There are points on Bombay Bicycle Club’s second album, ‘Flaws‘, where the band could quite easily be mistaken for a singer-songrwiter project. Less than a year on from their distorted guitar led debut, the acoustic melancholy of album number two was as far removed as it was possible to get from the first LP without doing a full on ‘Kid A‘, and the only thing more surprising than the new sound was the speed at which it had arrived.
But when Bombay Bicycle Club approach the end of their euphoric Brixton show, the 16th and final date of their largest ever UK tour and a homecoming of sorts for the four young north Londoners, they have 11 people on stage: the band themselves, who tonight are grown to a six-piece by vocalist (and burgeoning solo artist in her own right) Lucy Rose and multi-instrumentalist Louis Bhose – starring particularly on banjo during ‘Ivy & Gold’ – two brass players and three backing vocalists, courtesy of members of earlier support act Dry The River.
Read more...
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Friday, January 07, 2011
Ten for '10, pt. 1
Though it was officially the first year of a new decade, 2010 somehow felt more a by-product of the previous 10 years than the dawning of some fresh new age. For while there were a series of original and exciting début albums that flirted with wider acclaim, the majority of plaudits in 2010 went to artists returning with second, third or fourth efforts (Vampire Weekend, The National, Arcade Fire, Laura Marling, Kanye West, LCD Soundsystem...).
In some ways this is no bad thing; given the lifespan of a new band at the moment is akin to that of a mayfly, that any of the last decade's popular acts are earning considerable recognition now they're further on in their careers offers at least some suggestion that music in the digital era isn't entirely fucked.
After contributing my nominations to GodisintheTV's end of year poll, my much belated annual review of the year's albums goes into a little more depth on the best music 2010 had to offer.
1. Villagers - Becoming A Jackal
12 months ago, Conor O'Brien was the lead singer of the little known, and defunct, Irish indie outfit The Immediate. One breathtaking appearance on Later... Live With Jools Holland last April changed all that overnight. Outshining Paul Weller, Hot Chip and Gogol Bordello was no mean feat, but he did it with just his trusty guitar, his earnest voice and the heartbreaking lyrics to 'The Meaning of the Ritual'. It was that rare thing: a truly spellbinding piece of television.
The experience listening to Becoming A Jackal upon its release a month later was much the same; 11 songs of heartfelt intensity, built on delicate guitar arrangements and often augmented by sumptuous string parts and atmospheric percussion. Always at the fore, however, was O'Brien's keening vocal, flitting between a menacing mutter on 'I Saw the Dead' to the rueful lament on 'The Meaning of the Ritual' and rousing cries of 'That Day'. His distinctive voice dispatched a series of arresting lyrics, tales vivid with imagery and shimmering with poignancy.
In the end, though, there's little that can be written to do absolute justice to the uniquely affecting album Conor O'Brien released this year as his Villagers début. Now having spent six months touring the LP to awestruck reviews, his is a star that is resolutely rising, and 2010 was the year that all who discovered Villagers set sail on his ship of promises.
2. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Had it not been for Villagers' unique effort, in fact, ordinarily Arcade Fire's third album could well have been been my number one. With both 2005's Funeral and its magnificent follow up Neon Bible heralded as defining albums of the last decade, their track record was only made more immaculate with the 16 songs of The Suburbs; a quality of music that moved the BBC reviewer to cause something of a stir when he proclaimed it was 'better than OK Computer'.
Whatever it might be better than (or not), it was certainly another paradigm shift from the Canadian crew into territory that, at first, had listeners confounded. Here was a band who, having spent much of their grandiose second album railing against the ills of the modern world, were reverting to the simpler loss of childhood pleasures.
After repeated plays though, it made sense - of course - as each of the songs gave up their individual treasures. The pounding 'Ready to Start' and 'Month of May' were joyously instant single material; 'City With No Children In' and 'Empty Room' were The Suburbs's anthemic calls to arms; while the trio of 'Suburban War', 'Deep Blue' and 'We Used to Wait' towards the album's end saw Arcade Fire at their intense, majestic best. Even the title track's unexpected piano jaunt soon gave way to a haunting, unforgettable chorus.
But it was the group's two-part crescendo 'Sprawl I & II' - half morose waltz, half quite brilliant Abba-ish Europop - that finished The Suburbs in the style it deserved. Worlds apart sonically, 'Sprawl I & II' was nevertheless representative of the album as a whole: where Arcade Fire's outstanding first two records may seem more cohesive units, it's the individual songs, melodies and more immediate arrangements of The Suburbs's wistful, 65 minutes of childhood longing that ultimately made it their strongest, and most necessary, long player yet.
3. Rolo Tomassi - Cosmology
Two years ago, this Sheffield five-piece were barely on my radar when, as teenagers, they released the mind-melting hardcore début album Hysterics. After seeing them tour the album in 2009, however, their difficult screamcore/math-rock/jazz-metal hybrid began to make sense, even though it continued to be an assault on the ears at loud volumes. Another year on, and their sophomore release has racked up more plays on my MP3 player than any other album I own.
Back then, the prodigiously talented band demonstrated a dizzying ability and creative scope that surpassed their years - and peers - to ignite one of the most exciting releases of 2008. Its only real fault was in the way the juxtaposing elements were crammed together over the album's course, suggesting youthful exuberance at the expense of musical direction.
Now, all concerns have been washed away. Rolo Tomassi have retained the unrepentant ferocity that blew Hysterics apart, but in 2010, the quintet have produced an album that utilises this force most effectively: in short, sharp barrages of abrasive noise. Indeed, the first six songs of this 10-song LP clock in at less than 15 minutes; the visceral 'House House Casanova' and 'Unromance' are almost as lightning quick in length as the pummelling guitar riff brilliance of Joe Nicholson - who I can only laud highly enough by quoting the NME review: "...as a young musician his ability as both a player and songwriter is unbelievable".
