Posts Tagged ‘revival’

Flight – Don’t Ask

Posted: 28 November 2022 in Singles and EPs
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James Wells

It’s either fight or flight, right? It’s clear what this foursome choose, although they may need to square up for the other if some disagree with their claims: their website home page is certain bold and confident, welcoming the surfer with the invitation to ‘Discover a new name to send you back to 1973, outrageously overlooked and under-appreciated – until now.’

Looking at the hits of 1973 makes me glad I wasn’t there. It’s bad enough that Glen Campbell’s ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ was at number one when I was born, but the thing with any new movement that’s remembered as defining a period is that it was rarely a cultural dominant. People harp on about punk in 77 and 78, but it was Boney M, 10cc, Leo Sayer, ABBA and Rod Stewart who dominated the charts and the radio in 77, and 73 is more accurately represented by Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Paull Simon, and Wings than anything glam.

So when Flight suggest that now is the time for a glam revival, rekindling the sound of 1973, remember how much history distorts things.

Fair play to these guys, ‘Don’t Ask’ has the swagger off T-Rex propelled by the thumping insistent drumming of The Glitter Band and a well-realised retro vibe, with a hazy, shimmery production and a neat tube-crunching guitar sound. It’s catchy as, and clocking in at a super-succinct two minutes and forty-seven seconds, it’s punchy, too, and very much in keeping with that vintage vibe.

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Sweethearts – If I Could I Would

Posted: 29 June 2021 in Singles and EPs
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25th June 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

The older you get, the weirder things get. On the one hand, the generational gap widens by the day, but on the other, you see thing come full circle, and faster. Growing up in the 80s, the fact of the matter is that my parents had abysmal taste in music, both contemporary and of their era. My mum would groove to Phil Collins and Tina Turner and Paul Young Van Halen and the fucking Bee Gees while ironing, while my dad hadn’t bought a new LP since Steeleye Span’s ‘All Around My Hat’. Car journeys on family holidays were a real hoot, what with Leo Sayer and 80s Cliff Richard tapes alternating with Now That’s What I Call Music 1 and 2. Philip Larking was right: your parents fuck you up in ways they don’t even realise. However, the point is that increasingly, new bands are turning to their parents’ rather cooler collections and discovering the likes of Nirvana, Pavement, Weezer, Teenage Fanclub and Pixies – and Sweethearts are a case in point.

They’re pitched as standing at the forefront of the 90s resurgence, but for some of us, the 90s never ended, especially for many of those who were in their teens and early twenties at the time and are around 4 now. Midlife crisis? Maybe. But then, for many, music stops when they hit 30, and I’ve spent the last fifteen years listening to peers bemoaning the lack of any decent new music. They’re all wrong, of course: there has been innovative and exciting new music released every year since the beginning of music. It just happens that none of the music of interest has received any kind of mainstream attention for a long time. But it’s all out there if you know where to look.

You wouldn’t call ‘If I Could I Would’ innovative, but that isn’t the point: this is a classic example of a band drawing on their influences, which so happen to reach back a generation – and distilling them into a strong and potent mix. ‘If I Could I Would’ is a melodic grunge-leaning slice of college rock, but there are some obvious indie features spun into the composition, not least of all the lead guitar part that spins its way around the rhythm section like a tripwire.

Lyrically, the song explores the limitations of desire and capability, and the song’s hook is a neat piece of circular, self-negating logic: ‘If I could, I would, but I can’t so I couldn’t’. It’s not nihilistic, just more a slackerist ‘meh’, and with its nostalgia-inducing retro musical backing, it’s the perfect summary of the listlessness of the zeitgeist.

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National Service – Caving

Posted: 16 November 2020 in Singles and EPs
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Fierce Panda – 13th November 2020

Christopher Nosnibor

Fierce panda will be forever intrinsically linked to the cutting edge of indie in the 90s, emerging as it did in 1994 and immediately making a name for itself with limited edition 7”singles by big-name contemporaries initially including Ash, Supergrass, The Bluetones, and Baby Bird, not to mention Placebo, Keane, Coldplay, Embrace, and that record by Oasis.

More than a quarter of a century on, they retain that certain sense of cool-by-association, but also continue to release damn good indie singles, breaking new talent with astounding frequency. National Service are a perfect example: the label picked up the London quartet National Service from seemingly out of nowhere, releasing their debut single, ‘A Little More Time’ in the year of their formation. Three years on, and here we have their third single, a song that unpicks he seams of the mundane, the everyday, and the introspective pains of self-expectation.

‘I haven’t had a decent sleep in days / I’m overthinking when I should be happy doing something mundane / But I’m too busy thinking about the long run / That I rarely find the time to enjoy today’ laments Fintan Campbell against a welter of shimmering guitars and rolling drums.

Comparisons to The Twilight Sad aren’t unjustified, and the band mine that seam of post-punk revival / indie crossover that dominated 2002-2006 as represented by Editors, Interpol, The Cinematics and myriad others, and the bassline that cuts in at the midpoint is pure Carlos D circa Turn on the Bright Lights. None of this is in any way to suggest that ‘Caving’ is derivative or locked in time: it’s a genuine rush of a tune, and condenses all the emotional resonance into four and a half minutes. It’s taut, hooky, and packs a punch.

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Caving Artwork