival of a kiddie choir) and, even if it is her response to the cancer, the blues dirge Make It Go Away; sentiments many may find themselves expressing about the track itself. But, perhaps now she’s found her feet again, the next album could also put some legs back into her career.
Mike Davies

KATHLEEN EDWARDS - Asking For Flowers (Zoe)

Bursting on to the country rock scene fully formed with the whisky fumed tales of bruised love on debut album Failer, the Ottawa singer-songwriter followed up with a more standard issue Back To Me which, while not exactly disappointing didn’t really capitalise or advance matters. She’s back now with album number three which shows she’s used the time between profitably, honing her strengths and shedding any flabbiness. She’s also confident enough to open the set with Buffalo, five minutes of moody meandering blues and folk that slowly flexes its muscles to a firm grip, and then hit you with the more instant attack of the gunslinger guitar rocking The Cheapest Key. There’s barely a misstep throughout as she weaves infectious melodies and strong storytelling through the likes of Oh Canada’s Neil Young-inflected tale of drugs, murder and racism, the chiming guitars driven Oil Man’s War account of Bobby and Annabel’s flight from becoming part a conflict in which they didn’t believe, and the spare Alicia Ross which sounds like something from a distaff Nebraska.
The Southern dust coated plaintive Sure As Shit probably won’t be figuring on mainstream country radio anytime soon, but as long as she coming up with material as witty as I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory or as potent as the six minute, mournful strings streamed Goodbye, California they won’t be able to ignore her for much longer.
Mike Davies

JACKSON BROWNE - Solo Acoustic Vol 2 (Inside)

It has to be said that these days Browne’s status is a pale shadow of the days when he was making records like Before The Deluge, The Pretender and For A Dancer. Unless you’re a real devotee, you’d be hard pushed to name anything of his last studio album, The Naked Ride Home, from six years back.
Taken from various live recordings during his solo tour of 2004, Vol 1 pretty much exhausted the set list of popular favourites, which leaves the sequel (a stop gap until the next studio album) to trawl through a clutch of lesser known numbers intercut with his introductions. The voice, of course, remains as haunting as ever, still stained with concern and honesty, and hearing him on older numbers such as In The Shape of a Heart, Sky Blue And Black or Enough Of The Night rekindles the magic. But, whatever the merits of My Stunning Mystery Companion or Casino Nation, it’s hard to image them prompting a rush down the local store.
Mike Davies

TINA DICO - Count To Ten (Finest Gramophone)
The Danish born former Zero 7 singer returns with a powerful new collection that finds her in far more muscular form than past comparisons to Joni Mitchell and Julia Fordham might have anticipated.
She lays her cards on the table with the title track opener which shows her Leonard Cohen influence on an acoustic but urgent and desperation streaked folk blues number that gradually brings ominous piano into the fraying nerves rhythm. On The Run calls to mind Elkie Brooks circa Lilac Wine, Open Wide switches to soaring Radiohead melancholic stately pop and Night Cab hitches a ride on heady femme-rock melodies. And that's just the first four track attack.
With fragile torched balladry of You Know Better, the bitter inner loneliness detailed by Craftsmanship & Poetry, the incisive mix of confession, compassion and observation on the affecting Everybody Knows and Cruel To The Sensitive Kind, and the spidery Kiki Dee meets REM neurosis Sacre Coeur, you can't really go wrong. The Danes have already recognised she's a world class talent, it's about time the rest of us caught up.
Mike Davies

HOME NEWS (updated 8/2/2008)

Having seemingly been around for years refining and shaping their sound, THE MEXICOLAS finally pop the champagne corks to celebrate the arrival of debut album X (InExile). Past singles, the riff crunching Shame and Come Clean’s Mark Lanegan meets Led Zep and the Chilli Peppers, are included alongside past tasters such as the guitar stabbing melodics of Big In Japan that blends the Foo Fighters and Police and the stadium thumping Easy Smile.

Those who’ve only just discovered them will be pleased to hear that the likes of rasping swagger Evil, Falling Into Myself, Suffer and Lovers Are Not Enemies offer sterling permutations on that QOTSA/Stone Temple Pilots template and while long term fans might lament the absence of their prog folk Race For The Lifeboat and Radioheadish ballad Oblivious, the good news is that Skin Tight with its Imagine borrowings and the towering Fake Plastic Trees beauty of (Times) Infinity are both here in all their majesty.

Add to that a clutch of nagging radio friendly choruses like that on We All Fall Down and the fact that the admirably titled 101 is a staccato pop rush that marries Grohl, Thin Lizzy and the Beach Boys, and they’re patently the next in line to warrant a star of fame on their hometown pavement.

KIDZLIKEDANNY 2 (Dannyboy Music), Matt Tyler’s second compilation of local acts in aid of autistic youngsters, is due for release via Itunes, Napster, Emusic and other download sites from March and, once again, features an eclectic but always interesting variety of names. Other than Aaron Yorke’s opening strummed I Remember The Days and the closing Blue Kids, an unexpected but excellent contribution from veteran country star Raymond Froggatt, as far as I can tell most of these are generally previously unreleased tracks.

