Cajun Dance Party

So in this week’s NME, their radar feature was on London’s Cajun Dance Party. Another band form the Way Out West scene along with the likes of Late of The Pier and Fear of Flying.

To be honest I was incredibly surprised by the hugely positive reaction the NME awarded them with. The radar feature ended with “Cajun Dance Party are something special” well sorry to burst their NME imposed bubble they aren’t.

Debut single The Next Untouchable features a guitar string-bending riff in a tale of relationship problems. It’s a decent song, just not something to make you stop and think “fuck me, that’s good.” The song in general is somewhat hollow, the drumming lacks flare and the bass is easily forgettable and doesn’t do much to accompany the guitar, however the keyboards do add a small twinkle of majesty to the song.

Danny Blumberg’s vocals may hold up on The Next Untouchable but in other Cajun Dance Party tracks the vocals are frail and vulnerable. On songs like The Firework his voice is strained and fragile and doesn’t make for nice listening. Maybe it’s down the tracks being demos, but there is only so much that production can do.

In the aforementioned article in NME, part of the strap-line reads “Loved by Thom Yorke” now I know I’m just being sceptical here, but are they really? The only mention of Thom Yorke’s in the article is that he advised them to sign to XL and said “don’t sign to a major” is that a love for their music or just some kind advice from a veteran of the business to a fledgling band? I assume the latter was the case, but of course the NME had blow things out of proportion, surprised?

In the article the band also describe ambitions, “I’ve written songs with sax solos” enthused Robbie the guitarist. “I don’t see many bands willing to try the stuff we’re doing” Danny goes on to say, which threw out the idea of him not being arrogant as he early tried to profess. Well let’s see, bands with French horns and sax solos, em…. Arcade Fire, Love Is All, Xerox Teens to name but a few.

Basically, Cajun Dance Party are nothing special, they may go onto become great, in fact I hope they do, but right now I can’t see that happening. Oh, and to Vicky the keyboard player, your dress is pretty but is it all you ever wear?

Mp3: The Next Untouchable

Q + A with Poppy & The Jezebels

Juggling a band and schoolwork? Near impossible, but Poppy & The Jezebels manage just fine.

ITNT: As a young band still at school, is it hard to balance promoting the
band and playing gigs with school? What takes priority?

P&J: Its not as hard as people might think. We pack as much as we can into
weekends, evenings and holidays and so far are seeming to get by. The band
is obviously top on the list.

ITNT: Do you ever have problems finding gigs because of your age or problems
with people at the venue? I know that Be Your Own Pet when
they first played had to wait outside the venue until it was their turn to
play, has anything like that ever happened to you?

P&J: People are generally pretty cool with us, and if they dont want us it's
their loss! The onon thing I can think of that we've had is huge bright
blue inky crosses on both hands at a venue in london so we definetely
couldn't drink.

ITNT: How did the formation of the band come about? Did the idea come about
one boring maths lesson? Do you all share a love for certain
acts and bands?

P&J: Dom and amber had been playing guitar together for a while and really
wanted to start a band in year 8, so they found me to be the drummer. For
a while we had a boy on guitar and no real singer, until we found Mollie.
Now its just us 4 girls. We all like different music and clothes, but in a
lot of ways we're really similar, like our mutual love of 60's designers.

ITNT: Was the band initially just an escape from school or did you want to get
signed from the start?

P&J: It was probably after our first gig that we realised that we had a good
chance with it. Since then we're really serious about doing it properly.
An escape from school is an excellent bonus.

ITNT: Do you prefer playing to crowds your own age, are they more receptive
and open to the music than the over 18's?

P&J: Actually, they're often not. It really depends. Under 18's are sometimes
more of an audience, but over 18's can be just as good. We like playing to
all age audiences.

ITNT: What other material will be released soon? After the limited 7''

P&J: We've got a 6 track mini album coming out early June on CD, limited vinyl
and download. We're all really excited about it.

ITNT: What are your favourite bands/albums at the moment?

P&J: Dom really likes The Duke Spirit at the moment. Mollie is listening to The
Klaxons, Madonna and Blondie as we speak and I love the new 'The Slits"
tracks, The Rolling Stones and The Velvet Underground.

Mp3: Nazi Girls

Math Rock

Foals

Oxford based quintet Foals have recently found themselves in the limelight: a Radar feature in NME, a SXSW session at the hugely popular US online radio station WOXY.com. All of this before the release of their debut single: Hummer.

Hummer opens with an almost mechanical sounding drum beat before the jerky, staccato guitars kick in along with singer Yannis' yelps of "Quiet Heartbeat!" Before building up to the chants of "Ay Common!"

B-side Astronauts And All opens with a simple two note keyboard before the rest of the band crash in for a frantic intro. The jerky guitar drives the song forward accompanied by Yannis' chants of "Make it Happen".

Mp3: Hummer

Mp3: Astronauts And All


Battles




New York based math rockers Battles are readying their first proper album Mirrored (Released May 14th on Warp) after two EP's EP-C and B EP, the two were combined and released on Warp Records in February of 2006.


Lead single Atlas provides a hypnotic combination of effects and instruments paired with digitized vocals from singer Tyondai Braxton.



