I normally have to listen to CDs a few times before forming a fair opinion, but by track 4 of Coalhouse's 'The Trauma of Natural Selection', I had come to the decision that yes, I quite liked it. Perhaps it's the 90s flavour I find appealing. Perhaps the vocals remind me a touch of my favourite early nineties singers. I think that mostly, it's because this record demonstrates good, honest, quality songwriting- something that seems to have been replaced by an 'indie-by-numbers' approach in the cases of many modern bands. It's refreshing, unpretentious, and unafraid to draw on diverse influences; I can hear blues, britpop, old school indie, even grunge...hell, sometimes I can hear Greg Dulli, which can only be a positive thing. No doubt, you'll hear other things- but despite all these 'similarities', Coalhouse still manage to sound like themselves. One listen down, and I've gone from intrigued to impressed.
Tonight, Ministry are playing from behind a cage, which surrounds the stage. As this is apparently their 'final' tour, it could perhaps be a throwback to their early gigs - it's well documented in the movies that if the crowd doesn't like the band, the bottles start flying, and there's always a cage to take the brunt of the assault. Maybe it's to give the band a more feral stylistic, likening themselves to caged animals as they play. Maybe there's no reason other than to look cool, which it does, so let's assume the latter for argument's sake.
I was suprised as anyone to find out that Supergrass were still on the go. As a surly teenager who was still in school uniform when I Should Coco came out, I was quite keen to see how the band had aged.
As far as I'm concerned, indie rock can be divided into two camps - the butch, swaggering lager-louts who sing about booze and girls, and the arty-farty types who write poetry and read lots of books in between recording albums. Les Savy Fav definitely fall into the latter category.
If you can accept the fact that anything Stephen Malkmus does is going to sound a lot like Pavement, you'll like this record. This time around, it's backing band Jicks who supply the ambiguous blues-y jam rock that serves to showcase Malkmus' ever quirky lyrics.
Okay - time for a confession. I really, really, REALLY liked The Feeling's previous single, I Thought It Was Over. As naff as it is to like them, I thought this song was a big cheesy, camp slice of awesome disco pop. I'll get me coat.
Turn Tail is the third song to come from The Young Knives most recent album Superabundance. The band are well reputed for their frantic punky tunes and geeky lyrics, so I was quite surprised that the band released this track.
Sunderland rockers The Futureheads are on form, it would seem - 'The Beginning Of The Twist' is a pithy slice of northern post-punk at its best.
Alt rockers Jimmy Eat World's latest release to hit the UK chart is Always Be - the second single taken from their fifth album, 'Chase The Light'.
Okay, hands up who actually paid for the Radiohead album?