Record Review - Dean Allen Foyd

DEAN ALLEN FOYD
The Sounds Can Be So Cruel
Crusher CD, LP and download

This Stockholm trio, featuring former members of Roachpowder and Mother Superior, have had their debut in the can for nearly two years before a record label saw fit to release it. Thank heavens they did, for we would be poorer without it. Nine tracks of acid rock and beyond always brings a smile to the Happening universe. What’s on offer you ask? Epic opener ‘Please Pleaze Me’ has plenty of cliches you come to expect from psych rock: fuzz guitar, splashy drums, dramatic female backing vocals, and a slight air of something not being quite right with the world (“sky keeps burning” etc.). Yet still it is swirly magnifique. ‘Lovely Sort of Death’ is all Cream-indebted heavy riffage, with some blistering bass runs to get you on your feet. The short ‘Steady Rollin Man’ has a familiar slide guitar intro, and what you think might be a Stones-aping blues roller also comes with the Creedence magic Delta boogie too. ‘Revelation Blues’ is the most commercial number on here, a blues-pop ditty reminiscent of both fellow Swedes The Soundtrack Of Our Lives and band du jour The Black Keys.

On a different tack is pastoral beauty of ‘She's So Blue’ - all flute lines, wah-wah guitars and stoned vocals, building to a mid-song frugging crescendo before returning to its original state. As if to say ‘Hey, everything is cool with me after all’. ‘Into The Pearly Gates’ and ‘The New Dawn’ have that Led Zep/Wolf People hairy prog-rock vibe, 1971 guitar tone, loose frenetic drums, etc. The strings come out for closer, the yearning ‘Witches’. It’s almost perfect, but it holds back slightly. Actually this album probably shows too much respect for the musical past for it’s own good. Who know whats could be achieved were they to let loose a bit more. This album has lots of different sounds, and is the work of excellent musicians creating a coherent whole. Don’t expect originality, but do expect an excellent 45 minutes of Hendrix/Hawkwind/Page-inspired retro rock’n’roll.

Phil Istine

News – keith Christmas Returns

KEITH CHRISTMAS 

RARE APPEARANCE FROM ORIGINAL GLASTONBURY PERFORMER!

March 23rd at The Village Pump, Trowbridge

http://www.villagepump.org.uk/FindUs/directons.html

Keith Christmas has a long and storied career spanning six decades! He performed at the original Glastonbury Festival in 1970, recorded for ELPs' Manticore and Nick (Bevis Frond) Saloman's Woronzow imprints, and played guitar on Bowie's Space Oddity album. Mighty Baby was the backing band on his ’69 debut album, and Cat Stevens, Rod Argent, and members of ELP, King Crimson, and Hawkwind have contributed to his albums!

This is his only gig currently in the South West. He will be playing 2 x 45 minute sets, performing some of his older numbers for the first time in many years ('Travelling Down', 'The Fawn', 'Evensong' and 'Forest & The Shore' will be in the set) as well as songs from the last two albums and the next one. Don't miss your opportunity to see this legendary performer!


Visit keithchristmas.co.uk for more information.

Live Review - Y Niwl, Bath

Y NIWL 

The Royal Oak, Bath 
Saturday 17th March 

Pic credit: Owen Davies

It can be quite disarming to watch a band take to the stage (such as it is in this cosy Bath ale house) without a microphone or stand in sight; it also poses a problem for anyone in such a band attempting to introduce their songs. Not that Y Niwl are concerned with such fripperies. Arming themselves with space-age guitars, a low-slung jazz drumkit and a reedy sci-fi organ, the four shaggy-haired Welshman have blasted into their rocket-powered opening number within seconds of ambling onto said un-stage and the heat doesn't let up for the next 40 minutes. They're routinely labelled as a surf band – not least by themselves – but these ears picked up on a myriad of reference points beyond the speedfreak Joe Meek/Jack Nitzsche-heavy instrumentals. Shades of Nederbeat, Sunset Strip garage, British beat and B-movie soundtracks are in abundance, and of course there's that indefinably out there Welsh thing going on too – a curious and endearing quality that pitches them halfway between tea-drinking mummy's boys and mushroom-chomping psychedelic warriors. It's no wonder Gruff Rhys has seized upon Y Niwl's prowess to back him up on occasion – he no doubt recognises his own early musical adventures in Y Niwl's raw prowess.

With last year's debut album still picking up plaudits at every turn it'll be interesting to see how they get on opening for The Jim Jones Revue next month in venues considerably larger than tonight's. I have a feeling they'll be blowing plenty of minds along the way.
Andy Morten

Record Review - The Freddie Steady 5

THE FREDDIE STEADY 5
1000 Miles EP
Steady Boy 7” /CD

As it's currently SXSW time in Austin right now let me introduce to you a local five-piece. Freddie Steady Krc has been bashing out music for many a year and the maturity of his song-writing is clearly evident. The drivetime AOR of the title track covers all the bases of classic rock with a nifty melody to boot. The gloriously dark 'Twisted Smile' is covered liberally with cheesy 60s organ, which can't detract from it's loveliness, and the unexpected Byrdsian guitar break in the middle takes it to another level. The quality dips a bit now, 'My Whole Word' being an automaton plodding rocker, but finishes sweetly with the lovelorn folk-rocker 'I Will Wait For You'.

