The Reader/Listener Reviews: Introduction and The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars Review

My partner is not a "book nerd" like me. Near the end of last year I walked her into the local library and announced loudly: "And this is a library!" Several heads turned, librarian jaws dropped, a head poked out from the office... is this for real? Has this person seriously never visited a library before?

In our conversations, my partner expressed much enthusiasm towards books, especially as a part of her youth, but the case being that she wasn't one who read much, if at all. Eyesight problems also put much of an end to this. I was able to relate that I did a consistent amount of reading as a teenager but trailed off in my twenties when eyesight problems also gave me the run around. By the time I reached thirty years of age, I was down to one book a year (having averaged around thirty or so in my teens). Reading to my partner began more out of an interest in her hearing my poetry and then the two novels I have written: I am the Local Atheist and Auralye on a Harp. When we talked more about the books I loved and wanted to re-read (Dune), and the books I thought I might never get around to reading (1984), I suggested I read those to her as well. This was an idea she absolutely adored.

We begun with Animal Farm, of which I reviewed on my own. And then preceded onto three novels at once - Lolita, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, and The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars - taking breaks on each book as they tired us out until, often, we only had a two or three chapters left and plugged through to the end.

Reading out loud is a challenge. It demands the reader have a feel for certain traits that get vocalised, while also varying character voices. This does not mean that I suddenly have to put on a "female voice", it simple means a slightly higher tone mixed with a certain characteristic - so long as my partner remembers who that tone inflection belongs to in case the author has forgotten to tell the reader who the character is speaking, or as often happens, simply doesn't indicate through actions, or positioning within a scene. Often, in fact, I've had to look ahead to the "[character name] said" at the end of a sentence before reading the sentence, so issues like that tend to pop up in my reviews, because as both a reader and a listener, that interrupts the flow of dialogue.

The first book we finished together was The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars 

Mostly we do this for fun, but also for both my partner and I to get an opportunity to have experienced many books we both may never have read.

Mutoid Man: War Moans (Album Review)

Like a short, sharp, stabbing of hardcore, ‘Melt Your Mind’ comes at the listener with fast paced drums and bass setting up the flurry of attacks by the guitar. Brodsky’s vocals charge in with a scream before confidently singing “Feel the heat of a fire at your feet rising up one smoke-ring at a time, in this life we all get left behind so maybe, it’s gonna work out fine. Take it from me – don’t let it melt your mind.” Appropriate metal imagery has been reforged to bring positive balance to the thrashing instruments throughout and the album feels like an uplifting assault that sweeps the listener away with it. I can imagine crowds cheering and singing along to the line “Blow! Blow me a kiss of death” (‘Kiss of Death’).

In 2005 Cave In collaborated with Ben Koller from Converge on a two song single split ‘Shapeshifter / Dead Already’ and for the most part, this is where Brodsky and Koller decided to pick up from when they started jamming again in 2012. In 2013 the duo released the EP Helium Head, followed up in 2016 by Bleeder. Heart palpitating, unleashed fury is the best way to describe the music on these releases. It’s like the ugly offspring of hardcore and thrash metal who doesn’t care what you think but still wants to lift you up into the flames of rejuvenation.

‘Micro Aggression’ continues the bold attack while ‘Date with the Devil’ is a fun tale that ends with “Came inside her, Satan’s daughter; nine months later, who’s the father? Another day drags, tail between her legs.” Brodsky doesn’t discuss how the date came about, but the results are warning enough.

‘Irons in the Fire’ begins like an ode to both Iron Maiden and Metallica before quickly bringing back the thrash to remind the listener that this isn’t mainstream Heavy Metal here, it’s pure Metalcore!

‘Open Flame’ is a sleeper stand out that felt much like the rest of the album until I sat down and had a good listen to the song. “I tasted open flame, my tongue burned off again” rushes through two verses to get us to a bridge with pounding drums, and here the song breaks down with a guitar figure that feels like the protagonist has taken a much needed breather in preparation for the finale.