Politcial alt-ska outfit Cracked Actors are on fiery form with Captive nestling in complete contrast alongside Take And Give from Bloxwich acoustic singer-songwriter Caroline 7 which in turn gives way to the old school bluesy pub rock of Crisis Blues Band with Truth And Lies. Everett come from Dudley with their Sit And Listen bearing witness to their Snow Patrol influences, Close Your Eyes is from Leicester folkie Ian Babington, Kristy Gallacher (misspelled as Gallagher on my copy) sings Broken Record Player and sounds like Coventry’s answer to Kate Nash.

A more familiar name, Matt Geary has been around a while winning admirers for his Elliot Smith/Dylan influenced indie alt-folk. Recently signed to Boy Wonder Records, he has a new album in the works for later this year, meanwhile his 2006 track Temperance gets an Andy Wickett remix. I have no idea who Mavoxor are but The Man Who Wants Everything is very much prog-folk in a good way. Onion Child is Kidderminster singer-songwriter Ryan Jordan who numbers Robert Johnson, Charlie Parker, John Martyn and The Bluetones among his influences, and gives good acoustic blues on The Bailiff while Stourbridge’s Raging Angel are, as the name might suggest, a rock outfit whose Hole In The Head is pretty standard stuff for the blues metal genre. Which just leaves Stranger Within, seemingly a hitherto unrecorded track from local Celtic folk oar veterans Quill.

Not everything is going to appeal to everyone, but there’s more than enough here to repay the purchase, and it’s for a good cause.

Check out the RED SHOES MySpace (www.myspace.com/redshoes1) for a new set of their folksy home demos that include a cover of the trad Quiet Joys of Brotherhood alongside new numbers Only A Fool, the Dennyish excellence of Celtic Moon and Carolyn’s moving, angry My Father’s Green Beret, a stark number about her war hero father who contracted MRSA in hospital, sung to just daughter Megan’s piano accompaniment and a tune reminiscent of Greensleeves crossed with Liverpool Lullaby.

ALBUMS

JACK JOHNSON - Sleep Through The Static (Brushfire)
Here’s a surprise as the laid back surfer ditches his familiar style and plunges into hardcore, throat scraping yowls and flesh-flaying feedback guitars. Nah, just kidding. It’s business as usual then with those reggae inflected soft rock and campfire surfer folk melodies, songs about cosy romantic snuggle-ups with the wife and kids occasionally punctuated by slightly more worried numbers that detail broken relationships (If I Had Eyes) and concerns about the ecology or war (They Do They Don’t, Sleep Through The Static). Lightly brushed and served with gentle guitars, lazy rhythms, it never works up a sweat but as long as there’s those who like to contemplate domestic bliss and environmental issues as they drift away in the sweet smoke, he’s going to keep shifting albums by the truckload. But please, no more dreadful wordplay like Monsooner or later! Mike Davies

HOME NEWS (updated 18/1/2008)

Belated congratulations to ENVY & OTHER SINS who picked up a £1million deal with A&M after winning the Mobile Act best new band competition. Not bad given they were ejected from the comp after reaching the final 12 only to be returned via a wild card public vote. I predicted big things for them three years back with debut single Prodigal Son, so hopefully the rest of the world's now going to catch up. New single Highness is due out sometime in February and they're currently busy spending that money recording the album.

Plaudits too for DANIEL RACHEL who took the enterprising step of donating all profits from the download his Let It Be Mine single to Tender, the arts organisation working to combat domestic abuse and sexual violence. You can add to the support by buying it from iTunes for 79p.

Those interested in checking out RICH BATSFORD's piano talents can now see him in action on line, performing self-penned number Namaste. Visit his website www.richbatsford.com where you can also get a free download of the entire Valentine Court solo piano album.

JAKE FLOWERS is a Shropshire based singer-songwriter who warrants your attention. He's been releasing home recordings on his Shackled Ram Records label for a while, most recently the Fireworks EP, the title track being a lovely tale of a relationship's lost spark setting off stolen fireworks that in turn reignite the romance. He kicks 2008 off with new single Anyhow, produced by the esteemed Gavin Monaghan at his Magic Garden studio. A witty story about an invented romantic conquest, it tumbles along with an infectious folksy bounce that conjures thoughts of the young Steve Forbert while the accompanying Annabel, a tale of sex, seduction and Catholicism, is a bluesier affair that suggests the prime days of Matthews Southern Comfort and does a good job of showcasing the lad's guitar picking. Check out more music at
www.myspace.com/jakeflowers

Drummer with The Heathers, erstwhile half of We'll Always have Paris and musical partner to Della Roberts, it's eight years since ROB PETERS last released a solo album of new material. But he's back now with the totally self-played Copper Heart (Wafer Thin), opening with the beguiling six minute steady walking rhythm and drone guitar of Evergreen's history of a relationship and closing with the reflective, introspective spare strummed My Stage.

Between the two is a 35 minute, nine part prog/psychedelic folk concept suite titled Copper Dreams And Bare-Boned Dreams. Comprising both songs and instrumentals, framed by the Clouds into and outro, it's part questioning, part accusatory, part despairing and part jubilant, often highly reminiscent (especially in the often Eastern hued guitar work) of Roy Harper's late 70s/early 80s albums like HQ and Work Of Heart. You can hear his pop sensibility churning away under the distortions of Cry while Why God Is So Slow To Punish The Wicked harks to the traditional acoustic ballad on a theme of regrets, wasted moments and acceptance of a life lived. Young daughter Emily also gets to put in her vocal contribution on the Zep-folk raga drone Finger Rain.

