Previews by Mike Davies
Monday March 1
Los Campesinos!
Demonstrating
something of a Protestant work ethic, Romance Is Boring
(Wichita) is the Cardiff outfit’s third album in two years. It
also finds them moving forward yet again, ditching their
sometimes twee persona for something a little noisier and
spikier on an album they declare to be about
“death and decay of the human
body, sex, lost love, mental breakdown, football and,
ultimately, that there probably isn't a light at the end of the
tunnel.”
Translated into action, that
means that the snotty sneer indie pop of There Are
Listed Buildings and the pop punk of the title track is still
proudly present but you also find them entering sonic squall
Fall territory on Plan A and I Warned You Do Not Make An Enemy
Of Me, touching on Krautrock chugging rhythms with the
exhaustingly titled A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show Me
State; Or, Letters From Me to Charlotte, and mingling electronic
fuzzings and brass with In Media Res. The Sea Is A Good Place To
Think Of The Future even sees them trying on folk shanty wellies
with their post punk raincoat.
Bouncing up and
down with the warped singsong Straight In At 101 or threatening
to invite ballad sways amid the discordant Who Fell Asleep In,
it should be an, er, interesting gig and certainly far from
boring, though you do kind of wish Gareth would stop singing in
that irritating Jilted John whine.
8pm. £9. The Rainbow, Digbeth
Monday March 1
Field Music
Another bunch
who clearly don't have homes to go to, having been busy with
side projects following the release of 2007’s Tones Of Town,
for their third album (Memphis Industries) Sunderland brothers
David and Peter Brewis have packed in 20 tracks, most of them
clocking around three minutes plus. Like their debut, it’s a
self titled affair, though to set them apart they do add
(Measure) after their name on this one.
With plenty of
room to explore ideas, it’s a pretty diverse collection too. The
opening In The Mirror strides along with a mechanical rhythm,
wailing guitars and echoes of Sparks in their experimental
mode, but that’s immediately followed by the almost Fleetwood
Mac tumbling pop, jangly guitars and handclaps of Them That Do
Nothing with Each Time Is A New Time showing the influences of
Bowie’s funk period, Effortlessly chugs along like a mix of
Beatles and 70s American college rock pop and Measure itself
recalls the bucolic approach of the previous two offerings.
There’s a lot to
take in here and, with the varied diet on offer, it’s probably
best not digested at one sitting, the better to appreciate the
inclusion of the soft rock of Choosing Numbers and the Talking
Heads funk of Share The Words alongside the Sparksy rock opera
orchestral crashes of The Rest Is Noise, the psychedelic bluesy
juddering Clear Water and The George Harrison flavours of First
Comes The Wish.
Quite how much
of this they can shoehorn into a set that will also be looking
back over their shoulder at older material remains to be seen,
but it’s fair to say that if one number doesn’t hold your
interest another of a totally different nature will be along
shortly to snap you to attention.
7.30pm. £7. O2 Academy 2
Tuesday March 2
Tom McRae
A decade and
four albums on from his Mercury Music Prize nominated debut,
McRae’s not parlayed critical acclaim into commercial success,
but each successive release has seen him stretching out within
his genre parameters and largely shaking off the Nick Drake
comparisons that first greeted him.
His fifth album,
Alphabet Of Hurricanes (Cooking Vinyl), may still lack the
killer song that will attract wider, mainstream audiences, but
it does find him painting his literate songs of bruised hearts,
distances between and troubled souls from a colourful musical
palette.
The opening
Still I Love You, for example, has him accompanied on banjo, A
Is For is a 52 second clarinet led instrumental from the gypsy
quarter that leads into the acoustic raggy waltzing Won’t Lie
where Django meets Brubeck in some klezmer dive and Told My
Troubles To The River is a clattering percussive, discordant
piano affair with echoey gospel blues vocals.
He’s not
forsaken the melancholic pleasures of unadorned acoustic guitar
and fragile, hurt stained vocals, indeed, building to a sonorous
swell of brass, the six minute American Spirit may be one of the
finest songs he’s produced from that blueprint. Can’t Find You
picks out loneliness with minimal guitar notes, and with its
meditative piano and yearning delivery, Out Of The Walls
conjures thoughts of a furrowed brow Thom Yorke.
Lyrically, the
songs are shot through with darkness and resignation. Summer of
John Wayne alone finds him singing of things that slip through
the cracks in time, while elsewhere there’s talk of blood (Me
& Stetson), swimming from the shore “till I can’t swim no more”
(American Spirit) and, on Won’t Lie, of easing the pain of
deserted lovers with a knife.
After such
shadows, it’s a relief to end on a more positive note, for while
the country-folk flecked Fifteeen Miles Downriver is still
forlorn and reflective, the break up lyrics at least see him
finding peace in letting the wind blow him where it will. It
would be nice to think he might be taking a few more devotees
with him on the journey. 8pm. £14.