With Bleeder I felt there was a focus more on the rock and the melody, but on War Moans, while melody is still intact, the thrash has been brought to the forefront and propels everything forward with even more intensity. When the music slows down on the final track ‘Bandages’, that intensity is felt even more as Brodsky pines “Bandages on me – I’m wounded in love; Bandages on me – to cut off the blood.” A cutting guitar figure interplays with the bass over a trippy atmospheric backing, and distinctive vocals always make lines like “Scare, in the shape of my face, a version of me falling free” always feel heartfelt and sincere.

In a world where albums are getting unnecessarily longer to gain hit-counts on streaming websites, Mutoid Man reminds us at a mere 40 minutes the importance of not wearing out the listener by keeping songs at a 3-4 minute length and packing every second with tight playing, massive riffs and catchy melodies. I can’t personally claim to like this more than Bleeder, but that’s just my own taste and perhaps a bit more variety on the tempo and riff front on the previous album, but War Moans has everything that a listener of melodic metalcore could want: Riffs are furious, chords burn, bass thumps, drums pound, and vocals soar.




Mutoid Man - War Moans - Albums - Reviews - Soundblab

Young Legionnaire: Zero Worship

It was hard to believe that Young Legionnaire would write a follow up album to 2011’s Crisis Works that was better, or even just as good. A part of me believed it could be just as good, but second albums rarely hit the same nail on the head with as much precision. Thankfully the band haven’t even tried hitting the same nail and instead have left the indie feel of the début behind and gone for more of an alternative rock focus (though, to be be fair, much of Crisis Works was more Alternative than it was Indie – if that even means anything). This is a blessing in disguise, because it means they get to take some of the harder and heavier riffs that were at times less focussed on Crisis Works and infuse them with a Muse-like heaviness appropriate to the album. ‘Mortgage Rock’ from Crisis Works is more in line with what this new album is about, though also there’s a bit more focus on production as well.

‘Year Zero’ is a fine opener that cements themes, but also showing that this rock band can use their instruments to produce an Electronic vibe. The scrappiness of ‘Twin Victory’ and ‘Numbers’ can be found in ‘Heart Attack’, though in this one song there is also the low ebb that can be found in ‘Chapter, Verse’, but where ‘Chapter, Verse’ felt unnecessarily drawn out (at 5:16), ‘Heart Attack’ keeps it’s length concise and to the point allowing the odd time signature to thump out the chords and drag you through on it’s own.

‘Hail, Hail’ isn’t a cover of the Pearl Jam song and it doesn’t quite hit any high points until the 3-4 section – which is reminiscent of Shellac’s ‘QRJ’ – interrupts. Fortunately it is still good. In fact, it is consistently good, which pretty much serves as it’s own high point.
‘Simone’ is a tender song about the process of losing someone close, perhaps in a relationship, and later on ‘You and Me’ reconciles this loss with acceptance.

‘Candidate’ brings the staccato guitar and vocals, with rumbling bass underneath and another heavy riff interruption. Right when ‘Sawn-Off Shotgun’ feels like it added nothing to the poundingly heavy guitar attack and went by without even being noticed, ‘You and Me’ brings in the acoustic guitar to start the song off and replaces it with barely noticeable electrics again. This song is the calmest and most subtle with instruments working together as the song details regret and coming to terms with how a relationship has changed: “And I promise next time things will be different…”

‘Disappear’, the first single, ends up feeling the most like a song from Crises Works – remove most of the production and it would fit on Crisis Works no problem. On first listening to the album, ‘Disappear’ feels a little lacklustre – not so much the songs fault, but more at this point, it feels too similar to other songs. It is still a good song, but it doesn’t quite hit any highlights and here might have been a great chance to bring back some acoustics in the verses to add that much needed variety. In fact, I’d go as far to say, as my own personal preference, here is a song that I’d much rather hear in a full acoustic setting. ‘There Will Be An Escape Hatch’ is a sombre finale with softly pounding drums – the entire song reminds me a lot of We Were Promised Jetpacks.

