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 SINGLE OF THE WEEK
ROCKETSMITHS – A Shot At The Seat
(Independent)
This is the sound of the kind of special fighting move a group of colour-matched Japanese cartoon characters can only pull off once an episode, and first they have to pool their powers and shout their slogan. Something like, “Team Rocketsmiths blitz attack go!” Dom Miller’s hysterically shouted call-and-response vocals are as bratty as they’ve ever been, the keys are doing their job front and centre. What’s it all about? I have no bloody idea and do not care a jot. It’s three minutes of pure attitude and I can’t stop listening to it. Did someone just shout “Aree bah!” in the background there? I certainly hope they did because this is one of the very few circumstances where doing so would be well and truly justified. Three thumbs up.
 GIGGS – Look What The Cat Dragged In
(Remote Control/XL)
To make it to the top of the charts, grime rappers like Dizzee Rascal, Tinchy Stryder, Wiley and Roll Deep all polished away the grit and turned out catchy electro bangers with varying degrees of listenability. Not Giggs, though. His slow and low flow is as grungy as ever and, although he does spit out a few cringeworthy euphemisms about his ‘chopstick’ and his ‘cockpit’, the main concession he’s made to listeners of the pop charts is blanking out the rude words. That leaves us with one of those very odd songs where you have to fill in a bunch of gaps yourself and the end result winds up being filthier in your head than it was originally, which is surely the opposite of the intention. Now it’s just a bewildering number about how he’d like you to **** with your best friend’s **** while he **** the **** and, of course, the monkey watches.
JÓNSI – Animal Arithmetic
(EMI)
So this is what that nice Sigur Rós man sounds like when he’s out on his own away from the rest of the band. He sings most of this one in English, which is a surprise. There’s a bit of that soaring Icelandic uplift his band are famous for going on in Animal Arithmetic, but mostly what’s going on is the sound of one man being twee as fuck and I mean that in the best possible way. He’s riding a bike, making out, brushing his teeth, there are elephants, he’s late for the bus with a slice of toast in his mouth. Actually he doesn’t quite go that far, but you get the picture. The pounding rhythm doesn’t let up and cute imagery tumbles out over the top of it until it threatens to overflow and spill everywhere but never quite does and smiles are guaranteed. I give this six squillion out of tumpty-five.
SURFER BLOOD – Swim
(Spunk/EMI)
Here is how you recreate Surfer Blood’s Swim in the comfort of your own home: put The Beach Boys on one stereo and put Sleigh Bells on another stereo on the other side of the room, then stand in the middle thinking hard about a Weezer song you like. Bingo bango, you have just recreated the raucous surf rock of Florida’s Surfer Blood. Only it probably sounds terrible, whereas this is rather good with its fuzzy megaphone vocals over clear and booming guitar. If this is what it sounds like in surfers’ veins we should be cutting them open all the time.
ESTELLE – Fall In Love
(Warner)
Fall In Love’s beat sounds eerily like the one Estelle used on American Boy, as if someone in Record Label Land is trying to craftily trick us all into liking the same song twice. Only where American Boy had Kanye West being all brash and braggadocious and a bit of a prick over the top of it, Fall In Love is left with just Estelle singing about how we should fall in looove, but take it slow. It even does that familiar thing of getting quiet like you’ve just gone to the bathroom in a club and now you’re hearing the song through the wall. Estelle sings about going to watch a movie and then possibly seeing the object of her affection more frequently, which is an amusingly low-key thing to make the subject of a love song, but then goes and ruins it with a bunch of clashingly over-the-top cookie-cutter clichés about how their love will go beyond the stars and the moon and the sky, and quite possibly infinity.
THE CAT EMPIRE – Falling
(EMI)
I’m not usually a fan of The Cat Empire. Their songs are as hooky as an escaped murderer with a hook for a hand, but they make you want to dance in the same way as an elderly aunt dragging you onto the dancefloor at a wedding – with regret. But in Falling, The Cat Empire’s horns aren’t their usual overpowering self; the bassline is funky, but in a relaxed way, and there’s some subdued scratching going on. You still want to clap along and maybe join in once you’ve figured out the chorus and the trumpet goes spazz at the end, because it’s still The Cat Empire, but it’s a matured version of their sound that I like a lot more. I’ll be ignoring the radio a lot less if this is what they sound like from now on. Now let go of my arm, Auntie Jean.
OWL EYES – 1 + 1
(Warner)
Owl Eyes is a young lady from Melbourne who seems to have been listening to her fair share of Cat Power and Bat For Lashes, and that’s a good thing because it means she doesn’t put on one of those voices that only people from Iceland – where the children are still raised by pixies and other magical creatures – actually have any right to sing in. I’m not saying she isn’t going to start singing about her animal totem, but when she does it will be in a proper, slightly husky, lady’s voice even if it is coming from her perch in the branches of a tree. 1 + 1 has drums that are a distant cousin of the drums from Be My Baby and lyrics about how easy it is to screw up the simple mathematics of love, and that is a lyrical theme I heartily endorse.
PENSIVE PENGUIN – Charismatic Autocrat
(Independent)
If you are going to have an animal name like all the other cool bands, this is the way to go about it – with alliteration and hard consonants. Well done, Pensive Penguin, not only on the choice of moniker but on this slice of well-groomed wistful indie pop with chiming guitars, frilly vocals about the lies we tell ourselves becoming the truth, and handclaps. I am a sucker for well-deployed handclaps in a pop song and these are very well-deployed handclaps indeed. I almost begin to suspect that they are not really a collective of worried animal citizens of Antarctica, but actually one of those ‘rock bands’ from a town with a fine history of jangly pop songs much like this one.
JODY MACGREGOR
1. Written by Flightless bird advocate, on 27-07-2010 17:00
Well said. Have seen them live and love the music with a passion. Truly an up an coming.  |
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