Music
'Hurrah! Another year, surely this one will be better than the last; the inexorable march of progress will lead us all to happiness...'
Yes, that really is the title of the second EP from Oxford's fastest rising stars. In spite of the penchant for excessive names, Youth Movie Soundtrack Strategies are actually a perfect example of why people should sit up and take notice of music in Oxford happening outside of The Zodiac.
To put it simply, Hurrah... is a gem: beautifully controlled rock music to please even the most jaded listener. The record is wonderfully eclectic and inventive; mixing together musical influences from heavy metal to the fringes of new jazz, and all strung over the backbone of powerfully driven riffs.
With each of the tracks over six minutes long, they manage to take on an epic feel while avoiding the temptations of self-indulgency. The focus is always on the music, which chops and changes, never allowing becoming predictable like so much other recent music.
The different tracks echo different influences; there are tinges of Radiohead in "a little late he staggered through the door and into her eyes".
What is evident throughtout is that the YMSS can all play their instruments with a level of skill which seems to elude a lot of other bands.
Signed to Fierce Panda, the group have been enthusiastically touring towns throughout the country all summer in promotion, and are finally due to hit the bright lights of London in the next month.
With an XFM live session to be broadcast in November, the group seem to finally be taking the Oxford sound to a national stage.
So you think you're a hip-hop fan? But you haven't heard of Slick Rick, and you think the Sugarhill Gang are some kind of Kellogg's cereal mascots. You don't even actually listen to the lyrics, (the actual message) behind your favourite 'choons'. You, my self-delusional friend, are a 'hip-pop chav', and if urban music weren't in the charts, you wouldn't have a clue.
Claiming to be "into more hardcore stuff" because "the beats are bangin", you have a vague conception that rap music in fact came from spoken-word poetry, but the genius of some of today's emcees just isn't important to you.
You want a "phat choon for your ride", or for you hip-Oxford students down at Park End, you want to be just slightly less horrifically mollycoddled and middle class. Any of these "wicked tracks" sound familiar?
Cassidy - Hotel: The epitome of the kind of uninventive, was-once-cutting-edge, ripped-off-from-Dre/Timberland, wannabe hip-hop 'funk' peddled by 'big- name' producers who are, in fact, possessed solely of big egos and matching big, tasteless air-force ones.
Nelly featuring Jaheim - My Place: "Won't you sit yourself down and take a seat". This kind of amateurish tautology characterises the 'lyricists' preferred by your average like-it-cos-it's-cool hip-hop chav.
Anything by Eminem: Fooled, as are most, by his deliberately offensive persona into ignoring his lyrics, the mindless wannabe hip-hoppers do Em's cred as much damage as the equally dim-witted Daily Mail commentators whom he so enrages.
Ja Rule and Ashanti - Always on time: Symbolic of the hit-by-numbers pretty songbird paired with wholly unthreatening rapper way to commercial success, this insipid hip-pop effort always sticks in my throat. (Not to mention the uneasy objectification on screen as the lady du jour pouts like a trafficked prostitute).
P-Diddy/Whatever he's calling himself these days and Faith Evans - I'll Be Missing You:
Roquefort-scented remix, this cloying tribute is sure to bring a tear to every chav's eye as they slow-dance/grope at the end of the night, whilst yuppy wannabes assert what a legend Biggie was while avoiding specific CD names.
As much as it pains me to give REM a bad review, repeated listening has not been able to lift my initial impression of the album as 'bland'. Beyond the inimitable tones of Mr Michael Stipe, their 13th full album lacks the distinctiveness of more traditional REM fare.
In fact, Around the Sun sounds like a Stipe solo effort, as though weary from their 21 years of music-making, Buck and Mills are taking a year out. Following Peter's brush with the law he promised some angry efforts but the exact opposite has been delivered. Even my mother may find this one too unaffecting, ordinary and dull.
An attempt at an analogy would put Around the Sun on a par with the transition from The Smiths to Morrissey: the lyrics drop down a notch, but the music itself nigh-on disappears. And what on earth is Q-Tip doing on there? A cringe-worthy addendum to an otherwise almost passable song.