Variety without tonal shifts are everything when it comes to helping an album feel like one unified whole and the album uses the wide ranging guitar riffs and time signatures to do this. What is missing from Zero Worship is the catchy chorus’s that catapulted songs like ‘These Arms’ into stratospheric flights of memorability. On the other hand, where Crisis Works relied mostly on the three band member set up and only added a second guitar track or backing vocals with some subtlety, Zero Worship takes this to a logical progression by focusing more on the soundscape and increasing the guitar and vocal layering with some subtle touches of reverb. Though an increase in production technique can at times feel a little overwhelming, especially when wondering if compression is an issue (on this album it’s definitely not), what really stands out is the fact that all three band members continue to be heard: from Paul Mullen’s distinct vocals and guitar playing, Gordon Moakes individual bass lines, and Dean Pearson’s solid, fluid, and never boring drumming – though perhaps the drums feel the weakest in terms of being heard through the guitar layering.

Overall, I feel that the album is so consistent in it’s quality, that it actually lacks a stand out track (they are all pretty awesome tracks!). And maybe this is just a personal qualm: there seems to be no ‘A Hole in the World’ that will serve as a template for my feelings in this part of my life right now, though either ‘Simone’ or ‘You and Me’ might just be that song for another person; no ‘Mortgage Rock’ that encapsulates everything I love about Hard Rock while still being firmly in the Alternative/Indie Rock camp, though the staccato guitars, drawn out vocals and catchy chorus of ‘Hospital Corners’ does well to bring me close.

If there’s one major complaint, it’s that the songs don’t really develop a great deal, if at all. Songs start and then end without much happening in between other than what you’ve already been hearing. Now, this isn’t just about dynamics, ups and downs, quiets and louds, it’s also about melodic shape, vocal tones, and chord changes. Often songs start and the vocals stay at the same register, chords often don’t feel like they’ve moved away from the initial harmony set-up – ‘Hail, Hail’ and ‘Sawn-Off Shotgun’ being major culprits of this. This is why I feel that ‘Disappear’ could have been on the previous album – the verse feels like a verse, the chorus feels like a chorus. While that’s not me saying “I just want standard song structures, please!” – you know me, I listen to Tool, Shellac and lots of Classical music – it’s the fact that often the songs haven’t done anything else once they’ve hit their end and there’s no breathing space in between. My favourite track from Crisis Works ‘A Hole in the World’ takes a catchy guitar riff and begins building the song up through verses without a chorus appearing until well past the half-way mark, and never returning to the verse after that moment. So what you get is: Intro/verse/verse/chorus/post-chorus/solo/chorus. A great build up of dynamics accompany this song structure – none of this inventiveness is present on Zero Worship, despite the polyrhythmic crossing of 3-4 (bass and drums) and 4-4 (guitar) in ‘Hail, Hail’s breakdown section, the title track’s nervous guitars exploding into frustrated choruses. If there had been some more melodic variety, if there had also been some more acoustic variety – even just acoustic guitar outside of that one place in that one song – this album would have easily hit a perfect score. I can’t help love, and come to love, every song on this album, but my objective criticism is that I can’t see it lasting long before the familiarity wears a little thin.

If you’re interested in the lyrics and themes of the album, please read Gordon Moakes’ Medium article about how the ideas came together and what drove the making of the album: Making Music About the End of Music.

The ‘Zero Worship’ theme running through the album is pointedly about not following orders, the cover being a middle-finger to corporate life, beautifully packaged on an independent album financed entirely through a pledge music project making it a success without the financial backing of a corporation. Considering the state of current affairs, this album feels timely, and is a reminder of where worshipping with thoughtless devotion can lead a populace.

With all this in mind, Young Legionnaire’s second album Zero Worship without a doubt is great, it deserves to be listened to and supported, it’s themes are current while also timeless in their concerns for humanity and the individual. But if the world’s masses don’t get to hear the touchingly beautiful ‘You and Me’ then it will be a great loss to many starving eardrums.

