2024. Week 11, 10 singles

This week we see three old favourites return to the blog, of which one for the first time, but also some true newcomers and a few acts that debuted within the last year. Once again it's a very diverse set. This is the fun of the approach I take here. The songs all, very little exceptions permitted, are presented in the order they have been presented to me. The only thing you do not know, is which songs I've decided to skip. This week about half is my guess. I do not want to write on songs I do not like (or worse) or think are not memorable enough. I skipped one that I will mention for once, 'Bored' by Waxahatchee. Into the second listen session I still did not hear what I could focus on as a reviewer. So, out it went. The rest is here, so enjoy.

Brown Paper Bag. DIIV

DIIV has been more often on this blog than I remember. The one I forgot is the LP I bought in 2019 'Deceiver'. 'Oshin' in 2012 and 'Is The The Are' from 2016 all came before this single. The music has not changed much from what I remember. DIIV still plays slow and dark, slightly psychedelic rock music. Zachary Cole Smith still sings with a soft voice, hovering above the band. He still takes his time to produce a new album. Four years, three years, five years. I know the sixties and early 70s are long over. This is the new normal. Also five years down the road, I dive into the band's new single with glee. DIIV simply knows how to play this music right and provides Brown Paper Bag with the little notes and slow riffs that make it so much fun to listen to. It's time to pull 'Deceiver' from its shelf, until the new album is released. 'Frog In Boiling Water' is released on 24 May.

Stray. The Mysterines

The Mysterines is a band from the U.K. and active since 2015 but with 'Afraid Of Tomorrows' only releases its second full length album, after 'Reeling' (2022). The name did not ring a bell but it turns out I wrote a favourable review of the single 'Begin Again' late spring last year. It's not surprising I did, as Stray is a delightfully sleazy alternative rock song. The Mysterines do not for one second pretend to be respectable. Singer Lia Metcalfe's voice receives a treatment making her sound a bit mechanical. Just like the guitars get a dirty treatment. Just listen to that little solo and the eruptions. The rhythm is tight keeping the song confined as it were, with the chorus escaping that straightjacket in a gloriously convincing way. Sure, poprock aficionados will recognise enough familiar sounds. Stray is a nice addition to what's already out there.

Hello. Girl And Girl

"Hello, who's that speaking please?", is the opening of my first or second The Kinks single's B-side called 'Party Line', still one of my favourite The Kinks songs. Girl And Girl's first single of its upcoming debut album 'Call A Doctor' (24 May) is also about a phone call and also an up tempo song, somewhere between happiness, the tempo/music, and despair, the lyrics. Hello is a bouncing song, making it easy to mistake for a happy song instead of the darkness that shows in the lyrics about a "private hell". Just listen to how the song begins with two sprightly guitars, the band joins and a third lead guitar comes in. Better described perhaps as the higher of the two guitars playing two different riffs. The Australians, Kai James (singer, guitarist), his Aunty Liss (drums), Jayden Williams (guitar) en Fraser Bell (bass), may be tormented in the lyrics, in the music they push all the right buttons to get a crowd moving. Hello is an excellent introduction, with even a reference to 'The Sound Of Music', if I'm not mistaken.

When I Was Younger. Bonny Light Horseman

Bonny Light Horseman is trio Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson, and Josh Kaufman. They signed with Jagjaguwar and to celebrate release the single When I Was Younger. 30 or early 40 somethings looking back on when life was fun. Lighten up, because they certainly can become fun again when the brats get a little older. When I Was Younger's mood is exactly as if the times of being 20 are over forever. They are, but 40 up certainly has its fun moments. The lyrics between Anaïs Mitchell and Eric D. Johnson are divided in the way it probably is between a woman and a man. The former resigned to having children, the latter more desperate, tearing at the leash, far more in pain of the loss. In the "aah" section over the harsh guitar solo in the twine they meet. It all contrasts with the looseness with which the rhythm section and piano play their parts, with a starring roll for Cameron Ralston, the bassist. He's so relaxed and has seemingly encountered the 40 up phase fun.

After The After Party. Gramercy Arms

Gramercy Arms enters this blog for the third time with a single. Once again the band around Dave Derby and producer Ray Ketchum manages to blend glorious pop from the past with a good sense of urgency for the now and then. The band makes music like it was made in the first half of the 90s by bands like The Caulfields and The Loud Family. U.S. pop-rock music with a touch bordering on Beatleslesque. Just listen to the harmonies in After The After Party and the directness of the music. This is 90s indie rock alright. With a nice, almost tough guitar solo over a rhythm section that is definitely rocking. In the approach to making music and musically Gramercy Arms reminds me of the Canadian - U.S. collective The New Pornographers. The pop element in both band's music is always sticking out, while they both know how to rock as well. Late in April the album will be released, 'The Making Of the Making Of'. Based on this single, it something worth waiting for.

