Two Fingers – That Girl [Single]

On this single we have two key tracks, one labelled ‘(Original)’ and one labelled ‘Featuring Sway (Sway Remix). It’s the second one that seems to be the track that is the track of importance. Wherever this single is mentioned, it’s referred to as “Two Fingers Ft Sway” and this is because this is the best song by far, out of the two.

Firstly we’ll tackle the original track. A club scene song about a girl who won’t necessarily want to have sex with you seems strange at first, although they do justify this opinion my saying that she’s “Crazy”. They spend the first two minutes of the three and a quarter minute song, discussing how incredibly attractive this girl is and how infatuated they are with her. They build up the typical picture of how she dances well and that she’s rich and they also help build the character by telling us that her favourite colour is “Navy Navy” as a result of her always wanting to be in the “Navy Navy”. It’s these ultra intelligent lyrics that really draw me in to this type of music emotional and intellectually, the power of these lyrics is amazing! [/sarcasm]. I’m then a little surprised to hear that:

“It doesn’t mean she’s a hoe, ’cause she likes to have fun, she might come to your hotel but you won’t get none,  she might drink all your drinks, but she won’t get drunk.”

These lyrics then continue to say how, while she may look like your typical skank that you can fill with drink and drugs and then sleep with, this girl is different and she won’t let you do what you like to her. Although the fact that she’s let you buy her drinks all night, it’s the least she can do. It’s only polite, after all.

The sound of the track, itself, is simple, with a simple drum beat and some tight rhythms. The track it tightly knit without being overcomplicated. It’s fine, but nothing special, it’s these lyrics that hold the most interest.

We then have the Sway remix, which if you like any kind of drum and bass, will delight you. Sway’s dirty dnb style fits the club nature of the original track well and the track steams along like an unstoppable train. The rhythm of this track is infective and I find it impossible to not dance around in my seat. Over this amazing beat, the first two minutes of lyrics are overlaid. These are the boring lyrics about the girl going out partying and drinking and taking drugs. While it all sounds very nice, I would like to see some of the stuff about her “Looking like a hooker but she’s always well behaved” and see how they fit that into the remix.

The aural-aesthetics of Sway’s remix are pretty impressive, and the track as a whole is tight and a delight to listen to, but the lyrics that were chosen don’t interest me. The original version is more interesting lyrically, but isn’t as nice to listen to.

Thavius Beck – Dialogue [Album]

Big Dada have recently become my favourite record label, releasing some of the most interesting and groundbreaking hip-hop of recent times. While not all of it is going to be the most palatable music in the world, the respect I have for both the label and the artists on the label grows with each new record I hear as they are trying to improve on what’s already there, they experiment, they challenge and they are not content with producing the same things that everyone else is. Thavius Beck is no exception to this business plan, as “Dialogue” takes us across genres to electronica to produce a very intriguing and thought provoking sound.

Dialogue’s influence from electronic music isn’t new, but I’ve never heard it taken to this extreme. many of the backing tracks sound like Aphex Twin demos. The act as a comfort zone, which, when incorporated with the vocals creates this fascinating package and as the album progresses, I find myself repeatedly surprised with the way they devise this pairing of genres in ever more dramatic ways.

Sometimes I feel, though, that the album focuses more on the musical side of things and the vocals are left behind. at times they fade into the background and become part of the overall noise that you hear and rather than shouting out and communicating the message in the words, I find that virtually none of the lyrics shine through and it
no longer matters what is being said. The times that the message is prominent, they are very interesting and provide a commentary on a large variety of subjects and it’s a shame that this is lost in parts during the album.

Thavius Beck has a rather conversational tone throughout most of the album. He’s quietly discussing his views with you, as though you’re actually in the same room as him. Instead of preaching his ideas at you, like quite a lot of hip-hop does, you feel as though he sees himself on the same level as you and doesn’t patronize you in any way. Thavius Beck’s articulation isn’t the best and some of the enunciation is lost, leaving the message behind the words behind.