It could probably have done without Hey! Andy! which basically just intones the line Hey! (fill in name here)! What you gonna do about it? over and over to acoustic and electric guitar backing and rather too much of the wrong sort of Roger Waters influence, but otherwise this is a welcome return from an under exposed talent.

ALBUMS

FINNISTON - Organised For Hard Fi (Ruby)
That'll be Scots brother/sister duo Steven Finnie and Jolene Crawford who, with Andrew Gifford on double bass and Jamie Attridge on drums, have put together this debut album after garnering solid praise for their live work.
Basically vocal harmony indie guitar pop with folk foundations, there's some nice touches here with things like the accordion wheezing away behind the chiming guitars and swirling beats of Love Is Hard To Find, the church organ intro to Complicated Mind before it takes off into the lilting piano tinkling mists where the Velvet Underground hang out in Hebridean folk clubs, the tumbling Celtic folk-pop of We're Waiting or the chirpy 60s flavoured Another Love Song where the La's and Beautiful South get together for a knees up.
Ballad fans will be swaying along to The Look (a sort of low-key Snow Patrol), the wistful country flavoured Words Can Only Try and the piano-backed, almost hymnal Travis feel to The Look, but it's hard to imagine anyone not warming to everything here.
Mike Davies

ALO - Roses & Clover (Brushfire)
Aka Animal Liberation Orchetsra, mates of college chum Jack Johnson and now signed to his label, this is a classic 70s style SoCal lite soul-funk jam band stuff in the vein of the Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews Band, Bruce Hornsby, and Phish with shades of Steely Dan, The Band. It plays its strongest most commercial card with piano led opening track Marian but if this is your groove then the likes of the bluesy Empty Vessels, reggae lurch Try, beach soul pop Monday (which lyrically references the Mamas and Papas classic), a jazzy The Water Song and the Becker-Fagan feel title track will have you glowing. Everyone else may favour vivisection.
Mike Davies

CROSBY LOGGINS & THE LIGHT - We All Go Home (Provogue)
Yet another 70s star's offspring strikes out to follow in dad's foosteps. Son of Kenny Loggins (which begs why he seems to have been named after David), this debut album is polished standard issue California soft folk-soul pop, replete with regulation radio friendly hooks, sunny melodies, and buttery but sensitive male vocals. It gets a bit musically hot under the collar with Always Catching Up, the heated rock-funk 'political' March On, America, and Rocks Into Sand where a hint of gospel and r&b (and perhaps Gotta Get You Into My Life) colours the piano boogie swing, but otherwise it's exactly the kind of slick but wholly interchangeable ballads and mid-tempo AOR you'd expect from an album that includes a track titled Radio Song. Oddly the best thing here is the last, acoustic folk-country number Same Old Song (La La La) where he goes on about the burdens of living up to the name. But ironically sounds more like the son of James Taylor.
Mike Davies

KIM NOVAK - Luck & Accident (Talitres)
A French art rock quartet named after the Hollywood star and Hitchcock muse and drawing influences from the likes of Radiohead, Interpol and Tindersticks, you'd be forgiven for passing by on the other side and thinking you've heard it all before. But hang on, this is rather good.
The opening chiming Better Run is gorgeously world weary, the singer (who may be Jeremie, Ugo, Cyrill or Hairday, the bio doesn't identify who does what) sounding quintessentially English in that Noel Harrison/Al Stewart/Stephen Duffy/Snow Patrol way while elsewhere In The Mirror does that Lou Reed/Tindersticks talk-sing thing with deliberate quotes from the Velvets, If comes over like a Gallic Bryan Ferry, Female Friends conjures The Cure while the jerky flurries of Swallow light a Gauloise under Talking Heads. With Crash and On My Back perfect absinthe-drenched soundtracks to some end of tether, end of the universe party, they could well follow Air in proving French rock can cross the channel.
Mike Davies

THE CAPSTAN SHAFTS - Environ Maiden (Rainbow Quartz)
Vermont's answer to the Cleaners From Venus, or for younger viewers, Baby Bird, Dean Wells doesn't seem to have a life. Instead he appears to spend his time holed up in his 4 track home studio banging down song after song. In the past five years released 16 lo fi albums. Here's the 17th, with 29 tracks, only one of them passing the two minute mark. Devoid of even rudimentary production and sporting titles like The Giving Earth And Her Oils Of Love, The Flowering Universe Confounds and My Family Was Welsh, I'm Just Tired, you get a rough picture of what to expect as Wells bashes at his guitar and whatever else comes to hand. In among the pile there's some bright flashes, the Velvets surging One Of us Should Be Further Away, mini psych-folk ballad The Ballad of Kid Butane, the ramshackle sherbet acid pop Better Get A Dream From This and the Otway punk The Complete History of Greenland in 70 seconds. But so much sounds like work in progress, some of the songs feeling like separate parts of one fragmented track. If he gets a handle on the quality control though, you might yet understand why Guides By Voices hold him in such high esteem.
Mike Davies

HOME NEWS (updated 12/12/2007)

On April 3, 2006, aged 41, MARTIN GILKS, former drummer with The Mighty Lemon Drops and then The Wonder Stuff, died following a motorbike accident. Voted the best drummer on the planet in a NME poll in 1989, earlier in 2007 his legend was again honoured by BBC6 when a poll named him the UK’s best drummer in living memory. Following the Stuffies split in 1994, Martin joined forces with Malc Treece and Paul Clifford to form WeKnowWhereYouLive, quitting a year later to join his brother in a management company looking after Reef, A and A Hundred Reasons. When the Stuffies reformed in 2000, Martin then spent the four years until their next acrimonious split, as the band’s manager.