Glee Club
Tuesday March 2
Fionn Regan
Previously, if
you were going to tag comparisons on the Dublin
singer-songwriter, his acoustic gentleness and fine guitar work
would most likely have prompted talk of Nick Drake, Damien Rice,
Bert Jansch and Paul Simon.
However, for
sophomore release The Shadow Of An Empire (Heavenly), he’s done
a Dylan and gone electric, bringing a rougher, tougher, punkier
edge to songs that have never been far from the darker side of
the abyss.
Addressing
themes of institutionalised oppression, as you might surmise,
titles like Genocide Matinee, naked bluesy howl Violent
Demeanour and the multinationals bashing Protection Racket
aren’t about falling in love under a summer moon. It’s not just
the plugging in and turning up the amp that prompts the Dylan
reference. Both House Detective and the riff raging Genocide
Matinee trundle along in a Subterranean Homesick Blues style
manner while the simple chord piano-led title track is hewn from
the same American folk-roots that inspired the young Bob.
It isn’t, of
course, all full pelt rhythms and licks. Lines Written In
Winter is a mid-tempo folksy roller with masterful
finger-picking, the harmonica stained Little Nancy lurches
drunkenly like a honky tonk at closing time while Lord Help My
Poor Soul is a stripped back acoustic guitar and mandolin
confessional. Shouts of ‘Judas’ are not anticipated.
Opening the show
will be Danny & The Champions of the
World, new album Streets Of Our Time (Loose)
seeing Danny George Wilson edging even closer to Slim Chance,
the folk-country outfit founded by one of his musical heroes,
Ronnie Lane. Indeed, Henry The Van, a campfire song about the
demise of the tour bus en route to Aberdeen, even includes a
line about a poacher.
That homespun
feel of back porches and dusty byways runs throughout,
noticeably so on the pedal steel coated Appalachian flavoured
Wandle Swan, a reference to a South London river and the fiddle
and banjo rousing bluegrass and Irish stomp of Parakeets.
Lane's not the
only influence to ring clearly. The steady rolling Follow The
River nods to Springsteen's optimistic romantic nostalgia,
complete with a Clarence Clemons style sax solo, the keening
Bluebird harks to the West Coast colours of CS&N, Restless Feet
takes a Neil Young like wistful stroll through memories of
youthful dreams, and the pedal steel jaunty Lose These Rags
recalls Gene Clark.
8pm. £8. The Rainbow, Digbeth
Tuesday March 2
Blood Red Shoes
The Brighton duo
haven’t exactly set the world alight so far with their debut
album barely registering in the Top 50 and none of the singles
charting. So, follow up Fire Like This (V2) looks like being the
last chance to prove themselves before the label accountants
take a look at the balance books.
They certainly
tackle matters head on musically, adding more steroids to their
Fugazi inspired post punk muscle with pop-tinged heads down
assaults like Don’t Ask, the steady rhythm chiming Light It Up
and the right between the eyes shots of It Is Happening Again
and Keep It Close.
However, while
One More Empty Chair does the quiet/loud shifts with an air of
spooked folk behind its guitar riffs and Colours Fades ends
things with a seven minute squall, the album tends to stick to
the dominant short sharp high energy attack mode rather than
reinforcing the ambitions they previously showed with Hope
You’re Holding Up, suggesting it was made for live performance
rather than home pleasures. Doubtless loyal footwear fans won’t
be disappointed and the gig should be a loud, sweaty affair, but
ultimately you have to suspect that they’ve probably reached the
ceiling of their career. 7.30pm. £8.
O2 Academy 3
Wednesday March 3
Local Natives
Hailing from
Silver Lake, the LA five piece have been compared to both Fleet
Foxes and Vampire Weekend. Debut album, Gorilla Manor
(Infectious), confirms the references points with lush three
part harmonies and woozy melodies behind keyboard lilts and
skittering percussion.
It’s a potent
statement of intent, with stand outs include the Robert Palmer
jog along feel of Camera Talk with its violin kisses, the dreamy
10cc-like new single Airplanes, campfire shuffle Cards &
Quarters, the airy SoCal rhythmic currents of Sun Hands and the
Latin-infused Shape shifter with a choppy shouter make-over of
Talking Heads nugget Warning Sign a likely live high spot.
Support
comes courtesy Peggy Sue,
a Brighton trio who, originally named Peggy Sue & The Pirates
self-released limited editions of three singles and two EPs
before signing to Wichita last year. The first fruits will be
debut single, Watchman, a lolloping dose of rhythmic, brooding
moss hung indie folk that showcases joint vocalists Rosa Slade
and Katy Young while Olly Joyce provides the underpinning drums.
They’ll also be showcasing material from their upcoming album,
Fossils And Other Phantoms, due for release next month.