The tracks where he does talk at the audience, rather than to them are, I feel, the worst on the album. They have a very rushed feel to them, with very few lyrics and a lot of repetition. They often have the most interesting music tracks, but also have the most pronounced vocals, riding over the music and ruining it, without adding any content, or creating any sort of interesting dynamic It seems a bit backwards to me, that the tracks with the least interesting lyrics have the loudest vocals. The last 3 tracks, “Sometimes”, “Pressure” and “4 Part 2″ seem as though they had a track that they wanted to use for the album, but didn’t have any vocals to put on there, so they just threw something on, to fill the space until they had time to create something better, but just ran out of time and put the tracks out anywhere. It’s a real shame that the album ends on such a poor note, for me, as I really enjoyed a lot of it, but it ends so sourly that I come away with a more negative  opinion than I would have, had the album been ended on “Transmission” which, while it does have the repetitive vocals, they aren’t nearly as prominent on the track, and thus tie in much better to the song.

Overall, the album is more interesting than good and I love to see people pushing the genre forward. While there are things here that I don’t think work, there’s a lot of positive things that are very enjoyable.

Thavius Beck

Anti-pop Consortium – Fluorescent Black

[Note to Editor] Do we get a special prize for going over 1000 words in a review?

Back after a number of years apart, Anti-Pop Consortium have reunited and dropped in with an explosion of technically interesting beats, intelligent lyrics and a coalition of styles that make this one of the most discussion worthy hip-hop  albums of the year. I say discussion worthy, because there’s a lot in Fluorescent Black that you will either love or hate, and the fact that every artistic decision they’ve made on the album is well thought out and is musically valid, while still being very playful with the conventions of the genre, there’ll be much in here that will split opinion. I find myself shifting my stance on each track on each listen.

Now that I’ve heard Fluorescent Black a number of times, I find it hard to describe what I thought of it the first time I heard of it, but I didn’t like it. The vocals were monotonous, the beats were too messy and exaggerated, the effects were very overproduced and it left me quite frustrated. As I listened, and the initial impact of the album began to wear off, I began to experience some of the nuances of the production and my enjoyment of the Fluorescent Black escalated. It’s a little bit like when you get in a hot bath, firstly, you burn your knackers off lowering yourself into the steaming water. It’s uncomfortable, unnatural and it’s killing your sperm. But soon, you’re used to the heat and you can start enjoying yourself.

We start off Fluorescent Black with a messy guitar solo that peters out to be relapsed by a fuzzy bassline and a slow hiphop beat. The lethargic nature of this first track is a slow and steady build up to an album that is filled with fun and excitement. This is where my first indecision about the album. Is it clever to have your slowest song as an introduction or should you start off with a big, heavy, impressive song to plunge the listener right into the middle of Florescent Black, down the deep dark hole that is the rest of the album?

Then the next few tracks follow a more general, slightly uptempo hip-hop style, albeit with style and grace, with a very competent eclectic of different elements of hip-hop. They incorporate these elements in interesting ways, offset beats, synths, basslines and the vocals all melt nicely over one or another and is very delicious. Here ends anything that you could call a conventional rap song. They’ve lured us in with things we can relate to and can understand and will not freak out our conventions, only to smack us in the back of the head, while we’re not looking.

Then we get to what many people are saying is the cherry on this cake. “Volcano” is the first single from this album, and had gotten a great deal of positive criticism from every angle. With it’s catchy hook, it’s clean and easy to follow rhythm and dynamic form, it’s new without being too experimental and deserves all the positive opinions that it has been getting.

“Timpani” follows the catchy “Volcano” with what seems more like a 4:09 interlude to the album. We slow right down with some very simple rhythmic drums and some chanting, overlain with a very long monotonous rap that threads between the other elements. Then half way through the track, we get a more techno beat and electronic tones punctuating the heavy beat, intermittently splitting from the left to the right channel, with a very disorientating effect in my headphones. I fell down on the ground during this song and couldn’t get up until it had finished. I was rolling around all over the floor, shrieking and vomiting. Then I got off the bus…

Post-vomiting and rolling about, the Robots take over and say that they want to add robotic parts to our human forms to help us to deal with stress. The song discusses the fact that the human’s call this a revolution, but the ‘bots claim that it’s evolution. This difference of opinions is repeated ad nauseum with overly processed robotic voices that are very difficult to understand and it did take me a few listens to even begin to understand what they were talking about, which to me, seems a little counter-productive. This song is probably some kind of comment on our current dependence on computers and the internet, etc. Maybe it’s just a fantastical story of friendly robots trying to help us?

