New Releases

Stornoway: I Saw You Blink (22 March)

As the new darlings for the broadsheets, it’s not hard to imagine a middle-class couple raving about Stornoway over a coffee and croissants, fashionable baby buggy by their side under a North London Sunday sun. They are, on this single, Vampire Weekend without the African inspiration, Mystery Jets with a massive dose of higher education, entirely unthreatening and akin to bobbing about in a row-boat wearing Brideshead whites, weeping willows casting shadows on luminous faces. Like most folk-rooted pop, ‘I Saw You Blink’ is heavy on sweet, somewhat melancholy melodies and intelligent arrangements but, like folk-pop, apt to be high on the twee irritation factor. It’s not hard see the pretty worthiness of this single, but that doen’t mean we have to like it.

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We Have Band: Divisive (22 March)

Already with one stunning video under their belts for ‘We Came Out’, ‘Divisive’ plays with visuals in a way that’s arresting but no means pretentious, an understanding that begins with their music. Electronica is still hot, what with Hot Chip, SMD, Hurts, Delphic and Hadouken! covering the respective sub-genres, but WHB manage to take the Depeche Mode/Human League/PSB role call, and stuff it with invigorating new life that’s seductive to all. You don’t need anything but a set of ears to appreciate this single (and its three remixes of which the DJ Mujava Dub Remix is enormously fun and sounds a bit like Dr Alban mucking about with a synth set to Eastern Promise). It funks around the fringes of 90s bass lines and the smooth boy-girl vocals dust this with lashings of canny cool that can’t even be broken by the presence of bongos. Bongos are the new cowbells. Remember that as you’re swallowed whole by the genius of ‘Divisive’.

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We The Kings: Smile Kid (15 March)

Remember when loving Busted and McFly was an irony you could just about get away with? Remember when everyone kind of admitted there was a Fall Out Boy song they really really liked, but the band were, by and large, awful? You can kiss those days goodbye as the lines between so-catchy-pop/rock-it’s-good and so-shit-pop/rock-let’s-kill-this-band narrow a giant step thanks to this insipid, over-produced piece of slick tween fodder.

When the world is ending thanks to our own folly, this will be the soundtrack; as buildings collapse into yawning chasms of lava and tar and people pray for salvation, the high-sugar content of songs like ‘The Story Of Your Life’ and ‘Heaven Can Wait’ will be played by the vengeful gods for our love of plastic, toxins, and the entire Cyrus family. For no matter how much this band play their own instruments and ink their skin, there is no denying that it’s got Disney friendly written all over it. They probably fart cotton candy and sleep on beds made of clouds and angel hair. That they have a song called ‘In-N-Out (Animal Style)’ is an oxymoron since they make music that suggests they cry as soon as a girl touches their dicks. With lyrics like, ‘I look to the right, all I see is a pillow that’s lonely, dream of you, saving me on cue, wishing that you were laying beside me’, it might be that they cry as soon as they touch themselves. We The Kings are a royalty only in their heads; avoid this album at all costs or we’ll be seeing you in that boiling lava pit.

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Glasser: Tremel (29th March)

LA girl sounds a bit like The Knife. How’s that for succinct?

You want more? A bit like Bat For Lashes as well?

Frankly, there is absolutely nothing remarkable about this single if you’re a fan of either artist. It’s an acceptable effort with dreamy sparse vocals and lots of those gentle tribal drums. There might be a lot of hand movements and birds in the video. More interesting are the remixers and their wares; like a 9-minute mix from Astronomer that ups the ante to a low-key fever, the Romantic Three give it some NY 80s gloss but the winner is Jamie xx (from The XX) who dirties it down into a space exploration through drum’n'bass, making it far more interesting than the original, which must be a nusiance for Glasser.

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fun: Walking The Dog/Be Calm (29th March)

Aside from walking towards a giant mountain of potential slating for the band name, this double A-side from former Format, Nate Ruess, has plenty of hidden merits that at first get lost within the chirpy plinky plunkiness of ‘Walking The Dog’ but emerge grinning like lunatics once you’ve discarded the ‘heard it before’ shrugs. It does, but it’s better. There. Said it. Effortless sunny indie melodics with a chorus that might have ‘na-na-na-na’s in it but will plunge towards your memory like an eager burrowing creature. ‘Be Calm’ attempts to even out the loopiness but gives in to wonderful breast-beating madness swirling with brass and parading percussion. It’s musical theatre without the jazz hands and with a whole lot of heart.

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Kids In Glass Houses: Dirt (29th March)

If KIGH aren’t battling for position with You Me At Six then they must be at least pissed about this kind of confusion:  I picked up ‘Dirt’ and went, oh I like that ‘Underdog’ song. Yeahhhhh. It’s okay because someone just asked if ‘Matters At All’ was Lostprophets and they’re smarter than me. Now I’ve managed to compare them to two ‘rival’ bands maybe it’s best to put on headphones and spin through the 13 tracks.

If anything, KIGH sound extremely confident, as evidenced in ‘For Better or Hearse’ which bounces with its head held high throughout even as trumpets and an overblown guitar solo bellow beside Aled’s vocals. Not that this confidence lark always works because ‘Undercover Lover’, with Frankie from The Saturdays duetting, sounds as hollow and over-produced as anything Miley Cyrus/Jonas Brothers have cooked up in the past couple of years while the proper ballad type ‘Giving Up’ drags its heels across the stage morosely without much direction.

‘Maybe Tomorrow’ rightens the band’s axis only for ‘The Morning Afterlife’ to see-saw it back, leaving the muscled form of ‘Hunt The Hunted’ to claw for stability and the raucously good ‘Artbreaker II’ to squall a thank-you-goodnight and stomp off into the distance. ‘Dirt’ is a snapshot of a band moving forward but despite their puppy paws being exchanged for new claws, they trip themselves up at inopportune moments. They’re still young and it shows in the selection of their material because by whittling this album down to ten songs, they would have made any of their contemporaries very nervous indeed.