The Blinders - Live at The Thekla, Bristol - 27th September 2021
Momentum is a tricky thing. Barely noticeable when you’re embroiled in a wave of it, but much harder to get back when you’re not.
Back in 2018/2019, The Blinders had momentum. Debut album Columbia, packed as it was with twisted tales of an alternative world, was positively received and their incendiary live shows were garnering them high word-of-mouth praise before several unrelated issues bumped them slightly off-course.
Their conflicted decision to allow the use of early single ‘Brave New World’ in a William Hill commercial was frowned upon in some quarters (by those not appreciative of the lack of money in the music industry, mainly) and, by their own admission, it sparked a series of internal conversations that nearly split the band up.
Then, in mid-2020, original drummer Matt Neale left shortly after the release of second album Fantasies Of A Stay At Home Psychopath, which itself was met with a more muted response than their debut.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/09/review-the-blinders-thekla/
Dot To Dot Festival - Bristol, 25th September 2021
Having been running since 2005, the Dot To Dot Festival – with the majority of the bill performing in Bristol on Saturday before decamping up the M5 to Nottingham the following day – has become a staple of the cities’ respective music calendars and, judging by the warm response (and being sold out long in advance), the pandemic has not hindered its momentum.
Of course, the main issue with city festivals (like most festivals) is that the punters are spoilt for choice. Although it’s not the same size as one of the major cities, Bristol is still a city, and while several of the venues are in close proximity, several others occupy the outskirts.
In addition, the itinerary is so packed (with circa 12 venues participating) that the timetable simply doesn’t allow any margin for travel. For much of the day, the bands get a half-hour stage time with no let-up, ergo if you want to watch one band at 3pm then another at 3.30pm in another venue, one runs the risk of missing a chunk of one or either band.
Such is life, so the best tactic is often to stay in one location. The O2 Academy had the luxury of two ‘venues’, with a short walk upstairs to see the next band. Wych Elm had the honour of kicking off the day’s…festivities, and while their brand of slacker-grunge doesn’t exactly get the already-busy crowd dancing, they certainly blow away any cobwebs to start the day in bracing fashion.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/09/review-dot-to-dot-festival-2021/
Ash - Live at O2 Academy, Bristol - 18th September 2021
At the fourth time of asking, Ash finally get to tour last year’s Greatest Hits album, Teenage Wildlife. Fortunately, the album was ostensibly to commemorate 25 years of the trio but with their debut album celebrating it’s silver anniversary this year, the celebrations are still valid.
Not that they wouldn’t be anyway. Hugely under-rated as a singles band, Ash have long specialised in pop music disguised as rock, which tonight’s setlist aptly conveys. Hit after hit, with a few exceptions.
Launching into early single ‘Goldfinger’, for those of a certain vintage it actually generates the (possibly unwelcome) feeling of teenage angst, which builds until the final note in line with the song’s structure. It also works well as an opener in that it plays to each member’s strengths; bassist Mark Hamilton struts and cavorts, doing his best to steal the limelight from the evergreen Tim Wheeler (looking more like Peter Pan as the years go by) who, with trademark flying V guitar present and correct, delivers his not insignificant axeman chops. Meanwhile age (even though they are all in their early 40s) has done nothing to compromise Rick McMurray’s beast-like clattering on the drums. For a trio (no touring musicians), they still pack one hell of a punch.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/09/live-review-ash-at-bristol-o2-academy/
Larry Pink The Human - M1xtape
Full disclaimer – your reviewer is not sure what makes a mixtape a mixtape and not an EP. This compilation of songs doesn’t feature any tracks segueing into each other, or mixed together, therefore it’s hard to quantify what defines it as such. Perhaps it’s just the title of the release. Regardless, it’s a fine collection of songs.
Confusingly, LARRY PINK THE HUMAN is not a solo act but a collaborative project between Laurie Vincent (guitarist and songwriter of punk duo Slaves) and Jolyon Thomas, best known as a producer with a diverse list of credits including U2, Royal Blood and Kendrick Lamar. Born out of a desire to make music ‘for people to cook their eggs to’ rather than the incendiary rock music Vincent was known for, the pair released a string of singles in 2020 which immediately managed expectations. Sadly, the best of those singles, ‘WASTED DAYS (INBETWEEN)’ doesn’t make the cut.