But it was during Cosmology's second half, when Rolo Tomassi revisit the slower and more readily melodic soundscapes they flirted with on Hysterics (especially 'Fantasia'), that the album turns from a fascinating work into an unforgettable one. The contrapuntal duo of 'Kasia' and 'Sakia', brimming with spiralling guitar work, mixes Eva Spence's angelic singing voice with her brutish screaming to mesmerizing effect - I defy anyone to listen to the latter song and not recall her line "Mirror mirror on the wall/I'm a liability if there ever was one" days later. 'Tongue in Chic' presents the band's most complete five minutes to date, with a frenzied intro not unlike The Mars Volta's Take The Veil, Cerpin Taxt balanced against an almost overwhelming wash of guitars and hypnotic vocal cycle.
When the title track's combination of displaced vocals, off-kilter time signatures, a guitar solo and a crashing instrumental outro of intergalactic proportions brings Cosmology to a close, the full effect of Rolo Tomassi's second album takes a moment to sink in. When it does, the crux of the issue is this: for such a young band, their transition from hardcore aggressors to masterly and innovatively ferocious songwriters in 2010 was little short of astounding. Cosmology was an achievement that wrestled hardcore from its moorings and crossed spectacular new frontiers for the genre.
4. Everything Everything - Man Alive
It was only after a chance meeting - I happened to be visiting HMV in Oxford Street one lunchtime when the band were doing a 1pm in-store live session - that I even gave Everything Everything a second glance this year. It was on the strength of the two and a half songs I heard then that I bought Man Alive - and discovered it to be perhaps the most enjoyable listen of any album this year.
Vocalist Jonathan Higgs's staccato/falsetto may take some patience at first, but it soon mattered little with each song so brilliantly forged. Opener and previous single 'MY KZ, YR BF' (My keys, your boyfriend) is all spangly R'n'B-stealing bombast, ingenuously soundtracking the awkward moment of one relationship ending for another's beginning. Newly re-released single 'Photoshop Handsome' pitched synth stabs, pattering drums and ringing guitars under a video-game eulogy, while 'Schoolin'' warps expectations by being another R'n'B throwback brushed with funked-up art-rock.
The latter song's difficulty to define is indicative of Man Alive as a whole, not least when 'Final Form', the album's glittering, slow-burning mull over life and death happened to contain the best chorus of the record.
Album reviews often talk about 'single material', and Man Alive was one of those rare, and in this age almost unnecessary, albums where the majority of songs were strong enough to be potential singles. But unusually, this made Everything Everything's first album so much more a sum of its parts; a collection of irresistibly exciting and creative songs that simply outshone pretty much every other 'indie' début in 2010.
5. Foals - Total Life Forever
Foals had the unusual success of actually delivering copiously on early hype back in 2008 when their first album Antidotes collected the spiky electro promise of 'Hummer' and 'Balloons' into an album of angular, pulsing tunes that dominated end of year lists.
Expectation this year, then, was high, but musically, Total Life Forever was a very different beast, more out of necessity than anything: Foals' 2010 would have been very disappointing if they had simply made Antidotes pt. 2. True, they employed a similar use of minimal clean guitar lines in sound, but in scope, their follow up was a deeper, more fervent affair, with tracks building over their not inconsiderable lengths into overwhelming waves of sound.
Lead single 'Spanish Sahara' spent seven minutes drawing blood from its whispered beginning, culminating in one of the defining choruses of this year, Yannis intoning, I'm the fury in your head/I'm the fury in your bed', but across the album other highlights gleamed: 'Miami' was Foals' most straightforward indie rock song to date, 'Black Gold' and 'Alabaster' revelled in their rumbling, moody atmospheres, and second single 'This Orient' bounced with a lightness of energy that stood out among the eloquent sonic weight around it.
Total Life Forever was the sound of an artist deliberately turning their back on earlier success and setting about creating an ambitious record that would change people's opinions of the band. That it received so much critical acclaim and further raised Foals' stock in British music in 2010 was merely verification of that ambition being scaled.
In some ways this is no bad thing; given the lifespan of a new band at the moment is akin to that of a mayfly, that any of the last decade's popular acts are earning considerable recognition now they're further on in their careers offers at least some suggestion that music in the digital era isn't entirely fucked.
After contributing my nominations to GodisintheTV's end of year poll, my much belated annual review of the year's albums goes into a little more depth on the best music 2010 had to offer.
1. Villagers - Becoming A Jackal
12 months ago, Conor O'Brien was the lead singer of the little known, and defunct, Irish indie outfit The Immediate. One breathtaking appearance on Later... Live With Jools Holland last April changed all that overnight. Outshining Paul Weller, Hot Chip and Gogol Bordello was no mean feat, but he did it with just his trusty guitar, his earnest voice and the heartbreaking lyrics to 'The Meaning of the Ritual'. It was that rare thing: a truly spellbinding piece of television.
The experience listening to Becoming A Jackal upon its release a month later was much the same; 11 songs of heartfelt intensity, built on delicate guitar arrangements and often augmented by sumptuous string parts and atmospheric percussion. Always at the fore, however, was O'Brien's keening vocal, flitting between a menacing mutter on 'I Saw the Dead' to the rueful lament on 'The Meaning of the Ritual' and rousing cries of 'That Day'. His distinctive voice dispatched a series of arresting lyrics, tales vivid with imagery and shimmering with poignancy.
In the end, though, there's little that can be written to do absolute justice to the uniquely affecting album Conor O'Brien released this year as his Villagers début. Now having spent six months touring the LP to awestruck reviews, his is a star that is resolutely rising, and 2010 was the year that all who discovered Villagers set sail on his ship of promises.
2. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Had it not been for Villagers' unique effort, in fact, ordinarily Arcade Fire's third album could well have been been my number one. With both 2005's Funeral and its magnificent follow up Neon Bible heralded as defining albums of the last decade, their track record was only made more immaculate with the 16 songs of The Suburbs; a quality of music that moved the BBC reviewer to cause something of a stir when he proclaimed it was 'better than OK Computer'.
Whatever it might be better than (or not), it was certainly another paradigm shift from the Canadian crew into territory that, at first, had listeners confounded. Here was a band who, having spent much of their grandiose second album railing against the ills of the modern world, were reverting to the simpler loss of childhood pleasures.
After repeated plays though, it made sense - of course - as each of the songs gave up their individual treasures. The pounding 'Ready to Start' and 'Month of May' were joyously instant single material; 'City With No Children In' and 'Empty Room' were The Suburbs's anthemic calls to arms; while the trio of 'Suburban War', 'Deep Blue' and 'We Used to Wait' towards the album's end saw Arcade Fire at their intense, majestic best. Even the title track's unexpected piano jaunt soon gave way to a haunting, unforgettable chorus.
But it was the group's two-part crescendo 'Sprawl I & II' - half morose waltz, half quite brilliant Abba-ish Europop - that finished The Suburbs in the style it deserved. Worlds apart sonically, 'Sprawl I & II' was nevertheless representative of the album as a whole: where Arcade Fire's outstanding first two records may seem more cohesive units, it's the individual songs, melodies and more immediate arrangements of The Suburbs's wistful, 65 minutes of childhood longing that ultimately made it their strongest, and most necessary, long player yet.
3. Rolo Tomassi - Cosmology
Two years ago, this Sheffield five-piece were barely on my radar when, as teenagers, they released the mind-melting hardcore début album Hysterics. After seeing them tour the album in 2009, however, their difficult screamcore/math-rock/jazz-metal hybrid began to make sense, even though it continued to be an assault on the ears at loud volumes. Another year on, and their sophomore release has racked up more plays on my MP3 player than any other album I own.
Back then, the prodigiously talented band demonstrated a dizzying ability and creative scope that surpassed their years - and peers - to ignite one of the most exciting releases of 2008. Its only real fault was in the way the juxtaposing elements were crammed together over the album's course, suggesting youthful exuberance at the expense of musical direction.
Now, all concerns have been washed away. Rolo Tomassi have retained the unrepentant ferocity that blew Hysterics apart, but in 2010, the quintet have produced an album that utilises this force most effectively: in short, sharp barrages of abrasive noise. Indeed, the first six songs of this 10-song LP clock in at less than 15 minutes; the visceral 'House House Casanova' and 'Unromance' are almost as lightning quick in length as the pummelling guitar riff brilliance of Joe Nicholson - who I can only laud highly enough by quoting the NME review: "...as a young musician his ability as both a player and songwriter is unbelievable".
But it was during Cosmology's second half, when Rolo Tomassi revisit the slower and more readily melodic soundscapes they flirted with on Hysterics (especially 'Fantasia'), that the album turns from a fascinating work into an unforgettable one. The contrapuntal duo of 'Kasia' and 'Sakia', brimming with spiralling guitar work, mixes Eva Spence's angelic singing voice with her brutish screaming to mesmerizing effect - I defy anyone to listen to the latter song and not recall her line "Mirror mirror on the wall/I'm a liability if there ever was one" days later. 'Tongue in Chic' presents the band's most complete five minutes to date, with a frenzied intro not unlike The Mars Volta's Take The Veil, Cerpin Taxt balanced against an almost overwhelming wash of guitars and hypnotic vocal cycle.
When the title track's combination of displaced vocals, off-kilter time signatures, a guitar solo and a crashing instrumental outro of intergalactic proportions brings Cosmology to a close, the full effect of Rolo Tomassi's second album takes a moment to sink in. When it does, the crux of the issue is this: for such a young band, their transition from hardcore aggressors to masterly and innovatively ferocious songwriters in 2010 was little short of astounding. Cosmology was an achievement that wrestled hardcore from its moorings and crossed spectacular new frontiers for the genre.
4. Everything Everything - Man Alive
It was only after a chance meeting - I happened to be visiting HMV in Oxford Street one lunchtime when the band were doing a 1pm in-store live session - that I even gave Everything Everything a second glance this year. It was on the strength of the two and a half songs I heard then that I bought Man Alive - and discovered it to be perhaps the most enjoyable listen of any album this year.
Vocalist Jonathan Higgs's staccato/falsetto may take some patience at first, but it soon mattered little with each song so brilliantly forged. Opener and previous single 'MY KZ, YR BF' (My keys, your boyfriend) is all spangly R'n'B-stealing bombast, ingenuously soundtracking the awkward moment of one relationship ending for another's beginning. Newly re-released single 'Photoshop Handsome' pitched synth stabs, pattering drums and ringing guitars under a video-game eulogy, while 'Schoolin'' warps expectations by being another R'n'B throwback brushed with funked-up art-rock.
The latter song's difficulty to define is indicative of Man Alive as a whole, not least when 'Final Form', the album's glittering, slow-burning mull over life and death happened to contain the best chorus of the record.
Album reviews often talk about 'single material', and Man Alive was one of those rare, and in this age almost unnecessary, albums where the majority of songs were strong enough to be potential singles. But unusually, this made Everything Everything's first album so much more a sum of its parts; a collection of irresistibly exciting and creative songs that simply outshone pretty much every other 'indie' début in 2010.