Fluorescent Black continues on with a number of very successful tracks that include more interesting beats, synthy overtones and fascinating lyrics, spoken with dynamism and presence that all fits together to provide us with something very unexpected and definitely worth the time it takes to get used to the irregular style. Scattered in with these fantastic works of art, are some experiments that didn’t work. Like Frankingstein’s monster, they come to life, then turn around and smack you in the face! The thing is, that which are which will depend on the listener and even sometimes it’s different section of the same song that shift between exciting and discouraging. I can guarantee that most of you will hate something about this section of the album, but don’t let this discourage you, because a lot of it is really great, but due to the experimental nature of Fluorescent Black, you can’t have everything work 100%, but this is how we move forward and advance with anything.

Wow, this review has gone long and I’ve barely scratched the surface of this album, such is the depth of the music and the huge variety that it offers, though without compromising or shifting from their hip-hop mission statement.

Outlawz – We Want In [Album]

Over a decade after 2pac took this group under their wing, they are still putting out music the same as they were 10 years ago. Having featured on 28 albums, including a number of 2pac’s LPs, and continuing to be strong in the genre is virtually impossible as this patchy album demonstrates. I’m always looking for the known kings of a genre to continue to push back the boundaries but as we all know, time takes it’s toll on any group that have been working together for a long period.

“We Want In” has everything you would expect from the pioneers of Thug Life. Guns, Bitches and the hatred of fellow black Americans is all par for the course in these situations and such inspiring lyrics as “Thuggin’ ’till I die” and “You gotta git dat, git dat, git dat, git dat” really draw you into the protagonist’s life and really force you to empathise with the troubles of this group of men.The fact that these troubles seem to be the same troubles that they were facing might just show that they’re not learning from their mistakes. Songs such as “Hunger Pains” explain the hardship of not having enough money to buy food, but after 28 albums in 13 years, they really need to get a better record deal. Although their Myspace claims: “The only group in music history to be featured on over 40 million albums sold worldwide and never put out an album of their own on a major label!” Which might go somewhere to explaining their money troubles.

There are some tracks that are musically very good, “Love of Money” had a very full sound, with some dynamic beats and an eclectic use of different effects. In fact, most of the music is musically very tight, the different collaborating voices work very well together and overall it represents the genre very well. The fact that it’s a style that many have tried to emulate and failed, but Outlawz still manage to make it sound fresh. At least they’re still trying to represent their roots and talk about the things that they think their audience would relate to, which is the same thing they were talking about when they first broke into the big time, but I can’t imagine that they are still having to fear for their life in the ghetto, and shooting people on a regular basis, which is what they continue to rap about as well as the tracks about poverty.

There is a nice homage to the people they know who have been killed, among those being 2pac. While this is a nice sentiment, I’m sure there’s probably one of these on each of the albums that the Outlawz have released, and though I haven’t kept up to date with Outlawz much, I can’t imagine there’s much new ground covered in this track.

Overall, “We Want In” is solid and sounds pretty good, but it’s all style over content and there’s nothing here that wasn’t there when 2pac first introduced them to the world.

Crown City Rockers – The Day After Forever

The first thing that any review of this album has mentioned is that Crown City Rockers are ‘old-school’. Although this is not inaccurate, I feel that this is doing a disservice to the music that Crown City Rockers are being associated with. Although, yes, The Day After Forever does bare more than a passing resemblance to hip-hop from the early 80s, when it first came out, it was fresh new and inventive, whereas now, when Crown City Rockers are doing it, they are just copying a style and as a result it seems laboured and is not interesting to me.

The music style seems as though it’s copied straight out of the Early Hip-Hop Handbook and is as impressive as when a child shows you a picture that they traced out of a book. You pretend to be impressed and grin and nod, but you know that the child has no real skills, they just copied the thing out of a book. This is the lasting impression I get from The Day After Forever and you end up feeling a bit cheated.

I recently made a comment to someone that when I listen to Rapper’s Delight nowadays, it sounds a bit rubbish. I was rightfully vilified for this comment, but I do still stand by it. I know it was ground breaking and pushed hip-hop forwards, but listening to it, the rhymes are very basic, the beat is simple and based on what we have in the genre at the moment, it lacks a lot. Now we have Crown City Rockers that are mimicking that era of music, but have none of the prestige and monument surrounding their music and this just drags the whole thing down into an area of worthlessness that can’t compare. At least when people try something new and fail, they can justify their failure as an experiment, but when you try something that has been successful for 30 years, and fail, where does that leave you?

