It’s with some amusement that I’ve witnessed people getting their knickers in a twist over what is being seen as Giggs’ glorification of violence and criminality. His proposed UK tour has been scrapped after police contacted the venues he was set to play and warned them off, whilst Trident even went so far as to ring up XL Records in a bid to stop the company signing him. All a bit over the top, eh?

Now maybe I’m both naïve and jaded, but I hear absolutely nothing shocking, controversial or offensive in Giggs’ music. His frequent dropping of the N-bomb, references to drug dealing and guns are simply a slice of life for someone who has grown up on the wrong side of the tracks. It’s not a pretty depiction of British inner city subsistence but it is an honest one, and the very fact that the authorities have so blatantly tried to scupper a young artists career speaks of an institutional contempt for those seeking to express these social realities.

Through his music Giggs is doing something positive and although his lyrical content may be shocking or unpleasant for the kind of people who live on tenterhooks just waiting to take offence at anything that challenges their perception of reality, it’s about time we took our collective hats off to artists like Giggs who refuse to pander to the outraged minority.

No idea whose photo credit this is.

Been listening to Stateless again the last couple of days.  But listening once now triggers a memory from – ooh – 2006 I’d guess, around the time the album came out.

They’re playing at Leeds Rio’s, on its launch night, when it looked like it might be a really good venue.  It ended up not being, but that’s not the point.  It’s launch night, everyone’s excited, and I’m there with a good friend.  I’m on crutches, my leg in a big strap cast, having been dislocated at The Cockpit a few weeks earlier.  It’s probably my first night out since then.

Stateless come onstage.  They launch into Prism #1, which swells and grows around us.  We’re – um – not exactly sober.  The music’s dreamy and ethereal, dancing around the air of the club.  We’re about half-way back, on a riser, hands on the railings, holding on.  The lights swirl.  The music drifts.  I catch my friend’s eye.  We both smile a big, stupid, teeth-grinding smile.  And then dance.  Oh, man, we dance.

Right now, feeling rather ill with a nasty cold, certainly not under the influence of anything (actually not true – have taken some Morrisons Cold Relief Capsules), I listen to the album.  Prism’s just finished playing.  Now Exit is on.  I can’t wait for This Language, ’cause that’s totally another that sends me right back to that night.  And in this state, this state that’s so completely opposite to the one I was in then, all I want to do is dance, alone, in my bedroom.

That’s good music, y’know?

Later that night we headed over to the now defunct Trash and watched some RAWK bands strut their stuff.  We nodded along, still in the mood.  I think I ended up doing a horrible all-nighter at another friend’s house, actually, if it is indeed the same night I’m thinking off.  But it was always totally about Stateless.  What a tremendous record.  It is some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard.

EDIT: It occurs to me I should probably link to some of their music.

Despite selling shed-loads of records in the States Chris Brown is still something of an unknown quantity in Britain. In fact he is probably best known for assaulting his ex girlfriend, the singer Rhianna, and his subsequent sentencing to five years probation and six months community service. Anyone who saw the pictures of Rhianna following the incident and read the graphic accounts of the attack can be in no doubt that Brown subjected his former partner to a vicious assault and then, according to police reports, issued criminal threats to her after the fact. All of which makes him a pretty bad guy in my eyes. But by the same tack, should we try to forgive the perpetrators of such acts or hold them to task for the rest of their days? And should we try and separate an individual and their actions from the art they create?

During the course of doing a Sociology degree I interviewed former Loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, people who had committed multiple murders and spent a significant portion of their lives behind bars. I found myself accepting that they had undoubtedly taken innocent lives, and ruined the lives of their victims families, but also realised that they had done their time and were now trying to deal with their crimes and positively contribute to their communities. In comparison to the murders carried out by these individuals the Chris Brown-Rhianna incident seems trivial, and that is not to suggest in any way that domestic abuse is a trivial matter. It is simply that if we can forgive our former prisoners and allow them to integrate back into society, surely we can do the same for perpetrators of domestic violence.

