Review: Concert in the Gardens (Edinburgh's Hogmanay)

So, I was in Edinburgh for Hogmanay. Most awesome. Y'know what's even more awesome? I was at a gig for the first time since May. Hell fucking yes. Plus, I got a lovely new camera for Christmas with a vastly improved zoom, so we actually have some semi-decent photos of the gig. So, onwards to the review, my lovelies.

First up, we had Edinburgh locals Bwani Junction. Almost every review I've read of them makes some mention of their African-tinged style and while I certainly heard it, I think it's been pushed a bit too much. What I did hear was bloody good, fun indie rock and of the three bands playing, these guys win with me on the stage presence/audience interaction front. They also, to me at least, seemed to be the only band truly happy to be there. While I suspect the majority of the audience had never heard of them, they made the effort to get folks singing, leading the crowd in the chorus of one of their tracks, the name of which is rather annoyingly escaping me now.

Then there were some fireworks, but it pissed down, so no photos.

After that we had The View. Another Scottish band. While the music was pretty good, they barely interacted with their audience. That said, there was a delightful mass sing-along when they played their 2007 hit Same Jeans. To be fair, I think it's probably the only song by them that most of the audience knew.

I think we can probably blame the odd blur in that second photo on me being short and there being people in front of me.

Then there were more fireworks. See pretties:

Finally, we had Simple Minds. More Scots. An all Scottish line-up, in fact. While the set was fun, I felt the setlist was a bit samey. The sing-along of the "la la la" bit of Don't You Forget About Me also seemed to go on for a little longer than really necessary, to the point where I wanted to take Jim Kerr's microphone cable and throttle him with it. That said, I was cold and achy by this point, it being nearly Midnight on New Year's Eve, so maybe that explains my lack of patience. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Of course, then it was Midnight and there was an enormous fireworks display and the obligatory singing of Auld Lang Syne. All in all, a great night. Brilliant stuff. Have some more photos.

Happy New Year, folks.

Review: Silver Smoke, Star Of Night by Jill Tracy

It is November. Normally, I have a rule that says I musn't listen to Christmas songs before the beginning of December. This year, there is an exception to the rule in the form of the glorious Silver Smoke, Star Of Night from dark cabaret queen Jill Tracy.

Where to start with this album? Imagine some of the best classic Christmas carols then mix them with Jill Tracy's beautiful voice and gorgeous piano work. There's some tracks on here that immediately lend themselves for a dark interpretation - take O Come O Come Emmanuel and the Coventry Carol, for example, both traditionally quite dark songs. Here, given an added Jill Tracy twist, they somehow gain new meaning.




Then of course there's the delicious instrumental tracks. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen is one of my favourite carols and this instrumental version is absolutely scrumptious. Carol Of The Bells also sounds amazing on piano.




While I'm struggling to pick favourites from this album - there are only 8 tracks and I would love more - I don't think I've ever heard such a deliciously dark We Three Kings. Outside of the final two verses ("sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying" etc), I never thought this would lend itself to being so... oddly creepy. And yet, it's still strangely uplifting. Beautiful work.



Thrown in amongst the carols is one of Jill's original songs, Room 19. Though not immediately obvious as a Christmas song, a quick look at the story behind it will reveal why it's on here. Even minus the back story, Room 19 fits in so well on the album that I would've taken it even if it wasn't even remotely to do with Christmas.



Six tracks down. What am I missing? Ah, What Child Is This? A song I'm not at all familiar with, but it sounds brilliant here. Hmmm... not sure what else to say about that one.



Finally, the album closes with a beautiful instrumental version of In The Bleak Midwinter. And I mean beautiful. I love this song. Gorgeously soft piano really suits this carol, although I would love to hear what it sounds like with vocals.



That's your lot then. Just over half an hour of gorgeously dark, beautifully haunting Christmas songs. If it doesn't already feel like winter, I suggest curling up with this album for a few hours. Go on. Indulge.

The album is available HERE as a download or CD with beautiful artwork by Trista Musco and portaits by Audrey Penven. And just because my copy arrived a couple of days ago: LOOK HOW PRETTY!!!

Current Love: Fight Like A Girl by Emilie Autumn

OK, so my plan to get this blog back to some sort of proper schedule seems to have failed epically. In good news, I still have a lovely long list of bands to write about so there's still hope. For now though, I intend to squee over Emilie Autumn's just-released new album. Hurray hurray.