Ladyhawke: Wild Things

It almost feels like 2008’s hit ‘My Delirium’ was a mistake. Driven by a simple yet catchy guitar lick, the song took off into Pop Rock heaven, yet the rest of Ladyhawke’s début album seemed to ignore the direction of that radio-friendly gem to make a case for synth-keyboards and beats instead. When New Zealanders got the opportunity to hear her new single (first!) a few weeks back from the follow-up album Wild Things, I was excited to hear what the Masterton-born Kiwi had in store for us on her second album – more rock or more …

What?

...Urghh

Sorry … Did you say something?

...Her follow-up album.

What about it?

...Umm, Wild Things is her third album.

Are you serious?

...Yeah.

Really?

...Yeah.

I guess I should go and listen to the follow-up album then. 
Yeah.

Boy, did Anxiety completely pass the world by (or at least my part of the world). And with good reason too. While the first couple of songs start out promisingly with strong pop beat sensibilities, the rest of the album seems to struggle to find itself and has a tendency to lean heavily on ripping melodic fragments off from The Cure (‘Sunday Drive’). When the song ‘Cellophane’ comes along one can’t help wondering why there isn’t more guitar present as the arrangement’s dynamics are what attempt to propel the song while the guitars get buried by uninteresting synth. One of the great virtues of using a guitar in pop music is that it really stands out, especially if you have a riff that can be hammered out to drive the song home – something that ‘Sunday Drive’ definitely needed more of and could have made that song the follow-up hit that Ladyhawke needed (so idiots like me would know that there was a second album out!). ‘Cellophane’ in the same respect – quite a fantastic song – lacks any real dynamics, any real variety …

Okay, enough.

Onto the review of the new album. The third album.

So what does this all mean for Ladyhawke’s 2016 release Wild Things?

The album takes the synth route again.

I wasn’t particularly impressed with first single ‘A Love Song’ when Ladyhawke aired the song to her New Zealand brethren first on national television, though on subsequent listening it certainly has much to like about it. It’s a simple song that does nothing special but will be likeable for anyone who likes this brand of under-the-radar pop. ‘The River’ attempts to compete with another local singer-songwriter, Brooke Fraser, for metaphors about water and rivers, though Fraser’s ‘Something in the Water’ has so much more natural instrumentation with pop hooks appearing in every part of the song – verses, chorus, and bridges. This is essentially what’s missing from the entire Wild Things album. It’s not like there aren’t pop hooks, but much of it is derivative, and those that stand out are only one part of the song while other parts fall flat.

All over, the album feels a little homogeneous. And not just in the vocals, but in the over-reliance on one production technique. For an artist who used to bang out her pre-Ladyhawke bands on the guitar, and had her biggest hit with a guitar driven song, the one instrument that could have made this album more dynamic and interesting to listen to is at times buried or completely missing.

‘A Love Song’ and ‘The River’ start the album off on a really strong catchy pop-note, where the title song slows the tempo down with heart-warming pines of love. ‘Let it Roll’ is the highlight that gets everything right, even if the guitar is still relegated to just bridge colouring. An infectious beat, a bass groove, all propelling the song towards the chorus. ‘Chills’ is almost a direct rip-off of The Knife’s ‘Heartbeats’ in the verses while ‘Sweet Fascination’ continues taking the same cues but lacks the propulsive groove and quirky but endearing vocal approach. ‘Golden Girl’ inserts some of that Brooke Fraser acoustic guitar (or is it ukulele? ...I think it’s ukulele) in the chorus lifting the song from being just a synth-fest and adding a touch of fun.

Lyrically the entire album is an ode to falling deeply in love. Luckily it isn’t soppy and boring, but is actually uplifting and joyous which translates to the music with fruitful results, but a lack of vocal and instrument variation can really cause the songs to drag at the halfway mark. Wild Things is a good pop album, though it doesn’t stand out, but at least it’s a huge step up from the second album and almost reaches the same simple but easy fun of the début.

New Keepers of the Water Towers: Infernal Machine

The word ‘infernal’ refers to Hell. When someone is a nuisance, irritating or tiresome, they can be an infernal nuisance thus representing a hellish experience for you, and thus any hellish experience can be described with the word ‘infernal’.

