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There'd Better Be A Mirrorball. Arctic Monkeys
A new single by Arctic Monkeys? That is always a moment to look forward to. With 'The Car' announced for 21 October the first single saw the light of day a day later. Anyone hoping for a return to form, as in anything 2006 - 2013, is going to be disappointed. There'd Better Be A Mirrorball is a lounge settee affair and not a dancefloor one. I even have the impression that the guitars are expulsed from the band. Having that of my heart, it is time to listen to the new track. Alex Turner obviously is moving back decades in time. He could have written the song for the great singers of the 1940s and 50s. What would Frank Sinatra have made of this song? We can never find out, but it is on this level There'd Better Be A Mirrorball is to be placed. And the band gets away with it fantastically. Is this where I'd hoped the band to be in 2022, counting back to 2013's 'AM? No, that it is not, but with the previous album in mind, this may be the ideal outcome as the "doing as difficult as possible" mode has been shook off. The result is a pop song from a very different era. How this is going to come across live, I have no way of telling, but there seem to be two Arctic Monkeys more and more and that will not go down with all fans. That much is certain. They want to hear the 19, 20 year old Alex Turner and not the 30 something. We have all gotten older and have, hopefully, grown in the meantime as well. The best things is to go with Arctic Monkeys' flow and let ourselves be surprised.
A new single by the U.K.'s Sports Team and it is a mix between alternative pop and rock. It contains both in abundance. The Drop is simply contagious. Hear it once and your sold. At least, I was. The enthusiasm the band unleashes on its new single is immense. The foundation the drums and bass lay with the rhythm guitar makes the song move ever forward. There's no stopping them. The rest of the band, including a bunch of great horns, only has to lay down a great party track to finish the feel off and does just that. Decades of great U.K. pop songs are balled into a couple of minutes, painted over with a Sports Team special sauce. How many songs are so full of a party feeling starting with the line "Katy died, just waiting for the right time to retire"? Not since Skippy died in that great and funny, tragic novel by Paul Murray, have I come across this combination in such a glorious way. Sports Team certainly made the right sort of advertisement for its upcoming album 'Gulp!'. (And those Arctic Monkeys fans, who, hopefully, kept on reading, were disappointed? You've found your new band right here.)
The Flying Nun newsletter announced the upcoming album 'Amateur' from Australian singer-songwriter Laura Jean that caught my attention immediately. I found two songs from 2022 (and two older albums, 2014 and 18). Too Much To Do is a song that impresses immediately and comes with a huge surprise along the line. The music sounds so strict. A staccato played piano leads the way, over which Laura Jean sings with her very pleasant voice. Somewhere between dreaming about another place and knowing exactly what she wants in the here and now. A small string section sets in and gives the song a totally different flavour. In the next verse the band kicks in, so tight and right, that it makes the song and my head explode. Writing about changing moods of flavours! The strings remain up front as you will notice, making Too Much To Do a song that totally stands out. In the end the song becomes a modern disco song, and an alternative rock and pop song in one. You tell me what it is, because it's simply all in there. If this is the standard Laura Jean sets for 'Amateur', the world is in for a treat. Be patient though, 4 November is the date set for the release.
Andrea Gillis is at it again and rock and roll it does. She covers a J. Geils Band song, maybe the only band that can state to have played an as good if not better, we will never admit it of course, show as support act to The Rolling Stones (in Rotterdam 1982). In the intro Gillis takes on 50% of all rock songs of the past 50 years. The piano is the instrument standing out most. Had he still been alive, she would have hired Ian Stewart to boogie away on her new track. With 2.22 minutes the song has a 1960s hitsingle's length and in that little time everything that needs saying is said and done. I Don't Need You No More is one tough rock and roll rendition of an already rock song. Simply, well done. Whoever Ms. Gillis is singing this to, I think her message is clear.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs is a band whose name I've heard through the years but never heard music by or it did not leave an impression on me. With a new single out, announcing the new album, 'Cool It Down', I decided to have a listen. Burning is a hybrid affair, I found. It has a modern dance streak, as it has modern rhythms, accompanied by an extremely distorted guitar. Loud, in your face and very, very present. At the same time Burning has an old streak. The piano riff is lent from a The Four Seasons track called 'Begging'. With the (synth?) strings it calls on a mood from long ago. The two parts work really well. The lyrics were inspired by a fire set by a candle singer Karen O left burning when she left her NYC room a long time ago and the LA fires that raged around the city in 2020. The music works but hasn't fully convinced me yet. On the dancefloor, not that I encounter many these days, three fourths of the single will work really well.
