Lemons Battle Athlete in Singled Out!

 

Cynicism back intact- was anyone else dubious as to whether Bernard Butler and Brett Anderson could still cut the mustard? Did anyone really care? Well, we were dubious, and to be honest, Gigwise didn’t really care, especially when hearing Brett stating that Suede fans shouldn’t expect a carbon copy - what else are you gonna do, acid-terrorist-punk-new-wave-paint-stripper-folk-pritt-stick-electro pop!? Don’t worry, The Tears' ‘Refugees’ is carbon copy Suede and like most of Suede’s back catalogue (minus the latter albums, but we’ll let Anderson go with that anomaly!) Refugees is exquisite. Soaring melodies with trademark Butler tin-tinged guitars melded once again with Anderson’s Bowie vocal that causes one to fantasise about summer love. Aw!

 

Whilst The Libs (as dilatory scenesters all over the land trendily tag them!) are compared to The Clash (or at least the Mick Jones side of The Clash), it seems that perennial Lib support band, The Paddingtons might have to settle for a less complimentary Sham 69 analogy from some ignorant hack quarters, but hey, you can’t knock ‘Hurry Up Harry’! ‘Panic Attack’ contaminates the listener with needling guitar jabs to your veins that jingly float all the way to your brain to tell you that…actually, The Paddingtons do sound a bit like The Libertines with the terrace chanting of Sham 69! Which in this case is certainly laudable.

 

Oooh, Gigwise gets wet at the mere utterance of moogs, keys and effects mit guitars, so why am I not drenched in my own fluids when listening to Pittsburgh trio, Modey Lemon, who promise all of these said treasures!? It lacks balls. Pure and simply- bollockless whining! Occasionally ‘Sleepwalkers’ threatens to go on a Death From Above 1979 prison rules rock out, but Modey Lemon wuss out, and look like right fruits in the process.

 

Hello readers, is it just me, or does everyone Tom, Dick, and, er, Kathryn get nominated for the Mercury Music Prize nowadays? Why, only last week Gigwise was nominated for our LP of acid-terrorist-punk-new-wave-paint-stripper-folk-pritt-stick-electro pop that saw us work with Nitin Sawney, 4 Hero, and Randy Newman, but we’ll probably lose out to some obscuro like Kari Kliev or summat! Anyway, Kathryn Williams, ex-Mercury nominee, (see, there was a link!) returns to the fold with, ‘Shop Window’, a wistful, summery lo-fi psychedelic strum that’s within arms length of sounding like The Sundays, yet with understated vocal elegance. 

 

“You should come over/cos I’m so damn lonely/my brothers and my sisters/they’ve gone and disowned me.” Hmmm, Shakespeare eat your heart out! William must be cursing himself for not making use of the delectable couplets of ‘Minority of One’ in Romeo & Juliet. Jeez, Johnny Panic, do you not know what year we are in? It’s not 1988 where any old overblown power-chord thrash washed, heck, we’re not even in 2003 when “ironic” (oh come on, The Darkness!?) power-chord thrash washed! Even one of Johnny Panic’s (rumoured to be) ex-Busted flatmate’s made more worthy records than this filth!

 

Straight outta the mould of Gigwise faves, Editors, come Battle, armed with ‘Isabelle’, a weapon of mass post-punk destruction that has already captured the imagination of the Bloc Party platoon on recent tours. Drumming of militant precision, a bass line of pure Peter Hook stealth, and cutthroat guitars that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Siouxie & the Banshees ditty. Battle are in good stead for the new-wave war of attrition. 

 

“On T4 this week we’ve got Lemar, Rooster, and a choice bird off Hollyoaks”, sorry Gigwise just can’t help itself, it’s just that every time you hear Bloc Party, in particular ‘Banquet’, these days it’s always in the background of some second rate TV prog, and well, frankly, that’s where they may be better off. Hugely overrated, Bloc Party haven’t actually produced a praiseworthy tune, and have continually played substandard “shows”. Hi-hats, sharp guitars, Dick Van Dyke cockney vocals – wow, the future of rock really isn’t here!

Clor - one CD single, one praiseworthy tune. It’s almost like their single, ‘Love + Pain’, is mocking the wave of so called new-wavers, beginning with an obligatory high strung Joy Division bass line before shattering glum pretensions with crazy Devo electronics emulating a Sparks zaniness yet always keeping in with the “angular” crowd of 2005 with sonic shades of Wire. Vaudeville-acid-electro-punk pop maybe closer to the mainstream than you think!

 

OOOOHHHH, CONTROOOOOOOOVERRRRRSSSSIAL! Someone covering ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (Is there no getting away from 1979/1980 this week!?), sacrilege, blasphemy, we call treason, the death penalty must be enforced…well, no, it shouldn’t actually, because Honeyroot scrub up with an awe-inspiring piano led version that doesn’t do any dishonour to the monolithic original. If Antony & The Johnsons were to cover this monumental masterpiece it wouldn’t be too dissimilar, ‘cept Honeyroot have the bonus of Glenn Gregory (ex-Heaven 17) in the ranks.

 

Turkey  Of The Week: This reviewer has a confession to make, it may not be the most controversial ever, but what the hell…I ****ING HATE ATHLETE! I admire their choices of influences and inspirations to the hilt, the sound that Athlete seldom create of Pavement and Grandaddy is admirable, I’d even go as far as to say they seem like pretty amiable chaps….SO WHY USE YOUR POWERS FOR EVIL!? Joel Pott, stop doing that glottal stop singing style, it was barely quirky in 2003, now it’s just darn right irritating! And why all of a sudden are you making the most predictable chord progressions a chorus has ever known, blimey, even Feeder’s Grant Nicholas would blush upon the banality of ‘Half Light’!