7.30pm. £9. O2 Academy 3
Thursday March 4
The Miserable Rich
A Brighton
chamber folk-pop quintet, they’ve been knocking around for a
couple of years, releasing an own label album, Twelve Ways To
Count, and an EP of 80s covers featuring Sweet Dreams and Golden
Brown. They make the big push this year with in the pipeline
follow up album Of Flight And Fury (Humble Soul) which they’ll
be previewing tonight alongside lead-off single, Somerhill, an
airy carousel waltzer that sounds like it came from some 60s
Paris romance movie, and the equally retro Bye Bye Kitty with
its pizzicato strings. 8pm. £6.50.
Glee Club
Thursday March 4
Red Stripe Music Award
Supported by
Last FM, this is the competition’s fourth year and it’s in town
again to sort the wheat from the chaff with three local bands
looking to land a place in the finals.
The Skeletons are a, er,
hardgore horror punk four piece who clearly wish the BatCave was
still going and whose Heads Will Roll and The Ripper bear out
such admitted influences as The Cramps, White Zombie, Slipknot
and Test Icicles, though the end product sounds more like a low
rent Screaming Lord Sutch.
Deceptions Pocket do the
psychedelic indie rock bit and profess to have folk and ska
roots though, to judge by their MySpace demos, they would most
love to be Lou Reed.
Third up are
The Carpels, a teenage indie-punk
5-piece from Moseley who filter Klaxons, Strokes and Foals
influences and an Ian Curtis vocal style through a raw
Birmingham sound on numbers like the angular Learn To Dance and
the spicily urgent Abababa from their forthcoming EP.
7.30pm.
£5. The Rainbow, Digbeth
Friday March 5
Lady Gaga
In character
24/7 and weighed down with wigs, sunglasses, outrageous costumes
and BRITS awards alike, Stefani Joanne Angelina
Germanotta arrives for what will, undoubtedly, be the most
spectacular show you’ll see this year. Dubbed The Monster Ball,
the Arena version of the Fame Monster tour comes with completely
new sets and a four act structure that, punctuated by videos to
fill in the 15 costume changes, unfolds an electro-opera
narrative about her getting lost on the way to the party,
finally arriving at the ball to be met by a massive animatronic
tentacled sea monster. Did I mention the burning grand piano?
Dripping with
New York gay camp, the tour ties in with the release of the
deluxe version of the Fame Monster featuring both that album’s
eight tracks (the Madonna-esque Alejandro, and Telephone among
them) as well as the original version of The Fame with such
world conquering numbers as Just Dance, LoveGame and, of course,
Paparazzi and Poker Face.
Opening the show
with Dance In The Dark, another number that underscores her
early Madonna influences, performed in a glitterball suit,
before slipping in a taster of a new song called Glitter And
Grease, the journey proceeds from City to Subway (where, seated
at piano and stripped of the high concept glitz, she features
the showstopping confessional Speechless) to Forest (with
Monster and Teeth) before arriving at the Ball for a finale of
Paparazzi and Bad Romance.
By the end of
all this, if your breath hasn’t been totally taken away, then
take a look at the prices on the merchandising stands and the
queues in front of them.
Fresh from their
cred-challenging appearance on the, ahem, Alan Titchmarsh show,
Alphabeat, Denmark’s answer
to The Human League, have the thankless task of warming the
crowd up, knowing full well that the moment she steps on stage
all memory of their new single, Hole In My Heart, and indeed the
entire set, will have vanished from the collective mind.
7.30pm. £25/£27.50. LG Arena
Saturday March 6
Stereophonics
After the poorly
reviewed, rather lacklustre last album,
Pull The Pin,
you might have thought Kelly Jones and the boys might pull
their boots up and try and recapture the sort of spirit that
characterised the sound and songs that made their name in the
first place. Especially having signed to a new label, made
guitarist Adam Zindani a full time member and roped in Kasabian
producer Jim Abbiss. However, from the opening stodge of routine
Bolanesque blues groove rocker She’s Alright, it’s apparent
they’re happy to coast along in a manner that echoes the title
of the new album, Keep Calm And Carry On (Mercury). No wonder it
was their least successful yet.
Like its
predecessor, this too is a mish mash of styles with a drum
machine hissing like escaping air through BeerBottle’s sub U2
attempt at pick yourself up anthemics, Innocent bashing out pop
rock and Motown beats for some half-hearted youthful optimism, I
Got Your Number rolling with a glam rock Glitter And The Ants
beat, the uninspired riffing Trouble sounding like it was
knocked off to fill some time and Uppercut deludedly fancying
itself a Stonesy call to arms and unity that even includes a
line about fighting in the streets.
