Sunday 21 July 2024

2024. Week 29, 10 singles

How varied can music become in one post? A good question. The answer is that variation for 97% is determined by the order that emails or tweets or whatever other source reach me. Only when I truly want something to skip the line, which happens sometimes, is the random order broken with one song at a time. All else what you hear is determined by the moment a band or PR person sends me a message. The true answer is that the level of variation varies as well. From very quiet to a lot of punk(-related) songs this week. So, enjoy your exploration!

Baby Blue Movie. Cigarettes After Sex

Cigarettes After Sex is around since 2007 and formed in El Paso, Texas. The band debuted with an EP in 2012 and since grew and grew. However, it passed this blog by until a few months ago with the single, 'Tejano Blues'. Baby Blue Movie is a single that is slow, dreamy and sung by a woman, right? No, it isn't. Singer Greg Gonzales has an "androgynous" voice or so Wikipedia tells me. Well, he could have fooled me. The mood of Baby Blue Movie is superb though. Everything is slow about the song. No one is in a hurry here. Soft drums, bass and over it a layer of synths and an electric guitar playing lead notes. Perhaps extremely loud in the studio, but here mixed into the (semi) background. Up front is that androgynous voice that sings ever so slow and mildly sad. Musical beauty in other words. 'Blue Movie' is a movie that shocked The Netherlands around 1971 with at least one sex scene, in an elevator. Is Baby Blue Movie the chastened U.S. sequel?

Mother. DEADLETTER

That DEADLETTER has a saxophone as the lead instrument in its songs, should not come as a surprise for people who follow this blog. That in Mother the saxophone has an identical vibe as the one in David Bowie's swan song album 'Black Star' is. Singer Zac Lawrence stays well within the post punk mix of singing and talking. The band plays with dynamics in a superb way. The bass takes the lead here and keeps that up in the band sections as well. It is the real lead instrument in Mother, as it plays a combination of lead and rhythm. The band comes in to play the louder accents, with the saxophone floating over it like the wind coming and going, adding that 'Black Star' vibe no little. It may no longer come as a surprise to me, it certainly sets DEADLETTER apart from all the other bands thrown into the postpunk class of the last six years.

Don't Care. Dumb Bats

Postpunk? Why, if you can play just good old punk? Dumb Bats, a female fronted punk band from Germany does just that. I'm going to start with the drummer. The dry sound of the skins brings Therapy to mind, at the time of 'Troublegum'. Tight skins, hit hard. It lays a foundations that a band should be really bad, should a punkrock song go wrong. It far from doesn't. Dumb Rats takes off like a rocket, with an energetic song. The first half of the intro only gives half away from what is coming in the second half. Here the band goes and doesn't stop until the every end. A great guitar solo fills the song up quite nicely. As far as I'm concerned this is how things are done.

 

Back To Reno. Junior Varsity

How many examples do you know of drummers who come from behind their kit to present a successful solo single? Yeah, Phil Collins. I'd opt for Topper Headon's single 'Leave It To Luck'. Junior Varsity is the brain child of Mighty Joe Vincent, who played drums in a host of bands I've never heard of. That does not put me into the league of cool kids, the bio tells me. With Back To Reno I can only hope to and catch up a little. Vincent present the world with a great rock song that has a host of oohs and aahs in all the right places, a couple of great guitar licks, while the drumming itself is powerful and perhaps just a little bit more prominent in the mix than it would have been in a song by a non-drummer. The single certainly is a great introduction to Vincent's solo work, that will be expanded with an EP in the fall. "It's never enough", Vincent sings and if the EP is this nice, it will have a predictive quality.

You're So Impatient. Pixies

Pixies? Yes, I remember the band having fans around 1990 when I was about to leave the university behind me and the younger arrivals were fans. I did not catch on. Still haven't. This single however is great. Perhaps it's only so so for fans of old. I love the pace and drive of the You're So Impatient. It has a great punk attitude, despite the members being well into their fifties. If not older. You're So Impatient is a song that doesn't test us at all, as it is all over in about two minutes. To assist you there, the rhythm has this little hops as if skipping a beat. It helps setting that pace, including that strange little "aahh" every few beats. Black Francis and band are in great form on this, for now, stand alone single supporting the tour the band is on.