5. Foals - Total Life Forever
Foals had the unusual success of actually delivering copiously on early hype back in 2008 when their first album Antidotes collected the spiky electro promise of 'Hummer' and 'Balloons' into an album of angular, pulsing tunes that dominated end of year lists.
Expectation this year, then, was high, but musically, Total Life Forever was a very different beast, more out of necessity than anything: Foals' 2010 would have been very disappointing if they had simply made Antidotes pt. 2. True, they employed a similar use of minimal clean guitar lines in sound, but in scope, their follow up was a deeper, more fervent affair, with tracks building over their not inconsiderable lengths into overwhelming waves of sound.
Lead single 'Spanish Sahara' spent seven minutes drawing blood from its whispered beginning, culminating in one of the defining choruses of this year, Yannis intoning, I'm the fury in your head/I'm the fury in your bed', but across the album other highlights gleamed: 'Miami' was Foals' most straightforward indie rock song to date, 'Black Gold' and 'Alabaster' revelled in their rumbling, moody atmospheres, and second single 'This Orient' bounced with a lightness of energy that stood out among the eloquent sonic weight around it.
Total Life Forever was the sound of an artist deliberately turning their back on earlier success and setting about creating an ambitious record that would change people's opinions of the band. That it received so much critical acclaim and further raised Foals' stock in British music in 2010 was merely verification of that ambition being scaled.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Underestimating Social Media; a recipe for disaster
Ten days ago, a phenomenal wave of anger surged through the internet thanks to social networks and media sites, vilifying the unknown Western New England-based Cooks Source Magazine for its blatant and unapologetic copyright infringement - which had been uncovered by a blogger whose work had been stolen to go into October's issue.
I wrote about this for Birddog here. Not only was the journalistic crime obvious and pretty unforgivable yet flippantly denied, but it showed the power of social media and the internet in bringing brands to justice - if that justice now seems in hindsight a little severe.
In the interests of fairness, too, the editor responsible finally broke her silence here. But it's a rather biased woe-is-me tale; which perhaps isn't surprising given how badly the magazine's "apology" that sits on their website does its job.
I wrote about this for Birddog here. Not only was the journalistic crime obvious and pretty unforgivable yet flippantly denied, but it showed the power of social media and the internet in bringing brands to justice - if that justice now seems in hindsight a little severe.
In the interests of fairness, too, the editor responsible finally broke her silence here. But it's a rather biased woe-is-me tale; which perhaps isn't surprising given how badly the magazine's "apology" that sits on their website does its job.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Villagers, live at Scala - 5 October 2010
London’s Scala boasts a colourful history as both a cinema and live venue. Now one of the capital’s most coveted locations, its vaguely steeping stalls and balconies and close standing area seem to bear down on the stage almost as intently as the spotlights above.
They fall first on Welsh songstress Cate Le Bon and her three compadres, who flit around the cramped stage, swapping locations and instruments like good friends exchanging playing cards. Cate Le Bon initially caught the eye as vocalist on Neon Neon’s debut single, ‘I Lust You’, resulting in her year-long tour with the band. Now forging her solo path, Scala sees her deliver a quaint performance, in which Cate’s syrupy but dextrous tones float and soar over her mix of rough-edged guitars and woozy organs, just about winning over a rather cooler-than-thou audience with her bursts of heady folk: warm applause sends the Welsh songwriter on her way.
The real spotlight tonight, though, is all on one man, Conor O’Brien. The face behind the misleading Villagers moniker... more
They fall first on Welsh songstress Cate Le Bon and her three compadres, who flit around the cramped stage, swapping locations and instruments like good friends exchanging playing cards. Cate Le Bon initially caught the eye as vocalist on Neon Neon’s debut single, ‘I Lust You’, resulting in her year-long tour with the band. Now forging her solo path, Scala sees her deliver a quaint performance, in which Cate’s syrupy but dextrous tones float and soar over her mix of rough-edged guitars and woozy organs, just about winning over a rather cooler-than-thou audience with her bursts of heady folk: warm applause sends the Welsh songwriter on her way.
The real spotlight tonight, though, is all on one man, Conor O’Brien. The face behind the misleading Villagers moniker... more
Monday, September 27, 2010
Blogger's block
It's been a day short of three months since I last blogged depressingly about England's world cup exit. Happily, I have managed to put some words into comprehensible sentences in my spangly new job as Content Editor for Birddog B2B.
I've managed three blogs for Birddog in six weeks or so, which is not a terrible ratio, but it's allowed me to try my hand(s) at pretending to do marketing/brand type posts. Anyway, here they are:
What's in a name?
Location, Location, Location
Birdjob!
That last one looks faintly lewd but I can assure you, disappointingly, it's not.
Have a read and if you're of the media, marketing, B2B or blogging disposition, comment.
K THX BAI
I've managed three blogs for Birddog in six weeks or so, which is not a terrible ratio, but it's allowed me to try my hand(s) at pretending to do marketing/brand type posts. Anyway, here they are:
What's in a name?
Location, Location, Location
Birdjob!
That last one looks faintly lewd but I can assure you, disappointingly, it's not.
Have a read and if you're of the media, marketing, B2B or blogging disposition, comment.
K THX BAI
Monday, June 28, 2010
The morning after the 44 years before
It was probably with relief, more than anything, that England fans reacted to the final whistle - and final nail in England's sorry World Cup 2010 coffin - as the gut-wrenching score was crystallised in memory and in history at 4:45pm on Sunday. Not quite payback for '66, though any bragging rights leftover from Munich in 2001 are well and truly handed back to the German supporters; expect the sea of scarves to bear this scoreline for now: Germany 4 - 1 England.