By the time
they’re applying to fill the vacant Oasis slot with the
ponderous riff of Live’n’Love with cliched lyrics (“be what you
wanna be, don’t be afraid to dream”, oh come on) that make the
banalities elsewhere seem meaningful, you have to wonder just
how much of a stodgy meat and potatoes diet even their
staunchest fans can take.
If you don’t
judge it by their own early high standards, it’s not a bad
album, just a rigidly workmanlike one that, were they just
starting out, would almost certainly be lost in the crowd and
quickly find it way to the bargain bins. As they once famously
observed, there’s More Life In A Tramp’s Vest.
7.30pm. £30. NIA
Saturday March 6
Hadouken
Released earlier
this year, For The Masses (Surface Noise) saw the Leeds
five piece talking about hard and fast dance rock with a grime
and punk coating cut from the same cloth as The Prodigy and
Pendulum. Unfortunately, the album failed to walk the talk, and
rather than lining up alongside Invaders Must Die or In Silico,
tracks like the wannabe brutalist Rebirth, Run DMC echoing Turn
The Lights Out with its posturing street tough ‘wanna be
starting something’ machismo, the similarly empty Linkin Park
swaggering Bombshocker and House is Falling Down with its
Tubeway Army underpinnings, just make you want to wince. And
that’s even before you actually hear the lyrics.
If all you want
is dance floor thumping beats to clump along to in a drunken
haze, then this will probably see you right. If you want, as
singer James Smith puts it, “something really new and
exciting”, then you’d best be looking elsewhere.
7pm. £12.50. O2 Academy 2
Saturday March 6
Fairport Convention
Forty three
years after they were formed and 12 with their current line-up
of founder member Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg, Ric Sanders, Chris
Leslie and, most ‘recent’ addition, Gerry Conway, Britain’s
longest serving are still going strong, playing at least two
lengthy UK tours each year as well as curating and headlining
the now legendary annual Cropredy festival which continues to
generate a series of live albums.
The last studio
release was 2007’s 40th anniversary A Sense of Occasion, an
album which, with numbers ranging from a revival of the trad
staple Tam Lin to Nicol’s rueful South Dakota To Manchester and
an inspired cover of XTC’s Love On A Farmboy’s Wages, showed
their edge hasn’t dulled over the years. There’s no sign of any
follow up on the horizon, and it’s unlikely that any new
material will figure on the set list but, given it’s the last
night of the tour, you can be pretty sure that they’ll be in a
mood to deliver fan favourites and perhaps a couple of surprises
too. 7.30pm. £21. B’ham Town Hall
Saturday March 6
Spiers & Boden
Photo © Hugo Morris
Twice winners of
the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for best duo, Jon Boden named this
year’s Folk Singer of the Year accolade and the prime movers
behind Bellowhead who won Best Live Act for the fourth time in
six years, this should have the place packed so full the walls
will be bending.
Hailed by The
Guardian as “the finest instrumental duo on the traditional
scene”, Boden provides the fiery fiddle while Birmingham born
Spiers supplies melodeon and concertina to deliver a set of
contemporary infused traditional English folk songs interspersed
with energetic dance tunes, doubtless a fair selection of both
culled from their most recent album, Vagabond.
8pm. £12. Red Lion, Kings Heath
Sunday March 7
Club Smith
Based around
York and Leeds, the four piece have been quietly accruing
a wedge of favourable reviews and ones to watch tips for their
catchy indie guitar/synth pop with added glockenspiel. Debut EP,
The Loss (All Sorted), announces their arrival in strong form
with lead-off track Lament while No Friend Of Mine should find
favour among pining Kaiser Chief fans and Courtyard confirms a
knack for well crafted melody lines and the effectiveness of
singer Sam’s slightly quivering warble. It’s early days yet, but
if they can build on this first outing then applications for
membership should soon prove sizeable.
8pm. £4. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath
Sunday March 7
Husky Rescue
Helsinki ambient pop with all the glacial melancholy that
implies, fronted by the whispery voiced Reeta Vestman the five
piece are here to promote new album Ship Of Light (Catskills), A
collection of frosty, cinematic Nordic synth pop, Sound Of Love
recalls The Cardigans at their most artlessly innocent while
Wolf Trap Motel with its lengthy instrumental prelude, the
tinkling Beautiful My Monster and the sunny synth pulsing We
Shall Burn Bright are the sound of icicles melting in the first
light of a spring sun. Definitely ones to strap your sled to.
7pm.
£6.50. O2 Academy 3
Monday March 8
Lisa Mitchell
A welcome return
for the expat who’s put Australia on hold while looking to make
a name for herself back home. She really should have a higher
profile and be filling bigger venues than this by now,
especially in the light of last year’s excellent debut album,
Wonder (RCA).
Disappointingly,
however, it somehow failed to register in the national
consciousness despite the piano plinking electronica pop single
Coin Laundry and such chirpy folk n country pop numbers as
Neopolitan Dreams, So Jealous and the lollopping Red Wine Lips.