Where do I start? Well, Fight Like A Girl is a great mix of styles blending the best bits of previous albums, faery-inspired Enchant and the more industrial Opheliac. It's important also to note that this is very much a concept album, regarding The Asylum, previously covered in her semi-autobiographical novel The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls. It's dark (Take The Pill), slightly sick (Girls! Girls! Girls!) and sometimes downright creepy (Scavenger). Opening with the call to arms of title track Fight Like A Girl, the album descends into the depths of hell that is The Asylum, touching on the sinister goings-on of the resurrection men as it does (Scavenger again). All that darkness aside, the album finally ends on something of a lighter note, with the march of One Foot In Front Of The Other and in amongst the heavy beats there are softer, if rather sad moments, with the beautiful Gaslight. All in all, the album has shaped up to be, potentially, Autumn's best yet. It certainly lends itself to the theatrical style of her live shows and who knows, maybe she'll manage to fulfil her plan to write a musical.

Stand out tracks include the typically EA-style (if I'm going down, you're coming with me) If I Burn, the haunting Gaslight, the carnival atmosphere of Girls! Girls! Girls! and the creepily slow drone of Scavenger. And now I'm going to shut up, because I have a horrible urge to squee and gush about every single track. Go look it up HERE where you can also listen to samples of tracks.

McFly at Norwich UEA, 3/4/12

McFly at Norwich UEA, 3/4/12 (support from Lost? and Ivyrise)

First off, I feel the need to point out that I'm still pissed that the early access I should have had as a member of McFly's SuperCity never materialised. Either I was being blind/stupid or it was very poorly organised/non-existent. Not impressed. I spent an hour standing in the pouring rain to get into this gig. Now, I don't mind rain, but I was informed early access would be half an hour before everyone else. Was it? Apparently not. Ugh.

Say hello to the queue!

Rant over. On with the review!

Kicking off the night's proceedings were local band Lost?, who won the opening slot in a "Battle Of The Bands" style thingumiwotsit on McFly's website. Their brand of pop-punk is pretty generic, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves and it went down well with the audience, so it's all good there. I'm struggling, though, to form a solid opinion of them given that their set was a grand total of 3 songs long. Three songs isn't really much ground to form a decent opinion. And I'm slightly concerned I've inadvertently offended them by calling them bland on Twitter...

Moving on from random worrying about who may or may not have taken offence at what, Ivyrise took to the stage as main support. Again, fairly generic pop rock, but good, catchy, sing-along-able stuff. Strangely, one of the heavier points of their set was a rather awesome cover of Adele's Set Fire To The Rain. One moment, I'll see if I can find a decent video, because it really does warrant checking out.

OK, so it's not a "live" live version, but it'll do. It's better than a poor quality version from one of the shows. Anyhoos, great set from Ivyrise - highly recommend checking them out. I believe they have an upcoming headline tour - dates are HERE.

And so finally, we come to the headliners. McFly. And oh how I love them. Where to start? Well, I was particularly happy that their set had a good mix of old and new, especially since I'm really not keen on most recent album Above The Noise. There were a few new songs thrown in - Do What You Want, Red and Touch The Rain - all of which sounded pretty good, especially Red. Stand outs among a set of fan favourites were Everybody Knows and its descent into a medley of covers and the set finale of debut single Five Colours In Her Hair which ended in a wonderfully funky outro. Given that Five Colours turned 8 years old a couple of weeks ago, this seemed pretty appropriate. However, my personal favourite part of the set had to be the medley of POV (intro only), She Falls Asleep and Down Goes Another One. This is largely because Down Goes Another One is my favourite McFly track. It's a beautiful song and I was so happy it was included.

There was also plenty of banter. The only other time I've seen McFly live was on their first ever tour with Busted back in 2004, so it was great to see how confident they are onstage now. Plenty of humour, although I'm not sure some of the parents present would have approved, what with the talk of teabagging and numerous mentions of cock. It's also hilarious to see how they encourage the fandom of slash pairings revolving around the band. I've rarely seen a band so (apparently) aware of what goes on in the more... mature... corners of their fanbase. All in all, a great gig and McFly certainly lived up to my expectations. My inner teenage fangirl is incredibly happy.

McFly setlist:
Nowhere Left To Run
One For The Radio
Star Girl
I Wanna Hold You
Transylvania (first verse only)
Do What You Want (new song)
Broccoli
Lies
Red (new song)
Sorry's Not Good Enough
POV/She Falls Asleep/Down Goes Another One (medley)
Obviously
All About You
No Worries
Touch The Rain (new song)
Everybody Knows + cover medley (Livin' On A Prayer/We Found Love/What Makes You Beautiful/I Wanna Dance With Somebody)
Five Colours In Her Hair

Encore: Walk In The Sun
Encore: Shine A Light

Review: Young Guns at Norwich Arts Centre, 24/3/12

Kicking off Saturday's show at the Arts Centre were young Leeds quintet Marmozets. Female fronted... math rock? I picked up on the post-hardcore side of it, but beyond that I'm not hugely familiar with the genre. One moment while I google...