The result was as if finally and thankfully waking from a growing nightmare, rather than descending into one. The dream familiar to so many English fans (you know, that one where England win the World Cup?), preceded by weeks of feverish, optimistic expectation, faded almost instantly. If the insipid 1-1 draw against the US, where England, looking tired and short on ideas, battled gamely and little else, soured the first steps on what was supposed to have been a glorious path, the excruciatingly dire stalemate against an inferior-in-every-way Algeria demolished the path, and tore up the map.
This, incidentally, was the game where Gareth Barry, injured for the previous two months, was supposed to slot into the England puzzle and make the picture clear. Instead, Barry was ineffective in all three subsequent games, offering no protection to the back four against Germany (indeed, Barry was directly at fault during both of Germany's second half goals, giving away possession for 3-1 and failing to deal with a long punt to Mesut Ozil for 4-1), and in the games against Algeria and Slovenia, lacked any guile or passing flair - an asset Barry has always been short of.
The 'dream', now on the verge of dying, was burnished by the slightly more convincing first half display against Slovenia, Capello's two line up changes combining for the only goal. Yet as it turned into a fully fledged nightmare after all, like a Shakespearean tragedy there was a final, drawn out despondent end to the play, the inevitable descent into the sombre, damning ending.
Though Lampard's clear goal was academic by the end, there is something to be said that maybe, just maybe, an England side, pumped up and level 2-2 against the old enemy at half time at the World Cup, just might have had one last effort up their sleeves.
There is also something to be said that an England side, pumped up and harshly behind 2-1 to the old enemy at half-time at the World Cup, should have had even more of an effort up their sleeves than did emerge on Sunday.
Because apart from 15 frenzied minutes before half-time, England offered nothing against Germany to suggest that there was any more to this side than the three limp group games had shown. The failings of an England team, at the last opportunity for the heralded Golden Generation, were exposed against a young, exciting, clinical and organised German side.
Exposed, in every department. In goal, England's traditional problems since David Seaman retired continued: Green's woeful error was punished, but James, though competent when called upon in the must-win game against Slovenia, might have done better for the second and fourth German goals, and arguably should have reacted quicker to prevent their first, too. In defence, though their display against lowly Slovenia was also admirable, John Terry and Matthew Upson had no answer for Germany's attacking talent, whose prowess also left Glen Johnson and Ashley Cole hopelessly out of position on what seemed like countless occasions.
In midfield, Aaron Lennon struggled but was inexplicably replaced twice by unimpressive substitutes - Shaun Wright-Phillips has no doubt earned the last of his England caps, although Theo Walcott must be sunning himself somewhere, positively beaming - while Gareth Barry's lack of match practice showed alarmingly. Gerrard and Lampard, AGAIN, looked shadows of their club selves, and brought very little star quality into a midfield that consistently lacked energy, creativity and threat. James Milner showed glimpses of what may be a fruitful long-term England career, but Joe Cole's fleeting appearances were disappointingly ineffectual cameos.
Jermain Defoe looked lively against Slovenia and Germany and may just have done enough to earn a few more starting XI spots. Ignoring Emile Heskey, as Capello should have done from the start, that leaves Wayne Rooney.
Rooney looked like he played the tournament in a pair of bricks. His touch was barely there, his passing wayward and lacklustre, his goal threat non-existent. Something was wrong, whether it was the ball, an old injury, the long 50-game season spent single-handedly winning games for Manchester United or the pressure of similar expectations for his country. It would be hard to believe the pressure did get to him, given his consistency for club and country prior to the tournament, but one way or another, the magnificent and gifted footballer everyone knows just didn't show up.
Rooney will have another two, maybe three World Cups but by the end of 2010, the key quartet of Steven Gerrard, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard will all be the wrong side of 30. The England stars of tomorrow are few, far between and, where they do exist in players like Adam Johnson, Jack Wilshere, Jack Rodwell and Joe Hart, inexperienced. It's time for a shake up, and it may be some time before the dust settles on an England side capable of challenging at major tournaments.
For all the clear changes and difficult decisions needed, however, Capello cannot go just yet. He is, after all, responsible for galvanising this same squad who failed to even reach the Euro 2008 tournament, under Steve McLaren, to win nine out of ten World Cup qualifiers, and, with the right selections here on in, deserves the opportunity to lead England's Euro 2012 campaign. He has learned quicker than Sven, and will deal with better than McLaren, the massive media pressure that comes with heading the England national team, and with his undoubted pedigree and results delivered prior to this World Cup, should be given the chance to help English football turn this corner.
But right now, for those remaining talismen of England's Golden Generation, the greatest prize in world football will forever remain as tangible as the everyman's dream. It's a recurring dream that football players and football fans alike have had for 44 years, but on Sunday it was starkly and inescapably shown up for what it is. Now, a long-overdue wake up call is needed immediately to restore any faith in the future of English football.
The result was as if finally and thankfully waking from a growing nightmare, rather than descending into one. The dream familiar to so many English fans (you know, that one where England win the World Cup?), preceded by weeks of feverish, optimistic expectation, faded almost instantly. If the insipid 1-1 draw against the US, where England, looking tired and short on ideas, battled gamely and little else, soured the first steps on what was supposed to have been a glorious path, the excruciatingly dire stalemate against an inferior-in-every-way Algeria demolished the path, and tore up the map.
This, incidentally, was the game where Gareth Barry, injured for the previous two months, was supposed to slot into the England puzzle and make the picture clear. Instead, Barry was ineffective in all three subsequent games, offering no protection to the back four against Germany (indeed, Barry was directly at fault during both of Germany's second half goals, giving away possession for 3-1 and failing to deal with a long punt to Mesut Ozil for 4-1), and in the games against Algeria and Slovenia, lacked any guile or passing flair - an asset Barry has always been short of.