However, other than the material recorded with The Wonder Stuff, his musical output remains somewhat overlooked. So, plaudits then to Room 512, the Stuffies unofficial website, who put together It’s Nice To Be Nice, a double album’s worth of WKWYL album demos and live tracks from 1995. Released in the November following Martin’s death with all profits going to CARE, a charity nominated by his family, it’s raised nearly £2500 to date. The CD is still available; hence this little reminder. Consisting of 30 tracks, it makes no bones about the sometimes rough sound quality, the live material taken from audience recordings, but, as the label points out, there are no other, better versions and this is the only place the music is available.

Actually, the quality isn’t as bad as you might fear. Sure the live numbers are echoey in places, but they’re also mostly pretty clear and sharp and certainly capture the band’s stage energy, the live version of Made Of Water bringing out the folksy influences far more than the studio demo.

Having released two singles, the Beatles influenced furious energy of Don’t Be Too Honest and the swampy bluesy spoken vocal Draped (recorded with Martin but released after his departure), with the record label losing interest the band split without the album ever appearing.

But playing the demos now, it still sounds fresh and arguably even more relevant to the current indie rock music scene than it was 12 years ago. Certainly there’s plenty here that fans of Biffy Clyro, Funeral For A Friend, Fightstar and A Hundred Reasons would appreciate, Mental Hygiene (imagine a harder Cheap Trick), Drug Type Unknown, the squally bulldozing Turn Off Shut Down Give Up, a throaty punked Cry Baby Killers and the acoustic Confessions Of A Thug all substantially solid numbers. Were it to be released now, the band would undoubtedly find themselves being hailed among the new next big things. It’s time Martin’s and their memory were accorded the praise long overdue. Check out www.room521.com and www.wkwylalbum.co.uk for details on how to get a copy

ALBUMS

KID ROCK -Rock N Roll Jesus (Atlantic)

More recently known as the former Mr Pamela Anderson, the Kid reinvents himself again, ditching his hip hop and rap stylings to play the strutting rock star. And, for a moment, you almost think he’s pulled it off. The title track is a solid balls to the wall belter, Amen a powerful diatribe against religious hypocrisy, racism and the war in Iraq complete with gospel choir while the wistful sexual awakening of All Summer Long borrows the piano line from Werewolves of London and parts of Sweet Home Alabama and marries them to a tip of the hat to Bob Seger’s Night Moves.

But then it’s pretty much downhill as the album lets itself be swamped by the genre’s staple topics of sex, drugs and, well, rock n roll as Rock grinds and thrusts with swaggering boasts of being an insatiable sex god stud, telling his ex he’s now doing the nasty with a girlfriend half her age "and twice as hot" and generally piling on the dirty metal guitar licks and rock cliches. It’s punchy and raunchy enough, but it frequently just feels like an exercise in style simply to prove he can and, after adopting the moral racial high ground one minute, come Sugar he’s rapping out lines that could well be seen as anti-Semitic. And, really, the country cheese of When U Love Someone and the posturing salvation of a good woman’s love on Blue Jeans And A Rosemary really should have been left in the recording studio.
Mike Davies

THE ELEPHANTS -The Elephants (Tapete)

Danish sunny psychedelic summer pop with an electro backdrop, this is pleasant enough with its 60s retro melodies, perky harmonies and tints of Brill Building tunes, Brian Wilson, Wannadies and even a little bit of garage band harmonica. But no amount of theramin, banjo, brass or soulful vocals can lift songs like Ann, 5 Minutes, Shivers or Valentine’s Day beyond the forgettably ordinary.
Mike Davies

THE SHAKY HANDS - The Shaky Hands (Memphis Industries)

Joyous American indie guitar pop custom built for a 60s summer’s day, this could warm the coldest winter’s day with its ramshackle feelgood charm and buoyant vocals. Whales Sing (with whalesong) opens proceedings and from thereon you’re encouraged to tap your feet, drum your fingers on the nearest surface and bounce down the street. On Sunburns they even do the happy whistling for you.

Host Your Day and Hold It Up show they’re not lacking in edge when the mood takes, Like A Bird parades their psychedelic colours while the Eastern vibe of Another World takes you back to the days of Donovan’s mellow yellow epistles to dippy. The songs are probably a bit too roughshod to find mainstream acceptance, but the likes of handclappy shuffle folk-pop beat of Summer’s Life and the woozy loveliness of Maker Make (imagine the Incredible String Band crossed with Neutral Milk Hotel) are guaranteed to make your life brighter for at least three minutes a pop.
Mike Davies

HOME NEWS (updated 26/11/2007)

A seven piece from Cannock, ORTEGA make their debut with Times Are Changing (CoStar Entertainment), a 4 track EP of swaggering, riff punching, synth assisted punkpop guitar rock headed up by the title track. The vocals are a bit more yowly on No Amount Of Make-Up (Can Cover The Break-Up) and the piston guitar stabbing Here’s To Another 25 Years where the influence of such Fuelled By Ramen outfits as Gym Class Heroes and Panic At The Disco seems prominent.

