I think that The Sound Explosion have, in their own minds, lined themselves up in the rock lineage which stems from the blues-based stomp of the Bluesbreakers, wading through the excesses of Led Zeppelin and ending up in the murky place inhabited nowadays by bands like the Hellacopters, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Primal Scream. I’d tend not to disagree, either; all of the requisite parts are here – hard-riffing bluesy workouts with liberal doses of wah-wah, topped off with impassioned vocals which speak of a life made up of sex, drugs, rock’n’roll and nothing else. Whilst the lyrics – and vocal delivery – make me think that they’re not quite living the life which they would have us believe, the music is packed full of enough vigour and energy to make this CD album, if nothing else, one to play whilst punching the air on a long night out.

Captains Of Industry
The Sound Explosion

I’ve been listening to Joeyfat’s album The house of the fat a lot lately. It really is very good indeed. Go and buy a copy.

That is all

A short (12 songs in under half an hour), sweet CD album, with clear, intelligent, well-spoken lyrics pushed to the fore, backed with richly melodic, simplistic guitar and some perky drumming. At times it verges on the jangly indie-pop side of pop music, with hints of Heavenly – perhaps due to the presence of Peter Momtchiloff on guitar. This pushes all of the right indie-pop buttons: lyrics with an introspective touch, touches of Nico’s vocal style, musical reminders of Francoise Hardy, even a song sung in French. Whilst it’s perfectly pleasant listening, it leaves me wanting slightly more bite, something to drag it out of the background. But I’m not suggesting that they jam in some power chords.

Fortuna Pop!
Would-Be-Goods

This initially comes across as a mellow, gentle album; ever-so-slightly jazz-infused pop tunes played with finesse and that sense of playful style which comes across in bands like The Auteurs, Arco and Pulp. Indeed, the vocals are ‘very Pulp’ – dry, deep tones delivered knowingly with a cheeky edge. But then! It picks up, augmenting the simplicity of the melodies with subtle electronics and drumbeats, even horns, until all of a sudden songs build up into multilayered Flaming Lips-style swathes of depth and drama. At these points I understand that The Chemistry Experiment have big ideas and vision. I can hear David Axelrod, Scott Walker, sixties crooners… and I like it!

Fortuna Pop!
The Chemistry Experiment

Fantastically summery pop music, this. The (occasionally Chipmunksesque) vocals on this CD single stay on just the right side of sugary overload, and the clean, clear, pin-sharp music seems designed for no other reason than to get you outside, dancing, in the sun, probably with an indie kid bowl haircut, Pastels t-shirt and hairslide… whilst playing along on a variety of toy synthesisers. The music mixes the vigour of early Bis with the finesse of late St Etienne; all perky electronic drumbeats, gliding electronified pop sounds and low-in-the-mix (at least for the most part) guitar melodies. Whilst this kind of 60s-tinged electropop might not be particularly original, on this single it’s particularly effective.

Persil
Transformed Dreams

The cutesy/scratchy/cut-and-paste-y artwork on the front of this CD single sums up the music: somewhat raucous, impassioned indie noise. With its uptight girl-band-gone-bad vocals and garage-dirt riffing, the first track ‘Message’ is the standout for me – short & sweet, aggressive female-fronted punk which reminds of The Slits, The Bangles and Phil Spector’s ‘Christmas Album’ in different ways. The further three tracks don’t quite keep the pace up, and lose out by losing some of the energy and desperation, but continue in a similar vein. Playful, quietly confrontational noisy pop music for disaffected youth.

The Grates
Captains of Industry

I often have my doubts about ‘side projects’, but when they sound like this CD – a side project from two members of Volumen, combining the best in 1980s drum machine technology, hair metal widdling and lame white boy rapping – who am I to complain? This is further evidence that Missoula, Montana is stuck in some kind of time warp where it’s forever the mid-80s. Breakdance-style simplistic drum patterns are augmented by the wailingest of wailing guitars, ably recorded by Tim ‘Fucking Champs’ Green. The riffs come hard and fast. Heads down, devil horn fingers in the air, and ROCK. The toasting on the M.I.C. sounds like a teenager showing off to capture the attention of a group of cheerleaders. The perfect combination of point and pointless.

Bacon & Egg
W?ntage USA
Motron Records

This is an odd combination of cack-handed vocals, which bring to mind Pavement and – oddly – Dexy’s Midnight Runners, and light-hearted, drunkenly sprightly indie guitar noise. The two songs are shot through with some electronic burbling and the result is a smile-inducing slice of out-there-in-its-normality, ever-so-slightly-post-punk low fidelity pop. There’s nothing earth-shatteringly amazing or original happening here, but in a time when every other band I hear seems to have some kind of agenda and (often misguided) belief in its bleeding-edge newness, is that such a bad thing? Support the cause.

Smokers Die Younger
Sheffield Phonographic Corporation

A 7″ packaged in a good-looking sleeve featuring photographs of what look like the fake trees you get to put next to your train set. Like A Stuntman are a lo-fi pop band with distorted vocals over fuzzy beats and rough guitars over Casio melodies. ‘Reduce’ fails to fully deliver – the self-conscious lo-fi-ness slightly overwhelming the tune and the song – but on the B-side ‘Homerun’, is great. Its Stephen Malkmus-style vocals float over a faux-epic miniature musical journey which builds and develops like a low-rent Brian Wilson offcut. It’s followed up with ‘Early career’, which should remind me of cool underground acts like Steward and Mahogany, but which instead reminds me of Blur’s knowingly simplistic pop. I don’t consider this to be a bad thing.

Like A Stuntman
Highpoint Lowlife Records

Weird, weird, free-associating anti-folk which makes me think that Charles E. Cullen has done too much acid and spent too much time living on his own, rocking wildly and intently on a hand-made rocker on his hand-made porch. Twenty songs of bluesy, reverbed vocals and beginner-style guitar with a variety of comedic titles (‘I got a rare poultry disease’, ‘Kenny’s outdated muscle relaxers’ etc). They remind me of very early Beck; stream-of-consciousness glimpses of strangeitude recorded without apparent reference to anything, and played with the fervour of the Shaggs on an off-day.

The enjoyment of the sheer oddness on display is slightly tempered by the volume of material, which is sometimes overwhelming. I feel this might be a good CD to put on after picking up a sketchy hitch-hiker: make sure to turn up the guitar solos, which sound like the scratching feedback of a murderer.

Thee Sheffield Phonographic Corporation