Two Rum Bar Records artists have found each other and collaborate on this oh so sweet, what's in a name, single. Natalie Sweet's rough rock voice stands out and Brad Marino lends his great rocking guitar work and strong hooks to the music. Second Time is powerpop in optima forma. The guitar is all over the place, muted, full out and everything in between. The bass is allowed to play some great melodic runs and a warm organ tops it all off as the ideal icing on the cake Second Time is. As usual Brad Marino throws in a short but oh so effective guitar solo. He always manages to play it all in just a few seconds. Second Time hopefully is not the only collaboration between the two artists, as their collaboration is all one should be, 1 + 1 = 3.
Marino's former(?) band mate also has a prolific output. With his previous, fantastic single 'Many More Drugs' fresh in mind, I'm listening to his new one called Emergency. If I understand it correctly, besides Brad Marino, playing on his upcoming record, I'm listening to a cover, part of a fully covered album. 'Standing In The Spotlight' is a rap album by Dee Dee Ramone/King from 1989. On Emergency Geoff Palmer is calling Dee Dee as if there's some emergency going on. Emergency is a song containing both the enormous energy that is always an ingredient of his music, together with a pince of humour and loads of enthusiasm. Geoff Palmer is someone who always reaches for the mount where the perfect poprock song lives. Tirelessly he travels up to find it there and often comes back with the ingredients to construe perfection. Emergency is covered lovingly, listening to the original now, where Geoff Palmer being the far better singer. Where Palmer wins is that he found the little extras in the composition making it a better powerpop song than it was. A whole album? Lay it on me, folks.
Personal Trainer is about to release its first album and to whet our appetites released two singles. The other is 'The Lazer'. Willem Smit is in his third band, after Paleo Superspeed Donkey and Canshaker Pi, besides playing in other bands, often with some of the people in Personal Trainer. Key Of Ego is an eclectic affair. A lot of energy is shared with the listener and all of the positive kind. Musically the alternative rock track brings together a lot of different influences. Talking Heads, disco, rap, all the alternative rock going on in the world/The Netherlands right now and some slacker rock to top things off. And it all miraculously works together. In the bio Willem Smit is called a conductor and cheerleader. Although it is hard to imagine him cheerleading, I am able to see the cheerleaders from Beck's famous video in my mind's eye dancing to Key Of Ego. That it all fits together will have to do with leading part in cheerleading the rest onwards and conducting them. 'Big Love Blanket' is out on 4 November. Wasn't that Lauren Jean's release date as well? A busy day that's going to be.
De Toegift heeft zijn tweede EP uitgebracht, een plaat met drie singles waarvan er twee, ''De Woonwijk' en 'Soms', al eerder op dit blog besproken zijn. Dat laat het nummer 'Meer dan Ooit' over. In dit nummer zingt zanger Maxim Ventulé meer dan ooit als Frank Boeijen, maar misschien vreemd genoeg, ook als The Avonden's Mark van der Holst. De band als geheel is ook meer aanwezig dan ooit. De bas van Jorie Slagmolen is bijzonder prominent, maar dat geldt ook voor de drums van Tim van den Hoven en de effecten die Tom Gudde uit zijn gitaar en effectpedalen tovert. 'Meer dan Ooit' is een grootse song, die De Toegift meeslepend speelt. De muziek, de noten wordt net iets langer uitgerekt dan ik zou verwachten. Dat maakt dat het nummer nog grootser klinkt. De galm op de gitaar zit ook in het eerste nummer van de EP, 'De Woonwijk'. Toch is dat nummer elementairder. Met 'Meer dan Ooit' groeit De Toegift uit zijn jasje. Het topmummer van deze EP.
In the video a very disheartening panel votes the band out but any pop punk rocking loving music fan would do a big thumb up after listening to Martha's new single. Baby Does Your Heart Sink makes your heart singing out loud, I promise you. A few chords and the musical truth packed into a few minutes. That, at times, is all it takes and the Durham band does just that. Including a great guitar solo that sings out as well. It is impossible to say why I like this song. Baby Does Your Heart Sink simply speaks to me in volumes. The song does everything right and floats effortlessly it seems. All the little parts fit so well together and the energy and enthusiasm do the rest. I simply love the song and that's all that matters, really.
Wout de Natris
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