Another thing which I feel is worth remembering are the countless crimes and misdemeanours that the public forgive in much loved celebrities. Jimmy Page is well documented as having a 14 year old girlfriend at the height of Led Zeppelin’s fame. Tupac Shakur, a man who has been practically deified since his murder in 1996, was a convicted rapist. Whilst national treasure Sean Connery has been quoted as saying it is acceptable for a man to hit his wife, as long as it is an open handed slap.

And what of Swizz Beatz and Lil Wayne, are they guilty by association? If they are then we must also judge the likes of Danger Mouse and The Black Keys who were set to collaborate with Ike Turner shortly before his death, not to mention anyone who has worked with Ozzy Osbourne, a man who is on record as trying to kill his wife Sharon.

Even on a more personal level, if a friend of yours was to admit to you that they had hit their girlfriend would you instantly terminate the friendship, ostracising them and turning them into a social pariah? Or would you try and help them realise why what they did was wrong and offer them the necessary support to sort themselves out before their life went down the toilet? I would like to imagine I would do the latter. It’s that thought that is tempering my enjoyment of the really rather funky new Chris Brown single, which you can watch here.

Photo by RAS Photography

Upon approach to the bar I clocked the unfamiliar presence of bouncers and an oddly official looking sign proclaiming ‘NO DAMNATION FESTIVAL TICKET HOLDERS’. Thankfully due to my decidedly non-rockin’ jeans and suit jacket combo, plus a haircut that looks like a particularly cheap Beatles wig, I passed unnoticed through the doors and into the Old Bar’s refreshingly low rent ambience. And thank God for that. Beyond those well fortified doors lay a truly ungodly horde, hellions to a man and uniformly drunk in their leather finery, dubious facial hair and cider addled minds.

I am an unapologetic square and refused to have any truck with these miscreants, I was an embedded journalist reporting from behind enemy lines and was there for one reason and one reason only; to see the mighty Therapy? And to get a few words from them on their best album in years, the heavy and beguilingly hypnotic Crooked Timber. Let me be honest, I was excited. I fucking love Therapy? I rank them up there with the greatest rock bands of the 1990s, alongside the likes of The Afghan Whigs. Across albums like Infernal Love, Troublegum and Suicide Pact – You First, Therapy? forged an intensely abrasive, visceral hybrid of punk and metal with a real ear for melody and hooks that stay lodged in your head for years. And unlike the majority of their contemporaries they never disbanded or descended into self parody or malaise. Crooked Timber is their 12th album and marks the third appearance of their new drummer Neil Cooper, the tub thumper who took the stool following the departure of their original drummer Fyfe Ewing in 1994, and his replacement Graham Hopkins who left after the Jack Endino produced album Shameless.

Let me back up a bit. My love affair with Therapy? began some time around 1995 when I was 12. By that time they had been together six years and had already released the devastatingly bleak and brutal Babyteeth and Pleasure Death mini albums on Wiiija Records, before recording their major label debut LP Nurse for A&M Records. 1994 heralded their biggest selling album Troublegum and the mainstream success that would follow and essentially overshadow the rest of their career. Troublegum is a fucking amazing piece of work, containing genuine anthems like Nowhere, Stop It You’re Killing Me and the timeless Screamager. But it was the troubled, druggy follow up Infernal Love that was to truly catch my imagination and chain my heart to this dysfunctional Ulster rock band for the rest of my life. I could happily extol the virtues of Infernal Love until the cows come home but the proof is in the pudding and I would unreservedly encourage anyone out there to grab themselves a copy of the album to explore its Dionysian depths for themselves.

