Los Campesinos! – My Year In Lists – 14/04/2008
Artist: Los Campesinos!
Title: My Year In Lists
Label: Wichita
Rating 3 out of 5
“…all the best pop songs are short, or short-lived. As are most pop bands careers.” Note Los Campesinos! And at 1:51 in length ‘My Year In Lists’ definitely falls into the category of ‘short’ but unfortunately not into the more exclusive category of ‘all the best pop songs’.
Taken from their rather good debut album ‘Hold On Now, Youngster…’, MYIL is a rather bizarre single choice given the selection they had to pick from, but it will nevertheless further add to their current perception of ‘cool’ that comes inevitably alongside being featured on Skins.
A catchy little song with cute lyrics about impressing your distant partner with your penmanship skills is flawed by its briefness. A couple more verses to help digress what became of the jilted lovers wouldn’t have gone amiss and unfortunately leaves this song with a sense of ‘?’ when it comes to a close.
Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip – Angles – 12/05/2008
Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip
Angles LP
Released 12th May
Sunday Best Records
Rating 4 out of 5
Optimism. It’s a great thing isn’t it? With HV being a natural panglossian we accept that optimism is a day to day feeling for us, but every so often our optimism does end up leading to that inevitable disappointment that we all feel once in a while. Now this may sound like a negative start to this review but don’t fear, this album is great, but we expected more. We expected pure musical brilliance. 12 tracks of audio genius. Unfortunately a couple of tracks really do suffer from filler syndrome (Rappers Battle and Tommy C being the 2 culprits) which disrupt the overall flow of the album.
We all know how brilliant all 3 singles are (with Beat That My Heart Skipped having ‘song of 2008’ potential written all over it) and there are other fantastic tracks to enjoy also; ‘Fixed’ is a rally call to the UK urban scene to pull its socks up, ‘Back From Hell’ is fast-paced dance floor filler and ‘Waiting For The Beat To Kick In’ is a trip around the exceptionally talented Scroobius Pip’s subconscious (which also contains a fantastic hidden track at the end which its exclusion from the track listing rather baffles us).
There is little doubt that this album is a cut above the rest and we shall be listening to it repeatedly this summer, but it’s probably 3 or 4 tracks short of becoming the genre defining masterpiece it had the potential to be.
Young Heart Attack Live Review 31/03/2008
Young Heart Attack
Carling Academy Liverpool
31st March 2008
Rating 4 out of 5
Mmm, I feel a rant coming on…
Attention youth of Britain. There is a 5 piece currently making their way around the UK named ‘Young Heart Attack’, alas, this is a band that if you have the merry opportunity too, you should see them post haste. Why? Because they’re ace. They’re from Austin Texas and their vice in rock and roll in the upmost traditional sense. Think Zepplin, think AC/DC, think music that you don’t actually have to ‘think’ anything about other than simply enjoying yourself.
I know you all have ‘issues’ and no one really ‘understands’ you and that the music of Bloc Party and Foals speaks to you in a way that no one else really ‘gets’ like you but all that teenage angst aside; if you can’t go to a Young Heart Attack gig and not enjoy yourself then you’re not as mature as you think you are.
This gig was basically balls out rock and roll with one main thing letting it down; the crowd. It would appear that YHA’s key demographic are denim clad forty somethings that get as much of a thrill from the music as they do drinking on a work night. A tight and energetic performance was deserved of a much better reception and despite the rather poor delivery of ‘Munki’ off their latest offering ‘Rock and Awe’ where the words “I’m gonna knock your walls down” have never been sang with such uncertainty (so much so it felt that the line should have ended with a question mark) YHA were quite fantastic tonight.
The sad thing is I feel the poor reception may lead to them not returning to blighty anytime soon.
