Songs of Green Pheasant AKA Darren Sumpner is what makes this measly company car 30k Diskant drudgery an unexpected lark. Seemingly living the sublime life; rural Sheffield artist, teacher Duncan Sumpner presents Gyllyng Street – his third release on the ever-burgeoning Fat Cat label.

Gyllyng Street expands on the now seemingly diminutive 4-track recording of his self-titled album. Twice the number of tracks were used in the mix, and it shows with the multifarious goings-on. It’s a joy to not have to listen to a nondescript ‘whole’ in a tune, and Sumpner mostly retains the attention span with all sorts of chimes, percussion and guitars (to name a few) that will please the ears. For an artist that proposes the ‘epic’-ness in every tune, this is refreshingly novel, brimful with unshakeably memorable melodies, thankfully lacking the insipidity of artists going for this same style.

Where the latter half of the album palls slightly, all this is put into perspective when considering the ineffable ‘King Friday’, the most inspiring track on ‘Gyllyng Street’. It starts off in that relatively comfortable innocuous indie/Brian Wilson fuzzy mode part of town, and then… It builds: drones, voices, cymbal tapping, then childhood chimes arrive, dark noise; a crescendo of intensity, and BLAM! The shuffling beat, the resonant chords and sultry vocal harmonies of a multi-tracking genius. One diverse musical engineering brain, releasing unexpected rapture, clinches this reviewer’s stressed head.

This album was written about the dissolute street in which Sumpner grew up by and took the name for this triumphant second long-player. It is supremely focused, an experience in motion. Buy it, listen to it, at least, for heaven’s sake, have a go with it’s zenith: ‘King Friday’. SOGP sidesteps the awful post-rock cliche of the wishy-washy epic 6-minute moment, and accomplishes the nigh on impossible. This is bona fide excellent, wholly unpretentious grandiose music.

Pascal Ansell

http://fat-cat.co.uk/fatcat/artistInfo.php?id=99

Experience some full-on churning metal guitars, blast-beating drums and guttural roars for vocals courtesy of Newcastle-based quartet Jinn. Yep, they’re a grindcore band, and this album burns through 11 songs in the space of 21 minutes. It’s nothing you haven’t heard before, but Jinn become an increasingly impressive prospect during the course of this album – huge blasts of uber-distorted guitars judder to a halt as the band turns on a dime to begin a new musical passage, quickly shifting gears between songs that deliver blow after sickening blow to the head. They’ve been described as the UK’s best hardcore band, and this is probably the hardest, most furious and enveloping album I’ve heard from these shores for a wee while. Not that I’m an expert, mind.

Hardcore and thrash-derived bands such as Jinn are invariably far more impressive melting your face off at a gig than on record, but they do a fairly decent job of capturing their sheer weight and power – they even scale the heights of sounding almost as high and mighty as the legendary (if increasingly dull) Isis at points, which is definitely something to be proud of.

However, I do have a couple of complaints about this record that I need to get off my wheezing, pitifully under-developed chest:

1. Jinn share a conundrum with so many thrash/grindcore bands who want their guitars to make an absolute din but then have those breakdowns where the guitars go clean for maximum devastating dynamic effect: if your guitarists set their gear up to have that Massive Metal Wall-Of-Thrash effect (and Jinn’s can be a particularly impressive wall, decorated by all kinds of monumental brutalist architecture) for the majority of the time, how can you avoid it sounding brittle and hollow when you wind back to a simple guitar sound? Unfortunately for Jinn this conundrum remains largely unsolved; on the few occasions that the guitarists let up on their fevered thrashing they end up sounding like they’re plinking away something bought at the Early Learning Centre. Mercifully, this doesn’t happen that often or for too long.
2. While the singer’s bellowing is eternally indecipherable it is certainly powerful and effective, so there’s no reason to completely undermine all that good work by exposing quite how shit the lyrics he’s mangling are by printing them in the CD booklet. The brief epithets that make up the lines of songs such as “Its Not Getting any better” and “Vikings Bloody Vikings” may be intended as cryptic allusions, poetic descriptions, or even sparse prose inspired by gothic horror, but lines such as “The mask of a hooded wizard mourns your eyes / Sorrow lies enrage your soul” bring to mind the dreaded insult of ‘sixth form poetry’. That said; the imagery of the album’s closing line, “Vengeance on a dog” does take some beating.