Unfortunately, nothing on M1XTAPE quite hits the same heights, with the possible exception of ‘ELEVEN11_GTR-SONG’ (I don’t know why everything is capitalised either, apart from perhaps to make reviewers’ lives more difficult), but the intention of emotional connection is still conveyed. Tragically, Vincent’s girlfriend and mother to his two children passed away last year (Slaves’ winter tour of 2019 was cancelled so the guitarist could spend time with her) and, while it’s absolutely not for us to say that it informs the songs included (the press release refers to Thomas also having suffered profound grief), it’s hard to think otherwise.
As you will have ascertained by now, anyone expecting a re-tread of Slaves’ finest moments will be disappointed. This is unashamedly emotional pop music, with all the bells and whistles. Of course, Slaves are conveyors of emotion too, but frustration and anger is replaced with melancholia and yearning.
Afflecks Palace - Live at The Fleece, Bristol - 8th September 2021
The inaugural night of the Spirit Of Spike Island tour takes place in Bristol, a couple of hundred miles south of the legendary venue – the independent label makes no bones about its influences, and nor do the two bands on the bill.
5-piece Pastel, who hail from Manchester (of course), Dublin and south Wales have all the hallmarks of the dance-fuelled 1990s, with an undercurrent of epic groove running throughout their tunes.
Closing track ‘Deeper Than Holy’ also fuses some of the early hypnotic Kasabian work (singer Jack Yates does a very good Tom Meighan impersonation), with a bassline reminiscent of those featured on Urban Hymans. Pastel also bring to mind The Music, although that may be down to Yates’ Robert Harvey-esque mop of wavy hair, which works well as he sways to his bandmates’ powerful funk-grooves.
Headliners Afflecks Palace, named after an infamous shopping arcade in their hometown of Manchester, are the purest example of DIY; frontman James Fender informs the crowd midway through the gig that everything is coordinated by the band, including artwork, production of merchandise and the booking of this, their first headline tour. Their commitment and enthusiasm makes this readily apparent.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/09/review-afflecks-palace-bristol/
Interview - Alex Moore, The Lathums
Hyperbole is a huge part of the music business; how many times have music fans been promised a ‘band that will change your life’ or that said band are ‘the best since the Beatles/Bowie/Smiths/Oasis’ etc?
Overblown praise and expectation is such a part of the process that a healthy immunity and scepticism has been built up because of it. Yet every now and again, a band delivers.
For fans of British indie, the examples are increasingly few and far between, the phenomenal rise of the Arctic Monkeys being the most recent example of a band who delivered on their potential and word-of-mouth hype.
Finally, a decade-and-a-half on, we have a truly worthy new act upon which hopes can be pinned. The expectation around The Lathums, heroes of Wigan, is nearly fit to burst as they ready the release of their debut album How Beautiful Life Can Be in a few short weeks, to be followed by an extensive and nearly-sold-out autumn/winter UK tour.
Not that Alex Moore, singer and lead songwriter, is letting any pressure get to him: “I’m a bit of a hermit in some ways. I try and keep my head down and focus on what I need to do. The odd things I do see, people are always praising us and being really supportive, so that always makes me smile.”
Chubby and the Gang - The Mutt’s Nuts
You know the score by now: aggressive rock band releases first album packed to the rafters with direct power-pop anthems, before dialing things down for a second effort which is a more restrained effort to make headway into the mainstream.
While it would be a tall order to expect London punks Chubby And The Gang to, a) give a damn about the mainstream, or b) even consider dialing things down, they’ve clearly given the idea some consideration. Whilst diversifying their sound a bit, they’ve added yet more aggression, power and pace; for those familiar with last year’s Speed Kills this will sound unlikely, but it’s true.
Their punk hardcore sound has lengthened, rather than broadened. On their debut, no song clocked in over three minutes, whereas here they’re almost indulgent by comparison, yet it just mainly shows that their stamina has improved.