That she’ll eventually win through isn’t in doubt, it’s just
taking longer than it should.
7.30pm. £6.50. O2
Academy 3
Monday March 8
Errors
Two years on
from their well-received debut, the Glasgow electro
instrumentalists (now up to a quartet with the addition of a
full time drummer) return with Come Down With Me (Rock Action).
It’s 10 tracks worth of woozy synth pop and psychedelic tinged
drones, spiking the dance floor with the nervy funked beats of
Supertribe and the buzzing flutters of the jazz-funk derived A
Rumour In Africa.
It takes
individuality for an instrumental outfit, especially one
favouring chilled ambience, if the live set’s not going to
become just background music to crowd chatter, so the darker
soundscapes of Antipode and the burping Jolomo are here to
balance the more hushed caresses of The Erskine Bridge and Sorry
About The Mess while, with its shifting time signatures and
sonic squall guitars climax, Bears promises to be the one to
stop everyone in their tracks. Make no mistake.
8pm. £8. Flapper & Firkin
Monday March 8
Peter Andre
It’s fair to say
that without I’m A Celebrity and his and Jordan’s subsequent
tabloid hogging marriage and divorce, the Great British Public
would have remained content to let English Greek-Cypriot Andre
languish in the forgotten pop stars home to which he’d been
shipped off at the end of the 90s after being dropped by his
record label.
However, this
meeting of like minds and their seemingly insatiable desire to
parade every second of their lives in front of a TV camera saw
him at the top of the charts for as third time with the 2004
reissue of Mysterious Girl, swiftly followed by the all new
Insania.
But when the
accompanying comeback album, The Long Road Back, failed to crack
the Top 40 and his and Katie’s duets covers album A Whole New
World swiftly fizzled, it was obvious that his second 15 minutes
could soon be over.
Fortunately, the
couple then had a very public break-up and, with poor Peter cast
in the teary-eyed role of wronged husband and distraught daddy,
what better time to release the divorce album, Revelation. It
soared into the Top 5, put him back in the singles charts with
Behind Closed Doors while the reviled Price was left to pay the
price of the break-up and her subsequent affairs with a barrage
of viewer vindictiveness on her short-lived I’m A Celebrity
return.
Earlier this
year, looking to keep the momentum flowing before another
celebrity marital bust-up bumped him off the news pages, he
rushed out Unconditional, an album of love songs compiled from
past releases alongside five new recordings. Released just prior
to Valentine’s Day (his pr company once again inevitably
declining to provide a review copy), it soared to #7, before
swiftly vanishing from sight once the romantic rush had
subsided.
Failing to
generate a hit single, even with him breaking down in tears on
Sky News, things must be starting to look a little desperate on
the long term career front, doubtless one reason why he’s
announced a series of stadium concerts for later in the year
hoping to flog tickets now while there’s still some interest.
There are, after all, only so many Peter still loves Katy
headlines you can milk for sympathy.
7.30pm. £24. Symphony Hall
Tuesday March 9
You Me At Six
The release of
Hold Me Down (Virgin) has seen the Surrey boys take a giant
leap to join the ranks of kindred emo spirits Taking Back Sunday
and New Found Glory with its punk-pop and its chugging riffs,
hammering drums and swirling chorus lines.
Fuelled by the
collapse of singer Josh Franceschi’s relationship, it’s wall to
wall with big sounds, from angsty piston pumping opener The
Consequence through the boundalong Playing The Blame Game and
the riff chopping Take Your Breath Away to the quiet-loud Safer
To Hate Her and short, sharp pop hammer Trophy Eyes.
They have a
clutch of stadium-friendly ballads too with Liquid Confidence
and the closing crescendo of Fireworks guaranteed to have arms
swaying. I’d place bets too that they’ll be dedicating There’s
No Such thing As Accidental Infidelity to Ashley Cole.
Getting the ball
rolling will be Forever The Sickest
Kids, a Dallas high school teen punk-pop six-piece,
one of whom appears to be a Russell Brand impersonator. Since
they and debut album Underdog Alma Mater are little known over
here, this is something of an introduction by way of new release
The Weekend:Friday (Island). A six track mini-album packed with
energetic synth tinged power pop, you’d be hard pushed to
distinguish it from any dozen of their similarly inclined peers
in a blindfold test. However, given that proviso, the likes of
the surging Do Or Die, chugging tumbling chorus teen romancer
She Likes (Bittersweet Love) and the Weezerish Hip Hop Chick
have all the right ingredients to set the place bouncing.
Also aboard are
Florida’s We The Kings
who arrive on these shores to promote new album Smile Kid
(Virgin), another buzzing guitar punky-pop collection of
instantly catchy summer and girls songs, bouncy melodies and
nasally vocals that’s fuelled all manner of teen-friendly
American bands in recent years.