So it’s really an odd one that all these years down the line I was sat waiting to interview Therapy? front man and chief songwriter Andy Cairns alongside his long term partner in crime, bassist Michael McKeegan for The Daily Scoundrel. And by crikey I must admit I was a tad nervous which isn’t an emotion I feel very often. Please don’t mistake my usual lack of nerves as a sign of bravery, in fact it’s the opposite. I am a terrible coward and have so dulled my emotional responses over the years through a healthy diet of booze, drugs and soul destroyingly base hardcore pornography that I exist in a natural state of blank eyed inertia. Yet there I sat drinking a £1.45 pint of Carlsberg and feeling little butterflies in my (not inconsiderable) belly. Although in truth some of my nervousness could have been attributed to the straight line of obnoxious student alpha males who had plonked themselves down directly opposite me and immediately began shouting ridiculous abuse at the big screen TV showing Premier League football. Imagine me, looking like a young Terry Wogan impersonator, listening to Crooked Timber on my MP3 player and jotting down additional questions for the mighty T? whilst these utter shafters frothed at the mouth with fuck wittery like, “Go on Lampard you fat bastard”, and, “The ref’s a fuckin’ nonce”, all the while seething with the kind of malevolent rage that would be better suited to armed manoeuvres in Helmand Province as opposed to a down at heel union bar in West Yorkshire.

So my nerves were understandingly somewhat jangled by the time I hooked up with Therapy?’s tour manager, who was rather disconcertingly dressed in blood stained surgeons whites, and was whisked backstage. Before I knew it I was in the door and shaking hands with my boyhood heroes who wasted no time in very generously treating me to their beer rider. And as anybody who has ever spent time with musicians knows, this kind of hospitality is very rare! So trying to act well casual, like a virgin that’s just landed a first date with Pam Grier, I began the interview.

The atmosphere in the Therapy camp was mellow, subdued and almost Zen like. You immediately get a sense that they’ve been around the block a few times and bare the stoic Ulster charm of men who have travelled the world but never lost their accents. And what an affable pair Cairns and McKeegan are, immediately putting me at ease and never once making me feel like the interloping, phoney, fan boy hack I clearly am.

First on the agenda was Crooked Timber which Cairns describes as a move away from the more melodic, conventional rock band fare found on their last two albums, Never Apologise Never Explain and One Cure Fits All. This move into the more murky, atmospheric side of T?’s music was prompted by collective writing sessions in their Derby based practice space, in which they worked on riffs, song structures and the tunes that would form the basis of the album. There are references to the return of the “eastern modes” that characterised their early work, as well as the inspiration that comes with working within the parameters of a three piece, and with producer Andy Gill.

Gill is probably best known as an original member of the angular English rock band Gang of Four, and from all accounts his approach to working with Therapy? was both challenging and rewarding. One incident recounted fondly was Gill informing drummer Neil Cooper a day before tracking for the album began that he would have to record parts of his kit separately. “But”, says Cairns, “the great thing about Andy is that he doesn’t balk at ideas. If you say you want the chorus to sound like a haunted amusement park he’ll work it out”. Furthermore Gill’s mainly analogue recording gear lends some truly beautiful atmospherics to stand out tracks like Exiles and Clowns Galore. Perhaps another one of the most striking elements of CT is the lyrical content, which sees a change from the open wound rage that characterised their early work. Cairns admits this more existential viewpoint is the product of a personal health scare earlier in the year and the influence of legendary Irish writer Samuel Beckett.

Indeed Therapy? are a band who have always littered their work with obscure references to literature, movies and music, and their new album is no exception. The jazz inflected guitar solo on the track Enjoy The Struggle is lifted from Charlie Mingus’ Haitian Fight Song, and when I suggest to Cairns that it reminds me of the line in The Simpson’s where Lisa implores a fellow jazz fan to listen to the notes that aren’t being played he admits that during jazz improv piano classes he was advised that, “If you hit a wrong note, go back and hit it again!”.

Ironically Therapy? are not a band who have ever “hit it again”, retreading old glories in the pursuit of critical or commercial success. They have in fact weathered a plethora of diabolical musical fads like Brit-pop and come out the other side with their identity and dignity intact. Although they admit that along the way they have been given some extremely shoddy and cynical advice. Including one point around the turn of the century when Nu-Metal was in full swing, and they were advised by a record company exec that, “Coal Chamber are the biggest selling metal act at the moment, you should get a girl in the band”. Dubious suggestions aside both McKeegan and Cairns appear to view their long career with a real sense of pride. Indeed when I mention the numerous bands now getting back together to perform classic albums in their entirety both chaps seem interested in the idea. McKeegan admits he would be more than happy to revisit albums like Infernal Love and Troublegum in a live setting, whilst admitting that he has lost respect for bands who hate each others guts but reunite purely for financial reasons. Fortunately this is a problem T? will never have. As the amiable bass maestro puts it, “We’ve never broken up, slagged each other off and said -he’s a cunt, she’s a cunt…”.