There are fer too many moments in The Day After Forever that put me in mind of another song by another group and I find myself struggling to find where that memory fits and who that bit sounded like and instead of appreciating the music for what it is, I’m thinking about something else and flicking through my music collection to jog my memory.

There’s a lot of expectation for this band in the media, especially in the Bay Area, where the band are from, where they seem to be lapping it up, so there definitely is a market for bland re-runs of old music, but not in my house. Like I said, I’ve tired slightly of that genre as a whole, but it is the nostalgia that keeps me close to that music and I will continue to come back to the music that started it all, but not something that rehashes old ideas with little to no merit.

All in all, it’s solid and the basics are strong, but because these basics are from the late 70s and early 80s, “The Day After Forever” is tedious and tenuous.

Adrian Killens – Selected Demos 02-09 [Album]

The music is nice and sweet, the vocals are nice and sweet but the lyrics are filled with disappointment and bitterness and I love it.

Halfway between Eels and Randy Newman, Adrian Killens takes the soft music style and layers it with an uncharacteristic anger that creates a juxtaposition of style and content to create a collection of songs that are endearing funny and thought provoking.

Lyrics such as “I call you prettyish ’cause pretty’s such a strong word in case you turned your back on me and all your friends would have heard” really show that mixture of emotion in the song, between being a bit of a dick and saying that this girl is pretty-ish and hedging his bets and not wanting to take a risk by being too honest is really what makes this album appealing to me. The pleasantness of the music and the harsh realities in the lyrics continue throughout the album scrutinizing various situations and being very honest about the way they make him feel leaves no bad taste in my mouth.

Some of the subjects in the songs are very trivial and I enjoy this. Killens dedicates a whole song to being bored at work during the week and instead of going on and on about how drunk he’s going to get at the weekend, there’s one line that states he’s going to drink to forget, while the rest of the song goes on at length about the boring week. It’s this base of reality that I find so refreshing.

There are going to be people that don’t get the irony in the songs, and taking them at face value may miss the treasure that I found laying under the surface. It’s here where I get my comparison with Randy Newman, as this sideways look at what’s straight in front of him is something that I find very amusing and very appealing.

“From what I can tell the lyrics are about setting your aims/goals so low, you avoid disappointment. Perhaps this is tongue in cheek or perhaps it’s a reality for Aidy, hope its tongue in cheek but for me its all so very predictable.”  thebeatsurrender.co.uk

This is one example of someone who just didn’t get it. I bet this reviewer thinks that Randy Newman really did love LA.

The style of rock on this album is one that I’m not sure of the technical name for the subgenre, but is one that would cover bands such as Eels, Cake, Beck, Weezer etc and is lo-fi, simple and very light and bright and if someone can educate me on what that’s called, I’d be grateful as it’s a genre that I had dismissed until very recently, but now that I’ve discovered it, I’ve found that I love it.

Adrian Killens seems like a funny guy, not only are his songs peppered with humour, his website had funny self-aggrandizing sections and over pompous comments that can only be construed as sarcasm and thus funny. Think Ricky Gervais before he became shit.

“Check out this stylish black and white picture of me, I look fucking great don’t I!! Yeah, I do!! That’s a Fender Jagstang I’m playing, possibly the coolest looking guitar in the world, it was designed by Kurt Cobain, and that means that I am as cool as Kurt, but he shot himself when he was 27, and I didn’t.

http://www.shakenstir.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/aidy-122×330.jpg

He’s also released his entire collection of songs on his site as mp3s, which is really cool, as there’s a load of content there, and I’ve already downloaded it all.
http://www.aidy.com/music.asp

I really think he deserves some money for his efforts, so should I get the chance, I’m going to go and see him live. He has no upcoming gigs on his site, but seems to gig fairly regularly in Cambridge, so next time I’m over that way, I’ll hopefully be able to check him out.

On his website I see the following:
“Imagine how happy I was after spending all my spare time and hard earned money recording, duplicating, and posting it out to reviewers, only to be presented with 1 out of a possible 5, and phrases such as ‘so very predictable‘ and ‘a bit lame‘. Well, I can tell you, I wasn’t very happy at all! In fact it made me sad, but upon reflection things could be far worse…”

How can you dislike someone who makes those kind of comments? Well, here you go, Adrian, a very good review and recommendation for you.