So, Thrash Hits (ever reliable) has them down as "Dillinger Escape Plan x Paramore". For which read: math rock with great melodies and great female vocals. They've also been compared to Rolo Tomassi - take this as a good thing. I only ever here positive things about Rolo Tomassi. Getting side tracked here. What an amazing set. For such a young band, these guys really know how to put on a show. Throwing the audience straight in there with new(ish) track Onemanwolfpack, it was almost non-stop energy. Personally, (as a non-expert, I hasten to add) I think vocalist Becca could do with working on her unclean vocals a bit, but she still sounds amazing and her clean vocals were stunning. Brilliantly... twiddly? guitar work and overall just a hugely energetic set which ended with both vocalist and both guitarists in the pit. Folks really should have paid attention when guitarist Sam warned "You're going to want to back up, otherwise you're going to get a guitar in the neck" - or words to that effect. This was very much not what I'd initially expected at a Young Guns show, although at least I'd thought to look up Marmozets beforehand.

Moving on to the headliners. Well, awesome. Young Guns are pretty much straight up rock. Slight "emo" tendencies according to my housemate (lies). Diving straight in there with one of the band's heavier tracks, Elements, the set got off to a great start. There was a great balance between old and new material, something I'd been a little worried about given that the band are still promoting their most recent album and I'm not as keen on it as I was the debut. The crowd really got moving, although any attempts at a pit pretty much failed - Young Guns' music, personally, isn't exactly conducive to pit formation. Finishing with a trio of fan favourites in the form of Daughter of the Sea, Winter Kiss and Weight of the World, this was a triumphant return to Norwich for Young Guns and one that evidently went down well on this sold out night. The only thing lacking was an encore for this relatively short (45-50 min?) set. Ah well. Everyone seemed happy and that's what matters.

Marmozets set list (thanks to Josh MacIntyre for tweeting me this)
Onemanwolfpack, 9/10/11 - 12:13, Lives, Duels, The Perfect Beverage, Vexed

Young Guns set list (courtesy of it being on the sound desk right in front of me...)
Elements, Bones, D.O.A., Towers (On The Way), Crystal Clear, Brother In Arms, Stitches, Dearly Departed, Learn My Lesson, Daughter Of The Sea, Winter Kiss, Weight Of The World

Review: Emilie Autumn at Nottingham Rock City, 10/3/12

"Tell me no stories and I'll tell you no lies..."


(Please note that the beginning of this review was written earlier today while I was killing time waiting for the train. Hence any random asides. Feel free to ignore bracketed stupid comments. Anyone not wanting to know setlists should look away NOW.)


I attempted to draft this last night, but my pen died so here goes attempt 2:
Sitting in the sun outside Nottingham Castle (which looks nothing like the one in Robin Hood, by the way), the intensity of last night's show seems a long way off. However, given that my legs ache like hell and I'm still rather gig high, now seems as good a time as any to try to capture the emotion.

This show marks the first time I've ever really queued for a gig, which should be a good indication of how much I love Emilie Autumn. After queuing for two and a half hours for doors, then another hour and a half waiting inside, I was beginning to get fed up. I'm not a patient person at the best of times and combined with my fear of crowds, my patience almost snapped after a teasing false start. The situation was remedied ten minutes later with the most dramatic entrance I think I've ever seen. Against the electronic tones of "Best Safety Lies In Fear" the Bloody Crumpets took to the stage. The Bloody Crumpets being Captain Maggots, the Blessed Contessa and the Naughty Veronica. Emilie Autumn's... fellow cast? We'll get onto that. Last to grace the stage - Queen of Rats, star of the show, Emilie Autumn. As "Best Safety..." segued neatly into Four O'Clock, the show got well and truly under way.

(and now at Nottingham Station)

I'm tempted to to a run down of the whole show, track by track because it rather needs it to capture just how theatrical it was. However, that isn't how reviews are supposed to work, so let's just pick out the important bits. The set was heavy on new, as-yet-unreleased tracks from upcoming album Fight Like A Girl. Normally this irritates me, but the point of this tour is as a sort of album preview, so we'll let that slide. Besides, they were pretty great tracks. "Girls, Girls, Girls" has a wonderful dark carnival vibe, while Gas Light harks beack to EA's Enchant album. My personal favourite of the new tracks though has to be Time For Tea. Sounds lovely, yes? Dainty, yes? Think again.

What's different about Emilie Autumn's shows (at least compared to what I've personally seen before) is this: this is music as theatre. It's not just a group of people on stage playing music.

(and I think I just saw someone who was at the gig. Going by the attire, anyways)

Where was I? Ah, music as theatre.

(aaaand change platforms)

Music as theatre. Probably most noticeable on "Girls, Girls, Girls", which involved EA playing the role of guide in a tour of The Asylum, with the Bloody Crumpets as inmates.

