The post Peasant Revolt and Roger Harvey Reviewed appeared first on Alt77.
]]>Is it a way to predict what’s going to happen? What if we had a way of knowing if all of those predicted terrible events that the news channels keep selling us are actually going to come true? Well, dear reader, I have to burst your bubble, but there is. It’s called “the past”, and it tends to repeat itself maddeningly and predictably.
And, judging by the lessons it offers us, things are going to be somewhat good, kind of bad, and they’ll keep moving that way for longer than any of us will care to know. It’s enough to make you smile and turn your attention to other problems such as music. Is it all bound to change? Are we going to be caught unprepared by all these fast-altering trends? Peasant Revolt don’t think so.
In fact, the band’s looking at the people building the chaos and then letting it fall on top of them, and they can’t help but smile. Musically, fittingly, the band is taking a cue from the past for “All Dressed Up,” and finding a familiar bluesy, garage-rock groove to lean on. It’s a charmer, and enough to make you stop worrying. If Peasant Revolt are right, the blues is here to stay, but so are the little thrills and timid smiles.
It was very rarely good, and certainly things weren’t normal. But you couldn’t have known it at the time. In fact, if you’re like most people, you just went along with your childhood, believing that this was just the way people lived and the way things were bound to stay anywhere else in the world.
Still, if you got really lucky, you got a peek through the curtain. You saw other places, other people and other ways of being. And you might’ve soaked up some of those habits, some of the way that folks over there try to resolve problems. It probably felt good enough, too, that you began to think about your own upbringing and noticed the discrepancy.
A lot of people have gone through that, and Roger Harvey, very poignantly and directly, wants to ask them: “Why carry on living in a place that is just wrong for you?” “Blue Mountain” is a gorgeous and very subtle country tune. It’s about working with the blues everywhere you go, getting used to that burden on your back. Still, as you hear Harvey beautifully sing those words, you might start to wonder why it’s you that has to carry all of that.
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]]>The post Make Believe Love and Royne Berget Reviewed appeared first on Alt77.
]]>You’d hear stories, I suppose. There would be whispers about some guy who could play the guitar with his teeth, and you’d feel inclined to drive the whole day to a concert inside a shed somewhere just to see if it was true.
You might hear of a folk singer with perfect teeth and lyrics about French poets and clouds, and you’d be told that hearing the songs in the right mood might get you to connect to some Ancient divinity. And could you do but get in your car and see if it was true?
And what if you were the special person delivering the exhilarating artistic thrills? Well, you’d just have to wait for someone to drive all the way up to your shed and see for themselves. The digital age? A bunch of sheds that are shown on the map if the algorithm deems them worthy enough, as Make Believe Love keeps telling themselves.
The jokes write themselves for “Organic Growth,” but frustration with the internet and our own shallowness aside, Make Believe Love, it has to be said, are power-pop maestros of the Teenage Fanclub variety. They can carry the message and carry a tune. Their melodies are sharp and, judging by their lyrics, their fuse is short. But there’s a tiny little shed somewhere, and I’m sure that if your car can make it all the way up that hill, you’ll be in for something special.
“Why don’t you get together with your old friends and just sing that “Stairway to Heaven” song?” That’s, I’m sure, what Robert Plant gets asked every day as he strolls through the Welsh hills. And, I’d like to believe that upon hearing the question, Mr Plant smiles, walks on and doesn’t let a thing he did many decades ago affect the experience of his present life.
Even rock stars are forced to live in the past. So, what hope do the rest of us have? The past sneaks up on you and is always ready to deliver some sad tale about embarrassing mistakes and disastrous failures, before running back off and leaving you confused.
Still, remaining a slave to past glories or old failures is no way to live. It’s a wasted opportunity. Royne Berget would just like to get rid of it all. And for that purpose, the songwriter lays it all on the table for “Wish I Was A Teenage Rebel.” The drunken nights, the lingering doubts, the romantic feelings are all here. And, once in the light, you get a sense that Berget is a little lighter, a little less spooked. It’s a charming, jangly tune and a recommendation for us all.