The first six tracks are an unfiltered onslaught; the title-track, which opens the album, features the band referring to themselves in the lyrics and announcing their return. It succinctly captures the freneticism of early Green Day uncannily and, were it not for the London accent at the end thanking us, they could be mistaken for the Californian trio.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/08/review-chubby-and-the-gang-mutts/
Idles - Live At The Louisiana - 23rd August 2021
Now then, where were we?
Although IDLES weren’t cut off mid-flow when the pandemic hit (coming as it did between album cycles for them), they do have some lost time to make up as third album Ultra Mono nears its first anniversary.
Fittingly, their first ‘proper’ gig (i.e. one with a crowd) since December 2019 is a homecoming show at tiny, 140-capacity Louisiana, and also a tantalising teaser for their next big Bristol show at The Downs early next month.
Their first at the venue since 2015 (as local legend Big Jeff informs your correspondent afterwards), the atmosphere is surprisingly calm before the gig, almost as if no-one can quite believe it will happen.
As the band take to the stage (the only way they can, walking directly through the crowd) and open with the metallic, slicing grind of ‘War’, what feels briefly like a collective sigh of relief transforms into an immediate channelling of the righteousness that is the band’s modus operandi. We’re immediately transported back to a place of reassuring comfort.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/08/review-idles-bristol-louisiana/
Wings Of Desire - Amun-Ra
From the ashes of the late Inheaven, who burned briefly but brightly over the last few years of the previous decade, rises Wings Of Desire.
Chloe Little and James Taylor’s first EP under the name – End Of An Age – was more inward-looking and introspective, whereas on Amun-Ra they aim for the stars once again, with success.
Amun-Ra is named after the Egyptian deity, the transcendental creator of the universe and the god of light, which should give you some idea of the subject matter included.
Exuberant opener ‘Choose A Life’ riffs on the infamous and instructive Trainspotting monologue (‘Choose a life, get a job, pick a wife, fuck it all,’) while covering the nature of friendship and self-love. Yet it’s delivered through a spectrum of gloriously ecstatic shoegaze on a summer breeze, the type of music to listen to on a starry summer night and divine in its majesty.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/08/review-chubby-and-the-gang-mutts/
George Harrison - All Things Must Pass (50th Anniversary Edition)
Coming hot on the heels of its 30th and 40th anniversary editions, The Quiet One’s masterpiece now comes with even more bells and whistles including, in the uber deluxe version, a wooden bookmark made from a felled Oak tree from Harrison’s estate. All for the reasonable price of £859.99.
While that is probably too rich for my, your or even Paul McCartney’s blood, it has to be said that few other albums are worthy of such comprehensive attention.
With the (understandable) domination of John Lennon and Paul McCartney compositions throughout The Beatles’ career, George Harrison was left to stockpile his own work – barring a track or two for each record – throughout the 1960s until the Fab Four officially split in April 1970.
Wasting no a second and armed with a plethora of songs, George Harrison entered three studios in London in May determined to make up for lost time.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/08/george-harrison-pass-50th-review/
Chris Watson - Secret Garden
Sometimes a song stops you in your tracks. Beholden to it’s beauty, it envelopes you for it’s entire run time before you awaken from your haze and sadly realise that you must return to the real world.
‘Secret Garden’ is one such track. Carrying the perfect summer vibe, the listener is gently brought into it’s orbit via the tweeting of birds before the luscious Parisian accordion kicks in. A sumptuous melody carries the listener through the verse and chorus then, just when you think you’ve got a handle on where Watson is taking you, a spiky, watertight guitar solo, seemingly lifted directly from the 1960s, takes the song somewhere else for a few glorious seconds before a final round wistful melancholia.
If I hadn’t been told this was a debut single, I’d never believe it. Polished and pure, it’s the essential soundtrack as we enter the last few weeks of summer.
Secret Garden is released digitally everywhere on Friday 6th August through Colorama Records, the brainchild of Andy Crofts (The Moons, Paul Weller).
LUMP - Animal
The bridesmaid of the Mercury Awards (four nominations and counting), Laura Marling returns in tandem with her part-time collaborative partner Mike Lindsay of Tuung for their second outing as the charming moniker LUMP (in fairness, the name was provided by Marling’s five-year-old god-daughter) which is also their ‘mascot’, a furry hulking animal which appears on promotion etc.