The 'dream', now on the verge of dying, was burnished by the slightly more convincing first half display against Slovenia, Capello's two line up changes combining for the only goal. Yet as it turned into a fully fledged nightmare after all, like a Shakespearean tragedy there was a final, drawn out despondent end to the play, the inevitable descent into the sombre, damning ending.
Though Lampard's clear goal was academic by the end, there is something to be said that maybe, just maybe, an England side, pumped up and level 2-2 against the old enemy at half time at the World Cup, just might have had one last effort up their sleeves.
There is also something to be said that an England side, pumped up and harshly behind 2-1 to the old enemy at half-time at the World Cup, should have had even more of an effort up their sleeves than did emerge on Sunday.
Because apart from 15 frenzied minutes before half-time, England offered nothing against Germany to suggest that there was any more to this side than the three limp group games had shown. The failings of an England team, at the last opportunity for the heralded Golden Generation, were exposed against a young, exciting, clinical and organised German side.
Exposed, in every department. In goal, England's traditional problems since David Seaman retired continued: Green's woeful error was punished, but James, though competent when called upon in the must-win game against Slovenia, might have done better for the second and fourth German goals, and arguably should have reacted quicker to prevent their first, too. In defence, though their display against lowly Slovenia was also admirable, John Terry and Matthew Upson had no answer for Germany's attacking talent, whose prowess also left Glen Johnson and Ashley Cole hopelessly out of position on what seemed like countless occasions.
In midfield, Aaron Lennon struggled but was inexplicably replaced twice by unimpressive substitutes - Shaun Wright-Phillips has no doubt earned the last of his England caps, although Theo Walcott must be sunning himself somewhere, positively beaming - while Gareth Barry's lack of match practice showed alarmingly. Gerrard and Lampard, AGAIN, looked shadows of their club selves, and brought very little star quality into a midfield that consistently lacked energy, creativity and threat. James Milner showed glimpses of what may be a fruitful long-term England career, but Joe Cole's fleeting appearances were disappointingly ineffectual cameos.
Jermain Defoe looked lively against Slovenia and Germany and may just have done enough to earn a few more starting XI spots. Ignoring Emile Heskey, as Capello should have done from the start, that leaves Wayne Rooney.
Rooney looked like he played the tournament in a pair of bricks. His touch was barely there, his passing wayward and lacklustre, his goal threat non-existent. Something was wrong, whether it was the ball, an old injury, the long 50-game season spent single-handedly winning games for Manchester United or the pressure of similar expectations for his country. It would be hard to believe the pressure did get to him, given his consistency for club and country prior to the tournament, but one way or another, the magnificent and gifted footballer everyone knows just didn't show up.
Rooney will have another two, maybe three World Cups but by the end of 2010, the key quartet of Steven Gerrard, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard will all be the wrong side of 30. The England stars of tomorrow are few, far between and, where they do exist in players like Adam Johnson, Jack Wilshere, Jack Rodwell and Joe Hart, inexperienced. It's time for a shake up, and it may be some time before the dust settles on an England side capable of challenging at major tournaments.
For all the clear changes and difficult decisions needed, however, Capello cannot go just yet. He is, after all, responsible for galvanising this same squad who failed to even reach the Euro 2008 tournament, under Steve McLaren, to win nine out of ten World Cup qualifiers, and, with the right selections here on in, deserves the opportunity to lead England's Euro 2012 campaign. He has learned quicker than Sven, and will deal with better than McLaren, the massive media pressure that comes with heading the England national team, and with his undoubted pedigree and results delivered prior to this World Cup, should be given the chance to help English football turn this corner.
But right now, for those remaining talismen of England's Golden Generation, the greatest prize in world football will forever remain as tangible as the everyman's dream. It's a recurring dream that football players and football fans alike have had for 44 years, but on Sunday it was starkly and inescapably shown up for what it is. Now, a long-overdue wake up call is needed immediately to restore any faith in the future of English football.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Operator Please - Gloves
I’m not sure that everyone has been looking forward to Gloves, the follow up long-player from Australian racket Operator Please, as much as I have. Their brilliant and infectious debut was only mildly received on this site two years ago, but without doubt, the still gratingly young five-piece are an Aussie storm to be reckoned with – certainly live – proving themselves to be accomplished songwriters, with a catalogue of songs capable in the same breath of turns of genius and unrestrained fun.
It's interesting, then, that... more >>
It's interesting, then, that... more >>
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Short changed
Whatever happens for the rest of tonight, and over Friday, the frenzied final weeks of the election campaign have largely flattered to deceive. For all the bright yellow sunshine of the Liberal Democrats' false dawn, very little change has been seen - and is likely to be seen - to challenge the usual political suspects.
It's not really Nick Clegg's fault. Given a podium on national television three weeks in a row, the country warmed to the impassioned, reasoned and (frankly) MOR performance from the calm, clean cut new face of British politics. Three months ago, he wasn't even the foremost political party leader called Nick, and suddenly he was the second coming, the real alternative, the answer to years of Conservative and Labour gridlock.
For about 15 minutes. After Clegg's surprise popularity spike following the ITV debate - a bit like winning over undecided Sun readers - Cameron and Brown spent the next week drawing level with Clegg, offering him a seat at the top table, and then promptly dropped him from their gang the week after, when the two main party leaders locked horns in front of the biggest television audience yet.
And despite the continued public favour for Clegg and the Lib Dems, into the last week of campaigning the press followed Cameron and Brown instead, relentlessly. Unfortunate pictures of the Tory leader, unfortunate recordings of the Labour leader, it remained that Cameron and Brown drove the headlines, and spent the last days of the campaign prior to election day obliterating Nick Clegg's slowing hype-train.