Full of drive, energy and more than musically capable, they have the confidence and feel of a band who’ve been forged in fire over the course of several years intensive gigging, the live acoustic addition of Check In Check Out suggesting they’re a force to be reckoned with in the flesh. Check them out on www.myspace.com/ortegarock From The Old Court to Cropredy (CQ) isn’t, unfortunately, a new COLVIN QUARMBY album as such. The title referring to Phil Beer's house where Gerry Colvin laid down some songs for Nick Quarmby to hear with a view to working together and Nick's current abode, it's a collection of rough drafts, early sketches and live versions of songs that have figured (or not) on previous outings over the past decade.

The album helpfully includes a final track in which Nick talks you through the band's history and the numbers included on the album, however I should draw attention to some of the recordings.

Living In Harmony is from that initial set of demos, complete with the sound of the crackling fire, a tale about a friend's fall into love that features the undeniably romantic line about breaded cod fillets.

The Man Who Forgot To Say Please is a plangent acoustic protest song on behalf of the belittled that serves as a fine companion piece to the early Terry & Gerry number Last Bullet In The Gun while, for those fascinated by the song building process, The Bell (featured on A Short Walk to the Red Lion) appears in two early forms, a raw demo and a live recording that gives an insight into the final version.

Elsewhere, those who've followed their career will enjoy the merging of original demo and new recordings of both The Last Laugh and South American Dream, the lovely furniture song Just An Old Table that is both metaphor and a touching story about a table, a growing home, a relationship and a death, and both a live recording and new version of Mrs Bennet's Eyes (a fictional backstory about an old lady who lived opposite a friend of Gerry's in a road in Birmingham) specifically recorded in Nick's flat for this album.

For completists only really, but certainly not an album anyone interested in the band's development should be without.

Having unexpectedly received some of the best reviews of their career for the Astronaut reunion album, a revitalised DURAN DURAN ( now again minus Andy Taylor) look to take a second bite of the cherry with Red Carpet Massacre (Epic).

Again a marriage of the old Duran sound with contemporary electro, it kicks off in persuasive form with the paranoia pulsing futuristic groove of The Valley that takes an extended instrumental break with marching beat drums, guitars and keyboards against panting breath. Simon LeBon will never have the best, most colourful voice in the world but there’s no denying these days that he knows how to keep a song on firm track.

The title track follows, a mix of driving electro dance beat and retro pop oddly sounding a lot like Bobby Vee’s The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, then on to the snaky Nite Runner, the first of two tracks to be co-written with and feature Justin Timberlake, sounding like the Bee Gees after a shot of viagra. The second Timberlake collaboration, the more chorus hook ballad side of the r&b dance floor Falling Down, follows before an acoustic guitar intros the stand out Box Full O’Honey where they lads display a surprising folk edge to the pop. Back to the funky sleaze shed with the bubblingly hypnotic Skin Divers, like Nite Runner it features and was produced by Timbaland and with lines like ‘Google-dirty fingers’ and a nagging chorus line it’s arguably the album’s most striking cut. Timbaland’s behind the desk again with Zoom In, another sample of the classic Notorious Duranie dancepop also in evidence on Tempted, tumbling spooked electro-ballad She’s Too Much, the crunchy leviathan of Dirty Great Monster and the slinky night trade of Last Man Standing.

Impressively stylish and sounding as full of fresh energy as a young band making their debut, along with classic hits they’ll be launching it all live in its entirety at the Odeon Leicester Square on Dec 3, following on from a record-breaking sell-out two weeks on Broadway. Hopefully a full tour follows next year.

Now working as a duo, longtime admirers of Birmingham roots-rock outfit RED SHOES should direct their internet surfing to www.youtube.com/user/RedShoesDuo for live at home recordings by Mark and Carolyn (still possessed of a voice to rival Sandy Denny) of Who Knows Where The Time Goes, A Woman’s Heart and Crazy Man Michael. There’s plans to feature some of their own material too and hopefully a return to gigging in the not too distant future.

HOME NEWS (updated 3/11/2007)

Wonderstuff frontman MILES HUNT joins forces with violinist/co-writer Erica Nockalls for No Exit (IRL), a fairly representative addition to the Hunt canon of spleen venting, cynicism washed melodic pop that positively bounds along with all the fire of the vintage Stuffies. There is, though, a tendency to swamp everything with orchestral arrangements that make things a little top heavy at times, forcing the songs to struggle their way above the arrangements.

That said, Back On The Charm Offensive is a rousing three minutes of bile that name checks Bono, Note To Self a defiant riposte to those who pass judgement but never get their hands dirty, The Cake dips back into Golden Green territory to sound like some Jewish mazurka, These Things Remembered does a country trot with Nockalls supplying the hoe down fiddle and The Easy Way (Like Californians) is just classic Eight Legged Groove Machine tumbling jumbling rock n roll pop.

There’s a worrying sign on the romantic Corny But True and the ploddy Play Me Music that he might be mellowing in his old age, hopefully that’s just a passing phase and there’s many more years of his sharp tongue and withering put downs still to come.

Cannock outfit GUILE have welded the influences of the Velvets, Johnny Cash, Doors and Jesus & Mary Chain into a darkly muscular, shadowy psychedelic sound that pads like a panther dealing narcotics across such tracks as the Bible black country feel of I Walk Alone from their self-titled EP. Armed with equally potent storm gathering clouds as The Horizon and the spooked desert mood of the spoken vocal Love Around Here, they’re definitely going to be making their prescence felt over the next year.

