Monday 15 February 2010

The Sunshine Underground - Nobody's Coming To Save You :Album Review

If you don't already know, I'm a massive fan of The Sunshine Underground's debut album Raise The Alarm. Somehow I missed all the hype surrounding the album's release and discovered it's (and the band's) greatness without all the hype clouding my ability to enjoy the record.

Four years on and finally we get chance to sample the Leeds band's new offering. If I had not heard the albums before I would tell you that this is their debut and Raise The Alarm is their second album. Nobody's Coming To Save You seems to be the album with twenty years worth of influences squeezed inside it. The Rapture, The Charlatans, Shed Seven, Happy Mondays, even Coldplay, OK maybe just 'Yellow', but even so the sound is back towards mainstream 90's indie rock. There's no problem with that and a lot of the time it works, Craig Wellington's got the vocals to carry it off and there are certainly more than just a few highlights on the album.

So what's the album like? It feels at times that there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears gone in to the album. There's more than that, there's real talent there but for some reason it hasn't quite clicked the same. The dancing beats don't meet the anthemic vocals at the same time and the energy is lost. That doesn't make it a bad album, in fact I've not listened to anything else in my car since it arrived. Lots of tracks stand out like 'Coming To Save You', 'We've Always Been Your Friends', 'In Your Arms', 'A Warning Sign' and 'The Messiah'. The question is how long will they stay on my iPod and will they reach my most played?

Not long enough and probably not.

Enjoy this alternative version of We've Always Been You're Friends kindly given the OK to post by their record label.

Thursday 11 February 2010

Beat The Devil's Tattoo - BRMC


For some reason I've been given the OK to post BRMC's latest single and I certainly wouldn't pass up that opportunity. They've got a new album out 9th March and a massive worldwide tour at the end of Feb. As you can probably tel by the lack of posts recently I've not had chance to get near my iTunes recently and so I've only listened to this track once. Sooooo it's down to you lot to leave comments and educate those that follow. Take it away...


P.S. I have however had plenty of time to listen to The Sunshine Underground's new album as the CD dropped through my letterbox the other day. So hopefully I will have a review of that for you in the not so distant future.