Black Sabbath – Volume 4 [Album]

What is the point of a reissue of an album? This is a serious question. I understand if they release an anniversary special edition boxset thingy, with bonus material, dvds, demo tracks and a whole number of other things that could encourage you to buy an album that you’ve either already got, or have chosen not to get for £2 in an HMV sale. I understand it when they release a remastered discography of every Beatles album,  and stick it in a boxset. I don’t understand when they re-release an album that is 37 years old, that sounds, to me, exactly the same as a CD I’ve already got.I find that there is bonus content for this album:
“Presented in a sumptuous gatefold digipak picture sleeve complete with a picture booklet containing extensive sleevenotes by Malcom Dome [Classic Rock magazine] and a plethora of rare and previously unseen photographs and items of memorabilia.“

I didn’t get this though, as my version was a review version.

Some people claim to be able to hear the difference between this remaster and the previous ones, but I can’t. I don’t know if it’s me being dense of if these people have spent £1000s on sound equipment, but there’s no decipherable difference between the two when played side by side.

“The 2009 Sanctuary releases have proved superior to the 2007 Japanese boxed set, when I’ve compared each, so this too is a welcome addition.”
So for those of you with a very keen ear, here’s the opinion of someone on the internet who says it’s better than the version that was previously considered the best.

Volume 4 holds a special place in my heart as it was my introduction to Black Sabbath, apart from the obvious couple of songs,  when I was going through my dad’s record collection and found the original pressing of this album and was amazed by the little optical illusion on the label that spun as the record went round on the turntable.

http://www.vertigoswirl.com/diffscans/VERTIGO.jpg

I was completely blown away by the album and then went out and listened to all the rest of their stuff, but it was this initial reaction to Volume 4 that stays with me today. I loved the sound of it much more than the sound of the CD version as it had so much warmth to the sound. The richness of the Heavy Metal guitars were more chunky on the vinyl and I loved the sound so much that I got a friend with a superb turntable setup to make a flac recording of the album, so I could listen to it without taking the original copy everywhere and putting it in danger.

Then I see that Volume 4 is available as a remaster to review for Altsounds, and I jump at the chance to hear this reworking of one of my favorite albums, and it’s far too clean! Heavy Metal is about the grit of the piece, it’s about the horror of the thing, and how can you experience this horror with crystal clear highs and smooth lows? I know that Volume 4 was the first album to embrace a softer style of music, with such songs as Changes and Laguna Sunrise that embrace a softer style, they still sound better to me, with the gruff sound of a needle on wax.

As far as the songs themselves, I can’t fault them. Sabbath are classic. They define heavy metal. While there are those that dismiss Volume 4 as the first bad Sabbath album, for it’s periods of softer tones and more melodic through lines, I love it the most. Anyone who loves music, will already know Sabbath, but if you only know the few popular songs, I would very much recommend Volume 4 as an inroad into the specifics of their catalogue. You’re not going to be able to get hold of an original vinyl pressing of Black Sabbath Volume 4, so this new remaster is probably you’re best solution for sound quality.

Del the Funky Homosapien & Tame One – Parallel Uni-Verses [Album]

Gold Dust

This is quite a mysterious album. While there are songs from it on youtube, there’s very little real information I can find out about “Parallel Uni-Verses”. There are a few brief references to the single “Flashback” and the video to go with it., but generally the album seems to be flying pretty low under the radar. This is quite surprising, as Del’s been around for quite a while and is quite prestigious in the scene, and Tame One, though a relative newcomer, has had nothing but high praise for all of his work.

The album is quite a low key affair, with the general tempo of the album being slow and relaxed, for the most part. Even the quicker songs have a sense of lethargy that is not boring, but is very calming and reassuring. Del and Tame One play quite a lot with rhythms in the album, setting rhymes to offset beats, leaving spaces and tiptoeing around the track to create an interesting dynamic that offsets the slow tempo and makes the whole thing very interesting.

The tracks are very light and airy. It’s like sitting out in your garden on a sunny day, with a cold beer. It’s relaxing, with little need to use the brain muscle to decipher the rather bland messages that are being discussed in the lyrics. In most rap, the lyrics are a very major part of the whole picture, but on “Parallel Uni-Verses”, this is not the case and it’s more the sound of the voice and the rhythm of the vocals that create the pleasing final product. It’s like when a mother talks to her baby, the baby doesn’t have a clue what your saying, but likes the sound of your voice, and is placated. That’s kind of how I feel when I listen to this album, except I wouldn’t want to suckle on either of these men.