Lindsay and Marling supposedly met on the bowling lanes at a Neil Young aftershow, with Lindsay promising to provide ‘strange, wonky music’ to which Marling could attach subconsciously obscure words and, while their first album was met with warm if not glowing reviews, it appears the pair felt there was much more left in the tank.
With an intent to offering an alternative to her usual confessional style, Marling adopts a more stream of consciousness approach; while the songstress should be lauded for a different attitude, it does unfortunately result in a mixed bag when it comes to musical enjoyment.
Inhaler - It Won’t Always Be Like This
It seems churlish given what has been going on in the world over the last 18 months to discuss pressure when talking about rock stars and not healthcare workers, but everything is relative.
Imagine being in a young, upcoming band. Imagine striving to get a record deal. Imagine then striving again simply to make an impression. Then, as you are building a healthy amount of momentum, your stock in trade is removed from under you, so your debut album (which has pressures of its own, least of all being signed to a ruthlessly impatient major label) is held back for a year, yet you can’t ply your trade and harness your sound.
Then imagine your dad is the face (and voice) of one of the biggest bands of all time.
Whilst it’s unfair to mention singer Eli Hewson’s father (Bono Vox, by the way) in reference to Inhaler – an entirely unrelated (if you will) entity – the frontman has played a shrewd game: he knows it will be brought up in every article or review and so, rather than disassociate himself or be petulant, Hewson Jnr has been refreshingly open and courteous about the fact. They can’t beat you around the head with it if you own it.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/07/inhaler-always-be-review/
Lightning Bug - A Color Of The Sky
One of the great musical cities in the world, New York is famous for the bands it has spawned over the decades, many of who can lay claim to shaping modern pop culture.
Against such a backdrop of creativity and innovation, it must surely be easy to harness the vibrancy, energy and diversity of the city into music, yet the fact that the method is tried and tested equally inspires artists to think differently.
Lightning Bug have always operated on the fringes of the city’s scene, with several false starts. Despite having never played a gig before their debut album was released nearly seven years ago, said album was a mini-hit, with a spot on the NME’s ‘Best Debut Albums Of The Year’ list in 2015.
The Lounge Society - Silk For The Starving
Earlier in the year music fans were treated to a glut of albums that were delayed because of the pandemic.
We are now in the second wave (if you will) of lockdown albums; those recorded during that awful period, with a third wave of albums in a few months that will be joyously uplifting as we (hopefully) sample freedoms that we once took for granted.
Yet have a care for the young bands, those that were taking earnest steps into the world of music in early 2020, starting to build-up a following or harnessing their craft through live shows. Cut down in their prime, all momentum stalled, many will have to start from scratch.
Having plied their trade in their native Calder Valley – now an unlikely hotbed of British music (Working Men’s Club and The Orielles hail from nearby) centred around The Trades Club and The Golden Lion – The Lounge Society are the latest on the seemingly endless Speedy Wunderground conveyor belt of exciting new music.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/06/the-lounge-society-silk-review/
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - Back The Way We Came (Vol. 1)
Upon launching his solo career in 2011, Noel Gallagher found himself in a position he hadn’t occupied for nearly twenty years; facing an unknown future. His former band Oasis were so well-established that their cycle was unwavering: write, record album, tour, repeat. Whatever the virtues of their material (which were frequently decried), the iconic band could always rely on selling out tours and playing to the masses.
Ten years on, we have a clearer picture. Liberated by numerous different factors, Noel Gallagher has simply reaffirmed his position as one of the UK’s foremost songwriters, ably demonstrated by this retrospective.