So too can a particularly boring and insufferable experience. I’ve often thought of grinding through heavy games such as Diablo in this vein. Apparently Diablo III is super easy in this respect. Who knows. I’m confident I’d still find it boring.

Infernal Machine feels like a machine that spat out ideas without any focus, stuck in it’s own hell of second-hand parts. There are moments when you hear good ideas – surf rock’s lead slides and rhythm track chromatics (‘Tracks Over Carcosa’) – but these good ideas never go anywhere or become more interesting, and the productions not big enough to drive home dynamics that seem to just happen without any build up or force.

‘The Forever War’ is aptly named because it takes forever to get anywhere, and if you can allow yourself to be dragged along for the first five minutes, I’d be impressed if you make it another four at which point the guitar finally breaks out of its annoyingly picked chord figure, lasting a mere fraction of the time and making you wonder where the rest of that lead break went.

Maybe a black hole.

Neither the rhythm nor the lead work is interesting or catchy enough to sustain attention – and at least one of those needs to be to allow the listener greater pleasures. Most tracks will pass without you even noticing them, which, in one respect, could make great background music you don’t have to pay any attention to.

‘Tachyon Deep’ focusses more on a bongo rhythm which is a great enjoyable contrast without diverting from the band sound. Passing the halfway mark, bigger drumming seeps in and the guitar distorts away from the sustained notes, but the song never reaches any true climax, and the final chord stabs aren’t convincing enough.

In many ways this is my kind of music – stoner rock via prog and space rock with some sprinklings of surf rock. It all sounds like it’d be a good, if not interesting, mix. It is a good mix, it’s just that the ideas never rise above bog standard. I can honestly say that I like what the band is attempting, but if anything, the shortest ‘song’ (tracks are mostly instrumental with some dreary vocals moaning here and there) at a mere two minutes displays aptly what they can’t do with the simplest of ideas. ‘Escape Aleph Minor’ and the following tracks want to invoke Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma but without any of the crazy. There’s a sense of serenity at times, and there are moments of doom, but neither feel like they’ve been created through the shear abandonment of the soul towards musical ends. It all feels too safe at times.

This album has more of the feel of a band exploring music without solidifying or editing any ideas. It’s almost what I imagine Tool might sound like during rehearsals when they first start rehearsing riffs. The difference of course is that Tool spend time (actual time within the space/time continuum) working on and developing those ideas; Infernal Machine sounds like neither of those two events took place and New Keepers of the Water Towers just shrugged their shoulders and said “yeah, that’ll do.” It’s not like any of that’s particularly bad, I just can’t imagine someone who actually enjoys this album would come back for extended periods of listening.

Maybe you need to be stoned out of your brain to enjoy this music, or surfing on an acid trip; I don’t know and I don't do drugs anymore, and I'm not going to either just so I can get more out of this album.

Bloc Party: Hymns

A lot of thoughts crossed my mind while listening to this album, all of which I was going to write up.

...None of which I wrote down.¹

• If you wanted more songs like ‘This Modern Love’ here they are...

• There’s a specific hard rock Bloc Party riff that can be identified in songs like ‘Helicopter’, ‘Hunting for Witches’, and ‘One Month Off’...

• There's something gospel about this album...

And other stuff like that.

It will be easy for rock fans to dismiss this album. And I can already hear the dissenters yelling "the party's over!" But what they dismiss is what they fail to recognise.

        Where Four was a bit of a mess – ideas undeveloped, throwaway riffs at the forefront, noise for noise’s sake – Hymns is a calm affair, pursuing light rock that’s about as far from anything anyone expected after getting the mixture of music that comprises the dance orientated ‘Flux’ and ‘One More Chance’ singles, the Four album where it felt like they were attempting to get back to how they began, and the The Nextwave Sessions EP where who-the-fuck-knows what was happening. (Okay, to be fair, we saw The Nextwave Sessions coming after hearing the first two songs on Intimacy, and those songs being followed through with ‘Octopus’...)

‘The Love Within’, which opens the album like a relaxed version of both 'Octopus' (Four) and 'Ratchet' (The Nextwave Sessions), begins with a direct quote from A Weekend in the City’s ‘The Prayer’, the first line of both songs being “Lord give me grace and dancing feet” as though that’s your insight into this album: It’s about grace.

