Me My Head

On Thursday 3rd December an intimate and excitable rabble of Me My Head fanatics descended upon the Relentless Garage to celebrate the release of debut album Survival In No Man’s Land on MBM Records. As an expectant crowd enjoyed and endured respectively sets from energetic Italian four piece To Be Rhudes! and London based The Bridport Dagger, the electricity in the air was palpable and it was more than just the December chill sending shivers down the spine. This release has been long and eagerly anticipated by the band’s avid fans and the London boys lapped up the atmosphere and fed off the crowds’ energy.

Opening track Night Is On Fire was a raucus, thumpin’ New Wave masterpiece, delivered with pounding kick-driven drum patterns, rock-steady basslines, delay-doused pop hook guitar licks, synth riffs reminiscent of an 80′s Atari console, and spit-flecked vigour from frontman Charlie Moss whose well-deserved vocal pomposity and indie-swagger will draw comparisons to the likes of Harry McVeigh and Tom Smith. Further crowd pleasers Say It All and the epic White Lights displayed anthemic Pop choruses, infectious synth lines, and in particular with the latter, a guitar riff that will plant itself in your brain on constant ostinato loop – listen with caution. In short, these songs would be welcome echoing around the walls of far larger venues than the Garage.

A well-constructed and perfectly mixed medley of What Is Love? by early 90′s Dance act Haddaway and Poker Face by everyone’s favourite Pop diva Lady Gaga delighted the crowd, with Moss‘s cracked and vulnerable vocals haunting and hanging ethereal in the air of the small venue. In a jocular and welcoming environment it would be easy for the lads to use a  cover as comic relief, so it was all the more enjoyable to witness this take on two tracks from almost 20 years apart taken seriously. Who doesn’t love a cover done well eh?

Me My Head owned the small stage for the duration of the seamless set, which was interspersed with bouts of well-constructed yet genuine banter. A professional performance then from a fantastic act, characterised by rolling thunderclap floor-tom massiveness, chugging bass drive, pop-hook Edge-esque guitar licks, delicate New Wave synth lines and anthemic vocal melodies. Like White Lies without all the death.. or a poppier Editors with more electronics, either way, check out the MySpace and buy the album. You wont regret it.

Brand New

 

Anyone who had any doubt that Jesse Lacey is a songwriting genius; an unparalelled lyrical Behemoth; a throwback from bardic traditions who in times gone by may have graced the ears of kings with his deep, dark, gleefully sadistic and painfully witty tales.. I point you in the direction of Brand New‘s latest, simply titled album Daisy. Ok, so it’s hard to be objective when you love a band this much.. bias will always creep in. That said, Daisy, released around 2 weeks ago, has rocketed to #6 in the US album charts, which speaks for itself, and suggests that there is no stopping this juggernaut of a band.

The stylistic shift that Brand New have made over the last 9 years is a much documented one, and to echo the musings of many journos before me I pose the question: who would have thought that the same young Pop-Punk band from Long Island, New York, who enjoyed a degree of success with Your Favourite Weapon: a fun and thoughtless teeny-Punk effort in 2001, could become the authority on Progressive and Experimental Emo / Alternative, crafting as they do emotive, intense and lyrically poignant songs full of depth and meaning. Equally, who would have thought that these boys could follow up The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me with an equally perfect album, maintaining stylistic consistency whilst still injecting new sounds and ideas into their music. I was sceptical.. evidently unnecessarily.

The album opens with Vices, which starts with a crackly megaphone sample of On Life’s Highway, a gospel hymn written by Bertrand Brown, before exploding into a distorted, discordant powerchord frenzy. Vices opens the album like a punch in the gut, ending as abruptly as it begun and leaving you feeling flustered, disoriented and bewildered. Tracks such as Bed, title track Daisy, and the first single from the album, At The Bottom, by comparison are time-sig-bending, slow-building, emo-infused soft-rock tracks. Powerful, thoughtful, perfectly arranged, expertly and interestingly produced and heart-wrenchingly introspective, these are 3 highlights of the album, and indeed Jesse Lacey‘s songwriting career, displaying prominent, guttural  basslines, delicate and ornate guitar lines, complex kit patterns and, of course, Lacey‘s signature strained, raw and emotive vocals that tug at the heartstrings and stir the soul.

At this point I must humbly concede that I simply haven’t the linguistic prowess to do Daisy justice… You just have to buy it. It is a phenomenal effort that flows seamlessly from each tortured track to the next; a genre hopping masterpiece. Get on down to the MySpace page and prepare to be amazed.

Tom Allalone & The 78s

 

I was watching From Dusk Till Dawn  the other day, and as the Guadalajaran Mariachi meets Texan Rockabilly ‘Titty Twister’ house-band unceremoniously smashed out sleazy Rock ‘n’ Roll tracks, the Gecko brothers sunk shot after shot of fire water, and half-naked strippers slithered serpentine around greased poles (no innuendo intended) I couldn’t help but be reminded of this furious freight-train of a Rock ‘n’ Roll band, Tom Allalone & The 78s. Cooler than The Fonz, as impeccably styled as Costello, as rifftastic as a double-dose of  Mando Diao, and reeking of Zakk Wylde fresh from a JD and Tequila bender, Tom Allalone and his troupe’s debut album, released earlier this year, Major Sins pt.1, is full of good-times tracks guaranteed to have you throwing shapes like it’s 1978.

 

Tracks like Get Down & Dirty and Hell Hath No Fury evoke images of Wild West train robbers on horse-back gallopping towards an unsuspecting steam train, with whirlwind, delay-doused Rock riffs, jagged guitar stabs heavy on the whammy bar, lightning fast drum-patterns with chugging snare hits, walking basslines, and (in the case of the latter track) backing vocals ‘choo-chooing’. Dogshit Street, Wounded and, one of my personal favourites, Ten Little Cuts meanwhile would be at home in a late license smokey Jazz bar, or a prohibition-era speakeasy. Ten Little Cuts in particular is rife with delicate muted soprano sax lines, waltzing double-bass riffs, subtle brass and key licks, and melancholic and lonely lyrics dealing with the introspection and self-loathing that follows a breakup. Take once nightly with a JD on the rocks and a fat Havana. Displaying an impressive versatility, Allalone and the boys, make for the border of Mexico (a long way from their native Gravesend!), conjuring up images of a perhaps mythical (though Tom assures us that it is a real club in Talbot Place) Casillero Del Diablo. Mariachi brass, spanish rhythms and melodies and expressive vocals paint a vivid picture of the debauchery, lunacy and depravity that might take place in the ‘Devil’s Cellar’. Sign me up!

 

This is a sleazy, fast-paced, and raucus album, that’ll whisk you away on a riptide of Mississippi Delta meets Catalan Bullrunning imagery. JD meets Tequila; the Stomp meets the Samba; and carnage and mayhem will ensue!