Category: Pop rock
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Columbia Mills: A Safe Distance to Watch
Columbia Mills – who take their name from a building on Dublin’s Quays, once a centre of the illegal rave scene – have reportedly had comparisons made with LCD Soundsystem and Joy Division, but we can only assume that’s by a five-year-old who’s never heard either band. This is pop with an electronic element, but…
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Sheridan Smith: Sheridan
We don’t watch much telly and live for us is gigs, not theatre, so the talented Ms Smith has passed us largely by: we’ve only heard people rave about Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Gavin and Stacey and Benidorm (but then, who needs more than Detectorists?). She starred in The Harry…
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Rae Morris: Someone Out There
We were expecting some kind of bland pop; if she’d been called Hólmfríður Grímsdóttir and from Reykjavik we’d have been more prepared. Morris is from Blackpool and we thought her debut was a little staid, but this is great. For most of the album she has that Scandinavian vibe going on, with vocals that are…
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Marmozets: Knowing What You Know Now
The title perhaps reflects that singer Becca Macintyre had to have a knee operation that left her housebound, giving them time to reflect on their rapid rise to fame. This new album seems to use up all the energy she accumulated while bed-ridden — it’s feisty and aggressive while still having some great singalong choruses.…
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Will Varley: Spirit of Minnie
Previous releases — this is his fifth studio album — have been just Varley and guitar; powerful songs maybe (try Something Is Breaking from Kingsdown Sundown) but still acoustic. This new album has a full band and sees him up his game considerably: comparisons with the likes of Marc Cohn or even The Boss in…
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Sunflower Bean: Twentytwo in Blue
This patchy album is more a promise of what could be to come than what is. At peak Bean they drop sharp indie pop, with lead singer Julia Cumming’s crystal voice contrasting with the scuzzy guitar. In other places it’s less convincing (a polite euphemism for forgettable). Opener Burn It is good, a plea to…
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Don McLean: Botanical Gardens
Lyrically this is for those who think political correctness has gone mad, and the loss of the days when a man could walk round openly staring at pretty girls in dresses is to be lamented. The opener Botanical Gardens is, reduced to its essentials, about a man who ain’t getting any eying up girls in…
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The Magic Gang: The Magic Gang
There’s a long line of bands producing catchy guitar-based pop, to varying degrees of success, on what one could call the Weezer-Echosmith spectrum, Weezer clearly being the daddies, Echosmith truly excellent but less successful. Or there’s Black Kids, who shone brightly but briefly, or Fountains of Wayne. The list goes on. We suspect The Magic…
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Tom Misch: Geography
Years ago, we briefly flirted with trip hop/funk (Hull’s Fila Brazillia were a favourite) and this new album from Misch (born five years after Fila Brazillia formed) takes us back to those days: sleek, jazz-tinged funky pop that’ll be playing in any wine bar you care to enter for the next few years. There’s a…
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Pet Shop Boys: Introspective
In other reviews of Pet Shop Boys reissues (Please, Actually) we’ve enjoyed the 12” extended mixes on the bonus CD. With Introspective, the tracks are the extended mixes, the PSB later whittling them down for singles. It comes with the usual excellent sleeve notes — worth the price of admission on their own — which…
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