Can't Come Home. Melle
Sometimes
a song just sounds nice and that is more than enough. Melle Boddaert is
a young, Dutch singer-songwriter with a track record that is impressive
for a 23 year old. Already at the age of 12 he was active in music. Next he released his first record with a band of high school friends called Eleven.
After a string of self-released EPs he signed a record contract last year. Can't Come Home is one of a
string of single towards an EP to be released later this year. The
single is a sweet pop single, unoffensive and smooth running. More
instruments are added moving deeper into the track. All falling into
their respective places with ease. Melle's voice, soft and nice, floats
over the music, regretting he can't be where he's needed. There's
nothing in Can't Come Home that is truly original or stands out, yet it
is so nice. And, that is enough.
If
the music was not soundly stored in bits and bites on my external hard
disk, Floating Above The Water, would stop doing that and drift away
scattered by the softest breeze one can imagine. This song is ethereal,
as if it's coming from the afterlife. Only when a lead guitar comes in
for a chord based solo, the music gets a body to speak of. It is exactly
the ghostlike quality that makes Floating Above The Water stand out.
That I'm reminded of one of the instrumental sequences of Pink Floyd's
'The Wall' near the end of the song, is totally excusable. Elk City has
made it's point by then. Singer Renée LoBue's voice matches the ethereal
atmosphere and adds to it no little. Devoid of emotions she sings as if
she's floating there and about to disappear forever, scattered in that
breeze. Album 'Above The Water' is out for some time. One of the many
that did not make it to this blog. I guess I made up for that now.
A
Parisian powertrio covering Kiss. Why not? The U.S. band, in 2023, is well into its
farewell tour after 50 years on the road. I never was a fan. When
living in Australia for several months, my cousin had a stack of Kiss
records and I did not like them. Being into Pink Floyd, Neil Young,
Heart and even Boston at the time. I do not know the original in other
words but this dirty rocking version goes down quite well. Iron Lizards
play the kind of rock that is exciting, dirty, loud, yet melodic. I've
heard a song like this it a million times before, let's say ZZ Top with a less stylised way of
playing, but there's always room for another. With guitars and solo's
all over the place, I'm quite okay here.
With Glue Song Beabadoobee releases a new song, less than a year after her latest album. It is as if she stepped back in time and walked into a 1960s recording studio where Burt Bacharach is working on a track with Herb Alpert and all of a sudden asks her if she could sing, as there was a Hal David lyric that could fit. In reality Beabadobee wrote the song with her own producer Jacob Bugden and recorded Glue Song at home. The atmosphere is totally 1960s though, that soft perfect pop that was the standard, well, one of them, at the time. With Glue Song Beabadobee shows yet another side of herself.
Changing the topic a little. Riding a train
recently there were two young men, early to mid 20s I think, discussing
how to pronounce this singer's nom de plume. Both arrived at different
pronunciations, and different from what I think it is. A funny aside, but
it is a good sign when people, in public, discuss an artist('s name), from the vantage point of
both liking her work a lot.
My
first encounter with The Hold Steady is now well over a decade ago and
my interest for the band is not a steady one. In part that has to do
with singer Craig Finn. His voice is one that, for me, is an acquired taste.
The songs I've heard so far of the band's upcoming album 'The Price Of
Progress' (31 March) are encouraging though. With Sixers The Hold
Steady comes closer than ever before to Counting Crows, another voice
like Finn's. This has to do with the ending of Sixers that definitely is
Counting Crows' playbook. Sixers, until the end, is a tough song, yet
holds enough warmth to warm one's hands to. A huge organ sound sits nice
in between the guitars and drums, giving the song a glow that makes it
stand out. Craig Finn's voice is just right for this song and sounds
totally convincing. Sixers is the kind of song that deserves listening
to.
Two young women singing
beautiful harmonies against a modest, musical background. That describes
Winner quite well, I think. Yes, a full band comes in later on.
Overcoats made its point by then though. Winner is a soft ballad with a
clear theme: loss, but not without the realisation that "every ending
has a new beginning". Living leaves scars of all sorts but gives the
opportunity to mend, learn and love (again). Winner is Hana Elion and JJ
Mitchell. Together with producer Daniel Tashian they created a soft
sound to share these realisations in a delicate way, a piano, some
synths and soft drums suffice, until it is time to underscore the result
of the soul searching. Album 'Winner' is out on 7 April.