As I say, there is little in the way of original thought in any of these tracks, with most of the content that signs through being about rap, about the music industry and how certain elements have influenced it. This is certainly the case on the album’s best track and first single, “Flashback” which talks about the music that the two rapping men listened to while growing up and the people who inspired them to do what they do, and who influenced them the most. While this is a fair homage to those key figures in the history of the genre, who cares? It seems like they’re just saying these things to prove they know about rap. There’s nothing new that we’re learning, and maybe there will be a couple of names you won’t recognise, but what good are names without context?

The producers of this album is a group called Parallel Thought, and as you can see from the shared word in the title, this album is mainly about the production, which I think is fantastic. I really enjoy the tracks on this album, they’re tight, they’re interesting. They haven’t set out to bass you to death, or mess your mind up with beats all over the place. It’s nicely composed and I’m very impressed with what they’ve done. The tracks also perfectly complement Del the Funky Homosapien & Tame One’s voices and it all sounds very good, it’s just a shame that what they are saying isn’t as interesting as the music behind it.

I may be explaining a little poorly, but I’m not saying that the words that are used in the rhymes are bad, because they’re not. The words they use to rhyme are very clever at time and the technicality of the rapping is very good and the rap as an art form is very tight, but it’s like seeing a very good landscape painting. Yes, technically that’s very good and I’ll see it and applaud it’s beauty and the skill involved, but what does it give to me long term? What does it tell me, what does it ask me? How does it engage me in any way?

I only received a sample of the album to review, which I assume is a positive selection of tracks, there’s not going to be anything groundbreaking on the album that isn’t on this sampler. Overall, this is a solid piece from the two, but they’ve both done better in the past. The fact is, I do really enjoy listening to this album, and I may buy it to get the full thing, at which point, I’ll come back and let you know.

The bad thing about reviewing music is that you can’t just pass it by with a quick “Well that was good / OK / rubbish”. That’s also the good thing about reviewing music – it forces you to go a bit further. That’s been the case here. It was very hard to reach any early conclusion. It’s healthy and stretching to be forced into yourself like that – I think. In practical terms, this means the album has been hanging round my stereo for weeks looking for some sort of conclusion.

Keithevez are not particularly well known to me. I’ve got a decent working knowledge of Scandinavian music, but only a passing reference to these. That’s perhaps not surprising. Keithevez were big (in Sweden) back in the day, the late 90’s. Back then, their synthpop appealed to Depeche Mode fans who maybe had a taste for the left field, the less than mainstream.

After success in Europe and releases in the US, the band were on / off for a while but then they just seemed to run out of steam. Or should I say that was it for putting product out there. The band were still writing in the background, and they themselves say they were finding their voice all over again. They were slowly getting the stuff recorded and mixed, culminating in a deal for what was to become the new album “Non-binary,” which has now been out for a couple of months. They used to be an unashamed electro-synth band, but the new record is “Non-binary” because they are no longer only using synths, having real instruments as well these days. Not that I’m suggesting synthesizers are ‘imaginary,’ but you know what I mean. I know this change of direction worried some older fans for a few minutes, although for a non synth-specialist, it is still in the same vein.

The record company describes this as gloomy. Brooding would be more my word. Music that would be a great accompaniment to quiet, rain soaked pavements. The sort of back-drop to the scene in the film where the events of the night are over, the dawn is way off and the cameras linger on monochrome lit glass tower blocks. Don Johnson is stirring in his bed. Music is needed. Send for Keithevez.

It’s curious that these are a genuine 80s / 90s band and yet somehow it feels like a pastiche – it has the same connection as new Minis do to the original. Maybe that’s the change of instrumentation causing that feeling of slight remove. The vocals of Jesper Palmqvist are smooth and competent. They play well, they can come and session anytime. The music is good but not great. I’ve really tried and can’t find a stand-out track to highlight. Looking back over those opinions, I realise I’ve perfectly described mood music. I’m afraid that without something more in there, whether it’s stronger melody or something else, then that’s how it’s going to remain. So maybe they’ve found their voice, but they still need to take it to some further place to raise it from the rest of the choir.

Can I listen to it in the car twice over? Sure, it’s pleasant and sounds somehow comforting. Will it be staying on repeat on the iPod? Errr….. possibly not.

