06/10
04/10
07/10
07/10
The Soft Walls
Tilly & The Wall
Chris Cohen
The Soft Walls
Heavy Mood
Overgrown Path
(Faux Discx/Suplex Cassettes) By Sam Little. In stores now
(Team Love) By David Zammitt. In stores Oct 1
(Captured Tracks) By Sam Walton. In stores Oct 8
Dan Reeves works well in a group. As one third of kraut jam band Cold Pumas he’s an equal part of a very unified organism, pummelling forward in tight synchronisation with his band mates, locked into one endless groove. ‘The Soft Walls’ is all Reeves – the sound of solitude, recorded over the last 9 months, alone.That’s certainly long enough for someone to lose their mind, so perhaps it’s not too surprising that this debut album cruises the canals of deliria, hallucination, odd euphoria and hypnotic washes of ambient found sound. It’s at its best when at its most jarring, coasting from the Wooden Shjips-ish ‘Best If I Go’ to the unexpected bedsit trance of ‘House Concern’, via a minutelong interlude that makes Blanck Mass look busy as hell. God knows what we’re meant to now do with this collection of bad dreams, though. Stare, I guess.
The fourth album from this Nebraskan quintet announces itself with ‘Love Riot’, a barnstorming slice of post-punk revivalism that sees Kianna Alarid channel Siouxsie Sioux with aplomb, while setting Jamie Pressnall’s tap-dance percussion to wonderfully jarring jangle-pop discord. Sadly, it the highlight in an album that never really goes anywhere. ‘Heavy Mood’ is dance punk cast in the DFA mould, but it lacks teeth, while ‘I Believe InYou’ is The xx by numbers; a decent nocturnal ballad that’s undermined by its lazy rhymes: “I believe in you / but I believe in me too”. Elsewhere,‘Thicker Than Thieves’ is a clumsy tribute to friendship that recalls The Offspring at their repugnant worst, while ‘Static Expressions’ is a syrupy Southern rock piece in the vein of Band of Horses. It’s an album that tries its hand at too many genres and lacks the imagination to succeed.
Chris Cohen is one of those play-anything, background-lurking indie journeymen who, despite probably collaborating with all of your top five US scratchy guitar bands, is still outranked by a Nottingham Forrest midfielder on Google. And while ‘Overgrown Path’ is hardly a bid for the mainstream, the former Deerhoof and Haunted Graffiti member’s first album under his own name is a welcome step from the shadows. Combining bedroom psychedelia with sweetly woozy vocals to form an aesthetic that feels dimly familiar rather than directly derivative, Cohen’s songs are full of unexpected rhythmic turns, elegant melodies and chiming guitar lines imbued with the spirit of Syd Barrett and John Lennon.While it occasionally veers from tweeness to tedium, the majority of ‘Overgrown Path’ is a gently seductive, rough diamond of a record.
02/10
The D.O.T.
Tamaryn Tender New Signs
And That
(Mexican Summer) By Melanie McGovern. In stores Oct 15
(The Beats) By John Ford. In stores Oct 22
Dream pop gauzy goodness is something of a creative conjuring of idyllic escape for New Zealand’s Tamaryn. Her collaborations with San Franciscan Rex Johns Shelverton may date back some ten years, but fresh ideas are constantly emerging, and where 2010’s debut album ‘The Waves’ comprised of minimal textures of sound, ‘Tender New Signs’ reveals a louder, more structured approach to songwriting, featuring more prominently melodic guitars that glisten against post-rock hues and retained, distinct woozy vocals. ‘While You’re Sleeping’’s heavy bass echoes through, as ‘No Exits’ exudes heady, reverb-laden streaks of guitar. Certainly the vocals are closer in the mix here, louder and more appealing, but there’s still an intimacy and closeness, and little doubt that as the nights draw in ‘Tender New Signs’ will become a slow burner for the nostalgic of us.
Mike Skinner’s decision to self-destruct The Streets before it looked like he was faking it was extremely admirable. But what do you do when you’ve retired from music at 32? Form a band with Robert Harvey of The Music, it seems.The D.O.T.’s debut album sees Skinner step off the mic in favour of providing rather uninspiring beats and Ibiza synth lines for Harvey to sing over like Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip sucking on a helium balloon. Skinner does chip in on backing vocals from time to time, although unfortunately it’s in order to ‘sing’ rather than rap, and if you’ve heard any Streets record post ‘The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living’ you’ll know that’s a bad thing. More than anything,‘And That’ feels extremely lazy, despite its year-long assembly time, with the drum’n’base 101 beat of ‘What You Livin’ For’ being one of countless disappointments.
The Soft Pack Strapped (Mexican Summer) By Chal Ravens. In stores Oct 1
03/10
How fitting that on 11th September I should turn my good ear to the latest effort from The Soft Pack, a pack of San Diego softies so hopelessly flimsy that they changed their name from The Muslims lest they cause offence to indie dullards by having the tenacity to come up with a single sparky idea in their entire one-note career. So it comes as no surprise that the second album from the renamed janglers is a plateful of microwaved leftovers from the golden age of indie rock, featuring tepid chords in a Bunnymen template, flavourless Iggy Pop ‘tude and stodgy riffs nicked from Albert Hammond Jr’s organic waste box.This all makes ‘Strapped’ sound so much worse than it is, of course – it’s a ten-a-penny fucking indie rock album, and a pretty solid attempt at one, certainly. But alas, it’s my job to step in and say, like a form tutor as she writes your abominable half-term report: “We both know you can do better.”
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