(getting sidetracked by station stuff. Will resume once on train)

(ohmygod, I just saw a train leave the station exactly on time)

Ahem. It's now more than 3 hours since I got off the train and it's proving a little difficult to pick up my thread. Right, music as theatre it is. Well, we sort of covered that. Then there's the fact that not the entire show is songs. Each Crumpet got their own little segment. Captain Maggots introduced everyone (eventually. She rather struggled with Contessa). The Contessa lead the audience in a (supposedly) mystical chant involving something to do with fingers and toes which lead into the opening of God Help Me (wonderful track). Veronica, who has a background in burlesque if I remember rightly, performed a gorgeous feather fan dance to EA's instrumental track "Dominant" and then proceeded to 'corrupt' a pair of fans in the fan favourite Rat Game. (Look it up). Finally, Captain Maggots got a second shot at the limelight with some fantastic fire-hula-hoop-dancing-thing. There was fire. And hula.

This review has turned into a non-review and is in severe danger of degenerating into random babble, so let's bring it to a close. Closing the main set with new track One Foot In Front Of The Other (actual title? Maybe not.), the ladies left the stage to applause and shouts for more. So of course there was the inevitable encore, which consisted of two piano led tracks - the beautiful Mad Girl and then Thank God I'm Pretty which turned into an audience sing-along. Finally, the Crumpets rejoined EA on stage to perform a sort of farewell dance and when they finally left again the house lights came up to Monty Python's classic "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" which resulted in another audience sing-along and a lot of very happy fans. The only fault I can find is that the music was almost entirely played from a backing track, but given that it's very electronic based, I can just about forgive that. Besides, the theatrics more than made up for it and EA's voice is pretty much perfect live.

That'll do, yes? Here follows a just about correct setlist - some bits (in the middle especially) might be in the wrong order, but it'll do.

1. Best Safety Lies in Fear (instrumental/sampled)
2. Four O'Clock
3. Dr Stockhill (spoken word) <- I'm informed this is the title, but might be wrong
4. Fight Like A Girl
5. Time For Tea
6. How To Break A Heart (poem)
7. The Art Of Suicide
8. Liar
9. Take The Pill
10. God Help Me
11. Dominant (instrumental)
12. Girls, Girls, Girls
13. Rat game
14. We Want Them Young
15. Gas Light
16. One Foot in Front of the Other
17. Encore: Mad Girl
18. Encore: Thank God I'm Pretty

Spread the Plague...

Oh, did I mention there was tea, biscuits and cake flying around? What other reason do you need to go to a show?

Review: Veronica Falls at Norwich Arts Centre, 27/1/12

Veronica Falls at Norwich Arts Centre, 27/1/12 (support from The Broken Seas and Fever Fever)

Kicking off tonight's show are Norwich locals The Broken Seas and it was indeed a wonderful kick off. Crunchy, female-fronted blues rock - all fuzzy guitars and powerful (although slightly American-accented) vocals. There were some great male-female vocal contrasts and for a band that consists just of a guitarist, drummer and vocalist, they were pretty damn loud. So, OK, the Americanised vocals grated slightly at points, but overall a brilliant opening set.

Following on from The Broken Seas were another local band, the ever-awesome Fever Fever. Gloriously raucous art punk with strong female vocals. Wonderfully sing-alongy in places and generally brilliant. That's all that really needs saying about them. They are amazing live, have a great stage presence and really interact with the crowd. I highly recommened checking them out if you can catch them live.

Finally, we come to the headliners, Veronica Falls. Personally, I found their particularly brand of dark indie pop a little bland and lost interest about two songs in. This might have been partly due to the minimal sleep I'd had the night before, but I don't generally find myself zoning out quite so much at gigs. That said, the set was polished, the music lovely despite the blandness and the rest of the audience seemed to love it. Stand out tracks for me were Beachy Head and latest single Bad Feeling.

All in all, a pretty awesome gig. Check out the bands via the links below.

The Broken Seas bandcamp
Fever Fever "Teeth" free download
Fever Fever Soundcloud
Veronica Falls Soundcloud


Now with added crappy photography! Yay! (Seriously, I need to start taking my camera to gigs.)
First up, The Broken Seas, way over there in the distance...

And then Fever Fever, in a rather fuzzy close(ish)-up...

Review: Duchess Says at Norwich Arts Centre, 14/12/11

Duchess Says at Norwich Arts Centre, 14/12/11 (support from Throwing Up)
Genre: Indie/electro-punk

Kicking off the night's festivities are London three piece Throwing Up. Their brand of punk is pretty old school and it's a wonderfully dirty sound. Good crunchy guitars, solid riffs and catchy vocals. That said, the songs tended to sound a little samey. The crowd seemed to be enjoying it though.

