2025, Week 24. Five singles

Pressed for time, we only present five singles this week. Work, two gigs in one week and a load of presentations, moderations coming up all in less than two weeks. Listening to music is on the backburner for a while. Playing it myself a lot less. Anyway, we do not let you alone this Sunday. The next, we will where the singles are concerned. So, enjoy!

Scratchcard. After Elmer

Previous single 'Scars' made me write that After Elmer may have hit the jackpot with the single. Only two months later the band is once again on the blog with a new energy charged single. Slowly but surely the Rotterdam based band is building up a collection of songs that will one day make a great album together. Scratchcard is an alternative rock song with tie ins to emo and punkrock, a genre I put more in a U.S. tradition than European. That said, Scratchcard does all things right. Dynamics, pleasing little melodies and a chorus that will one day make festival pastures jump and shout. The light and the shade are taken care of superbly in combination with a golden vocal melody. Party-seeking rockers cannot ask for a lot more.

Inept Apollo. Nation of Language

That mostly electronic songs can be beautiful I know ever since the first two singles by China Crisis around 1983 or 84. Nation of Language, Richard Devaney (lead vocals, guitar), Aidan Noell (synthesizer), and Alex MacKay (bass guitar), aims for the exact same effect. The line to that time in the 1980s and add Duran Duran, OMD or early Tears for Fears is a direct one. Just listening to Inept Apollo brings me there immediately. No, I do not think, at least at this moment, the first single of Nation of Language is as good as 'Wishing', 'Save A Prayer', 'Joan Of Arc (Maid Of Orleans)' or 'Pale Shelter'. The effect on me is the same and that is the first step toward a more favourable reception. Aidan Noell's role is a huge one on this single. There are pulsing synths everywhere. Yes, it's 1984 all over.

Choices. Jon Chesbro

In October 2024 Jon Chesbro made his debut on this blog with the single 'See You Again'. My review came with a warning, "a new guitar part can come in any second. It makes for great listening". It's easy to repeat the warning, as you will find a few in his latest single Choices as well. Guitars are not the defining instruments on the song though. I would opt for the keyboards and especially the warm sound of the Hammond organ. All together they give Jon Chesbro a dreamy, melancholy atmosphere over which he sings with a resigned voice. It's clear from his presentation that he realises that he has to live with his choices, as "mistakes have been made". It makes for great listening, again. We are howling with the wolves in the forest, together with Jon Chesbro.

My Brilliance. Jazmine Mary

With My Brilliance Jazmine Mary returns this blog. In 2021 I ended my review of the Licking Of A Tangerine with the following words, "Her (I now should write they/them, WdN) debut comes close to being utterly brilliant and may grow into that soon". Come 2025, I can share with you that it is one of the albums that I'm still playing regularly. Their latest single falls right into place with me. It has that same, very different but pleasant mood and instrumentation. The music of Jazmine Mary is different, as is the use of their voice. The deeper register gives it its own vibe. While nothing spectacular seems to be going on, my ears attune themselves to this music. Music in which space seem to be created that is not supposed to be there and let go off just as easily by adding more notes into the same time frame. Album 'I Want To Rock And Roll' was released this Friday. 

Girls! Coach Party

Going through the backlog of the blog, I ran into four singles by Coach Party but not an album. Girls! is the fifth single making it and perhaps the loudest so far. This single rocks and it rocks loud. It is the introduction to album 'Caramel' which will be released late in September. The band, singer and bassist Jess Eastwood, guitarists Joe Perry and Steph Norris, drummer Guy Page, are from the Isle of Wight. If there is something like a music scene there, Wet Leg and Coach Party are members of it, tipping their writing pens into the same source. On Girls! all subtlety is let of go off. Coach Party is rocking at its loudest. The drummer is in Therapy? territory with his dry, hard hits, while the guitars scream and wail. Singer Jess Eastwood is not asking where her girlfriends are, she's screaming for them. Girls! rightly has an exclamation mark behind it. There're no prisoners taken here.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght