Los Campesinos! - We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Los Camp!. The second most punk rock band in Britain. The indiest band in Britain. More indie than The Smiths, more indie than The Cribs, more indie than the entire teenage population of Hoxton at an NME party watching Foals playing a cover of the Skins theme tune.. They're so indie that this isn't even an LP. According to them, it's an Extended EP. I think you get the point. Released only 8 months after their debut "Hold On Now, Youngster...", "WAB,WAD" represents a band maturing, growing yet still retaining what made them so special in the first place.

LC! specialise in the kind of wordy, studenty racket that typical Enemy/Oasis fans would hate. Their songs won't be shouted from terraces, sung badly on the way home from Yates's, and noone will be shaking anything to them at any 18ths. But just because LC! aren't in-yr-face mainstream doesn't mean they should be cast aside as a "weird indie band". In their own words, "we're undeveloped, we're ignorant, we're stupid, but we're happy."

Opening with "Ways To Make It Through The Wall", a swirling piece of electro bleeps, chugging guitars and self-loathing lyrics. Lines like "I identify my star sign by asking which is least compatible with yours" and "I think you've got it in for us/I think you've got it in for yourselves" gives the impression we have a second Morrissey on our hands. Gareth Campesinos! doesn't really cheer up much throughout the rest of the album (must have been a pretty bad 8 months since "HON,Y...") as you can see from song titles such as "Miserabilia". LC! seem intent on summing up the wasteland between teenagedom and adulthood in this album. How else can you describe a verse like this: "As if I walked into the room to see my ex-girlfriend/Who by the way, I'm still in love with/Sucking the face of some pretty boy with my favourite band's most popular song in the background/Is it wrong that I can't decide which bothers me most?"

It's not just the band's lyrics which are superb, the musicmanship has improved greatly from the debut. Where it once had to be everything playing at once in a joyous, overexcited racket, is now restrained or wild when it needs to be. The glockenspiels, keyboards and violins augment the typical guitar-bass-drums set up for the better and let the hardcore punk influence shine through without losing their twee edge or dampening the effect of the lyrics.

"We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed" could turn out to be a significant album for Los Campesinos!. With it's release method (only 5000 copies, free fanzine, DVD, poster and buttons, as well as no singles), it could see them go further into elite indie-ness, shunning the mainstream completely. Or they could possibly become, with an ever-growing fanbase and almost universal acclaim for the album, everyone's favourite outsiders, the underdogs of the 21st century indie scene. For now, they remain a wonderful secret for those who know of them.

9/10 (slightly late review...by 2 months)

Vivian Girls - Vivian Girls

Imagine a female Cribs or Ramones or even an all girl early Green Day (Red Week? Sorry, gross joke if you get it, but had to make it). Now imagine them with a hell of a lotta feedback over the top. That's the pretty much what Brooklyn's Vivian Girls are all about. Lo-fi punk rock with heavenly harmonies chucked into the wall of sound. What sets them apart from the rest of the "girl power" bands (basically any band with a female member that's a bit "fiesty"), apart from having only two songs over the 3 minute mark on the entire album, is that they don't to be too bothered by anything, apart from making some good old punk rock. And I believe for that they should be applauded for that alone.

But that's not the only reason to praise the band. They squeeze more pure punk rock into 22 minutes than most bands fit into double albums. And hit a lot of reference points along the way. The albums sounds like one big jam session between The Ramones, My Bloody Valentine, The Shangri-Las, The Long Blondes, No Age, The Breeders and even The Smiths (on "Going Insane") and is all the better for it. The varied mix of influences adds up to some of the best punk songs and best melodies of the last few years from the alternative side of the world.

7/10

White Denim - Workout Holiday

Woohoo! Band you've never heard of time! Well unless you're the ultimate hipster around these parts (and being fair, I'm the only person to come close to fitting the criteria). White Denim are a garage band, but pretty much a world away from recent definitions of 'garage' music. They are not UK garage which was/is basically R&B but a little bit less radio-friendly. And they are not like the garage rock bands of the early 00's; not rich pretty boys with dollops of cool (The Strokes), booted and suited Scandinavians (The Hives), grungy Australians (The Vines) or a ex-husband-and-wife team in red (The White Stripes). They're pretty authentic. A joyous racket is the best way to describe them.

"Workout Holiday" starts off as you'd expect; loud and thrilling. "Let's Talk About It" which is rather good but overly long and the brilliant "Shake Shake Shake". But after those two singles, White Denim let their weird out. Normal song structures and pop conventions are thrown out of the window. For example, "Mess Your Hair Up" is an almost 5 minute long blues jam that evolves into some crazy freakout with an odd middle eighth (if it can be called that). Then straight after on "Heart From All Of Us", they turn their hand to countryfied pop-rock. But vocals only come into the track after 1 minute 48 seconds and last just over a minute. There must be some method in this madness.

And then to go even further, there's crazy time signatures or weird effects pedals on "Look That Way At It", I can't tell which. Either way it makes for a great instrumentla track. On the remainder of the album, the band goes from poppy (well for them anyways) Hives-esque tracks to slightly softer, soulful songs to somewhat experimental weirdness. Completely compelling and thrilling the whole way through. They may not be reinventing the wheel, but they're giving it another damn good spin.