Whilst on the topic of past glories I couldn’t help but ask a question which has been bugging me for a while now. Troublegum was, and is, Therapy’s biggest selling release, containing some of their most melodic work. Yet I feel there has been a ridiculous amount of historical revisionism from critics when it comes to the album, with many viewing it a straight up day-glo punk pop offering despite the dark, troubling and narcissistic tone that pervades even its lightest moments. Cairns seems to agree, giving me a great little anecdote,

“(The music mag) Q reviewed So Much For The Ten Year Plan, our greatest hits album, and when they got to Troublegum they described it as Blink 182 without the fart gags. I stopped listening to reviews and press a long time ago , but I could have kicked them in the arse”.

But one can’t help but feel that Therapy? have always been, and will continue to be, a misunderstood prospect. Too punk for the metal kids, too metal for the punk kids, too melodic for the hardcore scenesters and too abrasive for the emo brigade. For most this lack of genre specificity would be a burden but T? seem to relish their ambiguity, looking equally at home on an exclusively metal bill like Damnation Fest or playing one of Europe’s many indie orientated summer festivals.

So there it was, as quickly as I’d arrived tour manager Richard was in the door telling me to wrap up, with only enough time to thanks the guys for their hospitality and have a quick peek at the set list for later that evening. One look at the smorgasboard of treats on offer and I skipped out of the backstage area a happy bunny, knowing that in an hour or two I was in for an aural treat to remember.

The Damnation Festival crowd were a mixed bag at best. All ages, shapes and sizes present and correct; goths, punks, psycho-billies, over the hill grungers, crusties, poseurs, skinheads, riot grrrls, straight edgers, deadheads and all manner of weekend rockers who probably work in IT five days a week before slipping on their old Carcass T-shirts. Thankfully I’d had time to sink a few more beverages and was feeling fresh and uninhibited by the time Therapy? took the stage to massive applause. But within seconds of their opening number I was accosted by a guy who looked to me for all the world like the freakish hitch hiker at the beginning of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Gesticulating wildly in his shirtless, cut off leather waist coat he was demanding that I dance, sing and ‘rock out’. Fearing that his next request would be that I ‘squeal like a pig’, I hastily took myself to the back of the crowd where I could watch the show in peace, make notes and not be complemented on my ‘real pretty mouth’.

What followed was a top drawer career spanning set, with the likes of Rain Hits Concrete and Bad Excuse For Daylight mixing with stone cold gems from their early years such as Skyward and Punishment Kiss. And, although it’s a massive cliché to admit it, Screamager is still one of the most perfect slices of pop rock ever written and never fails to raise a smile and get the feet moving. As they closed with their balls to the wall cover of Joy Division’s Isolation I was struck with a real sense of gratitude that a band like Therapy? are still around, still going strong and writing music that never feels like a capitulation to cooler than thou taste makers or money men.

Ah, it was truly an experience to remember. Therapy? I salute you, here’s to another twenty years!

Flights of fancy aside, I am of course talking about chart bothering popsters the Black Eyed Peas. But before we get onto them here’s a story I think many people will be able to relate to.

Do you remember having a friend in high school that you were pretty tight with? Long boring Saturday afternoons would be spent in each others company watching bad films, smoking weed, listening to the Ramones and generally killing time together. Then one day your mate gets a girlfriend. Let’s call her Lilith. Lilith appears plain and conservative and normal. She does not like drinking Morrison’s own brand vodka from a sippy cup. She does not enjoy John Carpenter’s Vampires on VHS. She couldn’t care less about The Ramones’ 1980s output. And she certainly doesn’t care about you.

