In an attempt to play catch up with the many outstanding albums I have for review, I’m going for some short cuts to try to cover as many of the albums I’ve been listening to over the last few months as I can. The full quiff has not gone, just proverbially shaved it off for convenience on the short term…
Ian M Bailey – You Paint the Pictures
After their previous collaboration on the sublime Songs to Dream Along To, Ian M Bailey has teamed up with the inimitable Daniel Wylie once again to bring us another collection of retro 60s style jangle pop anthems.
Picking up where Songs to Dream Along To left off, this time round, while Bailey may have titled this album You Paint the Pictures, it is he, alongside Wylie, who paints the stunningly glorious pictures with carefully considered words and affecting mood music.
The compositions here range from sun drenched west coast rhythms and harmonies to die for on the likes of Life Without You & I Don’t Want to Start Again all the way through to the beautifully melancholic, such as Dreams of Love and the thoughtfully exquisite closing song Sitting in Silence. Add to that the delightful and unexpected, songs like the fascinating rhythms of the strikingly alluring Brazil, this album has something for everyone.
Continue dreaming along to the wonderfully vivid pictures painted in these life-affirming songs.
The Bobby Lees – Bellevue
Monkey Mind is one of my ear worms of the year, a song that worms its way into your psyche and stays there. Quite appropriate as it is all about that little fucking voice in bastard brain of yours that is constantly telling you lies that make you think you are basically a cxxt. This song just scrapes the surface of the messages contained within this most soul sharing of albums, based on vocalist Sam Quartin’s own experiences with institutions and her mental health.
Writing this album must surely have been as cathartic for Quartin as it is eye opening and mind fuckingly entertaining for the listener. This record is certainly one way of dealing with your demons, and will remain a constant on, or close to, my turntable for the foreseeable future. This is an album to listen too loud and proud while sticking the proverbial two fingers up to your negative questioning mind and bouncing around the room with carefree gusto. I wouldn’t even care if anyone sees me through the window. Fuck you brain. “I said shut up and dance” as Quartin urges on one of the album’s piledriving highlights Death Train.
On songs like the remarkable Ma Likes to Drink, the lyrics explore pretty significantly heavy subject matter, but despite this, the songs are not downbeat or mournful – quite the opposite, as mentioned before, listening to the songs on Bellevue is an opportunity to let loose and purge your demons, and try to use the experience to expel all negative thoughts, even if just for the duration of the thirteen songs. As if the exceptionally arresting original songs on the album aren’t enough there is a blistering cover of The Waterboys Be My Enemy included to boot.
Bellevue is certainly up there with my favourite records of the year.
His Lordship – Play Rock n Roll Vol One/All Cranked Up
Not one but two EPs from one of this years top live attractions, one EP of covers His Lordship Play Rock n Roll Vol 1, and one of original songs in the form of All Cranked Up. The originals stand shoulder to shoulder with their high octane Adrenalin fuelled versions of rock ‘n’ roll standards such as Red Hot, Say Mama and The Way I Walk, the latter with as much vim, vigour and swagger incorporated into the performance as The Cramps included in their cover.
Both EPs are bursting with shit-hot rock n roll, this band are on fire it feels nothing can stop the juggernaut of hugely addictive rock n roll they play. I mean, I’m shattered just listening to I Am in Amsterdam, and I’ve not even picked up an instrument. Even when they slow things down a bit on The Repenter, the song creates an atmosphere that is fraught with tension as it seethes and burns to its epic zenith.
And on top of that they’ve just announced a live tour for 2023. Roll on Glasgow’s Stereo in April. if this years insanely intense and jaw-droppingly powerful gig in McChuills was anything to go by these are gigs not to be missed.
Poster Paints
The debut album from TeenCanteen’s Carla J Easton and Simon Liddell from Frightened Rabbit/Olympic Swimmers is a thing of great beauty. From the atmospheric and sweepingly majestic opener, Still Got You, with its elegant slow build into following song, Number 1, a combination of Motown, Phil Spector’s wall of sound & 60s garage rock while verging on jangly early Mary Chain indie pop. The V.U. borrowed Mo Tucker drum style that the Mary Chain so loved continues into Not Sorry, an elegantly huge sound created by the glorious layered instruments. Elsewhere some of the songs verge on shoegaze, and a times hint at Disintegration era Cure, neither of these are bad things in my mind, quite the opposite in fact.
Particularly affecting is the early sparse arrangement at the start of Circus Moving On showcasing Carla’s distinctive vocal, the song losing none of its glory as the instruments begin to crash and soar atop the vocal. As the album reaches its conclusion with the initially similarity sparse My Song, before the melody and arrangement takes it off into the ether building to its glorious apex all you want to do is flip over and stick the needle in the groove of Still Got You again.
This year has been a great year for collaborations (as noted in Ian M Bailey’s review above), with Gentle Sinners album to follow in a forthcoming “Crew Cutz”. Unfortunately I was elsewhere each time Poster Paints have played to date. I hope to be able to rectify that situation in 2023.