The two bonus cd tracks couldn't be more different: 'Crackin' Up' is a super smashing great Sir Douglas-style Texan country fuzz rocker (originally done by The Wig), before they stink the place out with a novelty country-rock song about a bear. All in all this EP is the proverbial mixed bag, which should have something sweet inside to suit you.

Phil Istine

The Felice Brothers free download & tour

New York desperadoes The Felice Brothers have just completed the successful release of their fourth album Celebration, Florida and begin their European tour tonight. To preview the shows their label Loose Music is giving away 'Cus's Catskill Gym' for download via Soundcloud here.

A band of two brothers and three longtime friends, The Felice Brothers are highly revered for their live show, having been described as being “probably the most enthralling band currently to be seen anywhere in the world right now”. Adding their take to a long list of classic boxing songs (think Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The Boxer,’ Warren Zevon’s ‘Boom Boom Mancini,’ or Bob Dylan’s ‘Who Killed Davey Moore,’) The Felice Brothers underline their darkened aesthetic on their track ‘Cus’s Catskill Gym.‘ The song carries much like an actual fight would, with momentous riffs and electronic thuds echoing throughout the story of Mike Tyson’s career.

EUROPEAN TOUR - MARCH 2012

14 BIRMINGHAM Institute

15 DUBLIN Academy

16 BELFAST Spring & Airbrake

17 GLASGOW ABC

18 MANCHESTER Academy 2

20 LONDON Koko (*SOLD OUT*)

22 BRUSSELS AB Box

23 NIJMEGEN Doornroosje

24 GRONIGEN Oosterpoort

26 BERLIN Postbanhof

27 UTRECHT Tivoli

The Felice Brothers on Facebook.

Live Review– Earth, Union Chapel, London

EARTH

Union Chapel, London, 11^th March 2012

Earth playing live in The House Of God? It’s a peculiar blend given that the spiritual proclivities of mainman, Dylan Carlson, but then again the band have always inspired (and sometimes required) a kind of devotional worship over their varied career.

With a line-up of bass, drums, guitar and cello, this latest incarnation of the band wring an incredibly mournful exaltation from these base elements. Recent material has moved away from the drone of old towards an astonishing electric pagan folk, highly repetitious and patient in developing simple song structures into something enveloping and bewildering. An additional element to the show is added by the venue itself – so hushed that you can hear the unamplified conversations of the band between songs and the clang of strings during a tune-up.

Playing material primarily from latest album, Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II, the band have a weird kind of telepathy, playing with huge sympathy to each other across the dark instrumentals. Two tracks stand out particularly – the weird experimental downer funk of ‘The Rakehell’, and the martial stomp of old track, ‘Tallahassee’, which brings to mind some sort of Old Testament liturgy.

The night feels unsurprisingly more like a mass than a rock gig. In this high-vaulted chapel we’re left in little doubt that the spiritual channels have been opened and we’re receiving a transmission from somewhere beyond.

Austin Matthews

Record Review - Jouis EP

JOUIS

Kaleidoscopic/Psychotropic EP

self-released CD / download

Hailing from Brighton and onto their second release, the “Psychedelic Progressive Jazz Pop” combo are firmly in ‘up-music’ territory. It’s muso rock for jolly people and I’m sure it will divide Shindig-types into the traditional love and hate spheres, with no room to overlap.

Louis Pavlo’s organ dmoinates Jouis’s sound, and considering he’s an excellent player it’s understandable. Opener ‘Who Shot The Monkey?’ sounds like the result of a challenge to come up within 15 minutes your best Kaiser Chiefs/Arctic Monkeys impression. Plenty of energy but nothing stays in the memory banks. ‘Medicine Man’ is much more agreeable, building in a swirl of hazy vocals and kicking with a mighty bass and organ riff that is pure Dodgy meets Supergrass (I mean that in a good way!). ‘Medicine can make you swirl, make you spin, make you sweat, make you forget”. Amen to that. More like this and you’ll go far guys. ‘5878’ is a whimsical piece of harmony circus-pop, all changing time signatures and keys, with a touch of the Doors about it (especially in the jazzy middle improv section). It probably requires a certain sense of laconic humour to properly appreciate (I don’t possess one alas). Finally ‘Hallelujah Ukulele’ lays on the stop-start drama, a strange mix of funky pop and English psychedelic melancholia. Sounds interesting, but it just left me cold.

Progressive, bluesy indie music. It’s not man-the-barricades inspiring but they deserve more attention in future. Definitely catch them at a summer festival if you see them on the bill.

Phil Istine