Yet your mate finds her endlessly fascinating and his time is increasingly eaten up by her. He accepts the petty indignities she inflicts upon him on a daily basis. She openly flirts with other guys, stands him up frequently and audibly scoffs at his minor attempts at self expression. Before long he is a withered husk of his former self. A shadow.

Lilith has made him throw out his porn collection, all those years of work down the drain. His nights and weekends are spent driving her to work. He then sits in the car park waiting for her shift to end, joylessly cramming Burger King Double Whoppers into his ashen face and smoking Lambert & Butler cigarettes with the blank expression favoured by aged crones in their pyjamas sat outside hospitals. And even when you do see him, when Lilith is on one of her girl’s nights out where she ‘accidentally’ fucks the door man of your local pub, he is as distracted as an abused animal. He constantly checks his phone for txts and paces the room ceaselessly. Because by this stage it is pretty obvious that Lilith is poison.

Well my friends, the very same thing could well be said as having happened to The Black Eyed Peas.
For old timers like myself who can remember the 1990s with horrifying clarity the ‘Peas were altogether a very different proposition from the cartoonish and ubiquitous shite hawks now soiling the ears and consciousness of the great unwashed. The three original members will.i.am, apl.de.ap and taboo performed interesting, slightly back-packy hip hop backed by a live band. Their first two albums Behind The Front and Bridging The Gap were enjoyable if slightly workmanlike slices of intelligent rap. But then came 2004’s Elephunk and the singing talents of The Black Eyed Peas’ very own Lilith, the one and only Stacy Ferguson aka Fergie. Now, to slag Fergie off would be unfair. Fergie is Fergie, much as Lilith is Lilith. You don’t blame a scorpion for its sting or a shark for its rows of razor sharp teeth. In fact the original all male trio must feel a certain sense of vindication at their new found mainstream success with Fergie onboard, but they must also secretly acknowledge that their music since her arrival has been uniformly bollocks.

One has only to look at the video for The Black Eyed Peas recent single ‘I Gotta Feeling’ to see how far they have fallen. Aside from the sheer clunking desperation of the song itself, a half arsed paean to partying, the video tells a story that a million words could not. One look into the eyes of nominal band leader will.i.am is all that is needed to see that he fully realises he is producing artless dreck, and that he hates himself for it. The other two blokes appear slightly bemused but ultimately contented, like lottery winners or contestants on an ITV Saturday night game show. Fergie meanwhile just looks like a prostitute. Seriously, it’s like the director has walked onto the set of the video, taken one look at her and exclaimed to the wardrobe department, “Proz her up a bit would you for fuck’s sake?!”.

The lyrics to their recent output have been equally excreable. ‘Boom Boom Pow’ is an exercise in fuck-wittery so terrible it naturally went straight to Number One in the charts. Simultaneously aspirational and meaningless bargain basement rhymes like “I’m on that HD Flat, This beat go boom boom bap” manage to go beyond sheer awfulness to actually take on the grim suggestion of some indescribable future horror.

I’m not suggesting we burn their records in the street or consign them to the nether regions of pop history like Gary Glitter, Jonathan King and The Fast Food Rockers but let’s be honest, these jokers are riding high upon a wave of pure dross fuelled by the moronic sensibility of the majority of the worlds population. If your last enjoyable cultural experience was the film ‘Superbad’ and the last book that really blew you away was the work of Dan Brown then my words are essentially anathema. But please see me as a benevolent figure, a harsh but fair stepfather with your best interests at heart. As William Blake said, ‘the cut worm forgives the plough’. With so many artists making exciting, genre bending hip hop right now there’s simply no excuse for listening to this most diabolical quartet. Rant over.

By crikey, there’s three stages with a positive smorgasbord of dark delights for even the most discerning rock fan. Greek Metallers Rotting Christ play alongside Akercocke on the Terrorizer Stage, with grind core super group Lock Up taking the headline slot for their first live performance in the UK for the best part of a decade.