        And forgiveness.

        There’s a strong sense of religiosity that flows through these tracks without being overtly devotional. While it’s befitting of the album title, it’s also appropriate that the title is Hymns as the songs musically provide the backdrop for Okereke’s pleas towards a saving grace, whether that be God or a physical partner seems irrelevant. Okereke sings “For only he can heal me with his touch, help me overcome it” in the second song. Here the backing vocals repeat the title like they were a gospel rock choir and the guitars bring some chorus contrast during the break.

        The most lyrically devotional perhaps is the song ‘The Good News’: “I used to find my answers in the gospels of St John, now I find them at the bottom of this shot glass. Everyday I’d go down to the water and I’d pray since you left me that way. Oh Lord I’m trying to keep my sights on the good news that’s in my heart.” Meanwhile the music and melodies keep the vibe positive to reinforce the meaning behind all of it.

That positivity is what is overt, however. And while that will be off-putting for some, others will move with it and discover that the catchy vocal lines that are present in the best of Bloc Party’s work are also present on this album.

        It will just be unfortunate if those who dismiss this album view that positivity as emotionless. But that is simply mistaking depression, problems, or heartbreak, as the only emotions. Okereke is never dispassionate in anything he sings. The emotion is always there and regardless of whether you like this album or not, that has to be acknowledged – in no way does it lack emotion. Perhaps it lacks the raw emotion of a brand new band carving it up on the indie front – sure it lacks that – but that’s because the band isn’t brand new anymore, to expect that is idiotic. This is why Four feels like it never really works – even the second album was a much tighter affair. But here Okereke sings just as passionately to all his exes that he has left behind – “All these words will fall short, but I must try.” The sincerity is almost heartbreaking.

If you need one song from the previous albums that works as a reference point for what appears on Hymns, that song would be ‘Real Talk’ from the previous full length Four. The unfortunate part is that ‘Real Talk’, as simple and gentle as it is, still has a propulsive rhythm section that pushes the song underneath Kele Okereke’s heart-felt vocals. With the departure of super-drummer Matt Tong, who provided an abundance of energy on previous albums with erratic beats, and the quitting of Gordon Moakes, whose unobtrusive bass lines subtly knew when not to play and when to push their weight from underneath, Bloc Party no longer has those two elements that lifted up mediocre songs and propelled great songs to greatness.

        Russell Lissack’s guitars have been stripped of all their distortion – no more pounding out big riffs, though sometimes those riffs still peak their eyes out with a clean guitar tone (‘So Real’), while ‘The Good News’ chorus brings back the blues inspired riffs first heard at the beginning of ‘Coliseum’ (Four). Backing vocals consistently provide an uplifting feel despite the sometimes downer lyrics. And this is the album all over: where songs like Intimacy’s ‘Better than Heaven’ lament the loss with electronics, soaring vocals, and bitter lyrics that would build to a culmination of full band dynamics, textures on Hymns remain thin with atmospheric guitars, keys, and vocals that are questioning rather than angry and only occasionally rise to soar, but in these cases (‘A Different Drug’) they soar on their own. When the spirit lifts (‘Into the Earth’) clean indie pop takes over and the feel of acceptance pervades the lyrics – “Into the earth our bodies will go” – as the melody remains happy and the beat gently grooves.

        On this album the music never takes centre stage, as the lyrical themes of finding peace and moving on seem to be the focus. While that’s highly understandable considering the topics, it’s also a problem. Louise Bartle’s drums are there, but they are never really there; Justin Harris' bass is so far down in the mix you'll barely notice that there's a bass at all. The rhythm section sits in the background, tidy, polite – too polite. While this doesn’t necessarily detract from the musicians' abilities, it does speak more for the album being a Kele Okereke affair rather than a fully fledged band album.