Again there’s
not a great deal of individuality to distinguish them musically
from the herd, but they have the tunes and, calling to mind such
bands as The Rembrandts, Blink 182, Boys Like Girls and All Time
Low, numbers like Summer Love, The Story Of Your Life, Heaven
Can Wait and the irresistible sherbet powerpop She Takes Me High
are more than enough to have the place shaking with teen
hormones. 7.30pm. £15. O2 Academy 2
Tuesday March 9
Turin Brakes
Following
polished but generally dispiriting, dull and limp fourth album
Dark On Fire (Source), few
would have placed bets on them being around for a fifth.
However, contributing Here to Take That’s Circus album has given
Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian a new line of credit so here
they are with the just released Outbursts (Cooking Vinyl). It’s
a rather misleading title for what is, after all, a return to
their origins in the new acoustic movement with
a collection of dreamy soft rock
burnished with string arrangements and lyrics about smelling
like fresh magazines.
It is, despite some
unfortunate rhymes (“You make my pain drip down
the drain” they sing on The Invitation), undeniably pleasant if
undemanding listening, twinkling along with the woozily
melodious waltz-time Paper Heart, a 60s Paul Simon-ish scurrying
Sea Change, and 30s country flavoured The Letting Down.
Things hit a
bumpy patch when they turn up the tempos and volume on the
Latin-tinged Apocalips, Will Power and unconvincing folk blues
Never Stop, but the Radiohead melancholia of Radio Silence and
the Travis-like summery strum and soaring crescendos of Rocket
Song are reason enough to keep the duo on the back burner for a
while longer. 8pm. £16.50. Glee Club
Tuesday March 9/Wednesday March 10
Chris Rea
The 2006
farewell tour a thing of distant memory, Rea hits town with his
current Greatest Hits version in tandem with double CD best of
Still So Far to Go (Rhino). Doing exactly what it says on the
label, there’s 34 tracks culled from his lengthy career (though
in some instances ‘best’ may be rather subjective), from debut
single Fool (If You Think It’s Over) through to a brace of new
numbers, the Tom Waits-like semi-spoken strings and piano ballad
Valentino and, underlining his rebirth in the blues, the
compilation title track.
Checking the
statistics, you may be surprised to realise that Rea’s biggest
hit, The Road To Hell, only ever got as far as #10, that the
excellent Stainsby Girls stalled outside the Top 20 and, while
it resurfaced in both 2007 and last year, seasonal regular
Driving Home For Christmas was never a hit first time around.
Indeed, the last
time Rea troubled the singles chart with a new release 16 years
ago with the throaty Bad Company styled blues rocker You Can Go
Your Own Way, a direction he’s developed further in recent
years with the Blue Guitars, Blue Street, and The Blue Jukebox
jazz blues box sets and, most recently, The Return of the
Fabulous Hofner Blue Notes.
Given the blues
has been his lifelong love, it’s reasonable to assume there’ll
be a fair bit of guitar wailing in among the more familiar
numbers of the set list tonight.
7.30pm. £29.50. Symphony Hall
Thursday March 11
Colvin Quarmby
Having played a
solo set previewing his new Jack Jonesy jazz material at the end
of last year, Gerry Colvin regroups with Nick Quarmby, Martin
Fitzgibbon and, with Dave Dutfield having moved to pastures new,
fiddler Marion Fleetwood and guitarist Allen Maslen for what
will, hopefully, give an early taster of the band’s own long
overdue follow up to 2005’s A Short Walk To The Red Lion.
There’s been no
indication of what shape the new album might take and no idea
about what will be in the set list tonight but, having recently
been voted the best live band of 2009 by Fairport Convention
fansite Talkawhile, you can be pretty sure it’ll be a trademark
stormer. 8pm. £13. Hare & Hounds,
Kings Heath
Friday March 12
Newton Faulkner
This is his
first visit to the city since the release of last year’s
Rebuilt By Humans (Ugly Truth), so a welcome opportunity to
catch up on the live shape of its mellow folksy pop and dreamy
sunkissed jazz soul and such numbers as the laid back funky
blues of Badman, Won’t Let Go’s toe-tapping breezy shuffle, the
dreamy husky pop of I Took It Out On and the respective Paul
Simon and Labi Siffre echoes of Resin On My Heart Strings and
Heart Of Gold. Had winter not already receded, Faulkner’s warm
glow would be guaranteed to bring buds to bloom.
7.30pm. £19.50/£17.50. B’ham Town Hall
Friday March 12
Dave Matthews Band
Massive in
America and considerably less so here, DMB are a jamming outfit
in the tradition of the Grateful Dead but with a more AOR feel
to their southern soul rock. This is their first tour since the
accidental death of founding member saxophonist LeRoi Moore, and
comes on the back of most recent album, Big Whiskey & The
GrooGrux King, over which his brassy spirit hovers.