There’s treats aplenty on the Rock Sound Stage too, including This Will Destroy You, Minsk and former Godflesh man Justin Broadrick’s new band Jesu. Whilst the Jaegermeister Stage plays host to Irish metal heroes Therapy?, and, in a jaw dropping coup for Damnation Festival, a set from alternative legends Life of Agony. A top drawer line up and a real treat for fans that promises to be a truly explosive day for all. Grab your tickets here and see ya there!

*Growl* Photograph: Michael Dolan

I am not going to beat around the bush here, The Cubical’s new album, ‘Come Sing These Crippled Tunes’ is nothing short of fantastic.

From the first track right through to the last it never loses any of the excitement that the band seem to carry around with them in abundance. I was fortunate enough to spend a bit of time with the band in Edinburgh recently and shared a flat with them for a night. Several beers later and we were singing Shakin’ Stevens’ famous Christmas song, lead singer Dan wobbling his knees around and the rest of us stomping our feet on the floor like the morning was never going to break. The sofa tore back and Percy the drummer was magically surrounded by his drum kit. Alex, one of the guitarists, pulled his Tele’ from nowhere and struck all the right chords and we were away, dancing and singing at the top of our voices.  Sadly, the bar was right below us and we knocked of a couple of ceiling tiles, which made the Landlord less than happy – so we soon had to stop.

This did give me time to ask a few questions about their new album. Recorded for the most part in Sunset Sound Studios, Hollywood by Dave Sardy (Oasis, Wolfmother, Marilyn Manson) the band told me that it was the first time they truly felt like ‘musicians’. This feeling clearly comes through on the record, which shimmers with clever guitar work and great vocal presence throughout. The production works well, the distant bottom end and bright sparkly treble sandwich the achingly croaky lead vocals perfectly and you get the feeling that Sardy really got a grip for what the band was going for. Vocal led, blues backed, ear swamping spasms of sharp riffs and great Beach Boys style backing vocals. Its a combination that works well and its an interesting mix of musical influences balanced atop one another perfectly that have gained the group their ‘I recognise that sound…but it’s SO fresh’ style.

But, for a band with so much talent, they don’t seem particularly bothered by the fact they make some of the best music this writer has heard in a long, long time. “I hate it when drummers ask me about the kit that I use, like what kick drum do I have…” says Percy, the drummer, “…I don’t give a f**k as long as a banging comes out of it.” It all seems second nature to these guys, like you can give them any instrument and put them on a stage and they will make catchy infectious tunes for you to shake your legs around to.

Kicking off with the great backing vocal hook-line of ‘Great White Lie’ the first three tracks of the album grab you by the collar of your shirt and tell you exactly what The Cubical are going to do for you. Slicing bluesy driven guitar lines move in and out of one another making your head spin, whilst gravely dark vocals sputter some of the best lyrics I have come across for along time. The album then lets your catch your breath, just enough to sing along with the fantastic backing vocal line on ‘In the Night’.

‘All is Well’ is a haunting piano driven song with lyrics that, quite frankly, scare the shit out of me.  But then, after a short silence my fear is turned to excitement as the echoey drums crank up the volume for one of the albums strongest tracks, ‘Like Me (I’m a Peacock)’ with some of the most fantastic lyrics on the whole album:

“You never even liked me, and I stand for family values,

I’m the rumbling in your tummy, the ventriloquist’s dummy.

I’m your first love, your mortgage, your dog and your priest,

I am the artist recently deceased.

I’m your coupon, your token, gift horse whilst stocks last,

I put the eye in the looking glass.”

And this is just one example from an album full of great writing both musically and lyrically, that work together to paint a sinister picture. It’s music that has perfect potential to rip through the charts and cast a long, 1960’s shadow over modern popular music.

I have to admit, after seeing the band live and seeing how much presence they had on stage, I was surprised by the number of slower tracks on the album. To be fair though, I was more surprised by how much I enjoyed them. The lyrics weave such perfect images in your mind that there is no way you can’t be interested, “Everything you touch, turns to rust. Everything you own, just crusts”. You find yourself willingly listening intently to every word and that is something I find I can do with very few artists. From here follow a jangly few tunes, with the wonderfully tongue-in-cheek song ‘Ratty’ been a particularly highlight, with its zippy slide guitar harking back to the fantastic work of Mr. Zoot Horn Rollo.