Sad Sack. Faulty Cognitions

Another debut band and debut single. Faulty Cognitions is a band from San Antonio in Texas, formed after singer Chris Mason relocated from Portland, Oregon to the Lone Star State. He formed a band there with his long time friend Yole Centeno and others. The result is a melodic alternative rock song, close to punkrock. The upcoming album's title 'Somehow, Here We Are' may tell it all. Against all odds the four have formed a band and are playing like they've not only always done so but also as if they do not have a host of experience in other bands and everything left to prove. The title Sad Sack should be understood in the context of "another sad sack song" that the band hopes you will sing along to anyway. Chances are you will. If you are a fan of the likes of Buffalo Tom there's no escaping even. A faulty cognition is not be applicable to Sad Sack.

Perfect Day (Piano Komorebi Version). Patrick Watson

Perfect Day was never a single, let alone a hit for Lou Reed. 'Transformer' is one of Reed's best loved albums, given the push by the Bowie-Ronson production, Bowie's voice in 'Satellite Of Love' and the hit 'Walk On The Wild Side'. Through the decades Perfect Day became better and better known and loved for the fantastic ballad it is. Recognition sometimes takes time to receive and Perfect Day has received it. Patrick Watson has released a piano only version of the song. The song is in the style of, what I disrespectfully call, the modern piano tinklers style. Recorded with loads of reverb and echo on the piano, while playing slow notes. It will come as no surprise that Perfect Day remains a beautiful composition. It may even come across more subtly this way than ever before. Watson adds melodic notes to the vocal melody enhancing the power of the melody no little. A perfect rendition this version of Perfect Day is.

Gimme Some Kinda Sign. UB40

I think there are two UB40s today. This is the one with the elder Campbell brother in it and most of the original members. UB40 came into my life with the single 'Food For Thought'. Although I did (and have) not a lot with reggae music, this single resonated with me, as did many other singles that followed through the years. I even have a few albums and saw them live in 1983 as support act for David Bowie. After 'Rat In Me Kitchen' the band sort of drifted from my conscience, into that state where a single comes by on a radio or something here or there. I was surprised to find the announcement of a new single on my digital doorstep. For old times sake, I decided to give it a listen. 44 years after 'Food For Thought' the band sounds like the veterans they are. Nothing much happens but all is played in (very) good taste. UB40 knows how to please its fans and most likely does. Robin Campbell and new singer Matt Doyle come close to Ali's delivery, so the band is alright here as well. They will not get me back as a distanced fan but I will certainly not turn of the radio should Gimme Some Kinda Sign come by.

A Heart Cries. Lovelorn Dolls

Belgian duo Lovelorn Dolls returns to the blog with this huge song called A Heart Cries. The song uses dynamic to the max. The verses softer and the chorus as big as if 'The Final Countdown' is rewritten as an electronic anthem. Kristell Lowagie's voice gets a metallic, slightly ghostly treatment matching the long held synth chords underneath the chorus and intro/interludes. Bernard Daubresse's music shows how he has been influenced by (Nordic) 1990s bands with a love for Teutonic greatness. He knows how to pump up musical muscles till the sinews nearly snap. The music gets a metal feel, yet is far too melodic to be real metal. A trick Rammstein plays to great success, without wanting to compare the two acts. Lovelorn Dolls as Rammstein's opening act is totally imaginable though. A Heart Cries is a big song in several ways.

Get Back To Myself. Slamdinistas

We finish this week with a dose of good old rock and roll from and for the first quarter of the 21st century from California's Slamdinistas. Like Dirty Sweet from San Diego around 20 years ago, this band rocks with a nice raspy edge to the singers voice and a slide guitar to top things off. Get Back To Myself may not be a song that I play in my living room every day but is played by a band that I would love to see live one day. A beer in one hand and the other up in the air, with a mouth that can't decide between the beer and singing along, with my mind telling me softly in the back of my head, you better finish up the beer now before it's all spilled thanks to the enthusiasm around you. Get Back To Myself is that kind of song and Slamdinistas that kind of band. It's all good, honest and full of rock and roll quality.

Wout de Natris