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She. The Legendary Swagger
The Legendary Swagger is a Long beach, Ca. band that has a clear goal based on the sound of this single and that is to play the tiles of your roof. She is full of energy, the band has the mileage on it to show the wear and tear coming with the mileage. Just like the cassette player in a worn out but totally dependable car the band plays rock from quite some time ago; as if it was invented yesterday. Singer Geoff Yeaton has that greased over voice that comes with the territory. As an extra he throws in a saxophone solo the late Clarence Clemons would not have been ashamed of playing. The blurb is you've heard it all before, but so nice to do so once again. That swagger has a place in 2022 and does not to be legendary based on yesteryear's music. Leave it to this band to create its own.
'De Liefde Is de Eerste Wet' heet de laatste plaat van Broeder Dieleman. Het was een prima album, maar viel ook weg in het grote Corona gat dat de wereld voor ons neerzette. De Eerste Knecht is de eerste van twee singles, ja echte 7", die Broeder Dieleman dit jaar uitbrengt. Het verhaal achter de single is dat het begon tijdens de sessie voor 'Liefde Is De Eerste Wet'. De tekst is geïnspireerd door een verhaal uit 1923 van Leo Bootgezel. Het is als het ware een ansichtkaart van een West-Zeeuws-Vlaamse boerderij uit de begin van de 20e eeuw. Het valt op dat Broeder Dieleman zich meer is gaan richten op liedjes en zich weg heeft bewogen van de uitgebreide sfeerstukken van midden vorig decennium. Zelf zie ik dat net anders, de sfeer heeft hij zijn liedjes ingetrokken, want deze zijn zo sfeervol. Dit geldt ook voor De Eerste Knecht. O zo langzaam voltrekt het nummer en daarmee het verhaal zich. Wie de muziek van Broeder Dieleman kent, zal direct de inmiddels bekende elementen opvallen. Elementen die allemaal weer op de precies juiste plek vallen. Met zijn nieuwe single schiet Broeder Dieleman precies in de roos en dat is geen toeval meer.
Celebrating 10 years Fons Records, the band Fence is releasing a new album soon. This is one of the singles, Julia. Where the video is rather epileptic, the music is the musical equivalent. The music is just bouncing and then bouncing some more from another floor, wall or ceiling. It has the exuberance of some later 1960s pop single from the U.K., while musically it fits in with a Britpop band like Supergrass. Julia is pure musical fun. There's no other word for it. The music stop-starts the whole of the time, making the song epileptic as well. Where the vocal melody flows forward almost uninterrupted, the music only does so in the outro. This apparent controversy fits together in a beautiful way. On 1 July the album is there, 'Hazy Mist Of Rock'.
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This is an option in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, in ours it is quite the challenge. Not so for Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Spitting Off The Edge Of The World is an ultra exciting single. It has a darkness that is barely let go off and an inner tension that only wants to do one thing and that is explode. The band doesn't permit it and prefers to build the tension a little more. The keyboard solo making it higher and higher before the final seconds die out. Yeah Yeah Yeahs is around since 2000, but has not released a record for nine years. It is about to do so once again in September. Somehow all previous work has past me by, although I had heard the name. But that is it. If Spitting Off The Edge Of The World is the band's standard, I have some catching up to do. This is simply a very exciting single.
Rum Bar Records from Boston regularly showcases its artists on compilation albums that are free of charge, if you know where to find them. One of the singles from its recent 'Rebel Rousers, Round 2' compilation is Baby Baby by the band Continental. I know nothing of the band, but the tightly rocking Baby Baby certainly is the kind of invitation that is hard to decline. Baby Baby is a song with a strong connection to things past. The last singles that made it to the top 40 here of this kind are 'Your Love' by The Outfield and 'Satellite' by The Hooters, from deep(er) into the 1980s. The kind of song that rocks but has enough of a pop flavour to capture the attention of a larger group of people without really offending the hardcore rockers. "Your love", is a part of the lyrics and a reference to the Stones' 'Under My Thumb' tops it off, were it not for the fun horns solo and the lead guitar straight out of the Dan Baird songbook. Top single.
