Sunday 2 July 2023

2023. Week 26, 10 singles

We are half way through 2023, believe it or not. The sun is backtracking already for more than a week. It's even raining today. Yet, I'm sitting here in my short pants and a polo shirt enjoying the summer anyway. This week some bands return to the blog, some make their first appearance. Even Bo Diddley does, in an indirect way. So, go and find out what's all in there.

Sally H. Alamo Race Track

After years of silence, in 2023 Alamo Race Track's breakthrough album 'Black Cat John Brown' was re-released and the band toured after it this last spring. At the same time a new album was announced for fall this year and with Sally H. the first single is shared with the world. Expect pop in a lot of guises. Mid-60s psychedelia, The Beatles, indie pop and loads of melody, voices and instruments. Like a lot of the best songs of these eras Sally H. is just as poppy as it is melancholy. It is the mix that makes this song stand out successfully. More than twenty years after the start of the Amsterdam band there's still a lot of life in it.

Ramones & Stones. Brad Marino

Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy, Mick, Keith, Brian, Charlie, that's all Brad Marino needs. (Where's Bill or have I missed something?) Marino rocks out for less than two minutes and all is clear for the world. The song is more Ramones than Stones, that much is clear. All I'm missing here is "one, two, three, four" after which the song kicks in. Ramones & Stones is tight, punk, and in your face. Like The Ramones can't make it anymore, as all original members died, far too early, I have to add. This song is a great tribute to an original band that still speaks volumes to a lot of people. Without ever having sold albums in numbers that The Stones did, nor scored big hits, The Ramones are the standard for many band after them and to come. Perhaps, even more than The Stones are. This single show just that. The Kinks and The Beatles though? I'm keeping them if you don't mind, Brad. They are truly my bands as well.

In The City ft. Carissa Johnson. Linnea's Garden

Be surprised and hear the disco in Linnea's Garden's new single. Not that in The City is an obvious disco song, far from even. The rhythm is unmistakable though. As is the little synth effect just before and in the chorus. Think a small sister version of the huge synth in ABBA's 'Gimme Gimme Gimme'. In The City adds a psychedelic interlude in the guitar solo with (I think) a flanger effect on the guitar, giving it a wobbly, spacey sound. With In The City Linnea Herzog is experimenting with her sound and rather successful as well. Her duet with Carissa Johnson pays off too. The two, different voices give the song something extra, as a duet should. In the verse it is the twangy country guitar that is surprising in hindsight, after the disco drums and synth come in in the chorus. Overhearing it all, In The City surprises on a few levels and gets better by the spin. Welcome back on this blog, Linnea.

Allison Wonderland. Apricity

"Nana nana", the oh so simple yet so effective singing draws the listener straight into the 90s style rock song of Scottish-Canadian singer Apricity. With Ben Healey's guitar backing her up and the bottom end in the able care of bassist Thomas McKay and drummer Davide DiRenzo the song becomes huger than huge in their hands. The story is inspired by Lewis Carroll's famous story about a girl who wants to live in the wonderland. The video, a big production, 30 years ago promised high rotation. Does this even exist anymore? It shows scenes inspired by the book and movie and the flipside of living in a dreamworld, as in real world response to it. Apricity produced a very convincing rock single. Allison Wonderland is a great song borrowing from a lot of things from the past, including a small part where a grunter could have appeared with ease. It's all there but the winning element is the pop vibe that comes with it all. A nice single Allison Wonderland is.

Come With Us. Children of the Sün

Album 'Roots' received a positive reception in this blog a little of a year ago. The Swedish rockers return with a stand alone single in the late spring of 2023. The single brings back a lot of memories from my teenage years when all sort of rock bands started to break big. From Dutch symphonic rockers Earth & Fire to U.S. bands like Heart and Fleetwood Mac (also haling from the U.K. of course). Come With Us is not just a copycat song. The obvious fun the Swedish rockers have in playing it, adds the energy the song needs and because of it an element of Children of the Sün. The six piece, with the ladies winning 4 to 2, led by a singer with a huge voice. Josefina Berglund Ekholm is the kind of lead singer any rock band can only dream of. Supported by three other voices, it makes a song like Come With Us, "to the sun", interesting on different levels. Vocally there are many options while musically the sound is all ready big and bigger. The Swedes rock like Heart did on its first two album with songs like 'Magic Man' and 'Barracuda'. Come With Us is in direct competition, also in quality. Who starts playing the song on the radio over here? It deserves it.