Put more directly, the music sounds like the common-or-garden filler that accompanies your most basic pop act - except, of course, that you can't entirely remove the charm in one fell swoop. It's not completely plain, only mostly. A fair number of tracks - Leaving New York, Final Straw and I wanted to be Wrong, for example - manage a somnolent beauty beneath the uniformity demanded by any purposeful album in the traditional sense. This is a bad idea in style, though with some reasonable efforts in places.
It's like an album of B-sides: not completely disastrous, but the quality just isn't there.
At worst, Wanderlust (which is, for some reason, advertised on the sticker) and Electron Blue sound like the last-ditch genre clichés resorted to by a band running low on imagination.
If I had to take a track home with me, to love and to hold, I'd pick The Worst Joke Ever, perhaps because it's the most typical REM song, and perhaps because the lyrics raise a smile. Lines such as "give me a minute and I'll tell you the setup for the worst joke ever" provide a bittersweet melancholy.
Given REM's reputation for a new but recognisable style with each album, I'll (perhaps naively) hope for a better effort at acheiving this next time.
Squeezing into the already packed emo-core bracket, Brighton five-piece Hiding With Girls offer a debut album so mind-bogglingly unoriginal that it makes you wonder how they ever became passionate about music.
It's not that they're devoid of raw talent by any means, but singer Leander Gloversmith's voice packs all the punch of a penguin, floating between a US-drawl and mockney blare.
This album is like a fly, persistently buzzing around the same window without making any progress. Make no mistake though, Hiding With Girls are competent enough musicians to get over their artistic immaturity and develop a complex style.
Until then it remains to be seen whether they can live up to Kerrang's billing as: "One of Britain's most exciting bands." One can't help thinking that the kids at Kerrang must be a little over-excitable.
The Dears are supposed to be your new favourite band; the way the popular music press insist on going on about them, it's easy to expect the earth. When you've been promised the new Morrissey, it's hard to escape disappointment when you realise that undeserved hyperbole has reared its head once again.
On my first listen the music is undeniably extremely beautiful, the lyrical sentiment arch, noble and emotive. After a couple more goes I have less confidence. I dearly want to believe that No Cities Left is a classic, but I can't deny the realisation that the Dears aren't the champs I had been demanding.
They aren't bad at all. In fact, there are many heart-meltingly gorgeous moments. They're just not tremendously interesting. There is no need for a slow jazz break-down in Expect The Worst/Cos She's A Tourist and many others can't get over the pace of a waltz.
The use of strings is not sufficiently judicious, and the cellists are guilty of just strumming along.
I feel like a bit of a curmudgeon in thinking all this, but Murray Lightburn wishes he was that chap from the Smiths, yet doesn't quite have the talent or lyrical flair to pull it off.
When they do it right, the Dears are capable of deliriously subtle melancholia and sumptuously atmospheric music.
Though it genuinely pains me to say this, they just can't quite live up to their billing.
Travis
Walking In the Sun
Returning with this average effort, Travis impressively manage to sound depressing whilst being in a major key. Lacking the charisma of Sing and beauty of Writing To Reach You, it briefly ventures out of the bog standard mould for a nice middle eight, before stopping abruptly. Healy has the capability of writing simple and charming music, but I'm afraid this is just simple.
Kaiser
It's hard to respect a band who sheepishly pronounce, "walking through town is quite scary," especially when they use a far too familiar chord sequence for the verse and sound like The Ramones. Clean guitars, blokish vocals and a root note pipe organ provide substance, but it's not particularly exciting. I'll get my brown leather jacket, some class-A drugs and fall down the stairs.
Soundtrack of our Lives
Bigtime
Berserk and bass-heavy, this single owes more than a little to the thrashing punk of Joy Division. The song swirls in a storm of disciplined drumming and mesmeric hooks before climaxing in an anthemic chorus. The bleak lyrics sound a little too forced at times, but the consummate musicianship displayed by this six-piece sees them through to produce an ultimately sound record.
Akira the Don
First EP
A teetotalling Welsh geezer with an unknown production team and a dodgy-looking EP. I'll just get back to scraping my corneas with a rusty file then. But no! There's lyrical inventiveness, slick production, and humour aplenty here! Unfashionably, Akira refuses to bang on about bitches. A 'rare bit' of refreshing rap from our leek-loving neighbours.
14th Oct 2004