8.5/10

Morrissey - I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris

Mozza. The Mozfather. The Pope of Mope. Il Mozalini. Steven Patrick. He goes by many names, but you'll always know it's him by the music. Ninth album "Years Of Refusal" is out next year on the 23rd of Feb (a nice birthday present for moi *hint*) and has a slightly odd cover. Make of that what you will. Anyway, back to the music. Lead single "....Paris" is a return to the "You Are The Quarry" territory instead of the calmer, loved up material of "Ringleader". It's typical Moz fare really; a hint of whimsy, good old glam rock guitar, a naggingly familiar melody and the usual feelings of longing, as exemplified in the chours "I'm throwing my arms around all of Paris/Because only steel and stone accept my love". It's slightly obvious that Mozza might have gone through a bit of relationship trouble over the last few years. Long may it continue if this prime piece of rock is the result. A case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

8/10

Good Books - Manifesto

Yet another band to change their name recently (after Panic At The Disco dropped the "!" and The Muslims opted for the much-less contreversy-courting The Soft Pack), Good Books release their yet-to-be-titled second album on the 4th of May next year. Feautring on the album will be "Manifesto", a track which has magically found its way onto teh internetz. GBs first album was full of angular, bleepy math-pop (for want of a better description) but with some big, big choruses which hinted at a lot of potential and a move away from a new Foals.

"Manifesto" begins with the kind of strings you'd expect to hear James Morrison rasping over, but then suddenly bursts into a wall of synth, funky drums and impassioned vocals. To sound like NME, it's like Blaine Harrison from Myserty Jets singing with Glasvegas with Tony Allen on drums. Now back to the actual song. As it progresses, "Manifesto" shows more and more links to the type of melancholy anthemia we've come to expect from the likes of Arcade Fire and British Sea Power recently. If they continue down this route, then they certainly could follow those two into the indie big leagues.

7/10

"With every bubble she sank with her drink..."

Yet another big hyped band for 2009, Florence and The Machine. Methinks she is being picked by most of the big tastemakers to hit the big time next year purely because of her slight kookiness and the fact that her two singles have been entirely different; "Kiss With A Fist" is a ramshackle rocker with a big chorus, "Dog Days Are Over" is a ukelele-using folky song with handclaps, harps and presumably the kitchen sink. Comparisons are being made to Kate Bush and any other female singer who writes her own songs and isn't a complete acoustic bore aimed at the over 40s who go to Glasto or a brainwashed, plastic pop princess. Whilst it remains to be seen wether Florence and her Machine will make it to the mainstream, two things I can say is that she knows her way around a tune and hasn't half got some lungs on her. And her cover of "You Got The Love" by The Source and Candi Staton is simply amazing.



8/10 (Dog Days Are Over)

White Lies - Album Tracks

Well what's this?! Two new White Lies tracks from the yet-to-be-released debut "To Lose My Life" have landed in my (virtual) lap. This is yet another album I'm excited for next year (I think I'm just excited for next year in general), although it's getting a hell of a lot of hype through various DJs and the music media in general which could set the band up for a biiiiiiiig fall.

Half the album is already floating around the blogosphere, so there's a pretty good idea of what it sounds like already. Here comes the bad part. The two leaked tracks "Fairwell To The Fairground" and "The Price Of Love" aren't really anywhere near the brilliance of White Lies' earlier songs. Both songs are near to the end of the album so should be grandiose, epic statements whilst showing some development for the band, but they just come off a bit avaerage considering the talent they've shown on "Unfinished Business" and "Death".

The "new Joy Division" tag is totally unfounded though as it is with the other two bands burdened with the comparison; Editors and Interpol. Whereas JD where claustrophobic, angular and menacingly melancholy, these three modern bands have much grander ambitions with a widescreen edge to their sound, whilst keeping the gloomy feeling and deep-voiced singer.

Anyway back to my point. "FTTF" is the weaker of the two songs, something which should have been left as a B-side as best. It's two clean, polished, too Radio One really. A better chorus would improve it vastly. "TPOL" is slightly better, much more of the White Lies formula. A slow burner which evolves into a typical big, bold album closer with a dashing of Morricone-esque strings for added effect. It's good, but not as good as expected.

6/10 (Fairwell To The Fairground)
7/10 (The Price Of Love)

"C'mon let's get hiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh"

This may be old news but here's the covers for Franz Ferdinand's next album "Tonight:..." and the lead single "Ulysses"














I don't think I could be more excited for an album out next year, apart from a possible third from the Arctic Monkeys, which would make 2009 the best year ever, bar none.
Anyways back to my point. There's a free download of a live version of album track "What She Came For" on NME.com (and "Ulysses" is floating around the interweb somewhere), so I highly reccomend heading over there right now, as the track is immense. Starting off as your typical groovy Franz with a few synth lines thrown in for good measure, it builds to a killer chorus as the guitars and bass get ever more funky and the song reaches its end with a cacophony of distorted riff-ery. Almost perfect.

9/10