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]]>The post Chill O’Connor and ELROD Reviewed appeared first on Alt77.
]]>Dear reader, if you’re one of the people reading the Alt77 reviews for a long time, you will know that I have consistently and unapologetically poked fun at the British Isles whenever I’ve been handed the occasion. Yet, today, I sit before a somewhat changed man having spent the Summer driving on the wrong side of many of Britain’s roads.
Here I was imagining that Britain was merely a place where angry drunks congregated in tiny bars to escape the weather, and, instead, I was greeted by delightful, respectful, semi-sober people enjoying the modern hot Summers.
But before I have you packing planes over to Old Limey, I’ll direct your attention to Chill O’Connor’s “BORED OF ENGLAND,” the other side of the coin and the kind of reportage that you’re, likely, more familiar with these days.
This is a modern, jangly, indie song about the promises of the big British cities and about the last decade spent making most of the inhabitants, and some of the tourists, truly miserable. It’s a funny song about a joke that, for some, hasn’t moved beyond the punchline.
Is England boring? Not all. You’ll just have to avoid Manchester, London, the M1 and the horribly sugary cider. If you’re unable to do that, at least there’s a song with some compassion coming out of it.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness… And on and on, and so, it goes. And not only do kids study that poem, but still feel in much the same way about some Revolution that won’t ever come. And the very same thing goes for rock music, regardless of how long it’s been since the rock star singing the songs was handsome, filled with talent and capable of providing confident sound bites for interviews.
Things move around in circles. The past becomes the present. And so on and so forth. The only things that really change are the wiring, the weight of the technology that needs to be used to capture all of this, and the people who get to hear the poems and songs.
ELROD’s “Howl” sounds like an inventive, daring lo-fi production effort. It’s certainly a modern invention. But at the heart of the song there’s also an echo of emotional grunge odes to being misunderstood and misjudged. And there’s also a feeling about the world never quite being able to get itself right, something that will echo again and again.
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]]>The post Jet Black Berries and Fervents Reviewed appeared first on Alt77.
]]>The greatest generals of old knew that one thing remained true regardless of the enemy. Experience had taught them that you should never push someone, regardless of their supposed strength, into a corner. And, more than anything, you ought not to start poking them with a stick once they get there.
The same rule, of course, applies in all avenues of life. It certainly can be witnessed in art. But, to be fair, you’ll find it less and less.
In music, for example, the current state of affairs has made professionals have to zoom from one project to another. This, in turn, means that artists are forced to become workers and to disconnect whenever this feels necessary.
But it’s those bands that have been pushed into a corner, or have achieved this through concentration, nihilism, whatever it may be, that shine in this modern world.
Jet Black Berries are that kind of group. On “Shadow Drive”, they buy into the whole myth of ambitious, evil post-punk. Still, it’s not like they’re playing around. The band sounds like it’s given all that it could give on the single, and that if some disaster would have befallen them because of their efforts, that was something the musicians were willing to stand by. It’s hard to get this kind of commitment these days. It’s worth acknowledging and appreciating.
It only takes a week or two. All that you need to do is go away somewhere in the mountains or by the sea. Make sure it’s somewhere where the internet’s not very good and where the television set is too small to watch. And you’ll get it!
You’ll be driving down, the city will come into view, the traffic will start to pick up. And you’ll get that unmistakable feeling. You’ll feel cramped, tense, eager to escape. You’ll feel that the world you’re re-entering is just designed wrong.
Everything that’s too neat and sophisticated is wrong, including rock music of that variety. Fervents take their distrust of both over-wrought musical construction and modern Western societies and pour it into “#1.”
The song is short, funnily bittersweet, and places you in one of those perfect-looking houses that you see around Northwestern Europe. What does this world run on? Commerce and broken dreams, according to Fervents, a band making its displeasure with the state of things known.