Review copies
weren’t available, but, if the Funny The Way It Is (Warner)
single is an indication, expect the mood to be slanted towards
jazzy funk blues punctuated by rock guitar workouts, stabbing
horns, power chords and classic riffs.
7pm. £33.50. O2 Academy
Friday March 12
Frightened Rabbit
Affording a
taster with last year’s shantyish, salt tanged single
Swim Until You Can’t See Land, the Selkirk quintet now provide
the full monty with new album The Winter of Mixed Drinks (Fat
Cat), a far brighter-eyed affair than the break-up mood of The
Midnight Organ Fight.
Leaving the
baggage of his old life behind on opening track Things, Scott
Hutchinson proceeds through a series of epiphanies and
optimistic reaffirmations about embracing an emotional new world
order delivered in the form of such surging, soaring folky pop
as the circling melodic eddies of The Loneliness And The
Scream, brash strumming bashalong new single Nothing Like You,
the anthemic Big Country skirl of Living In Colour and, Skip The
Youth, a six minute chiming and tumultuously building epic that
prepares them for graduation to stadium contenders.
As capable of
stirring the heart on the slower numbers as they are the chest-swellers,
Foot Shooter, Not Miserable and the tumblingly defiant The
Wrestle all make the base of your spine tingle and speak of a
Snow Patrol-like elevation to mass adulation. Peppered with
older favourites like
Heads Roll On, The Modern
Leper, and the stomping Old Fashioned, the gig promises to be
something of an epiphany itself.
7pm. £10. O2 Academy 2
Friday March 12
Grizzly Bear
Titled after a
small, uninhabited island off Cape Cod, Veckatimest
(Warp), the Brooklyn quartet’s third album, has seen them
break out of cult following to crossover into wide ranging
critical acclaim and sell out venue mainstream consciousness.
Sharing vocals
between Daniel Rossen and Ed Droste, if you’ve yet to discover
their sophisticated charms, imagine a meld of Animal Collective,
Peter Gabriel, Brian Wilson, Steely Dan and a concept-free
Flaming Stars weaving complex rhythms and shifting time
signatures, laced with ethereal harmonies, whispering strings,
soaring crescendos, and nods back in time to classic Motown and
60s street corner pop.
A dreamy
Southern Point lays out their jazz textures, taking them to some
Andalucian plain and introducing them to Spanish guitar,
clattering drums and a buzzing synth while Two Weeks conjures
clouds of Pet Sounds and Fine For Now offers New York chamber
baroque before disappearing in a storm of guitar.
Such structural
and instrumental virtuosity could easily become dry,
navel-gazing art rock but here technical mastery is fused with
emotional fire and classy songcraft, and while something like
While You Wait For The Others or I Live With You may not hook
you immediately the longer you listen the more their intricacies
take root in the brain. But, if you want an instant fix, then
try the swooning echoey Brill Building soft crooning balladry of
Cheerleader or the warm flushed samba pop ripples of About Face.
But, whatever your point of entry, they’re a bear hug you’ll
want to embrace. 8pm. £16. Warwick
Arts Centre
Saturday March 13
The Stranglers
Formed in 1974
in the heat of the New Wave movement, original members Dave
Greenfield, Jet Black. Jean-Jacques Burnel and relative newcomer
Baz Warne are still going strong five decades later and, while
they’ve been chart strangers since 2005, their track record
includes 23 Top 40 singles and 18 Top 40 albums.
They’re on the
road now with a greatest hits (and a fair few that weren’t) tour
built around latest compilation Decades Apart (EMI), a 2CD
collection featuring such classics as (Get A) Grip (On
Yourself), Peaches, No More Heroes, 5 Minutes, Golden Brown,
Skin Deep and Always The Sun. Additionally, there’s two new
numbers, the surfy organ riffing I Don’t See The World Like You
and the rather limp, self-pastiching Retro Rockers, neither of
which are likely to feature on any budget release best of a few
years down the line. 7pm. £23. O2
Academy
Saturday March 13
General Fiasco
Having paved the
way with the singles
Rebel Get By, Something
Sometime, We Are The Foolish and the current effervescent,
guitars chiming Ever So Shy, the Irish trio reaffirm their
status as the best Londonderry band since The Undertones with
debut album Buildings (Infectious).
Joining previous releases,
there’s the equally infectious chugging Talk To My Friends, the
jerky First Impressions, a jubilant I’m Not Made Of Eyes and
guitars akimbo beater Dancing With Girls while Sinking Ships
comes with sweeping strings and a limbo dancing vocal. They
don’t just do short and sharp either, the title track is a six
minute tick tocking sweller that builds from a simple line to a
vaulting crescendo. It’s patently going to be their year.