Not that I’d ever dare raising any kind of issue with Jinn in person; they’d probably tear my face off and feed it to their beloved pooch.

www.myspace.com/jinnoffline
www.superfirecords.co.uk
www.myspace.com/righttorefuse

I have to start this review with a confession: Army Of Flying Robots are a Nottingham-based band who have played all over the city in a myriad of venues (including a good friend’s kitchen and an erstwhile art gallery), yet I have somehow conspired to miss their live performances for 4 solid years. Please take this as a guarantee of objectivity for this review of their debut album then, dear reader, than of incompetence on my part.

After incongruously beginning with what sounds like a pick-scraped guitar slowed down and run through enough echo to make worthy of a horror film soundtrack, AOFR quickly establish their blueprint for grinding twin guitars underpinned by heavy bass and manic drumming, supporting a truly larynx-shredding vocal performance from frontman Henry Davies (seriously, you can almost hear the fibres from his throat coming away one at a time). AOFR are a band that love to occupy that middle ground between hardcore punk-rock and grinding metal, but with intelligent beatdowns, the odd flailing thrash and even an occasional let-up or slow build-up in intensity, they bring far more to the table than yer average so-called ‘grindcore’ band. Not bad considering most of the songs barely scrape the 2-minute mark.

Davies’ singing does conform to the general standards of indecipherable howling, so it’s handy to have the lyrics written down with explanations about subject matters in the liner notes and it’s always good to see nuclear weapons, American foreign policy, casual male chauvinism and globalisation of corporate interests getting a bashing. I’ve got to mention the truly ugly artwork you have to plough through to read these things though – not aesthetically pleasing in any way. Even if they have a song called “How’s That For A Kick In The Cunt?”.

Back to the music: at barely 29 minutes, these 11 songs will leave your body exhausted and your ears squealing with pain. That’s probably nothing compared to their infamous live shows, but you’ve got to say it’s mission accomplished, don’t you?

www.armyofflyingrobots.co.uk
www.superfirecords.co.uk

Hip-hop from Hereford, you say? This bunch of new rappers reference funk and drum and bass, and manage somehow to mutate it into an overall swing sound. On their debut single they shout “I am the employee of the month. I’ve got a badge upon my front”. In the same breath, they make “Come and join me in the gutter, there’s room for two” sound an inviting proposition.

The overall result is street urchin vocals like Pete Doherty jamming with Jamie T and The Streets to entertain a street party with a ragtime band in tow. As they repeat the ‘Strike Me Down’ chorus you can almost imagine an ensuing conga led by a saxophonist. Or have I just got a very vivid imagination?

The B-side is about the kind of party where all the cool kids are wearing ‘Hats and Glasses’. “We could raise the roof or tell the truth or knock back tequilas in the DJ booth”, they suggestively rap as Penelope Pitstop with her art degree knocks back the five-pound wine.

Goldseal, Murf, Mayhem and Lo create their own form of mayhem. It’s lyrically clever and a musical mix of big band/ska and old school hip hop with brassy little nuances at every turn. Having supported Grandmaster Flash, Goldie, The Scratch Perverts and Groove Armada, The Anomalies (as their name suggests) show us you can be ultra-cool and have a jolly good old knees up at the same time.

The Anomalies

Maple and Nero were born of sorrow in the North East of Scotland, found some mates and then three men and a little lady morphed into Le Reno Amps. Apparently they aim to write songs with all the fat cut off so you can sample their buttery goodness. Sound tempting? It is, actually.