Moving on from their set, Canadian electro-punks Duchess Says took to the stage. Oh my, what a set. Vocalist Annie-Claude Deschênes dances like a madwoman and she bloody well enjoys it. The audience had no choice but to get involved - although to be fair, I don't think anyone objected to dancing with Deschênes and I really doubt anyone would've declined her invitations for everyone to climb up on the stage while she danced around the floor. Topping off a set that nearly resulted in me getting throttled by a mic cable as Deschênes led an adoring crowd around the room, the encore ended out in the foyer, more than half the crowd having followed Deschênes out there. In between that and the party poppers that were handed out halfway through the set, it's hard to find fault with both her and the rest of the band's exuberant energy. The same goes for the music - amazingly good fun and very easy to dance to. In short, a brilliant set and quite possibly the best gig I've ever been to.

To end, have a couple of photos and a short clip of Duchess Says - apologies for poor quality phone pictures. The first is vocalist Annie-Claude, just after she almost throttled me (accidentally) with the mic cable.

Then a generic performance shot.

And finally a short clip of them during the stage invasion, which wasn't exactly an invasion, during the song Black Flag. Nice to see the sound recording quality is slightly better than the image quality...

I reeeeeally need to start taking my camera to gigs...

Review: Fight Like Apes at Norwich Arts Centre, 28/11/11

Fight Like Apes at Norwich Arts Centre, 28/11/11 (support from Fever Fever & Cut Ribbons)

Genre: Synth-pop, indie rock

Kicking off this remarkably dead show at the Arts Centre were Welsh band Cut Ribbons. They play fairly non-descript indie rock, distinguished only by their dual male/female vocals. Even that interesting difference didn't show up too well in their performance (balance seemed a bit squiffy), but the set was pretty good and it seemed a bit of a shame there weren't more people there to see them. The Arts Centre's fairly small but even so it was barely half full by the time Cut Ribbons finished playing.

By the time Norwich natives Fever Fever took to the stage, however, the crowd had definitely bulked up. The show was also their single launch, so they obviously had a fair few fans there. It was immediately obvious why they seem to have such a dedicated fanbase. Their set was amazing. For three people, they make a hell of a lot of very good noise. And they were evidently enjoying themselves, throwing in a lot of banter with the crowd and each other. Brilliant, hyperactive art punk at its raucous best. Check out the free track Teeth here: http://feverfever.bandcamp.com/track/teeth

Following on from that amazingly energetic set, the headliners had a lot to live up to. It's been three years since I first saw Fight Like Apes. Back then, they were the support for The Ting Tings. They sucked me in with their rather anarchic, high energy set. This show definitely didn't disappoint. Non-stop and bloody loud. And yet the room still wasn't full and the crowd barely seemed bothered. Until lead vocalist MayKay wandered off into the audience, that is. All of a sudden, the smallest mosh pit I have ever seen appeared. Finally, finally people seemed to be paying attention to what was an amazing show. With a couple of new tracks thrown in and a set that crept past curfew without anyone seeming to care, Fight Like Apes might just have won over some new fans. I hope they did. They certainly deserve it.

Fight Like Apes setlist:

Do You Karate?, Poached Eggs, Hoo Ha Henry, Katmandu, Lend Me Your Face, Jenny Kelly, Digifucker, Jake Summers, Thirsty, Tie Me Up With Jackets, Battlestations (+ 2 new tracks)

Encore: Megameanie, Ice Cream Apple Fuck

And as an added bonus, have some crappy photography, courtesy of my phone.

And as a final note: SQUEE at the remarkably cheap (i.e. reasonably priced) merch. Woot for band t-shirts and CDs.

Review: Madina Lake at the Waterfront, Norwich

Madina Lake at the Waterfront, Norwich, 17/11/11 (support from The Super Happy Fun Club & My Passion)

Genre: Alternative rock/electro-rock/post-hardcore

Madina Lake make a triumphant, but rather ignored return to the UK almost 18 months after their last tour here. Kicking off with fellow Chicago natives The Super Happy Fun Club, the venue's only really half full. Which is a shame, really, because while the vocalist doesn't have much in the way of stage presence, their set is slick, polished and bloody good fun. Considering most of the crowd seemed to have no idea who TSHC are, they all got into the swing of things. Definitely a band to watch.

Next up are English electro-rockers My Passion. Plenty of screaming fan(girls) for them. Their set is heavy on material from their second album, which I'm personally not so keen on, but the energy levels rocketed, the crowd got moving and the venue actually seemed to be filling more. That said, their main vocalist has the strangest ability to irritate me without even trying – he just seems so very full of himself. But hey, the music's good and the crowd enjoyed it.

Audience suitably primed, Madina Lake took to the stage with all the energy they had on that last tour. It's so nice to see that – bassist Matthew Leone was severely assaulted last year and it's wonderful to see he's made such a great recovery. The crowd obviously agreed with me – this really was a triumphant return. Kicking off with Imagineer from the latest album, the set was non stop, rattling through a range of songs from all three albums. So, OK, Nathan Leone's vocals weren't great, but the energy and the atmosphere more than made up for it. And this time I managed to not to get stuck on the edge of a mosh pit. Happy times for me. Closing with the awesome Pandora, they left a thoroughly satisfied crowd, confident that Madina are back with a vengeance and a dogged determination to just keep going. All that said, it's such a shame that the Waterfront still wasn't full.