Another rather fine Birmingham outfit, DESTROY COWBOY mesh riff happy heavy guitars with swirling synths in waves of tumbling melodies. They can conjure thoughts of Sigor Ros one moment with the icy soundscapes of 1000 Candles or turn your ears towards the soaring of Radiohead with Waltz Test while delivering an indie rock battering ram with the nervy juddering Needles of the Revolution. They’re supporting The Hoosiers later this month, so it’s worth investing in double pleasures.

UNTITLED MUSICAL PROJECT have kept people waiting for the follow up to last year’s EP, but the punky Brum trio finally return with an eponymous 8 tracker debut album (Tigertrap) that clocks in at barely 16 minutes, exploding with the furious live energy and spleen of their live sets. What matter that the songs are over before you realise they’ve begun or that Keiran Duffy yells them out at such a rate you can barely make out what he’s singing some of the time. Listen to the Ramones on crack that is I Don’t Need You Honey, All I Need Is Rock, the yowling punk hammering cacophony of The A Minor Pentatonic Scale or the hardcore bass jolting thrash The People Versus Michael Miller and the flurried assault of I May Not Be Jimi Hendrix But At Least I’m Alive and try cartching your breath afterwards. Now get ready to sing along to the chorus of Endless Deoderant And Bad Shoes - "all you’ll get here is dead rock stars". Don’t you love em already.

Dub Plates From The Elephant House Vol Three (Endulge) is the latest work by G CORP akahomegrown production team Robert Cimarosti and Brian Nordhoff, previously of Electribe 101. It is, as the title might give away, a dub album, the duo working with reggae rhythm section Jaff and Conrad Kelly and guitarist Robert Mullins as The Mighty Three. Assorted guest vocalists also contribute, most effectively Flash on the skankingly hypnotic Freedom Or Death, Ninety with Demon and Steel Pulse’s Selwyn Brown who lends his voice to People Dub.

A highly accessible - and at times spacy - fusion of electro and reggae that stands comparison with the best of the Wailers, Sly & Robbie and U-Roy, it steams up a sweet smoke atmosphere on limb twitchers such as Wish You Were Here, Almighty Flood and the head-expanding The Avatar of Cyber Bar. For those into the music or willing to open the veins to its infections, this is quality groove. Even better, it comes with a book of yard style recipes from the Tree’s own mamas, some of which will be served up prior to the set.

Moseley (by way of Wales), MY ALAMO make big, noisy guitar muscle flexing alt rock and vocals. Debut single, 1994, swirled thoughts of Foo Fighters, an association that, throwing in several Nirvana nods, rears its head again on their eponymous album (Seventh Star) where guitars variously snarl, chug, circle and clear their throats on the likes of a stabbing angular My Friend Said, the hammeringly driven Pornography, a corrosive I’m Not The Enemy with its Cobain vocal inflections, and the hard but melodic indie pop flavours of Arabella’s Dying and The Undisguised. There’s bristling energy here and while it may ultimately be meat and potatoes modern rock, it’s best steak and King Edwards. You’ll remember the Alamo.

Birmingham purveyors of waking-dream avant-pop, PRAM return for a cocktail of electronic ambience and breathy soundscapes with their latest musical missive, The Moving Frontier (Domino).

It opens with one of several instrumentals, The Empty Quarter sounding like a lost Angelo Badalamenti score for an unseen David Lynch noir mystery before Rosie Cuckson’s metallic whispers join the party for the chilled industrial trip hop Salt & Sand. It’s instrumental time out again on Iske with its gypsy cobwebs and parping brass before Cuskson resurfaces to suggest more excursions into suburban netherwolds with The City Surveyor.

There’s a definite filmic quality here, conjuring myriad European art house possibilities on such numbers as the spidery Beluga and the jazzy clockwork clicking Sundew while World Cinema’s embraced for the middle Eastern colours of Mariana, the Icelandic frosts of Metaluna and the spacey African caravan lurch driving Blind Tiger which sounds like Tom Waits auditioning for a Bond theme. In fact Waits rears the reference head again on the clanking closing The Silk Road with its snake charmer rhythms and tinkling bells.A suitably astral body liberating experience.

Local trio JOHNNY FOREIGNER’s mini-album Aros Across The City (Best Before) is a six track fist of noisy, scratchy art-pop with storming angular melodies, chopping riffs, and boy/girl vocals elbowing and colliding into each other. It barely pauses for breath as it charges from Champagne Girls I Have Known through The End And Everything after and Suicide Pact, Yeah to the minute buzzsawing of Sofacore.

Distorted guitar fuzzed anthem cacophony This Band Is Killing Us proves they don’t have to do everything at 80mph and there’s even a hidden, whisper it, tinkling ballad at the end to reveal the can be softies if they want. Unlikely to kick down the doors to the mainstream, but indie kids looking to bounce off the walls will take them to their hearts.

Having taken forever to get round to releasing riff crunching debut single Shame, MEXICOLAS don’t waste any time with the follow up. Lifted from the forthcoming album, Come Clean (InExile) is all guitar rasping blues where Mark Lanegan meets Led Zep and the Chilli Peppers.

Shame also features on B1, a free compilation of local talent put together by Birmingham City Council and the Electric Cinema. You may, of course, remember the complete balls up that was made of the launch when it was discovered the council had omitted any copyright information and had sent it to Music Week and made tracks available for download without asking the bands. At time of writing the download situation still hasn’t been resolved, but you might check www.birmingham.gov.uk from time to time to see what’s happening.