Their malevolent missive ‘Poison Letter’ is released on Pet Piranha and apparently “it’s not easy reading but it’s not Yeats either”, with “questionable spelling but the message is clear”. They inform us of these facts over a lolloping melody and a bouncy chorus.

B-side ‘New Man’ bemoans the replacement lover. “Whatever car he drives is not Korean made and I bet she doesn’t think of me when she is getting laid” laments the singer whose ex only talks to him so she can twist that knife.

In the spirit of Teenage Fanclub or The Lemonheads, Le Reno Amps find that irresistible combination of power pop, folk and indie. They mix alt-country balladry with observational singer-songwriting. Arab Strap’s laments, with the more upbeat poppy sound of Belle and Sebastian, perhaps.

Yet the louche mid-western vocals make them sound more like they hail from Albuquerque than Aberdeen. Whether it’s Reno or Rutherglen, these Glasgow based Amps are cranked up loud and well worth a listen.

Le Reno Amps

Lovers of the Sixties, take note: there are some new kids on the block. But no copyists these, The Loves put an up-to-the-minute spin on The Velvet Underground and The Monkees, by way of garage rock and Creation Records.

For their pains, the Cardiff band received The Sunday Times LP of the week for Technicolour, released on Fortuna Pop in February, and including tracks mentioned here. The band have been through many reincarnations since they formed in 2000.

‘Xs and Os’ is a singalong ode to a friend in trouble; like The Archies meets Jan and Dean with a psychedelic bluesy twist. ‘She’ll break your heart again’ begins like Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders ‘The Game of Love’ crossed with the Beat’s ‘I Can’t Get Used To Losing You’, then the percussion whizzes you back to The Troggs’ ‘Wild Thing’. By then, it’s full-on sixties bubblegum, complete with keys, chimes and huge beats. Simon and Jenna duel on vocals. Her seductive intrusive refrains remind you of Jane Birkin or Nico, against his nasal tone. The song ends abruptly with a single note.

‘My Sweet Drunken Blues for You’ is a chaotic jam on a four track that sounds like an early Stones demo. On ‘Nao Va Se Perder Por Ai’ we get another change of style – The Bees meets the Magic Numbers, if they sung in Brazilian with backing vox that rattle along eccentrically in the background.

With their revolving door membership policy this band have cleverly picked a name that inspires adoration, and they’ve toured with Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Rapture. What’s not to love?

The Loves

As I opened the plain white cardboard sleeve, labelled with scrawled biro, that sat amongst a pile of other CDs bearing flashy artwork, I had absolutely no preconceptions. On hearing the first notes I was quite captivated.

High Vinyl are a band from Cambridge who formed in 2001 and have a few EPs under their belt. Their sound can best be described as indie instrumental. Guitar- and bass-driven resonance with a light yet insistent percussive touch, intermittent vocals, and assistance from flute and glockenspiel.

The first track ‘Predicted/ignored’ is pure instrumentation, starting slowly and building into controlled mania. Like Field Music meets Joy Division in a very mellow mode. The vocals kick in for ‘A Disappointing Cycle Ride in Romsey’, where they begin to sound a touch like The Longcut. The lyrics inhabit the solid bass sound without dominating proceedings.

With the next track it’s a return to emotional musicality. The flute and glockenspiel play over clever fretwork. ‘Moth Eaten’ has percussion-led, driving resonance. The singer’s muffled vocals slur, “They are hiding away in pitch black, I want them back.” At this point their style is somewhere between Pavement and an upbeat Zero Seven. Snarey, shuffling drums and delicate guitar lines populate ‘The Abbot Sway’, giving it a vibrato layered feel.

I’m not immediately drawn to the instrumental, but this piece of work flows really well and convinced me enough to play it repeatedly. Tracks from their last three EPs, including some of this work, is combined on their debut album Condor vs. Albatross. With Kelso on vocal, Nicos on drums, Auff on bass, Shpol on flute and Hotch on guitar, check them out. They are as interesting as their names sound.