The self-titled debut was his strongest collection of songs for a decade and a half, with the album being so successful that any doubts he may have had now probably seem ridiculous. The grandiose ‘Everybody’s On The Run’ may be lyrically insignificant (his default setting of preaching positivity) but proceedings are more about bombast and scale, completed by a sublime string arrangement. After spending a decade apologising for Be Here Now, Noel Gallagher was going big again, with the Crouch End Festival Chorus supplying added grandeur for good measure. His first solo single, ‘The Death Of You And Me’ (how we speculated over that title) take it’s cue from ‘The Importance Of Being Idle’, but the inclusion of some New Orleans jazz hinted Gallagher was tip-toeing away from the confinements of his former band.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/06/review-noel-gallagher-back-way-came/
Review - James - All The Colours Of You
You may not have noticed, but James are quietly becoming bigger and more important than ever before.
The common myth – as singer Tim Booth has pointed out in promotion for this, their sixteenth studio album – is that the band aren’t popular anymore yet sell more tickets than they ever have.
The point Booth is making, of course, is that the media may not care much for the band yet the people still do, demonstrated by their arena tour later this year and their prestigious headline slot as ‘London reopens’ (and therefore so does the UK…cough, cough) at Kenwood House at the end of June.
There are few bands better suited to the occasion. For nearly forty years James have been consistently harnessing their craft, and few can have a better catalogue of uplifting, crowd-engaging songs: the songs on All The Colours Of You will slot seamlessly into their impressive canon.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/06/review-james-colours-you/
Interview - Jim Glennie, James
Back in 2018, legendary band James released an album entitled Living In Extraordinary Times against a backdrop of climate change, the rise of right-wing populism and race divides which were bubbling under the surface.
For context, it was eighteen months into Donald Trump’s four-year term as President of the United States, during the height of the Brexit debate, shortly after a record period of summer heat in the UK. No-one had even heard of George Floyd, and COVID wasn’t even a word in the common vocabulary.
With that in mind, Live4ever’s first question to Jim Glennie, founding member of the band, was simply: Do you wish you’d saved that album title?
“Could it get any more extraordinary?,” he replied. “It’s gone from extraordinary to bizarre. When we called the album that, they were extraordinary times, they were bonkers. I bet everyone in history, whoever you ask in whatever period, says they are living through extraordinary times.”
“It’s just gone even madder and stranger. I hope it’s just some bizarre anomaly that we never have to go through again. Something we tell the grandkids about; the days when we used to wear facemasks in Tesco and not the beginning of something new, where we have to go into lockdown every couple of years.”
That, in a nutshell, sums up James’ approach to music over the last few years. Since their reformation in 2007, the currently-seven-piece band have steadily become both more mainstream (not that they ever weren’t) and, to their immense credit, much more explicitly politically conscious.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/05/live4ever-interview-james/
Interview - Adam Young, The Howlers
Pre-pandemic, London three-piece The Howlers were making steady inroads with their garage/post-punk rock, with the gigs gradually increasing in capacity and their steady run of singles starting to garner attention from the likes of Steve Lamacq.
Worldwide events acted to curtail any further progress, but that was insignificant compared to their personal situations.
“We all suspected we had it (COVID-19) at the beginning,” frontman Adam Young tells me. “Cam (drummer) definitely did. We were just keeping each other going. For the first time Gus (bass) opened up about his mental health, while me and Cam openly struggle with ours.”
Tragically, the darkness wasn’t just limited to the band members: “During the pandemic I lost two family members to COVID-19. During that time it was really difficult for us, because we’d just lost our career path, I’d just lost family. It was a difficult time for us, but we used that time to reflect on the band and who we were as people and as a family.”
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/05/the-howlers-live4ever-interview/
Interview - Louise Wener, Sleeper
Louise Wener speculates: “Given what’s happened subsequently, and the last few years, it feels like a golden period. That rose-tinted spectacled view of it is only going to entrench. It could be the last magic moment in the way we lived in western democracy, who knows?”
“We were at peace because we didn’t care as much. It was just a construct. I don’t think New Romantic bands sat and thought about their New Romantic-ness. It’s either over-analysed or people are ‘blah’ about it. It’s either too much or too little, but it’s somewhere in the middle.”
“We were just chancers trying to make a record that someone liked. We didn’t sit there thinking about our place in this commentary of Britpop. I think the way it’s written about now is overwrought. It didn’t bother us because we didn’t give it validity.”
Right, that’s the compulsory Britpop question out of the way. On to business.
https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2021/02/live4ever-interview-sleeper/