Madina Lake setlist:

Imagineer, Adalia, Never Take Us Alive, Let's Get Out Of Here, House Of Cards, Now Or Never, One Last Kiss, Howdy Neighbour!, Hey Superstar, Here I Stand, Welcome To Oblivion, They're Coming For Me, True Love, Me Vs The World, Pandora (encore)

Review: Charlie Simpson at the Waterfront, Norwich

Charlie Simpson at the Waterfront, Norwich, 21/10/11 (support from Andrew Balkwill, We Were Evergreen & Dave McPherson)

Charlie Simpson – familiar to many people my age as “that guy who was in Busted”. Well, he's matured since then, but his voice is as good as ever. Before I get onto that though, let's have a quick look at the support acts.

Kicking off the evening was Andrew Balkwill. One man and a piano and one hell of an opening set. Bluesy, jazzy, sing-along-able goodness. I feel he took the audience slightly by surprise, but the crowd was soon getting into the spirit of things – his is music that makes you move. To be honest, I'd have loved for him to play a slightly longer set, but at four (or was it five?) songs, it was a nice little introduction.

Moving on, We Were Evergreen. A somewhat avant-garde, slightly poppy three piece band from Paris. And they were oh so good. Bouncy, energetic and loud. Take loud as a good thing here. Plus, there is always something awesome about a band that uses a ukulele and xylophone in their music. The crowd really took to them – plenty of bobbing and bouncing going on now. Then of course there was the epic outro to their final song, which unfortunately I can't remember the name of. When I say epic, I mean it. This outro just didn't want to end.

Having ramped up the energy with We Were Evergreen, Dave McPherson slowed the pace a little. One man and an acoustic guitar this time. He might be familiar to some as the frontman of alternative rock band InMe, but for the most part I think he was pretty unknown at this gig. His set got off to a decent start and then he managed to break one of the strings on his guitar. Then he managed to hurt his finger while restringing it. Kudos to him for keeping up the banter and generally keeping the crowd entertained while he was solving the problem. All in all, he played a pretty good set, although given the high energy performance of We Were Evergreen, it seemed a bit of a come down. That said, he closed with a cover of Boom Shake The Room (y'know, the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff?), so I think it can be forgiven.

And so finally, we come to Charlie Simpson. Yes, that bloke from Busted. He was in Fightstar too, not that I've personally ever listened to them. Moving on... Tonight's set was made up of a selection of tracks from his solo album, released this year. More towards the mellow side, with some lovely vocal harmonies. The energy levels spiked again and give or take a few girls screaming “Charlie, I love you”, pretty much the whole crowd was singing along. Tucked in amongst his own material was a brilliant cover of Cutting Crew's (I Just) Died In Your Arms with some lovely harmonica parts courtesy of Nick Worpole (also of Me And The Mountain, shameless plug). Overall, a wonderful set with yet another epic outro going on. Oh, how I love outros...

Ahem. So anyway, if you're in the UK, totally check out the tour dates and if you can get to one: GO. A nice mix of support acts and a fantastic headliner.

Review: The Woman In Black at The Fortune Theatre, London

Book by Susan Hill, adapted for stage by Stephen Mallatratt.

The Woman In Black is a ghost story, plain and simple. But oh, what a ghost story. Seated in the tiny Fortune Theatre, the atmosphere began building from the very first lines. A man, wanting to tell his story, asking for help from an actor. Why is his story so important? Why does he feel it must be told? Some humour to begin with – the man, Mr Kipps, is struggling to get into the spirit of acting, reading his lines in a dull monotone. The audience smile, laugh a little.

The humour is short lived. As the play switches from the present to the past, the true horror of what Kipps witnessed becomes clear. A marvellous array of characters from the sleepy backwater of Crythin Gifford builds the tension – what is it that terrifies them so much about Eel Marsh House, the place Mr Kipps has been sent by his law firm? What mysteries lurk in the fog over the marshes?

The wonder of The Woman In Black is that all of these brilliant little characters are portrayed by just two actors. Props are sparse – most are pure make believe, such as the cart which takes Kipps across the causeway to Eel Marsh House each day and the little dog Spider who keeps him company in the old house. And yet the cast conjures up such great empathy, even for this little pretend dog.

And then there is the Woman. The cast is technically three people, but the Woman makes very few appearances. The atmosphere in the theatre is so effective that when she does make her brief appearances, the entire audience jumps. It should also be noted that in order to adapt the book for stage, a clever little plot device has been used, which effectively makes Kipps' story a play within a play. Tragic, chilling and downright scary. Be prepared for the ending.

