Hope everyone's enjoying the weekend. Been meaning to write this blog for quite a few days now but obstacles to my writing were frequent so now here I am on a grey yet mild Saturday afternoon relishing the idea of spending the day doing absolutely shit-all. In the news, the Daily Mail has once again been revealed for the blood-curdling spineless drivel spouter that it has always been, using the diary of a scared 16 year old refugee miles away from home to communicate him as 'hating Britain' and laying down an 'evil legacy' while its sister paper had the sheer audacity to send a reporter only days afterwards to a memorial service for one of his close relatives and the uncle of the man they were truly trying to slander (Ed Miliband). Miliband's popularity has only been increased by the debacle, all mainstream politicians have leapt to his side and yet the Mail refuses to apologise. But there you go, the same brand of crass idiots will still be reading that paper by the time we enter the apocalypse.Skin-crawling stuff. Here's the idiot that allowed all this to happen, balding egg-head and all. And if you want to have a butchers at his deputy being torn a new a-hole by Alistair Campbell then head over in this direction.
The last couple of weeks have seen albums released which have spawned a mini-revival of girl-bands with edge but with far more of a focus on the 'edge' part and far less on the 'girl-bands' bit. Haim are undoubtedly the most talked about new-band of the year, ever since being tipped by the BBC back in December as the 'ones to watch' for 2013. Their debut Days Are Gone has been hotly anticipated but unlike many new bands they continued to dispel the pressure to release a first LP quickly and tweaked and tweaked for months until it was finally issued last Monday (a solid year after the release of first single 'Forever'). Turns out it's just a little bit of a masterpiece. What these raunchy sisters have somehow managed to do is fuse about three decades worth of high-quality music (70's - Fleetwood Mac, 80's - Phil Collins, 90's - RnB) and span genres which many thought previously unspannable - the phrase 'breath of fresh air' barely even covers it.
The trio made that always rather ballsy decision to throw in all the singles right at the top of the tracklist leaving the listener initially compelled to listen to more without having much knowledge of what's to come but each new track supplants fresh ideas about the girl's individual talents. It takes a few listens to understand the more nuanced successes of the album - the sleek production of the synths in 'If I Could Change Your Mind', the dreamy lyrical shapes constructed in 'Honey and I' and 'Running If You Call My Name' and the spectacularly sharp guitar riff in Yeezus-esque RnB ballad 'My Song 5'. Anyone who watched these girls perform at Glastonbury or Reading will have known they witnessed a performance akin to that of a headliner and an extreme vision of what may be to come, the energy was electric. When listening to Days Are Gone two things are for sure, one is that contrary to earlier comments made in this blog Haim are in no way actually a 'girl-band' in the traditional sense of phrase but a musical tour-de-force in their own right and two is that it's certainly not looks which have carried them this far but sheer talent and grit albeit they are all very very hot, especially when surrounded by balloons.
Chvrches have a far more localised following than the Haim girls but have still excelled themselves with much-anticipated debut The Bones Of What You Believe . OK so with only 33.33% of their members being female the 'girl-band' label becomes even less applicable to these guys but in Lauren Mayberry they have a lead singer capable of following in the footsteps of the Kate Bush's and Sinead O'Connor's of this world and this is coupled with her having quite the smart head on her shoulders, writing in The Guardian Music blog this week on the perils of online misogyny.
I personally have been looking forward to the release of this album for a good many months, ever since I first heard lead single 'Lies' followed by Chvrches fantastic remix of MSMR's 'Hurricane' and became addicted to the Glasweigan trio's strange brand of authentic electro nu-folk. Don't be fooled by the strong dialectical accent, these guys are no Biffy Clyro, in as much as, well, they're not shit. Instead they're very very good and just as with Haim, what's so intriguing about their debut LP is not the already accredited singles but the new and unheard genre-spanning tunes. 'Tether' begins in a slow-riffed ballad form but ends with epic synths-galore as Mayberry belts out 'I feel incapable of seeing the end/I feel incapable of saying it's over'. Just like with King Krule's album as discussed in the last blog, there is a raw honesty to the lyrics of the album which adds to the bands aura of modesty. 'Lies' follows 'Tether' and still remains one of my favourites but a real pearler comes slightly later on in the form of 'Science, Visions'. A daunting intro juxtaposed by Mayberry's sweet vocals and a vocal loop undertoning the entire thing is then joined by thumping bass and the somehwat underrated backing vocals of Mayberry's bandmates Iain Cook and Martin Doherty. The tempo is upheld throughout the three minutes and 58 seconds of awesomeness and the closing three tracks are equally as bold, the industrial bridge in 'Lungs' is exquisitely placed as is both guitar and drum riffs working side-by-side in epic closer 'You Caught The Light'. Chvrches began with a tiny internet-based Scottish fan-base and are now attracting a far wider range as interest in their brand goes global, the only way from here really appears to be up.
So that's that then, two bands I've been looking forward to writing about for ages and whose music deserves to be listened to across the land. Hope everyone enjoyed and as always cheers for reading.
Max
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