More rock from Rum Bar and Rebel Rousers Round 2, but so much more lush. The guitar is allowed to space out in sound and notes, a warm organ spruces The Reckoning Is Here up no little. Lonely Leesa (Coyne) has the voice of a true rock chick. Tough, yet exactly right. The band obviously loves The Rolling Stones of the 1970s, with organ and electric piano, while the dual guitars are present for the whole of the way, including a slide guitar. In sound The Black Crowes, always a Stones/Faces rip off in sound of course, are certainly present, but so is Guns 'N' Roses in the way the guitars are played. Can a female singer be influenced by Rod Stewart? It appears so listening to this single. This band brings together the best in rock of the 70s and 90s and all in one song.
From rock to country is a smaller step than one might think. Without country (and rhythm & blues) no rock and roll and without the excitement of rock and roll no rock. Monica Taylor is about to release her 9th record and 3rd as a solo artist. If Rescues is a cue to what 'Trains, Rivers and Trails' has to offer, country fans should start running to the record shop, or the device that gets them on Spotify nowadays, alas. Rescues will introduce you to a very traditional song. Do not expect to hear anything you will not have heard before. What you will hear, is a beautiful song, capturing that bittersweet atmosphere that makes this song stand apart. Besides the extremely pleasant voice of Monica Taylor whose alias certainly is well-deserved: the Cimmaron Songbird. Rescues holds a kind of violin that I was introduced for the first time to by Scarlet Rivera on Bob Dylan's 'Desire' album. In combination with other traditional country instruments and a rhythm section giving the song its body, Rescues is a great song. Monica Taylor thus falls into a category containing hundreds if not more female singers coming out of the U.S. With a song like Rescues I welcome one more with gusto and pleasure.
Back to rock we go. Lucy Dacus is one of the alternative rock ladies that broke in the past few years. To most of them I have an ambivalent relationship. As often I can not really make up my mind what I truly think of them. From Courtney Barnett to Phoebe Bridgers, I am always going from great to what? This is no different for Lucy Dacus
With Kissing Lessons Lucy Dacus takes sides on her love preference in a clear way but also rocks out in a modern and clever way. This is a tough song and yet melodies are oozing out of every corner of Kissing Letters. Blink your eyes and this single is over, yet is immensely rich as it captures so much. At the basis this is a tight rock song with a nice vocal melody. In the second half that tightness does not disappear but magic is sprinkled all over that tightness. Conclusion, Kissing Lessons is one of the songs from the young female rock generation that is great.
Stepping just a little outside of my comfort zone here. Listening to the opening song Mega's EP, 'Smile', I was captured by her voice. Not to compare her to Tracy Chapman's voice, but I was caught in a way that 'Fast Car' and 'Talking About A Revolution' once did to me a long time ago. Mega has Ugandan roots but is from North London where she sang in church choirs in her youth. A gospel element is certainly no stranger in a song like 'Box Of Regrets'. 'All Day Long' has African influences but is also a 2022 rendition of what Steve Winwood did in the 1980s on e.g. 'Higher Love'. It shows how wide the influences range on this five song EP, Mega's second EP. She can be called a soul singer. This has nothing to do with the soul singes of the 1960 nor 1970s. Mega is a modern singer who lets in modern elements into her music, in the form of beats and electronic elements. The soul is there at heart in the vibe of the album. She manages to pull soul into the third decade of the 21st century. 'If Not My Heart' even contains a little 'All Night Long (All Night)'. Mega is capable of all this in just five song and convinces along the way to be her own singer too.
Kharma Climb was a few seconds old and it had transported me back about 40 years. The pulsing synths, that disco form of drumming underneath a rock song, the lead guitar starting off with a solo, it all spelled 1980s and more specifically Depeche Mode. Kharma Climb is a rip off, there's no other word for it. I would never have written about this song if it wasn't so infectiously good. Editors simply pushes all the right, if totally predictable buttons. I never was a Depeche Mode fan, except for that few fantastic singles like the live version of 'Just Can't Get Enough' and 'Everything Counts' to mention to of about four, five singles. Editors made a song that is on that level and adds two things: an ultimate pop feel and an element of rock, here and there. The rest is classic Depeche Mode and although I'm sure this song was recorded before Andy Fletcher died recently, it is a befitting farewell salute to the least important man in Depeche Mode.
Wout de Natris
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