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]]>The post Amy Speace and Bloodkin Reviewed appeared first on Alt77.
]]>People spend most of their lives trying to get away from themselves. Most of them manage to do it, but it’s a temporary solution. Sooner or later, they’re forced to run back and made to regret ever leaving. The only trouble is that, usually, when they do try to retrace their steps, they find out that the footprints have been erased by a thousand storms. They’re trapped!
Artists have the same problems. They always do. But for them, the process of extinguishing the deepest parts of themselves is nearly impossible. It’s the kind of problem that pays dividends in time. Artists are rarely allowed to forget who they are. They can spend as much time on their subjects as they want. Amy Speace has recently found that out.
“Days of Letting Go” is a great poem about modern American outlaws having to face tragedy and doing their best not to flinch. But one would reckon, even without knowing Amy Speace personally, that this is, just as much, a song about the writer herself. The impressionistic approach to the lyrics, and the hushed reciting of the words over a country-rock instrumental, work excellently. And who knows? Listen closely, and it might just be a song about you as well. You never know what pushes you back toward who you were to start with.
I love country and blues music. But it’s not like I’m in a hurry to tell anyone. In fact, I keep it hidden from my musician friends the way that you’d hide a bizarre porn fetish. And when I do reveal it, maybe play a blues lick or two, I make it seem that it’s all just a joke, a goof. They don’t suspect a thing. Yet, still, I worry someone I know will walk out on me tapping my foot to an old country song.
But why? Aren’t blues and country music the start, essentially, for all of pop music? Sure! The only trouble is that everyone thinks that they can play it. Which is not false. Everyone can play this kind of music, but most drain it of emotion while they’re busy figuring out what to solo over the chords. Bloodkin takes a different approach.
On “Drinkin’ Blue,” retro-tinged country and blues are merely the vehicle for a confession that the singer sounds like he doesn’t even know if he should be making. This is proper blues, the kind that includes clutter, bad habits and broken dreams. This is a song that makes people cry even if the singer wouldn’t want them to. It’s the real stuff, and you can hear every one of those things in the tone of that voice.
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]]>The post Nic Norton and Alice Morell AND Vinyl Neón Reviewed appeared first on Alt77.
]]>Rock n’ roll is all about the here and now, the need to celebrate the moment, and the reasons why finding solutions to problems at this very instance is a waste of time. It’s the kind of set of ideas that is so ridiculous when analysed closely that it makes you want to invest in a Master’s Degree in accounting and a gym membership.
It’s the sort of thing that makes you choose the opposite route and, in fact, obsess over the future and all of the things that you need to do to, eventually, be happy. Still, those who’ve lived enough will tell you that neither set of actions truly works the way that it should. Great things happen when you least expect, and they disappear when you’d give anything to make them stay.
Nic Norton and Alice Morell’s “Gone” isn’t just a lovely pop song sung with the intimacy of someone who knows you and might arrive with a cup of tea to your bedside when you’re feeling ill. It’s also a meditation on the nature of “good times,” and on the fact that it’s hard to appreciate what you have and even more difficult to know when it’s time to properly start living.
You and I are lucky music fans in a lot of regards. We can just open our streaming service of choice and instantly listen to nearly any song that we can think of. We can also acquire a large physical collection of recorded music that we have chosen from thousands that were available to us on the internet or inside of gigantic stores. Yet, aren’t we missing some of the magic of old?
If tales told by those older than us are to be believed, pop-rock music used to be a kind of refuge from the real world and was used by many as the building block for an entire fantasy universe. Consequently, so many great songs and albums had, at their core, lyrical concepts about escape to faraway places and a sound created to inspire long, lengthy listens. These are the same principles with which Vinyl Neón is working today.
“Travesía Espacial” is that kind of song. It is a Spanish-sung alt-rock song with pleasant pop melodies about a trip for two into outer space and outside of the madness that seems to have surrounded us. It’s not just the lyrics that are optimistic, but the music is also the kind that requires headphones and rewards those willing to spend a long time with it. This is a song for those looking to escape into their minds, and it’s something that’s still greatly needed today.