7pm. £6. O2 Academy 3
Saturday March 13
States Of Emotion
When you release
a single called Fight Them on The Beaches (Perfectly Blue), it
seems rather predictably obvious to begin it with that extract
from the Winston Churchill WWII rallying cry. But then
predictable and obvious are two words that fit this Essex outfit
well.
So then, that’ll
be Oasis/Manics influenced meat and potatoes indie rock with
moody guitars, pounding drums, swirling keys and whiny vocals
then. Despite any discernible charisma, they went down well
enough on the Introducing stage at last year’s Glastonbury so
doubtless there’ll be a few along to check out what will be on
their upcoming debut album, Black And White To Gold, but I’d not
start giving any V for Victory signs yet.
8pm.
£10. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath
Sunday March 14
Lucy Wainwright Roche
Rufus and
Martha’s folky half-sister, Roche has yet to find the sort of
awareness and acclaim they’ve been afforded but, as her 8 Songs
and 8 More EPs demonstrated with its mix of self-penned gems
like University Drive with chestnuts such as Wild Mountain
Thyme, it’s not for want of talent. She’s got a bagful of new
material and, lacking label backing, is currently raising funds
from fans to finance the recording. She’ll be offering up
samples tonight, so leave a donation on the way out.
8pm. £7.50. Glee Club
Sunday March 14
Delphic
Following on from last year’s
Kitsune tour and the This Momentary single, the Mancunian trio
are currently preaching the word on debut album, Acolyte (Polydor).
Placed third in the BBC’s Sound of 2010, their restyled nu rave
seems set to help shape the face of the year’s dance floors with
their infectiously steady beats, sweet vocals and influences
that hang upon the techtronic legacy of New Order’s Brotherhood
album while, as on Submission, occasionally filtering it with a
hint of Pet Shop Boys electropop.
But, if Doubt nods to Touched By The Hand Of God, they’re no
mere record collection regurgitations and come with their own
ideas and maps clearly laid out. The title track, for example,
opens on a glacial cosmic breeze before transforming into an
eight minute instrumental of driving trance while an anthemic
swirling Red Lights should break out the warehouse glo sticks
and Remain closes out the album on an euphoric keyboards led
soul pop chill.
With Halcyon released as a
single to welcome spring with its catchy pop chorus and summery
vibe and the Hook and Sumner homage Clarion Call the big hit in
waiting, they’re about to make the likes of Hot Chip start
looking nervously over their shoulders. 7pm.
£10. O2 Academy 2
Sunday March 14
Lou Dalgleish
Motherhood and
other distractions have meant there’s been little heard of the
Birmingham songstress over the past decade, appearances largely
limited to occasional outings for her Costello covers theatre
piece They Call Her Natasha. However, she resurfaced last year
for a joint show with husband Michael Weston King (with whom
she’s also recorded a fabulous but as yet unreleased old school
country duo album in the manner of George & Tammy) and now
prepares for a full fledged return to the spotlight with this
Month of Sundays (well, three anyway) at the venue, each night
offering a different set.
The first sees
her dipping into her previous two and a half albums, the
eponymous 1995 debut, Music and Calmer, to feature songs such as
Orange Plane, I’d Never Lie and Melted as well as showcasing
material from her as much anticipated and yet untitled new
album, her first in 11 years. Anyone who’s seen or hear her in
action should be forming an orderly queue at once. The three
other shows (for which combined tickets are available) will be
covers sets, the first featuring classics by such artists as
Nick Cave, Dusty Springfield and Cole Porter, the second the
Elvis Costello Songbook. 8pm. £12.
Kitchen Garden Cafe
Sunday March 14
Katatonia
Massive gothic
doom metal from Sweden, unlike some of their peers, tender
voiced Jonas Renkse’s outfit are big on melody rather than
noise, influenced by The Cure and Fields of the Nephilim and
incorporating elements of folk and prog into their melancholic
songs of emotional alienation and urban decay.
Recently seen as
support to Paradise Lost, they return for their own headline
tour to coincide with Night Is The New Day (Peaceville), their
eighth album and the first to feature new keyboard player Frank
Default. Opening with Forsaker’s dark churns and metal swirls.
it’s an album of immense depth, both musically and emotionally,
exploring acoustic tapestries with The Longest Year, the
orchestral sweeping Inheritance and closing slow burn stand-out
Departer.
Stately, majestic and mountainous, there’s atmospherics by the
ton on things like The Promise Of Deceit with its echoes of the
electronic ambience and folk strains of Aphex Twin and Mogwai
while both Onward Into Battle and Idle Blood hark to Dark Side
Of The Moon era of Pink Floyd. Guaranteed to be a behemoth live,
this is a revelatory album that deserves to see the band find a
huge following beyond the regular metal audience and bring them
back to play the arena size venues the music demands.
7.30pm. £10. Little Civic