        The one song that gets closest to their pre-Silent Alarm EP era is the song ‘My True Name’ with it’s clean guitar intro, but suddenly it takes on a heavy synth backing that feels ripped straight out of the 80s New Wave era. It is one of the stronger songs on the album, and there is something undoubtly powerful about how they have chosen to use this influence. With moments like this, it’s clear they will never truly “go back” to being the indie rock band that won so many people's hearts with their hybrid of dance and rock, but there will always be hints. You might hear a guitar riff here, a vocal line there, but with a new drummer and bassist, those frantic beats and rhythms are gone.

There’s a catchiness to the music that isn’t immediately noticeable, and is what those who have given up after a first listen will never discover; others will latch on to the straight forward beats and allow the music to wash over them as it is meant to do, rather than knocking them over like much of Bloc Party’s previous albums were wont to do.

         We’ll probably never hear songs as powerful as ‘Like Eating Glass’ and ‘Banquet’ again, or be bowled over by heavy riffs like ‘One Month Off’ and the desperation of ‘Talons’. But that’s okay, because those song are there to listen to whenever we want. Hymns deserves to be appreciated for being brave enough to wear both the pop influences and gospel inspirations on it’s sleeves, and to continue the progression of a band trying something new and different.

1 Except that sentence. I did write that sentence down! Well, technically I spoke it. I spoke it into my memo app on my cell phone as I drove down the highway listening to this album. Shut up. Don't judge me.

Springtime Carnivore: Springtime Carnivore

60s reverb is all over this album with an obvious nod towards everything else that was good about early 60s pop – up tempo beats, bright flowing harmonies, and lilting female vocals. While it could be classed as sunshine pop, it resembles more closely the musical styling of psychedelia but completely void of any drug infused influences such as wah-wah or chorus pedals (unless they’re heavily buried in the mix somewhere).

A number of sixties female vocalists can be detected, but most prominently Dusty Springfield might be the first that comes to mind. On songs like ‘Collectors’ and ‘Name on a Matchbox’ singer Greta Morgan never attempts to emulate these greats, but sings lines like “I’ve got your name on a matchbox, I need your face in the past” with her own relaxed but distinctive tones - with a non-intrusive whistle whistling out the chorus hook, this third track is easily one of the strongest songs on the record. ‘Sun Went Black’ charges through the door with full force deserving to challenge the popularity of anything by Lana Del Rey whose similar fusion of retro pop with contemporary production catapulted her into stardom. Springtime Carnivore is less reliant on studio tricks though, opting for a far more organic sound and a stronger sense of rhythm that would make anybody dance to the line “Living without you is no life at all”. ‘Foxtrot Freak (Something in the Atmosphere)’ signals a relaxed groove with the opening line “Smile, smile, shuffle, the pompom parade, we all danced backwards when the skies went all grey” taking us on a fun trip to the ‘Other Side of the Boundary’ where things seem to get a bit more complicated with strained emotions and suitably a drop out of instruments leaving just an acoustic guitar on the right and a strumming electric on the left supporting the vocalist up in the middle singing “Every time I ever tried walking to the edge, my tired heart would compromise and I would miss my chance. But I will run now. . .”

‘Keep Confessing’ belts out “I already know your secrets” like vocalist Greta Morgan is serenading us with a late eighties rock ballad by Heart, while ‘Last One to Know’’s kick drum and thin treble vocals hint at nineties alternative pop in the vein of The Cardigan’s ‘Lovefool’.

The album soars when it’s up-tempo and all instruments join in on what feels like a celebration of all the reasons for making music, but occasionally drags a little towards the end as the tempos move closer to setting-sun moods. ‘Creature Feature’ tries to rectify that but never soars as beautifully as the first three hit tracks, instead the album opts for a gentle goodbye with the solo keyboards of ‘Low Clouds’.

This is an album I like for its fullness without ever feeling like there is an over indulgence of nostalgia, though nostalgic it is – songs bathe in the glory of the 60s but with a strong sense of moving forward rather than backwards. Production is slightly below the more mainstream quality of Lana Del Rey, but still throws a punch when turned up. A strong début with catchy songs, appealing vocals, and an excellent sense of self.

Soundblab.com/Springtime Carnivore