Frankly, no one’s going to give two hoots, or even one and a half, about this week’s releases. It’s not a vintage week. Sorry. The next two should be much, much better.
Glasvegas – Flowers and Football Tops **
This is meant to be their best song, right? Which is why we’re meant to listen for five whole minutes? Someone’s dead son and that. I like the first thirty seconds of ambient noise, they’re very nice. After that it’s a bit less interesting, not particularly coherent or logical. A bit like a clan of highland warriors marching in big boots round a colossal labyrinth, calling to each other when they get lost. There’s a certain grace, solemnity, funereal grandeur…but as a single it’s a bloody mess and frankly far too self-important.
Beyonce – Halo *
So, after the rather attractive ballad that was ‘If I Were A Boy’, she follows up with another dancefloor banger in ‘Crazy In Love’ fashion, right? Wrong wrong wrong. It’s another ballad, only less affecting, less catchy, generally less. Bad move.
Tilly and the Wall – Pot Kettle Black **
Quite an old song for a single release, but still. This wants to be ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’ mixed with a scuzzy garage riff, like a punkier White Stripes. This means it’s altogether less fun than that silly ‘Beat Control’ single they came out with last term. Except that one and a half minutes in, a juicy fat synth and aerobics shout-out breaks in, incongruous and diverting as a streaker at a sporting event. It lifts the song from dirge to mediocrity. Which is something, I suppose.
Eugene McGuinness – Fonz ***
The wunderkind is back. Like James Yuill or frYars, he’s used to experimenting with the meaning of ‘singer-songwriter’. This time around, he’s decided it means binning the beats, and making like a generic guitar band, circa 2003. Some spectral falsettos and chirrupy lead guitar add interest to the choppy guitars and tight rhythms, making for an impressive enough, lean little song.
Polly Scattergood – Other Too Endless *****
This torchsong begins like Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2U’, slowly building with a sultry beats and reverb-guitar arrangement, leaving plenty of space to notice her remarkable elocution. ‘I will always bring you lots of do you good soup because I am kind’, she sings, and you don’t believe her for a second – she’s clearly angry really. And at times the anger threatens to boil over. But it never quite does. The song comes first. Real (or wonderfully acted) emotion. Great dynamics. A naggingly insistent melody. A spiralling climax. Scatter very good indeed.
Something Old, Something New
Various Artists – £3 mp3 albums
Amazon have added a new raft of exceptional deals, from the new Lily Allen album, to the slightly older Santogold, and Burial’s brilliant Untrue. True classics available include Five Leaves Left, but you don’t need me to tell you about that…
Florence and the Machine – iTunes live EP
If you’re fed up of waiting for a proper release, suck on this for size. Less a filling meal than a humbug, it’s a fine temporary stopper from the girl with the biggest gob.
As I said, next week will be better…