A double CD, it’s a collection of indie, rock, folk and jazz that brings together some relatively familiar names like Liner, Midas, Jo Hamilton, Vijay Kishore, Murdoch and Toy Hearts with lesser known lights such as Beatlesy electro pop outfit Robot, good but ungainly monickered punk pop crew D. Louis Baker and Friends, and funky-soul outfut Stanley’s Choice.

As anyone with two ears will point out, it’s not entirely representative of the Birmingham music scene. But, once you get past the heated accusations of incompetence surrounding its promotion, it does whet the appetite to hear more from the lesser exposed names featured, most especially singer-songwriter Kishore.

Last time UB40’s ALI CAMPBELL released a solo album it was 1995’s Big Love, now comes the follow up Running Free (Crumbs), a collection of reggaefied covers with a bunch of guest vocalists. It is, rather inevitably, as reggae lite as you might expect from the fact the guests include Smokey Robinson (Hallelujah Time), Mick Hucknall (Being With You) and, sounding as if she’s having problems catching her breath, Katie Melua (Don’t Try This At Home), none of whom would be seen without a hundred recording studios of any heavy dub. And that’s even taking into account the drum and bass production was handled by Sly & Robbie.

Still, as a Radio 2 easy listening friendly pop album, despite an anaemic version of Hold Me Tight (as a rule of thumb the songs he does by himself are the least interesting), the hideous kiddie intro to Village Ghettoland and a frighteningly dreadful pubdub karaoke cover of Devoted To You with brother Robin, it’s actually not bad. Bev Knight provides some hefty muscle to the Campbell/Travers penned Running Free, a track that actually harks to the early days of UB40, the duet with Lemar on the gospel soulpop I’ll Be Standing By (apparently they couldn’t identify the writer, which is bad news for someone’s bank account and good news for an army of lawyers) is a standout and Would I Lie To You is encouraging proof that Bitty McLean’s career’s not completely dead.

Salvo’s 40th anniversary reissues of THE MOVE continue with the arrival of a 2CD expanded edition of the self-titled debut that now features both the original mono plus the A & B sides of the singles with a bonus previously unreleased stereo version of all the tracks save I Can Hear The Grass Grow. There’s also a digitally remastered Shazam which adds 8 bonus tracks including alternate mixes of Curly and Blackberry Way, two demo cuts and the full length Omnibus. Both come with extensive sleeve and track notes.

Following up 2005’s Black Hole, Grandmaster Gareth and his chums head even closer towards mainstream accessibility with Funny Times (Grumpy Fun) which, save for the vague exception of the clockwork circus parade bouncing The Long Conveyor Belt, finds MISTY’S BIG ADVENTURE eschewing politics in favour of a break-up album featuring such titles as the jaunty keyboard driven My Home Is No Longer My Home, I Can’t Bring The Time Back and, with its ‘fight, fight’ intro, Home Made War, as in domestic rather than Blair engineered.

Although there’s little bubbles here and there with spoken passages, whirlygig musical moments and perky time signatures, their quirkier tendencies have also been reined in. What emerges is very much a pop album that (on We Do! Do We? We Do! especially) could well see them being compared to Madness with hints of Squeeze, There Might Be Giants and even Split Enz. What is certain that, whether it’s the musical box pirouetting ballad Everything Goes Wrong, clanking fairground vaudeville How Did You Manage To Get Inside My Head?, the driving brassed up rock of Serious Thing or the naggingly catchy undulating sway meets Dexys brass of the hit in waiting title track, this is one of the year’s best releases and deserves to reach as many ears as possible.

Presumably having made a few bob as co-writer and musical director for Robbie Williams, STEPHEN DUFFY has been able to fund a new LILAC TIME album. Of course, pretty much like all the others Runout Groove (Fruit Cake/Universal) it will receive glowing critical acclaim and be much cherished his loyal admirers but be completely ignored by the bulk of the population. Their (though unfortunately also his) loss because, yet again, this is a lovely collection of country inflected pastoral British pop music, this time with the band joined by veteran double bassist Danny Thompson.

It’s very much a reflective album, Duffy getting back in touch with himself and his inspirations after the Williams madness. Thus you’ll hear the strains of the Incredible String Band and George Harrison seeping through the trad-sounding Parliament Hill Fields and the raga-rock folk of Dark Squadrons, cellar club jazzy folk on No Direction (Thompson in fine fettle) while he says the touchstones for the gorgeous pedal steel rolling Driving Somewhere were Townes Van Zandt in Two Lane Blacktop and Fleetwood Mac’s cover of The Beach Boy’ Farmers Daughter.

Then the strummed ache that is Desert Shore was birthed after driving through the Mojave Desert listening to the Nico album, although musically it sound more what you might expect from James Taylor had he been born in Sussex and spent his days apple scrumping.

He’s to be found pondering the changes the world’s been through over the years too; Aldermaston’s a country-tinged folk stroller that recalls the famous protest marches of the 60s while also embracing references to Franco’s death and the war in Afghanistan to conclude that the shape of the darkness may change but it remains with us. With its opening lines ‘here they come, the belligerents...every shade of ignorance’, the keeningly plaintive slow swaying Another Time is another song about feeling out of sync. "I hope they die before I’m old’ he adds with a wry misquote. ‘No one can change your world except you’, he notes on the lovely closing acoustic guitar number The Kite & The Sky, dreaming of living ‘in a lilac time’.

