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How To Be A Confidante. The Bug Club
Come 2025 and The
Velvet Underground, disbanded in 1970, is still omnipresent. Just listen
to How To Be A Confidente by The Bug Club and you'll hear all the
familiar components of Reed-Morrison-Tucker and more Yule than Cale in
an instant. In other words, The Bug Club returns to this blog with an
alternative rocker that is dirty and vibrant. The singing between Sam
Willmett and Tilly Harris makes it a real duet. The vocals are as wobbly
as the music it. Sure it rocks, and the drummer, whoever he or she or
it is, keeps things tightly together. The rest could go off the road any
moment. The song is great, make no mistake there. The Bug Club is in
great form and any fan of The Velvet Underground and the bands that
followed it, will find their way immediately with it.
Personality Cult is Ben Carr from Durham, North Carolina, who started releasing work under that name in 2018, picked up band members along the way and recently released the band's third album, 'Dilated'. Listening to Anger, it must be a fantastic alternative rock album. Anger is a loud song, filled with layers of guitars, with a bass and drums underneath it all. Anger somehow combines late 1960s pop-rock with alternative rock of the 90s and today. The song is filled with melody and harmonies. A The Byrds like guitar solo is almost hidden in the wall of sound Anger presents. Over it all Ben Carr sings with a voice like a bored, a bit whining teenager and yet the vocals jump out of the single. If the whole of 'Dilated' is only nearly as good as Anger, it is a must have album.
BC Camplight? Do I have an album of this artist already? I'm nearly certain but can't find it. On Two-legged Dog he is joined by The Last Dinner Party's Abigail Morris. The song is almost pretentious in its approach, yet stands out because of it immediately. It has some soul in it, without becoming a soul song. It is enormous in sound without becoming a wall of sound. But what it truly is, I have a hard time defining for you. What I do know is that I like it. In the past there have been more obscure artists that have released songs like this and for the life of me, I do not know their names any more. There are just faint memories of the songs. 'Will You?' by Hazel O'Connor popped up while editing this post. Two-legged Dog is a song of near otherworldly proportions. In a way it is opera, which it isn't. Everything is made far bigger than it really is. BC Camplight is singer-songwriter Brian Christinzio, who is releasing his latest album, 'A Sober Conversation' on 27 June.
Paid Becso Am Dim is Welsh for 'Don’t worry about a thing’. It may be the first Welsh language song on this blog. heddlu ('police') started in 2022 as a solo project of Rhodri Daniel. After having disbanded his band Estrons in 2019, Daniel was diagnosed with severe hearing damage and tinnitus. After a difficult period he was able to record the album 'Cantref' in 2022. Now followed by the upcoming 'Tramor'. Paid Becso Am Dim was written for his sister, who is battling a serious illness. With a tempo that brings Supergrass to mind, overlaid with a shot of psychedelia as was played already in the second half of the 1960s. It makes Paid Becso Am Dim a very nice hybrid song. heddlu may be hearing impaired, there's seems nothing wrong with his hearing music in many layers in his head and translating it into a recording. Nice song.
Nambyar is a totally new name to me. Behind the name is singer-songwriter Jesse Nambiar, who in October will release his second solo album, 'Remedy'. Before his solo career he played in the band Valerius, which rings some very faint bells. Northern Star is a ballad with a rocking solo guitar. At heart it is piano ballad though. Northern Star starts with just a piano and Nambyar's voice. His voice is able to shoot up in a way that brings to mind that beautiful album by Crime and Colour, 'If I Should Go Before You' from 2015. Both are of the kind where beauty goes before all else. After the quiet start, Northern Star goes into a passionate chorus, where the band join in. Things remain fairly quiet in the second verse, where strings join the band setting, including this great background aahhs and ooohs. It's the lead guitar that sets the song on fire for a short while, after which everything winds down with Nambyar assuring his love that he "loves her just the way she is", with other words.
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Robin Kester may have come relatively late to professional music, she is compensating by cranking out music very regularly. In September 2024 there was the EP 'Patch' and now a new single, Happy Sad (It's A Party). The song has a strong pace, that is kept up relentlessly. No rest for the wicked here. The mood shows both sides of the title. The song is a variation on "It's My party and I cry if I want to". But then much faster, as the people around her may still be partying, despite the "he" who has left the person throwing the party. Initially, the song brought an old Fischer Z song to mind. That feeling left me as soon as Robin Kester started singing. This had to do with the tempo of Happy Sad (It's A Party) and the late 70s new wave feel the song has in the intro. Then listen to the saxophone underscoring Robin Kester's lyrics. The sadness is all over it. The drummer and bass player have no clue what's going on and keep the party going for the whole of the song. Very well done this.
I'm With Her, Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O'Donovan and Sara Watkins, can be found on this blog with the single 'Ancient Lights' near two months ago. In the meantime the album 'Wild and Clear and Blue' has been released, I only got around to the new single. There's simply too much music but I'm not complaining when I'm allowed to listen to something as beautiful as Standing on the Fault Line. The trio is in an absolute top form on this single. Two acoustic guitars are enough to support the three beautiful voices in the first half of the song. After the second chorus the song becomes more powerful, the three voices rise, but no matter what happens, the beauty remains. Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O'Donovan and Sara Watkins appear to have gold in their hands, based on the two songs I've heard so far. It's time to get acquainted with that album.
More music from Wales. Time for a little uptempo punk music. Small Miracles is a new name to this blog. Bisexual Panic is an explosion of energy that fizzles out after 104 seconds, when everything is said and done. The single is the band's first from its upcoming debut album. The song is 104 seconds of chaos, energy and rawness. There's nothing subtle in Small Miracles' Bisexual Panic. Just an ongoing moshpit until the last one remains standing. I think that is all you need to know, to be able to join the ongoing pogoing.
I have no clue what happened to the guys who got themselves and the rest of the world off in 1978, leading the disco scene for a very short but very memorable way. This Foxy mixes punkrock The Ramones style with sharp lead guitar solos. In other words, there is no disco in sight for as far as the horizon allows me to see and most likely even beyond that faint thin line in the distance. This Foxy is from 2025, but. It plays sped up The Beach Boys style rock and roll as The Ramones used to do and artists like Geoff Palmer and Brad Marino are so good at today. Foxy brings just this little extra punk credibility to Rock And Roll Crime but not without forgetting to add some great pop elements like handclaps and a great chorus like 'Rock and Roll High School' or 'I Love Rock and Roll' have. To all appearances, I'd say that Foxy found out where Abraham has stashed his mustard. This is punk-pop-rock and roll to the max.
I wrote about the music-poetry project released by Brian Bilston and The Catenary Wires on 16 March, when I wrote about the previous single, 'Alexa, What Is There To Know About Love?'. So, I'll let you look the story up there. Is it fate or coincidence that Every Song On The Radio Reminds Me Of You is the last song ending the week as well? Who knows, it could be fate after all. Fact is, I find myself writing on the project that sets poems by Brian Bilston to music once again. The album, 'Sounds Made By Humans' was already released earlier this month. As I already wrote above here, there are simply too many albums. The singles section is a nice alternative though. The Catenary Wires have created a beautiful melody around Bilston summing up song titles and fragments from lyrics that most music aficionados will recognise instantly, before the band returns to that infectious chorus. It seems like I can listen to poetry set to music. What a surprise? No, of course not. Good lyrics are poems.
Wout de Natris - van der Borght
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