High Vinyl

Here are two guys very close to my heart, when they describe themselves as “righteous” the emphasis is very much on the “right” of their moniker. Packaged as if written and recorded by a couple of hicks, you gotta wonder what lies in the deep and dense plots of most rural Cambridgeshire from where this record originates.

Early confusion rains on the compact disc (technology has sure arrived with a vengeance in their town) as the booklet states four compositions but the CD reads as only containing two. Already I am in a kafuffle.

The muddy sludge that arrives with this record sonically reminds me of Earth and other such hateful doom mongers from that scene of distortion frenzied slo-mo metallers in addition to messy sounds that have been known to emit from types such as Mudhoney and Bardo Pond. If you have ever seen the movie Broken Flowers and the malice filled final visit Bill Murray makes to an old flame, that whole episode/scene is sound tracked by Sleep however this could just as happily take its place in sitting next to such frustration.

Clocking in at 25 minutes this is an exceedingly dirty sounding recording reminiscent of a recent golden age where guitars were turned to eleven and played with contempt as the instigators relished offending the audience in a devil may care manner akin to most aloof of heroin addicts. If I could place this record at the heart of a scene it would be in the midst of fully blown shit storm sound tracking a day of drinking beer, eating meat and firing guns. As one of their song titles acknowledges, they don’t believe in punishment, they believe in “Gunishment” (a level of humour you will either tap into or you won’t).

As to where exactly this music and attitude slots in with regards to the grand scheme of things is another question but for now I am happily impressed by the pleasant surprise of receiving the dirtiest piece of dirge driven doom perfect to get high and wasted to. The musical equivalent of Ritalin and just like the pill, I want more.

Thesaurus moment: upright.

Righteous Bastards

I have to concede from the sheer sight of this CD I was expecting a really horrible metal band but instead it is a chunky sounding indie rock band where all instruments sound as if they have been recorded at levels too high in the mix which makes this pleasantly as far from crisp as is acceptable. Perhaps by mistake they have tapped into a sound that they should quickly make their own.

Labelling themselves as “gentleman amateur”, their own created genre of rock that surprisingly hasn’t been snapped up by the NME yet, the two songs plod along like from a quirky band you fear you might see playing in your local forever, until you get off your arse and leave your hometown. This is a band that you have to outgrow.

With a bass sound that sounds like moving furniture and a Hammond that sometimes sounds as if it is playing a different song this is almost a classic piece of indie rock that bands just do not seem to invest in making any more – the almost bombastic chorus hooks reminding me of earnest early nineties bands around the circles of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and Mega City Four, music to some ears but not to others (and then I actually bother to look at their website to find myself confronted with mohawks!).

As I griped above this is not resoundingly modern music it is more the continuation of something that is waning more in popularity by the year. In times where indie rockers seem to be more interested in finding their beaten down white man blues sound from their middle class surroundings, the quirky celebration of student rock has never felt more rejecting. It would be fun for the Psychotic Reaction to find fame but not really likely.

Thesaurus moment: antediluvian.

The Psychotic Reaction

With an obvious penchant for New York, this lush sounding London five piece are of the female fronted indie pop breed looking to update on the Blondie. I would not say this kind of band is uncommon but it is rare you actually find an act that successfully manages to pull the feat off.

The band reminds me most of all of Sleeper, which is either a sound ten years too late or one just ready for a return/revival. Lyrically however the band are, dare I say, somewhat tepid revisiting grounded topics that have been ploughed to death through the seven ages of rock that there apparently are although the French twinge on the lyrics does lend them some kind of wonderful.

Ultimately though the guitars too dry for me not clean just bland lacking force and energy – this is pop music that is just not popular.

Thesaurus moment: barren.

Havana Guns
Cigarette Music