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]]>The post Great Demise and FarFarAway Reviewed appeared first on Alt77.
]]>In Eastern Europe, a place where the Church and those working in it continue to be great authority figures, there’s an expression that loosely translates as: “Do what the priest tells you, but don’t do as he does!”
From what I’ve been able to gather, nearly all places have a similar saying, and these aren’t modern inventions. Regardless of the time or of people’s commitment to religious ideals, the established truth is that those who preach rarely work too hard to live by the same ideals.
Yet, common folk like ourselves do need some guidelines. Remove those, and we’ll be knee-deep in blood in less than a week, and drunk off our feet the week after. With this in mind, take the ancient wisdom and the modern one provided by Great Demise and mix it all up until it all makes sense.
“LOSE YOUR FACE” is a great punk-rock song that feels like it was recorded in the garage downstairs. It could just as well be an anthem for the rise of nationalism and religious fanaticism, typically pushed by ridiculous figures who merely take advantage of their admirers. It’s a great song, but also just one big chunk of the truth.
Wealth is not what they teach you it is. I found out the hard way. Most people never find out at all. And, of course, there is also that rare minority glad to be working and scheming as intensely as they can their entire lives to work on a dream that could tumble down at any point.
If you want a good indicator of that, sadly, it’s the world’s supposedly richest countries that will show it to you. Not only do these countries have surprisingly large numbers of people living in poverty, but even those making a lot of money are bound by debt, the stress of how they can maintain their current lifestyle and ignorance of the fact that many of the supposedly poorer nearby countries offer greater balance for their citizens’ lives. FarFarAway sees through the facade.
“Housewives in Suburban Ghettos” is an angry and provocative punk-rock song. It’s played with meanness and enthusiasm. It’s aggressive and tries to grab your attention. But it is also, in many ways, truthful. It’s a song that pokes at the great capitalist dream. Do all these tied to their houses and their brand loyalty really live happy existences? Is it all a dirty trick to keep the spokes of the economy moving?
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]]>The post Fuzzysurf and Milk St. Reviewed appeared first on Alt77.
]]>There are a lot of songs about outlaws, gurus, eccentrics and maniacs. In fact, if you think closely about it, except for the love ballads, most of the greatest songs in rock concern the aforementioned types of characters. But why? Perhaps it’s the fact that rock stars simply have a great understanding of how these people’s minds work.
After all, a rock star is someone who gets up on stage to entertain people while mimicking the greatest kind of confidence at all times. Rock stars want to be adored, pampered and have their merchandise bought by loyal fans. With this in mind, it’s always a thrill to hear rock musicians sing about self-aggrandising figures, and this is what Fuzzysurf do on their recent single.
“Self Attraction” takes the myth of Narcissus and gives it a modern sports car and dark sunglasses meant to be worn exclusively indoors. This is a song about self-obsession that turns itself into tactical manipulation. But the song is also a cute, slightly aggressive indie-rock number that arrives just at the tail-end of the Summer and one that, perhaps, will be perfect for festival stages come next season.
Yeah, life, essentially, happens the same way to everyone. We stare at photos taken decades ago, and we point and laugh at the silly clothes that people used to wear. We read the history books and imagine how people used to live centuries ago. Yet, at the end of the day, bar a few tragedies, life and all of its terrible difficulties and simple joys have stayed the same.
If everything does move in circles and in patterns that keep popping out, why wouldn’t the same happen for music? Now, that rock n’ roll is old, established and means so much to so many; why wouldn’t the past be our future? With all of this in mind, Milk St. deliver new old stock about sharp, modern, but classic, problems.
“Good Grief” is a wonderful mess of an indie-rock song, the kind of thing that you would expect to hear on a Pavement rehearsal tape where the band is busy trying to cover T. Rex or Slade. It’s an old sound, but Milk St. bring enough effervescence to the performance and a haunting, emotional set of lyrics that you have to believe that this is the truth for right this very moment.