A wonderfully dark tune ‘Would be Lovers’ concludes the album and you walk away with a very defined picture of what The Cubical are capable of. The album is up and down all the way through, which for me is such a blessing. I am tired of listening to an exciting album only to find that seven or eight tracks in, there are only a few acoustic songs of the band messing around slapped on the end. ‘Come Sing These Crippled Tunes’ is a piece. It is a whole. There are some great stand out songs on there, but the only way to fully take it all in is to stick on a pair of headphones and listen to the guitars dance in your ears, underneath the booming voice of lead singer Dan Wilson.

DH

http://www.myspace.com/thecubicalthecubical

]]> http://thedailyscoundrel.com/2009/10/09/music-the-cubical-come-sing-these-crippled-tunes/feed/ 0 http://thedailyscoundrel.com/2009/10/09/thoughts-on-zero-7-yeah-ghost/ http://thedailyscoundrel.com/2009/10/09/thoughts-on-zero-7-yeah-ghost/#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:26:22 +0000 Lewis http://thedailyscoundrel.com/?p=519

Even the cover art's more abstract than ever before.

Zero 7 must be pretty annoyed by the majority’s reaction to their new record, Yeah Ghost.  Released last week to a collection of relatively decent reviews, there’s a thread running through both the critical and consumer commentary.  Zero 7 has always been the baby of Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker, and there’s no change to that formula now, but the concensus seems to be the same either way: it just isn’t the same without Sia.

Sia, of course, now has a lucrative solo career, and with good reason.  Her soulful voice combined with more commercial pop songs has been going down a treat for a few years now, with her ear for a good melody shining through everything she writes and performs.  But while she was never even a full-time member of Zero 7, it would be silly to claim her departure to be irrelevant.  Her distinctive tones lent themselves perfectly to a sizealbe chunk of the renowned electronica band’s first three albums, something this outing lacks.  And, y’know, it’s noticeable.  The vocal talent on display here is more than strong enough, but there’s little escaping the facts.  It isn’t the same without her.

But I can’t help but feel that’s more to do with the core duo’s shift than the lack of their previous lead vocalist.  It’s very different.  Where previous records took on a warm, dreamlike, almost ecstatic vibe, Yeah Ghost is colder, more mechanical, more calculated.  There are definite shades 0f both Massive Attack and Radiohead here, though none of it is ever quite as good, and it’s also littered with up-tempo segments that struggle to sit neatly into the formula.  It retains a lot of Zero 7’s soulfulness, but it manifests in a different way; it’s more subtle, more restrained but more abstract.  Certainly less immediate.

There’s a reason why the band proved so popular in the past.  The way the vocals, keyboards and general production flowed was so masterfully cohesive that their output ended up feeling almost improvised, always thoroughly natural and hugely evocative.  That’s not the case any more, and it’s easy to see why die-hard fans are upset. Only Swing sounds much like you’d expect from the act, with Martha Tilston (who I’ll namedrop as the sister of a friend of a friend, which sounded much more impressive before I just wrote that) acting as a fitting replacement for Sia.  And there’s always the sense that there have been other artists making this sort of music for years, a lot of whom continue to do it just that little bit better.

But Yeah Ghost is more than strong enough to stand up high via its own merits.  It’s a solid record, perfect for idle nodding-along, and one I imagine could be quite a grower.  There’s a splendid attention to detail in the production, and those of a more typical trip-hop ilk will find a lot to love.  And I’ll never bemoan an artist maturing and experimenting with different approaches.  I’ll tip my hat to that any day.  I would if I wore one, at least.

But secretly?  I’d love to hear a new Destiny, or In The Waiting Line, or Somersault.  I can’t escape my own fandom.

We're all lowercase now, apparently.

Here’s a fact: Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams and I share a birthdate.  Not just a birthday, you understand, but an actual, proper, full-fucking-on birthdate.  I like to think we’re actually estranged twins and one day we’re going to meet, in some sort of hugely emotional embrace, and she’ll somehow imbue on me her power to become an incredibly famous musician by the time she was in her late teens.  Which, um, would actually be a little too late, thinking about it.