Anavris – Eleven Eyes of a Simple Man [EP]

Uptempo rock with a sprinkle of attitude and a splash of bland predictability.

Although the production of “Eleven Eyes of a Simple Man” leaves it feeling a bit flat, all of the fundamentals of this EP are well thought out and well executed. This said, there’s nothing particularly special about the music. The are like a generic hard rock band of 2 years ago, with elements of emo in there, they are a mass appeal band and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw them as a flash in the pan in years to come, but for me personally, they hold nothing special.

Reminding me, for the most part of Hundred Reasons, they rise above being creative, to play music that they like listening to although between some of the tracks I sense a conflict as different members try to pull the music towards the style that they enjoy. The final song on the EP reminds me, at the beginning of Limp Bizkit’s version of Behind Blue Eyes, proving that they can play slow songs and showing how diverse they are with their style, before launching into a fully emo finale with the singer shouting his head off and guitars flying across the room and everyone puking in the corner and people jumping out of windows.

It all seems a bit forced, to me. Like the whole album has been focus grouped by the contestants on The Apprentice and then, as one of their tasks, have made an album that they can sell, based on what they found out from the young people as to the type of music they like. It has that mixed sense of trying to tick boxes with music listener and trying to play a style of music after reading about it in a book.

Each element of the band is pretty poor, but has the potential to be very good. They are technically very talented and control their instruments very well, it’s just that they seem a bit short on the ideas front, with a very generic sound that stinks of old socks. At the moment, they could go into a career as very capable session musicians, but not in their own right. The singer is singing about things I couldn’t care less about and most of the time is singing about nothing much and seems to be writing lyrics, just because a rock band needs a singer to sing words, not just make grunting noises.

Not that it’s without merit.It’s energetic and has a fast tempo and would sound decent played loud, so young people can jump around, bouncing into each other, paying more attention to running into each other that to the music itself.  Those are the people who might enjoy it.

There’s potential for Anavris to be good, they just need to continue developing and creating their own style that brings something interesting and different to a party that as we know is extremely full.

KOF – Famous [Single]

With a chorus based on the Bros single from 1988, KOF is already riding the tide of cool that is British hip-hop. Except that is sounds much worse on the KOF single than on the original.

We start off with a flat singing voice of KOF requesting us to tell him when he will be famous, but based on first impressions, you’ll be waiting a long long time. The chorus makes me cringe, it just sounds really awful. It sounds off key, which surely someone would have listened to it before it was released and realised this just sounds horrible. And it’s not as though the chorus is infrequent, it comes around five times during the sing and they seem to go on for ages.

The verses are fast past and filled with words, mainly about the fantastic things that happen to you when you are famous and that KOF is only setting out to create music so that he can take advantage of these perks. Free things, people being interested in you, feeling important, etc. KOF seems to have forgotten that he’s working in the UK and that we show a huge amount of disdain we show for the celebrities in this country. Along with the loneliness, having people envy and resent you, having all kinds of people coming out of the woodwork to get money from you, etc. The fame he desires is so extremely superficial and he knows it, saying that he does’nt care if his enterage are Yes Men, as long as they respect his moves. How can this be a real opinion of someone trying to get in to the business? Is he being ironic? Is the joke really on me?

Probably not, he probably does think like that.

The style of the rapping sounds like something Dizzy Rascal or Lethal Bizzle would have produced while they were ill and just wanted to get out of the studio as soon as possible. It’s nothing special, nothing impressive and none of it is worth putting up with that chorus.

The cd that I got came with two versions of the song on it, one radio edit and one album. Obviously the radio edit has the naughty words taken out, and in their place there’s just a reversed version of the word that was taken out. This is in case you want to play the song to your Gran and she doesn’t like swearing, but would very much appreciate the song. Then I got a snippets track of bits from the album, which ends in a snippet of “Famous”, which seems a bit redundant.

There is a Single Launch Party, tomorrow, 2 Oct 2009 in Liverpool at O2.

“To launch and celebrate my new single FAMOUS I am putting on a mad launch show @ O2 in Liverpool. Featuring the best artists in Liverpool and hosted by the legend DJ Olabean. This will be bananas…”

02/10/2009
20:00
FAMOUS Single Launch
02 Academy, Liverpool, Northwest L1
Cost: £5

So there you go…