This
year it is 59 years ago The Zombies released the first of its two best
known songs, 'She's Not There'. It wins out thanks to the 1977 Santana
version. Come 2023 and the band is releasing new work and is on a world
tour. Love You While I Can is, again, a showcase of how good this band
is. And now not only because of songs released in the 1960s, no, because
of new songs, written and played, being well into their 70s. Yes, Colin
Blunstone's voice has gone down considerably, it still has that magical
quality it had way back then. Love You While I Can is the ballad that
one would expect based on the title. It is crafted and arranged in a
beautiful way. It is striking how the sound of the guitar matches Blunstone's voice and the
harmony vocals. Who said that one cannot grow old
gracefully in rock and roll or pop? It looks like these persons are
sorely mistaken.
Although considerably younger than The Zombies, the members of Slamdinistas certainly are men of a certain age. Playing music that has gone out of fashion decades ago, they fly on the sparks they create when playing Cut Me Some Slack. If The Rolling Stones had come up with the song this year on that new album that is announced now for over a decade, the world, of a certain age, would have wailed and howled. So better go for the next best thing, folks. With Mike Gavigan this band has a great slide guitarist who is making Cut Me Some Slack even dirtier than it already is. With singer Gabriel Johns the gravelly side of being a sleaze and roll band is taken care of. The three remaining members lay the foundation to rock out on. Yes, you will have heard it all before, but believe me, this is great fun. Give it a chance.
Loupe
is working towards its first full length album, 'Do You Ever Wonder
What Comes Next?', to be released on 21 April. Dakota's reincarnation
with a new singer, seems to be working out quite well. Caught In The
Moment has the dreamy quality of Dakota but thanks to singer Julia Korthouwer
Loupe also has a more pop oriented sound. The words dream and pop are now truly connected in this single. Caught In The Moment also mixes other qualities. There is a very direct rhythm over which the dreamy
part is released. Jasmine van der Waals' guitars are all over the place.
She manages to get a million sounds of her equipment, all having to do
with texture and creating an atmosphere somehow belonging to this one
song. I can't but admire her inventiveness. Do, however, not forget what
goes on underneath. A beautiful rhythm and a bass (Lana Kooper) that
can go off into a great melody of its own at any second without forgetting the
supportive role of the instrument. The comparison with Warpaint still holds but with
Caught In The Moment Loupe is carving out its own part in the musical
pantheon, Yes, the song is that good.
The second of three 7" singles is released, just before the band sets off on a one week tour of France. Despite that the first one, 'Goat', became available physically only this week. With the a-side the band disappoints me for the first time. I've heard this before. Of course, this becomes inevitable with time. Switch has the inner tension Tramhaus is so good at. The release is there but is forced in my ears. The band's heart is in the right place, that much is clear.
The good news is b-side Long Ago. Tramhaus releases
the reigns in all the right places and shows that it handles this more punkrock side of
itself perfectly also. Long Ago starts off with a nice The Velvet Underground style
intro and verse. Solid drums and bass and two guitars, left - right, playing two
different parts with singer Lucas Janssen singing over it all. Until the
chorus. Things go loose alright and Janssen straining his vocal chords
to the max. Is it a coincidence that Spotify starts playing Personal
Trainer's latest album every single time after I listened to one of Tramhaus' new singles? I
guess not. Although there is a little similarity, the bands are far enough apart to my ears. Both are on route to stand
out in their own right, both nationally and internationally. Long Ago has that edge of excitement that makes it stand out from the competition, once
again.
Yes, these last two singles fit well together. Fake Indians, who wasn't some point in their lives, is a Belgian rock band, not unlike Ramkot, that featured recently on these pages. Despite all the hard-rocking going on, Fake Indians, like Ramkot, has its melodies totally in mind while executing O.D.D. In fact, the combination makes O.D.D. totally exciting. To hear a full album, its second, one has to be patient. It's scheduled only for after the summer, calling for a lot of it. With O.D.D. Fake Indians makes an instant impression. The intro of a few seconds will have everyone not liking some good old-fashioned rock music scurrying off immediately. I will be in good company from that second onwards. The effects on the voice and guitar in the instrumental interludes are fantastic and totally exciting, adding to the tough sound already in place no little. Stof Janssens' voice may be hiding a little behind the effects and perhaps for a good reason, it does bring him in line with someone like Iggy Pop. His latest album. is successfully honed for a larger audience. O.D.D. is more of a 'Raw Power' if I have to compare. Just as exciting, just as good. I have only one question left, Stof Janssens? Coincidence? Or TMGS' Stof? That would be quite a leap, although he is the one rocking hardest in TMGS.
Wout de Natris
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