Singles, Week 1

A new year but with singles released late in 2021. It won't be long before the first 2022 singles will pop up on these pages, I promise you. So what does the first week of 2022 bring you?

Sad Paradise. Black Doldrums

Black Doldrums takes me back about 40 years to a time that I disconnected from modern music, slowly but surely. All these dark sounds as if the world was about to end, while I was progressing through life as good as I was able to manage as a young adult. Perhaps naive but I never for a second thought the world was about to end, so the matching music did not resonate within me for a second. London based trio Black Doldrums, Sophie Landers (drums), Kevin Gibbard (guitar/vocals) and Matt Holt on bass stage a re-enactment of the music from that era. The sound is dark, as in close to pitch black. Anything fun is strictly prohibited it seems, while the rhythm just pounds on, relentlessly. The main difference is that Black Doldrums, underneath it all, still has a melody in mind, allowing something resembling light into this mix of its music. Early 2022 the world is facing hazards that are far more real than the Mutually Assured Destruction, preventing actual destruction. Where are the protest songs?, someone asked me recently. Whether Sad Paradise is one, I can't tell. The words just do not land in my ears. The sound is protest enough for those willing to hear.

Automat Kalashnikov. The Dogmatics

When my son was about four and I had taken him with me to the record store once again, he walked up to me with a cd in hand with a hand-drawn cover of a bare bum with a band aid on it, if I remember correctly. There was no stopping him, he wanted to have it. Enter the Toy Dolls in our home. Automat Kalashnikov could have come from this album. Punk rock of the most elementary sort is played here. The pace is great and the chords are simply swept over my ears. The voice can only be called a pastiche of a punk rock singer. It gives the song a distinct flavour that is hard to be taken seriously but looked at from another angle, it totally works.

The b-side of the single, 'You Say', is sung by Jerry Lehane (and not Peter O'Halloran) and that song is so sweet-voiced, creating, in my ears, an instant classic in the punk rock pantheon. One of those songs that take a 1960s pop song as a reference point and then speed everything up, played with loud guitars. The combination makes Automat Kalashnikov a great punkrock single.

Müssen Nur Sollen. Die Wände

In the intro I hear a guitar and bass being played as if in a huge bathroom, setting an atmosphere as if there's enough space left in the modern world to do anything you like. At the same time the chord progression Die Wände plays gives the song a slightly melancholy atmosphere. The singing has some sadness held within it. The choir is almost the choir from an old play, setting the stage at first and closing an act by sharing the moral of the story for those who did not receive the message of the play in full yet. The trio used the Covid pandemic to work on a new album, that was recorded in the summer of 2021, to be released in spring 2022. This single sets a clear picture to the world. There is not a lot to laugh about and that seems slowly but surely to start putting its stamp on a lot of new music. Müssen Nur Sollen fits that picture. Compared to the opening song of this week, 'Sad Paradise', Müssen Nur Sollen is a far more open song, but not a happier one. The sound is extremely nice though and that is worth something in these dark days.

Midnight Town. Small Jackets

Italian rockers Small Jackets released a new album, 'Just Like This', just before Christmas. This is the single. Midnight Town has that upbeat sound the rock bands from decades ago had. Just listen to that piano solo going off. So upbeat, like there's no tomorrow. Musically Small Jackets manages to combine the best of rock from the late 80s and early 90s. Start with Guns 'N' Roses and then add some true rock and roll. Chuck Berry with modern equipment is in Midnight Town as much as Izzy Stradlin's rhythm guitar playing. The result is a song filled with enormous amounts of positive energy. Fast-played guitar solos come by as if everyone could play as fast as this. In the instrumental interlude the band manages to play with the unexpected a bit as well. Midnight Town is a rock and roll fest into itself.

New Meaning. Tempers

Have the 1980s ever gone out of style? Oh, yes, they have. Disco-synth bands, doom bands, hair bands, they all were swept away in the grunge era, quickly followed by Britpop. Recently, well, for some years now, I find myself referring to the 80s more and more. Tempers, a duo from New York City, released a single as if Pet Shop Boys or Visage never went out of fashion. At the same time Tempers holds an element of The War on Drugs of course, with a rhythm within the song that keeps on chugging forward. The mix of synth pop and the endless rhythm, that can also be found in the best The Cure songs, gives New Meaning an, almost, modern flavour. Since The Cure was declared the most exiting band on the last held Pinkpop festival in 2019, I can only conclude that this music is totally back in fashion. So it stands to reason that a young band like Tempers produces this music. The album is slated for 1 April, and that appears to be no joke.

Wout de Natris