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]]>The post PowerSolo and Creatures of the Sun Reviewed appeared first on Alt77.
]]>When you watch the news showing the press conferences of presidents and prime ministers, you are, most likely, hearing the words of psychopaths who are smart about disguising their true selves. When you listen to the radio play the same playlist for the hundredth time in a row, you are likely hearing singing performed by colossal egomaniacs.
It’s just how it works. The history books are filled with these kinds of people, and there’s no good reason for any sane, happy man or woman to ever want to have their name added to a history book in the future. Ego makes the world go around. Sting is a man of colossal talents, sure. But if you ask Kim Kix of PowerSolo, not one for self-deprecating humour or much modesty.
“My Songs” is inspired by Sting’s recent reworking of his tunes, and specifically by the title of the project. PowerSolo’s tune, on the other hand, is a loose, bluesy garage-rock number where guitars mumble and scream over lines in which a singer-songwriter explains to his band the amount of colossal luck that has befallen them for being able to exist in this great creator’s orbit. Songwriters everywhere might chuckle, but likely not Sting.
We could all learn a thing or two from the rock musicians of the 1960s. No, I’m not suggesting we bring back the tie-dye shirts and round-shaped, purple glasses into fashion. I’m not even advertising for the kind of chemically charged hobbies that make one get excited about 20-minute guitar solos and lyrics plucked out from the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
All I am saying is, give happiness a chance. Or, at the very least, keep alive the possibility that it might exist. In fact, don’t close the door on any possibility, and be ready to soak in any experience and let the road take you where it may. That’s what Creatures of the Sun are telling themselves and all the world that wants to listen.
“Kaleidoscope” is imbued with the philosophy of the Summer of Love, but sounds like the kind of garage-rock number made inside of a modern, high-tech studio. It’s a tune that owes its swagger not just to the Beatles, but to retro revival groups like the BJM, who’ve now become veterans in their own right. It’s a shimmering, fuzz-driven song about the things that may still be waiting for us if only we give them a proper chance.
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]]>The post Basin Lot and Phasez Reviewed appeared first on Alt77.
]]>There’s a real surge of pessimism lately, and if you’re a citizen of one of the developed countries, it is very likely that you’re feeling it more than others. Ask nearly anyone if things are improving or getting worse, and you’re likely to get a sigh, a bunch of curses and maybe even a hot tear shed.
Are things really getting worse? Or have we just lost confidence that we ourselves and our kind will be able to find solutions to the new problems that seem to appear each? I’d reckon that it’s the latter, and that this accounts for people so desperately looking for confirmation of their beliefs in others. Basin Lot see the same situation, but knows that nobody is wholly innocent.
Musically, “Not Much Difference,” is an attempt at the kind of sophisticated guitar pop that Elvis Costello and only a few other power-pop geniuses have been able to master. Lyrically, this makes for an interesting examination of the death of individuality, the rise of tribalism, and the lack of belief in ourselves. It’s a pop gem for uncertain times.
It’s hard to be a great artist, even a rock singer, and maintain any real secrets. The requirement, it seems to me after thousands of hours of research, is that you have to tell your whole truth and nothing but it, consequences be damned. Sure, we don’t know the name of Morrissey’s spouse, or if he has one, but all his listeners know all the truths that really matter.
In many ways, these rock songwriters are required to be their own guinea pigs. They have to inflict terrible pains on themselves, usually originating from matters of the heart, and then tell the whole wide world what it feels like. They’re required to be hopeless romantics even when all of their peers are pragmatists. That’s the approach that Phasez takes.
The Smiths are certainly a reference point for “Don’t Let Go.” However, it is not just the sound of the Manchester band, but that restlessness and the truthful words about being desperately in love and aching from it. “Don’t Let Go” is a song about identity and how one can’t really experience love while holding too tightly to the person they are at their core. It’s a darkly romantic song about the tragedy of love.
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