Anyway, the point is, here’s a woman in her early twenties whose band has already had a string of successful singles, two huge albums, and a third that’s very likely to reach the same level of stratospheric fandom.  And for the first time – the first proper time, at least – here’s a woman and a band and a record that absolutely deserves just that.

Rewind, then.  Paramore’s first record, All We Know Is Falling, was a fiesty little pop-punk record with plentiful aggression and huge promise for a stunningly angry red-haired teenage singer.  It was immature and a little naive, though, holding it back from enormous brilliance.  Next came 2007’s Riot!, which was the one to really propel the band into the limelight, here in the UK at least.  Driven by lead single Misery Business, it was a more finely crafted, carefully produced record, but the songwriting had edged away from the angry punk niceness and into the realms of – dare we say the horrible word? – emo…

And now, thankfully, Paramore seem to have absolutely cracked the formula that made them so almost-brilliant since their inception.  It’s still whiney to the extreme at times, but on far more occasions it’s a masterful display of controlled anger.  And even then, the band finds time to drop out into a couple of subdued numbers, including – incredibly – an acoustic track.  Less impressively, it’s one of the album’s weaker moments.

This is Paramore after their Left 4 Dead tournament. They had a Left 4 Dead tournament. Are you not totally sold?

But what really shines is how finely tuned the band’s songwriting has become.  This is pristine aggro-pop.  There’s an added complexity to the musicianship, which alone is worth the asking price.  But the construction of each tune, filled with memorable melodies, inch-perfect pacing and real head-banging, foot-stomping statements of young, smug defiance.  Even in the actual structuring and performance of each song, totally disregarding the lyrics (mainly because I’ve paid precisely fuck all attention to them), has made a bold jump away from heart-on-sleeve angsting to complete, utter fuck-you.  It’s brilliant.

Poor the-rest-of-the-band, though: smart, just-a-little-bit-cute Williams has already completely stolen the limelight, and here’s she’s only likely to disappear further into the sky, heralded as some sort of teen-rocker heart-throb who can actually really fucking sing.  Seriously.  This woman has an absolute command over her voice these days, with astonishing power combined with wholly impressive precision throughout.  She can tone it down, too, though, and there are a few moments of delightful fragility.  Only a few, though, and it’s always a great moment when she’s back to screaming her little heart out – but it shows really bright things for Williams, who seems to have completely come into her own for this outing.  I’d say she’s a star in the making, but she’s totally already there.

And, y’know?  Fuck this guilty pleasure thing I’ve had going on for Paramore for the last couple of years.  There’s nothing guilty about this.  It’s passionate, clever and immensely enjoyable pop music.  Only a couple of isolated moments let it down – the last couple of tracks are decent but slightly forgettable, and the bonus track – Decode, from the Twighlight film – is Paramore straying way too far into Evanescence territory.  But bloody hell, this is good, man!  It’s an album I’m dead proud of liking, and one Paramore should absolutely be dead proud of themselves.  By far their brightest hour.

Snap from the band's Myspace album.

Here’s a band I’ve been vaguely following for a while.  They’re based mainly in Oxford, I think, and are a really promising outfit.  I reviewed their last EP over at The Line of Best Fit a while back, and have done the same again for their new record – the resulting article should be up in the near future, I assume.

Parts are a little shaky – the bass work is particularly annoying, and I find myself wanting to scream at the bassist to tone down some of the complexity and put down his bloody plectrum.  Some of the songs could do to go a little further than they do, as well.  But largely, I really, really like them.  It’s just so dreamy and pretty, and the newly introduced male/female vocals work brilliantly.  I love how fragile it all is – as if a gust of wind would break every piece of every song.  Hugely evocative, vulnerable and emotive stuff.

Here’s their Myspace.  Yes, I ventured onto Myspace for you lot.  Standout track on there is probably Letters.  But do give the lot a listen.  I hope The Gullivers can refine their sound a little bit more.  If so, they could be on to a real winner.