SINGLES / RECORD REVIEW

Each single is rated out of five pints of beer.()

Hefner - Good Fruit (Too Pure)
This single lacks the energy of previous Hefner singles, but it is a very beautiful song. Helped by Amelia Fletcher's backing vocals, Darren really sounds like he's singing about some lost love. This longing emotion comes across on record too. This single is the sound of Hefner maturing, no longer just acting on the impulse, but thinking a bit more.

Burt Lump Orchestra - Feed Me to the Lions (Shifty Disco)
With a name like that you know that the band members are trying to hide something, and put out a false trail, just like Mark and Sam did with the Impossible Music Force in 1997. And look at what they've done now. This time round the BLO are hiding Nick Cope and Nick Burton, formerly of the Candyskins. These songs are simple and gentle. Feed Me to the Lions doesn't actually have lions on it, but they do have chickens. In a way the gentleness sound like the calm after the storm. With the addition of synthesizers that don't really fit in, it's the sound of a band enjoying having fun with the music again. The introduction of the second song sounds like Goddess on a Highway by Mercury Rev, and indeed it has that meloncoly feel throughout the song. Possibly the most beautiful song released by Shifty Disco this year.

Vigilance Black Special - We'rewolves (Shifty Disco)
Clever title, and you know they're a strange group by the time you hear the second instrument, the trumpet. Unlike other groups that put the trumpet to use, like the Divine Comedy, their music is very dark, and not cheery. And instead of your guitar solos, we have trumpet solos. Except this solo involved the same melody repeated over again. There are sounds of a group trying to make a grand noise, like Ultrasound. But there is something missing, maybe the other instruments should be a bit louder. The singer has a really deep voice, and he sounds like a club singer.

Murry the Hump - Thrown Like a Stone (Shifty Disco)
Listening to Thrown Like A Stone is like taking a walk on the lazy sunday afternoon. It's so laid back that you have to wonder if the singer, Matt, was lying down asleep while he was recording the song! However if you need a song to calm you down after a hard day/ week at work this would be it. In Don't Slip Up they do the very Welsh thing of namechecking something from Welsh culture (in this case it's S4C). Even though it isn't as good as the title track the song carries across a Murry the Hump sound. It'll be interesting to see if this sound is developed in any future releases.
(out of 5)

Whispering Bob / The Stars of Track and Field - Wheat is Murder (Truck)
Following on the mellow mood, here's another couple of gentle songs, this time from Whispering Bob. Suitably released at this time of dramatic weather, the opening track is called Hurricane. Maybe it's the perfect song to listen to when you're in one, with its gentle calming effect. It also has the greatest rhyme for Hurricane... EVER!...(When it came / the hurricane). Joy is A High Window almost deserves to be the a-side itself, if only for the flute melody line. It's the song that probably describes the Whispering Bob sound best (if there's such a thing) with their love of using unconventional group intruments (the flute) and the high harmonies that make them different from most of the other guitar bands that are around at the moment. The Stars of Track and Field are probably the only local band that could have followed the first two stunning songs, and to continue the same theme, while taking it in a different direction. Their first song, The Worst Part of Me is the angsty type of song that you'd write after just splitting up. It's a strange mixture of the sweet female vocals and the angry male vocals (yet tuneful) and lyrics. But it works. This is Where I Scar is probably the most surprising song on the CD. It starts gently (like all the other songs) but then about 4 minutes in the instruments take over from the vocals, and suddenly it's feedback and high-pitched, uncomfortable sounds galore. You're left thinking at the end of the track....What the fuck was that??? and then you listen to it again....but still to find the ending a total surprise.

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Spanish Dance Troupe (Mantra)
It's one of the world's mysteries why bands with brilliant songs will never do that well in the charts. Gorkys are one of the bands to suffer from this problem. Spanish Dance Troupe is the first single off their new album on a new label, and it promises to be some of their best material yet if the single is anything to go by. They're another group that enjoys to add instruments in songs apart from the traditional guitar, bass and drums. In fact the most important instrument is the fiddle, which runs on throughout the three minutes of the song, interweaving between the main melody and as accompainment. The sweet melody goes with the sweet storyline of the song. A boy has run away from school to join a Spanish Dance Troupe only to return 6 years later to go back to school, and to find out that he's grown out of his uniform.
(What do they put in that welsh water????)