What had given Clegg his spotlight was, it appeared, the sort of smooth-talking, persona-based party leadership that earned Cameron such derision not so many months before. All very well talking the talk, but where were the policies? It was on policy where Clegg lost his way in the third televised debate. His defence policy was attacked on all sides, his European stance washy. The immigration views, when pressed, was eyebrow-raising. A case of not enough, and much too late.
But the response at large to the familiar TV format - like a mix between The Weakest Link and Question Time - caused the overreaction. The glamour of the television screen, so instilled in American political history, yet so conflicting with the very different British system, widely misrepresented the strength of serious backing behind the Liberal Democrats that the impressed viewers seemed to be gushing forth. Anyone wholeheartedly convinced by the debates' influence over voter attitudes is going to be mightily let down come Friday morning.
As the night's gone on, the failure of the Lib Dems to obtain any ground on the major two parties augments the disappointingly small shift in the playing field at this election. While the hype surrounding 'Cleggmania' among the online column inches grew, none of it, it seems, has transferred into hard political evidence. And though the television debates may have engaged with a wider band of the electorate, increasing voter turnout and, it could be argued, furthering democracy, the only picture that remains now is one of slight confusion. The fresh start seemed a great idea in theory, but very little of it has been put into practice.
What change there is suggests a clear turn away from 13 years' hard Labour. It looks unlikely that there will be a majority victory for any party, but in the serious business of politics, the only shift worth checking will be just how wide a margin the Conservatives have gained over Labour. Their 'vote for change' campaign might be tainted by naysayers who affect to be unable to differentiate between the parties' policies, but by promoting future change, instead of warning of past problems, the Conservative party just might get their opportunity to start implementing it.
It's not really Nick Clegg's fault. Given a podium on national television three weeks in a row, the country warmed to the impassioned, reasoned and (frankly) MOR performance from the calm, clean cut new face of British politics. Three months ago, he wasn't even the foremost political party leader called Nick, and suddenly he was the second coming, the real alternative, the answer to years of Conservative and Labour gridlock.
For about 15 minutes. After Clegg's surprise popularity spike following the ITV debate - a bit like winning over undecided Sun readers - Cameron and Brown spent the next week drawing level with Clegg, offering him a seat at the top table, and then promptly dropped him from their gang the week after, when the two main party leaders locked horns in front of the biggest television audience yet.
And despite the continued public favour for Clegg and the Lib Dems, into the last week of campaigning the press followed Cameron and Brown instead, relentlessly. Unfortunate pictures of the Tory leader, unfortunate recordings of the Labour leader, it remained that Cameron and Brown drove the headlines, and spent the last days of the campaign prior to election day obliterating Nick Clegg's slowing hype-train.
What had given Clegg his spotlight was, it appeared, the sort of smooth-talking, persona-based party leadership that earned Cameron such derision not so many months before. All very well talking the talk, but where were the policies? It was on policy where Clegg lost his way in the third televised debate. His defence policy was attacked on all sides, his European stance washy. The immigration views, when pressed, was eyebrow-raising. A case of not enough, and much too late.
But the response at large to the familiar TV format - like a mix between The Weakest Link and Question Time - caused the overreaction. The glamour of the television screen, so instilled in American political history, yet so conflicting with the very different British system, widely misrepresented the strength of serious backing behind the Liberal Democrats that the impressed viewers seemed to be gushing forth. Anyone wholeheartedly convinced by the debates' influence over voter attitudes is going to be mightily let down come Friday morning.
As the night's gone on, the failure of the Lib Dems to obtain any ground on the major two parties augments the disappointingly small shift in the playing field at this election. While the hype surrounding 'Cleggmania' among the online column inches grew, none of it, it seems, has transferred into hard political evidence. And though the television debates may have engaged with a wider band of the electorate, increasing voter turnout and, it could be argued, furthering democracy, the only picture that remains now is one of slight confusion. The fresh start seemed a great idea in theory, but very little of it has been put into practice.
What change there is suggests a clear turn away from 13 years' hard Labour. It looks unlikely that there will be a majority victory for any party, but in the serious business of politics, the only shift worth checking will be just how wide a margin the Conservatives have gained over Labour. Their 'vote for change' campaign might be tainted by naysayers who affect to be unable to differentiate between the parties' policies, but by promoting future change, instead of warning of past problems, the Conservative party just might get their opportunity to start implementing it.
The Rebs launch debut album 'In A Heartbeat'
For a band whose star is in the ascendancy, The Brook in Southampton gives independently signed acts like The Rebs something of a natural pedestal on which to stand and survey their audience. The place is full to the rafters, literally, as the first floor balcony is jam-packed: eager locals ready to consume the Southampton band's invigorating indie/electro-pop songs. But the stage, you see, is raised a good five feet from the floor, forcing the crowd to gaze up at its occupants - whether they like it or not.
This is, you suspect, how The Rebs prefer it. They're no strangers to limelight, having come good in 2008's Road To V competition and opening the festival for Kaiser Chiefs, The Zutons and The Courteeners, and winning two Exposure Music Awards for Best Pop Song and Best Overall Song in the last 18 months. On first glance though, they're a curious bunch: guitar-wielding frontman Russell Edmonds is almost transatlantic in his good looks, as though forged at the height of Strokes and New York garage rock fever. The beaming bassist, Nader Rezaie, seems much more laid back with his elongated basslines and falling black locks, while Vicki Averre-Beeson hops about behind her Korgs, lost in the atmosphere and stabbing out synth melodies. Sticksman Sim Cracknell provides big bouncing rhythms, also wearing a large grin throughout the night.