Approachable. Gurriers

"Warning: This video contains flashing images", reads the start of video. "Warning: the music in the video contains ripping post punk", would have been another justified warning for non-suspecting EDM or jazz lovers to name just two. Gurriers is from Ireland and joins the ever larger line of postpunk bands coming from the country. I keep being amazed by how many of these bands exist. Against all the grains of modern music played on radios and other public broadcasts. Approachable is a song I would not encounter in a hundred years when listening to the radio (which my wife puts on). I like to play my own selection and judging by the likes of Approachable, the upcoming album 'Come and See' (13 September) may be just one for me. Dubliners Dan, Emmet, Ben, Mark and Pierce really go for it, with an enthusiastic singer who speaks-sings with emphasis, while behind him a relentless pace is kept up with a two note riff that just keeps on going and going. Think Shame, that's where I would start, with a little more musical imagination here and there. Gurriers, remember that name.

Before Nightfall. JC Miller

"Time for a cool change", Little River Band's Glenn Shorrock sang over forty years ago. JC Miller brings that change on the blog today. From all the (post)punk he brings us to country rock. Before Nightfall has that tough kind of laidback feeling that comes from riding all day in the sun and finally sitting down for dinner and coffee under a setting sun, while bracing for the colder night in the open air. Miller has the tough voice to match the music. I've heard at least a thousand songs like Before Nightfall and yet I fall for it easily. How many guitars are in this song? I stopped counting at some point. Just listen how many there are, supportive, lead, and anything in between the two. With its stuttering rhythm the song becomes a mesmeriser. Slowly but surely song and I become one. Country rock exactly as it should sound Before Nightfall is.

Michigan. Tasha

Michigan is a single from Tasha's upcoming second album, 'All This and So Much More'. Listening to Michigan, I will expect to hear indie rock kind of songs, in the mid tempo range. Louder than label mate Bloomsday, but a lot softer than Squirrel Flower in her rocking mode. Tasha sings with a breezy voice, rather high and kind of modest. The drums and bass particularly are not modest and drive her dreamy vocals onwards. Just in case she decides to stop halfway. The rest of the music in the song is certainly present but is of another order than the rhythm section. The mix is also dense, making it harder to pull some instruments apart. That aside, Michigan has a positive vibe. It certainly rocks in its own way. Tasha, as you will have noticed, has not totally convinced me but certainly gets the benefit of the doubt.

Make It All Right. The Offspring

The female voice at the start of Make It All Right made me prick up my ears for the wrong reasons. I forgot to listen, while finding the right locker in my brain to find the name. So did others on the internet I found. I came up with Wet Legs's singer. It is a perfect match with a Wet Leg song, I'd say. Listening to Make It All Right is a pleasant surprise. The Offspring may not have made a better 'Self Esteem' but does come up with a great pop-punk-rocker. Dexter Holland and Noodles (Kevin Wasserman) can still write great songs. The oohs aahs and pa-pas fly around my ears, while around them strong melodies and supercharged (the name of the upcoming album) playing are going on. On the basis of this new single, I'd say The Offspring has some more life in it.

The Longest Night. Exedo

The final one for this day, is a great alternative rock song by a band called Exedo. Exedo is Latin and means to eat up, devour, consume. Anything from just eating to wild abandon or simply eating in the wild it seems. Exedo is a band from Chicago. The song reminds me of a Dutch band, I can't lay my finger on. The band rocks loud. The main riff though is of a delicateness that is a surprise compared to especially the chorus. Drums and bass are tight alright. They really keep the song together. Together with the guitar they play a passage during the song, that makes The Longest Night so extremely powerful. Over it all sings Christine with a near gothic inclination. It is what makes the single stand out twice. The band does so and the singer makes it more special. Album 'The Body Remembers' is out for a few weeks already. I may have to take a listen anyway.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght

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