For Your Love. The Dreggs

The Dreggs is a duo from Australia playing folk songs with an acoustic guitar and a banjo. There's no doubt which band inspired The Dreggs to start playing: Mumford & Sons. The good news is that I like my introduction to The Dreggs better than any of the songs by the U.K. band that for a few years were one of the biggest bands on this planet. Paddy Macrae and Zane Harris are from the Sunshine Coast in Australia with a great liking for the ocean coming together with the shore there. For Your Love is an upbeat song of the kind that should come with living in sunshine for most of the year. At the same time the song knows a longing for something that for both Macrae and Harris is still unfulfilled. The love of children that are not yet born, is the theme of For Your Love. Caught in an upbeat folk song, driven by the banjo and the drums rhythm, the yearning for love is very acute. In August The Dreggs can be found in NL, without a debut album in sight (yet).

Everything Unspoken. Oscar Lang

Not long ago Oscar Lang found his way to this blog for the first time, since one single after the other is being released. This is the third, if I counted correctly, and of the kind deserving a spot. Everything Unspoken is an up tempo psychedelic song somewhere between rock and pop. Lang starts and ends the song with a gamelan kind of sound, adds an acoustic guitar, before that tempo kicks in. Although that tempo is what I noticed first, it is much worthwhile to listen behind it, as Everything Unspoken is extremely rich in sounds and small melodies. It's the kind of song that will still divulge surprises years after listening for the first time. There's so much happening that my ears simply can not keep up. From a three note sequence that is repeated throughout the song, to weird atmospherics moving in and out, it all has its place in Everything Unspoken. For the second time in three songs Oscar Lang surprises me. Three more weeks before 'Look Now' hits the stores.

Feet Up. My Ugly Clementine

My Ugly Clementine returns to the blog with a nice rocker. Is it me or is there some Wet Leg in the song? The lyrics certainly bring some of the Isle of Wight band to mind. Which is fine, as 'Wet Leg' was my favourite album of 2022. The Vienna threesome, Sophie Lindinger, Mira Lu Kovacs and Nastasja Ronck, manage to present a seriously rocking song like it is just fun and not simply good. Feet Up has a few elements that stand out. Good singing, a nice beat on the hi-hat, and a descending guitar run, enough to make a song special. The band literally sings about having their feet up. It's nice but boring, rhyming to icecream from the store. The interlude where the rhythm disappeared, underscores the boredness, before the party goes off anyway, as it does not take a lot of imagination to see a venue or field get off on the final section of the song, with its discolike rhythm. Just one question. Why in this time of woke, are more and more female bands and singers tape nude videos? I don't get it.

Tilt-A-Whirl. The Gypsy Moths

Is there anything wrong with a straightforward rock song? No, there isn't as The Gypsy Moths show on its latest single Tilt-A-Whirl. The Bostonian band is not your average band. It has a saxophone player as dominant as the one on Bowie's 'Absolute Beginners'. It gives the rock and roll a soul injection that works really well. I'm even reminded of Dexys Midnight Runners mach 1 with great hits like 'Geno' and 'There There My Dear'. Tilt-A-Whirl has that same kind of aliveness, while musically certainly different from the northern soul Dexys was emulating in 1980. Besides, Steve O'Brien is a rock singer with a great voice. Together with Scott Miller's double tracked sax he draws the most attention but listen behind them and notice the warm Hammond sound and some tinkered piano notes here and there played by Mark Donahue. The other three play a serving role but are part of a great song. In fact the more I'm hearing it the more I notice and the better the song becomes. Tilt-A-Whirl spells hit in my world.

Hey Bo Diddley. The Mono Kids

I'm one of the persons who was present in time in "far-away" Lochem to hear and see Bo Diddley play in 1984 at the now long-extinct festival with the same name. To see Jack Bruce and Friends play live after having seen Bruce on Rockpalast Nacht. I had no real idea who Diddley was, except one of the rock and roll greats, mentioned usually in one go with Muddy Waters, which in hindsight is quite odd. I remember thinking after a few songs that it all sounded the same, which is actually true. Diddley died 15 years ago on June 2nd and that led to Eindhoven's The Mono Kids to cover Diddley's signature song Hey Bo Diddley. The song may be recorded in the lo-fi style of The Mono Kids, the energy that is part of Bo Diddley's song is there alright. The duo does the song totally right and gets Bo Diddley a little out of the obscurity he has descended into for decades. I had sort of forgotten all about him. Yet truth be told that stop-start-stop-start rhythm that is truly his, is exciting, for three songs at a time, agreed, but his for sure. And Hey Bo Diddley in this new version shows it.

Wout de Natris

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