The night's main event is to see The Rebs entertain, and they come out in buoyant mood, visibly excited to impress the crowd on this, their début album launch. Taking the unusual step of playing through the tracklisting in order, the crowd are treated to the full Rebs repertoire; the best of their blossoming catalogue causing some of the avid audience to break in to chants of 'Reb Army!'. The army deal, primarily, in thumping pop rock, the attitude of Edmonds's driving guitars balanced out by a series of knock-out choruses. Début single 'Don't Fool Yourself' is exemplary, a punchy mid-tempo affair that throws in the night's main foot-stamping, sing-a-long moment.
The Rebs appear to have taken their cues from that golden early to mid-00s period, their widescreen indie reminding of Hot Fuss-era Killers - see 'Superman' - and early Franz Ferdinand. Despite any misgivings that sentence may have just stirred in you, live, it still works, thanks to the full throttle treatment it gets from the confident foursome. Standout moment is the fast-paced 'Would I Remember', forceful but irresistibly catchy - perfect summer festival stuff - while sort of title track 'Always in a Heartbeat' spears numerous synth lines across a crashing rock backdrop to memorable effect. Even if it does draw comparisons with The Automatic.
What quickly becomes obvious is just how saturated the tracklist is with strong single potential. With a commendable motto on their MySpace - "Influences: artists with great songwriters - we like singles" - each song tries to pack in that classic sounding chorus, and most are successful. It's no mean feat building 11 songs to a fervent indie template, yet managing to produce almost as many pop choruses from the top shelf among them, and credit is due to The Rebs for this. A breather tonight, however, comes in the form of three acoustic tracks in succession, the band leaving Edmonds alone under the lights to amuse himself for 10 minutes. Not all of the acoustic numbers feature in the tracklisting, thankfully, but it's a disappointingly typical (or perhaps naive) début album tactic, including an obligatory 'quiet one', the supposedly introspective, deep track, and it doesn't quite sit with a band who for the main have canon of excellent songs that don't necessarily conform to the typical début album.
Nevertheless, tonight it's all about The Rebs collectively - an affirmation of their award-winning songwriting, the headrushing performance of their songs in the live arena; the strut of a band who've got something and believe they're ready to take it to the world. And if people start catching on, The Rebs just might come out on top.
Also avilable on God is in the TV
This is, you suspect, how The Rebs prefer it. They're no strangers to limelight, having come good in 2008's Road To V competition and opening the festival for Kaiser Chiefs, The Zutons and The Courteeners, and winning two Exposure Music Awards for Best Pop Song and Best Overall Song in the last 18 months. On first glance though, they're a curious bunch: guitar-wielding frontman Russell Edmonds is almost transatlantic in his good looks, as though forged at the height of Strokes and New York garage rock fever. The beaming bassist, Nader Rezaie, seems much more laid back with his elongated basslines and falling black locks, while Vicki Averre-Beeson hops about behind her Korgs, lost in the atmosphere and stabbing out synth melodies. Sticksman Sim Cracknell provides big bouncing rhythms, also wearing a large grin throughout the night.
The night's main event is to see The Rebs entertain, and they come out in buoyant mood, visibly excited to impress the crowd on this, their début album launch. Taking the unusual step of playing through the tracklisting in order, the crowd are treated to the full Rebs repertoire; the best of their blossoming catalogue causing some of the avid audience to break in to chants of 'Reb Army!'. The army deal, primarily, in thumping pop rock, the attitude of Edmonds's driving guitars balanced out by a series of knock-out choruses. Début single 'Don't Fool Yourself' is exemplary, a punchy mid-tempo affair that throws in the night's main foot-stamping, sing-a-long moment.
The Rebs appear to have taken their cues from that golden early to mid-00s period, their widescreen indie reminding of Hot Fuss-era Killers - see 'Superman' - and early Franz Ferdinand. Despite any misgivings that sentence may have just stirred in you, live, it still works, thanks to the full throttle treatment it gets from the confident foursome. Standout moment is the fast-paced 'Would I Remember', forceful but irresistibly catchy - perfect summer festival stuff - while sort of title track 'Always in a Heartbeat' spears numerous synth lines across a crashing rock backdrop to memorable effect. Even if it does draw comparisons with The Automatic.
What quickly becomes obvious is just how saturated the tracklist is with strong single potential. With a commendable motto on their MySpace - "Influences: artists with great songwriters - we like singles" - each song tries to pack in that classic sounding chorus, and most are successful. It's no mean feat building 11 songs to a fervent indie template, yet managing to produce almost as many pop choruses from the top shelf among them, and credit is due to The Rebs for this. A breather tonight, however, comes in the form of three acoustic tracks in succession, the band leaving Edmonds alone under the lights to amuse himself for 10 minutes. Not all of the acoustic numbers feature in the tracklisting, thankfully, but it's a disappointingly typical (or perhaps naive) début album tactic, including an obligatory 'quiet one', the supposedly introspective, deep track, and it doesn't quite sit with a band who for the main have canon of excellent songs that don't necessarily conform to the typical début album.
Nevertheless, tonight it's all about The Rebs collectively - an affirmation of their award-winning songwriting, the headrushing performance of their songs in the live arena; the strut of a band who've got something and believe they're ready to take it to the world. And if people start catching on, The Rebs just might come out on top.
Also avilable on God is in the TV
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Noisettes + support, Bournemouth 02 Academy, 24/2/2010
The Noisettes live are a very different prospect these days. Their incredibly well-received second album Wild Young Hearts was shorn of the rattling blues-punk that captured their enthusiastic spirit on (poorly-titled) first album What’s the Time, Mr Wolf?, but it gave rise to a slew of hit singles driven by the Mazda-sponsored success of ‘Don’t Upset the Rhythm (Go Baby Go)’ – a single so good, they squeezed both hooks into the title for good measure.
Before a quarter of tonight’s expectant crowd have drifted in though, more...
Before a quarter of tonight’s expectant crowd have drifted in though, more...
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