Review: Enter Shikari @ Norwich UEA, 5/10/11

Enter Shikari @ Norwich UEA (support from letlive. and Your Demise)

Barely five minutes into letlive.'s opening set and security are already telling their vocalist off for climbing on the speaker stacks. The set got off to a somewhat lacklustre start, given the hype around letlive.'s live act, but a couple of songs in it became clear that this is a band to watch. Loud, energetic and non-stop, they're a perfect opening band so I can only imagine how amazing it would be to see them play a full, headline set. In amongst the high octane tracks was a little gem in the form of “Muther”. Beautiful, melodic and a great track to involve the crowd. I admit to being almost completely unaware of letlive. other than knowing they played some sort of post-hardcore. After tonight's set, however, I'm hooked. Actually, I'm listening to one of their albums as I type this.

While Your Demise certainly matched letlive. in volume and general raucousness, their set felt a little messy. They play hardcore of some description (which I'll admit to not being a huge fan), but while there were a few moments of brilliance, their tracks just didn't have the intensity of letlive.'s. The structure of the set itself also felt slightly stilted – there was a fair bit of talking in between tracks, which isn't a bad thing, but there has to be that balance between talking and playing.

So, after a slightly disappointing set from Your Demise, we moved onto the headliners, the band I really wanted to see. Enter Shikari. Brief introduction needed, methinks. Enter Shikari play post-hardcore, with strong electronic influences (especially dubstep on more recent releases). I've seen them twice before and they're incredibly high energy and very big on crowd involvement. Tonight's show lived up to, even surpassed expectations. With a set taking in tracks from both LPs as well as recent singles Destabilise and Quelle Surprise, there was something to please fans of all their material. The light show was, as always, brilliant although it must suck to be an epileptic Shikari fan – I've not seen them play without strobes yet. Sad to say they didn't play Fanfare For The Concious Man, but having played so many fan favourites and closing with Juggernauts and OK, Time For Plan B, Enter Shikari really are a band that you need to see live to really appreciate.

“We are the world and we are the people and we will be heard.” - Fanfare for the Concious Man - Enter Shikari

Rough setlist for Enter Shikari (not in order)
Destabilise, Mothership, Zzzonked, Hectic, The Jester, No Sssweat, Sssnakepit, Return To Energiser, Sorry You're Not A Winner, Gap In The Fence, No Sleep Tonight, Quelle Surprise.

Encore: Juggernauts, OK Time For Plan B.

Review: Break by One-Eyed Doll

And second of the reviews, One-Eyed Doll's most recent album, Break. Actually wrote this a few weeks ago, but no harm in posting it here too. Again, have a listen, let me know what you think.


Break by One-Eyed Doll
Release date: March 20th 2010 (independent release through Kimberly Freeman Productions)
Genre: rock/metal/punk...thing

Rating: 10/10

Opening with the upbeat Airplane Man, One-Eyed Doll's most recent album Break throws you straight into the action. Following up with Beautiful Freak, a track I can only call an anthem for the misfits, Break is already looking to be a brilliant album and we haven't even got to the best tracks yet.

One-Eyed Doll are a rock-punk-metal something band from Austin, Texas. Break is their third self-released album and continues with the brilliance found on the first two. The style's kind of hard to define, hence settling with “rock-metal-punk something”. It's not all headlong charges through some sort of metal/rock/punk hybrid though. Tracks such as Murder Ballad (a ballad, obviously) and New Orleans show the band's slightly softer side while Redneck Love Song shows that they're very much capable of making silly tracks just for the fun of it (also evidenced on previous albums with tracks such as Be My Friend (about a serial killer) and Nudie Bar).

There's something of a morbid influence present on a fair number of tracks, Murder Ballad, Murder Suicide and Cinderblock in particular. The whole feel though is somewhat offset by vocalist and frontwoman, Kimberly Freeman's deceptively sweet vocals. I love those vocals – wonderfully sweet and yet at times so harsh and at others so sinister.

The album is driven by solid drums and simple but effective guitar riffs, which is really all the backing Freeman's voice needs. This is music that makes you move. Hell, I hate headbanging – it gives me a headache – but I couldn't resist the force of Break.

Closing with the somewhat epic Resurrection, Break is definitely an album worth buying if you're at all into rock, metal or punk of any kind. With that mash of influences, it should appeal to a fairly wide audience. Stand out tracks are hard to choose, but the rather dream-pop opening of Bumble Bee makes it a favourite of mine, alongside the dark tones of New Orleans. It's fairly rare for me to give a perfect rating to an album, but Break is well-deserving of it - I simply can't find anything wrong with it.

Review: Ruthless EP by Me And The Mountain

I'll have to look at getting a new Band Of The Week done tomorrow - haven't posted one for weeks! But for now, I have a couple of new reviews for your reading pleasure. First up is Me And The Mountain's debut EP, Ruthless. Have a listen and let me know what you think.