Naturally, there’s bruised romance here, going up in Gauloise smoke on Aldermaston, riding pillion in patent leather boots in the hay making and heart harvesting Pruning The Vine (is that a dulcimer plucking away behind him? and the languid romance A Dream Of A Girl (which oddly sounds a bit like Eric Carmen’s All By Myself at times). And, of course, on the album’s solitary cover, a slow lollopping home on the range trot through the Everlys’ Until I Kissed You that you could almost imagine being sung by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans as easily as Duffy and Claire Worrall.

"Don't wish for fame," he sings on Happy Go Lucky, a gathering tempo bittersweet number about being content with your place in the scheme of things, appreciating what you have and making your sorrows work for you. But it would be nice to think it might yet creep up on him unawares.

ALBUMS
SIX NATION STATE - Sixnationstate
Jeepster

Storming out of Reading, these lads know how to give good flurried Eastern European mazurka flavoured (well it was recorded in Latvia) driving indie rock. They roll it out from the opening Can’t Let Go and proceed to keep the legs kicking Cossack style on Keep Dancing (with sing Gerry Del-Guercio giving it some throat welly), the ska punk Taking Me Over, So Long, Where Are You Now and Blow Your Mind. The problem is that it does tend to be all rather a one trick affair and when they do slow the tempo down, with the exception of the Specials inclined Everybody Wants To Be My Friend, the interest rather dissipates. And the cod 60s waltzing beat ballad Don’t Need You Anymore is just plain embarrassing, both lyrically and musically. No denying though that when they have the blood pumping, you want to rush out, grab a goat and a bottle of vodka and have the time of your life. Mike Davies

MATCHBOX TWENTY - Exile On Mainstream
Melisma

A generous 17 track collection this combines their hit singles (well American ones, they’ve only ever had one here, Push, which scraped the Top 40 9 years ago) with six new numbers. They don’t mean a great deal here (two albums peaked at 31) but they’ve shifted 28 million copies Stateside where their big jangling, emotion soaring guitar rock is much more of a mainstream sound.
So it’s as good a time as any to catch up on missed opportunities like Long Day, 3AM, Bent, If You’re Gone and Real World, but it’s actually the new tracks that are the biggest incentive. Slimmed down to a four piece and with Rob Thomas sharing writing duties, they come bursting out of the stable with the swaggering How Far We’ve Gone looking to grab any Bon Jovi fans in its path while I’ll Believe You When and If I Fall both take their cues from ringing 60s guitar pop, the latter a meeting between the Searchers and The Who. All Your Reasons is tumbling singalong friendly hood down driving urgency and These Hard Times is a slow shuffling, aching voice FM rock ballad. Ironic really that the tracks that have yet to be hits are the ones that sound most as if they deserve to be. Mike Davies

SIOUXIE - Mantaray
W14

With the Banshees and Creatures defunct along with her marriage, Goth-punk’s ice maiden finally hits the solo button, filtering spacey and feral electronica into her trademark sinuous rock rhythms.
And while she remains an intimidating force with whom you wouldn’t want to argue, you have to stand up and say there’s times here where she sounds more like Marianne Faithful (Sea Of Tranquillity, the outstanding They Follow You) and a torch song PJ Harvey (the Nietzschian If It Doesn’t Kill You) than the woman of Hong Kong Garden. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing (though long time admirers may wonder at her foray into Radio 2 piano and choir balladry with Heaven And Alchemy), since both numbers are among the album’s strongest numbers. And that old icicle through the skull juddering punk is in fine fettle with the menacing voodoobilly grind Into A Swan, a trashy swagger About To Happen where she rewrites the Roxy Music songbook with a splash of feral Bolan and the big cinematic brassy prowl Here Comes That Day sounding like a Shirley Bassey Bond theme waiting to happen.
The jungle beat swings through the vines thumping out a challenge to all comers with the heavy percussive One Mile Below that could put the fear of God up Tarzan while, just to show her slinkier seductive side, Drone Zone takes on Eartha Kitt and remodels her for the 21st century. "I'm on the verge of an awakening...Feeling so strong...Can't be ignored," she sings. Too right. And who in their right mind would want to? Mike Davies

EDWYN COLLINS - Home Again
Heavenly

Apparently he almost died recently. Which would have meant he’d probably only be remembered for being the bloke out of Orange Juice who had that nagging hit A Girl like You. Which would have been to him a disservice because Collins has always been about more than that, it’s just that he’s never really come up with anything else of the same memorable quality and no one’s ever really been persuaded to buy his records.
It’s unlikely to be remedied with this either, despite the fact it’s the usual collection of classy soulful polished pop flipping between the easing on down ballads and more punchy rock. Ignoring the fact that One Is A Lonely Number owes a considerable debt to Nilsson’s One imagine a thrash version?), Home Again is a leafy folk ballad, You’ll Never Know a ripple of Scottish kon-tiki lounge, Superstar Talking The Blues a rattling along countrybilly tune and Leviathan a suitably moody Orbison in space piece of psychedelic folk rock. Pleasant listening but, I’m afraid, there’s still nothing here to make him more than the bloke out of Orange Juice who had that nagging hit. Mike Davies

The BEAT and BRUMBEAT