Mp3: Atlas
Mp3: Tij

Why I Hate Boys And Girls In America

When Pitchfork Media reviews an album and gives it 9.4, the album is usually stunning, most of us know that Pitchfork are not the kindest reviewers on the web and have more than the prescribed indie snobbery.
So when I saw that The Hold Steady got 9.4 for their album Girls and Boys In America, I with out hesitation, bought the album thinking “It must be good!” Oh how wrong I was.
First off I personally despise Craig Finn’s voice, half talking, half singing.
This combined with the Hold Steady’s odious lyrics makes this album terrible to say the least.
The aspect of The Hold Steady’s lyrics that every reviewer seems to adore is the story telling elements of the songs, sure if it’s done well then it’s all right. But I think you can guess that this is not the case with Boys and Girls In America. Every single song tells the story of you guessed it, Boys and Girls In America. Lead single Chip Ahoy! tells the story of a girlfriend who could tell which horse would come in first, so the couple made a lot of money, which they in turn spent on drugs. However the couple become isolated as the girl “won’t ever dance” because of her drug abuse. Riveting stuff, don’t you think?
Nearly every single song takes the same path lyrically, most songs featuring high boys and girls getting in trouble. However none of the other songs on the album compare to hilariously awful Chillout Tent. The song is a story of an American boy and girl (surprised?) who meet by chance after overdosing on drugs of course, in a chillout tent at a music festival. The boy and the girl also play a role in the vocals of Chillout Tent singing (badly) about how they were given “orange and cigarettes”, then the two get together, but it was “kinda sexy but it was kinda creepy”, lyrically brilliant, right? But alas their love was short lived, as the two never saw each other again.
Drugs do seem to be the main theme of this album. Hot Soft Light tells the story of how an event of drug taking “started recreational” and “ended kinda medical”.
Horrific piano parts, odious lyrics, and a tedious amount of stories about drugs, this album sucks. Decide for yourself.

Mp3: Chips Ahoy!
Mp3: Chillout Tent
Mp3: Hot Soft Light

The Fall - Post Reformation TLC

In case you have never heard of The Fall, here’s a brief history. Post Reformation TLC is the group’s 26th studio album with their debut LP, Live At The Witch Trials, being released in 1977. The band is one of the original post-punk bands and hail from Manchester (well not really any more!). That brings me onto the complex issue of the Fall’s line-up. The only original member of The Fall left is their front man Mark Edward Smith, with the band having undergone over forty different line-ups. The current line-up was rushed on stage during last year’s tour of the US. The tour (in which MES was hit by a banana skin by the lead singer of support band The Talk) was nearly cancelled after the drummer, guitarist and bassist walked out. However the tour carried on with MES snatching band members from the group Darker My Love and one half of experimental duo The Hill: Orpheo McCord. During the tour the band took a short break to record in a LA studio, which is where some of the material for Reformation Post TLC comes from. The rest was recorded at later dates after a short UK tour, which included an epic stop at the Bournemouth Opera House! Well there you go, a brief and vague outline of The Fall, now for the review.

The album opens with an odd cackle from Mark E. Smith on the song Over! Over! and goes straight into the vocals and a thick Fall bass line. The vocals sound a lot clearer than a lot of the slurred vocals on 2005’s Fall Heads Roll which in my opinion is a great thing. The song is a typical Fall song through and through with a hypnotic guitar riff running through the track. The track also includes some incredibly weird MES vocals in the background, a sort of belly grunt, saying the words “I don’t love you and I never did…”

Title track Reformation! follows on with yet another heavy and repeated bass riff with piercing guitars and a chanting MES. The song is a long one at 7 minutes 23 seconds and the repetition goes all the way through the track.

I’ve heard many of times that people are put off The Fall due to MES’s vocal style and the repetition, but I say those people; think about hip-hop, a dance-y electronic beat heavily repeated throughout the song with a guy rapping over the top. The Fall’s music has the same format, replace the electronic beat with big bass lines and guitar and the rapping with Mark E. Smith’s unique vocals, which I guess could be compared in some ways to rap.

Most of Post Reformation TLC is made up of heavy Fall songs with huge bass lines (My Door Is Never Open, Fall Sound, Scenario), however some songs seem to heading in a different musical direction or are simply just filler tracks.

White Line Fever, for example, sounds like a bluegrass track with some pitiful vocals from MES. Insult Song seems to me to purely be a filler track; the track includes MES making up a fictional story about the new members of the band, odd. Das Boat is another one of the weaker tracks from the album. To me it sounds like a Neu! song, and one of their poor ones. Throbbing synths, the incessant beat of a drumstick on wood and chants of “e ee e e” go on for 10 minutes too long. On the other hand The Wright Stuff provides a fresh take on The Fall, with MES’s wife Elena Poulou taking vocal duty over a catchy riff.

Overall Post Reformation TLC is a solid album driven by its big bass and guitar riffs and strong vocals from MES. But when you consider the circumstances in which it was made, it’s a bloody good album.

MP3 : Reformation!
MP3 : My Door Is Never Open

The Fall Official Site
The Fall Unofficial Site

Pre-order Post Reformation TLC