Ruthless EP – Me and the Mountain

Release date: 9^th March 2011 (through Beehive Recordings)

Genre: Rock

Rating: 7/10

I've been eagerly awaiting Me and the Mountain's debut EP for several months and for a debut EP, it pretty much lives up to expectations. Easy on the ears, radio-friendly, female fronted rock, with a slightly hard edge to it. Opening track Hands To Yourself, originally released as the band's first single back in November last year is easily the strongest on the EP, a good driving track which displays the range of the vocalist. She's backed up on several tracks by one of the two guitarists and the bassist and while the male-female contrast is there, it stands out better in acoustic performances. None of them on this EP unfortunately, but I feel the contrast is something that could be worked on and improved in future material.

Throughout the EP, there is the slight feel that the rhythm section isn't particularly varied. I noticed this particularly on Hands To Yourself and the following track This Is What You Do. Although the EP as a whole has a slightly samey feel to it (probably not helped by that oddly similar rhythm section on the first two tracks), the tracks have enough variety to keep you interested. Third track Diamonds & Co begins as an almost ballad before exploding into life. Following on is the oddly fun Ruthless. However, my favourite tracks have to be The Invincibles and Silver Lining. This may simply be because they're the tracks I've known the longest, having heard acoustic versions back in November, but they are brilliant tracks. The Invincibles makes me wonder who these mysterious Invincibles are – the only reference I can find is to a variety of sports teams – and why do you need to keep up change for them? Silver Lining just has some wonderful lyrics:

“Sinks too low,

My body's forgotten how to float.

Treading water's just a joke.”

And this brings us to closing track As Yet Unknown. Another track where the opening notes at least sound rather similar to some of the previous tracks. That said, it's a great closer. The whole idea of “As yet unknown” leaves you free to wonder how Me and the Mountain will progress on their next release. If this EP is anything to go by, I think we can expect a pretty damn decent follow up, although hopefully without that samey feeling.

They sound almost more wonderful acoustic, by the way – check out their Youtube for some acoustic covers. It's scrummy.

Review: Above The Noise by McFly

'K, so I'm actually beginning to write this before I even have the album. Partly because I'm bored as hell, mainly because I'm ridiculously over excited about getting my hands on the damn thing. OK, so not physically getting my hands on it, because it's a download, but I know what I mean.

Bahahahaha, I have it. Please bear in mind I wrote this after only 2 play-throughs, so I'm bound to pick up on different stuff after I've listened to it a bit more. Also, this is getting posted in a couple of other places, so if it reads a bit funny, that's why. Here goes.

Behold, I actually got my arse in gear and wrote a review for the first time in weeks. Happy times all round. Plus, I’ve been waiting ages for this damn album. Prepare for babbles and rambling and general fangirl-ishness.

Firstly, much as I was looking forward to hearing Above The Noise, I was a little apprehensive. I heard Party Girl months back and I hated it. I honestly couldn’t stand it. It sounded way too much like one of my favourite bands had jumped on the electro-pop bandwagon. I’ve been hoping Above The Noise wouldn’t just be more of the same. I am happy to say that it’s not. It’s made of epic awesome and has totally restored my faith in McFy.

So, OK, it doesn’t have so much of the rock edge that previous albums, particularly Radio: ACTIVE, have had, but it’s not as electro-poppy as I thought it might be. The synth elements are strong, but they’ve been used in harmony with the stronger rock elements. I noticed this particularly on End Of The World, the opening track and this rather set the tone for the rest of the album. Party Girl is still stronger on the electro/dance elements that I would like, but it’s finally started growing me. And hey, it fulfils its purpose – it makes me want to dance. I dread to think what my housemate thought when I was prancing madly around my bedroom listening to it earlier. He already thinks I’m mad (he’s right, but shush). Although, I have to agree with a number of other people – that opening does sound awfully like Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the fact that when I first heard it, I thought I’d got the wrong thing playing isn’t a good thing either. If U C Kate is a good enough song in itself, but I wish bands wouldn’t play around with the “not-so-subtly-hidden-expletives” in song titles. It’s not original in the slightest, and the song doesn’t really call for it. It’s a lovely, almost laidback track and I’ve noticed a number of people pointing out that The Script have a song called If You See Kay, which was only released in 2008. They could’ve given the track a different, more original name and it would’ve avoided a lot of confusion.

Then there’s the simply magical Shine A Light. Not much to say here – I love it. It’s more like the McFly I grew up loving. So there’s still that electro element, but it’s smaller and it fits nicely into the track. Never thought I’d like a track with Taio Cruz in it, but this song has proved me wrong. Just a stunningly beautiful track.

All in all, a wonderful album. I don’t rate it as highly as McFly’s past work, but I can see it growing on me. A lot. Stand out tracks are Shine A Light, Nowhere Left To Run and This Song. I can’t resist a good 5 minutes plus track.