Music to drink tea by
Great British Hopes
Great British Hopes: Laura Hocking & The Long Goodbye
011 months ago
It’s hard to believe, but it’s nearly three and a half years since we first discovered Laura Hocking, who was then going under the guise of Laura Sings Liver. So to say that this debut release from her is long-awaited is something of an understatement. It’s been clear from day one that Hocking is a unique songwriting talent, even if the production values on those original recordings couldn’t quite keep up with her. All of that is rectified on this four song release though, which also introduces us to her full-band arrangement that has been steadily growing over the years, which now includes it’s own small string section.
All of this is just support for the main asset here: Hocking’s lyrics and delivery of them. It’s nice to see the 2007 original Strongmen & Acrobats get an outing on the release. The song, the story of her autistic brother, has always been one of her best works, and the fleshed out arrangement here suits it perfectly. Some of the songs are more whimsical, others more serious, but the consistent factor is how fleshed out each of the stories and characters are.
The EP is an assured release from an artist that is just now coming into her own. My only hope is that we won’t be waiting about three and a half years to talk about her debut album.
Laura Hocking & The Long Goodbye’s debut EP will be released at the end of the month. You can pre-order it in various formats (including, amazingly these days, a CD! How quaint!) via Bandcamp. Best of all, 20% of all profits from the CD version will go to the National Autistic Society.
Great British Hopes: The Felt Tips
01 year ago
The first word I etched on a desk with a pen was Morrissey
And the first time the words meant as much as the music was Morrissey
And the moaning that came from my room everyday was Morrissey
And the reason my Mum had to ask was I gay, yes Morrissey.
There’s probably a hundred songs out there by bands trying to articulate their feelings toward Morrissey. To a great many of them he was a hero to them musically, even if he has a penchant for doing some very stupid things. The conflict between the idealised version of the man that came from his early songs and what he now appears to be is difficult for fans to reconcile. Dear Morrissey by The Felt Tips is one of the better efforts in this area. There’s clearly a great respect and love for him, even if now they will now “leave you to your slightly questionable ways”.
As a song, it epitomises what The Felt Tips are about. Musically they slot right in to the current indiepop canon, but lyrically is where the band comes alive. The band seem to have no time at all for abstract concepts or talking in vagaries. Engaged for a Visa is exactly what the title suggests and Silver Spoon deals directly with paralysis after an accident. Lifeskills, by some margin the longest song on the record, spends nearly five minutes bluntly discussing blowjobs in the park.
Now this style of songwriting may not suit everyone, and certainly it’s not the most cohesive work as an album. Looked at instead as a collection of short stories though and it’s far more appealing. It’s a remarkably assured release as a debut album, and one that signals that current line of great Scottish indiepop bands shows no sign of coming to an end.
Great British Hopes: Love Ends Disaster!
01 year ago
Loves Ends Disaster! are a band that I’ve been aware of for quite some time. I’d never really listened to them mind, but I remember them getting quite a lot of buzz back around the time I first started this blog, which is well over four years ago at this point. After that though, nothing much seemed to happen. I didn’t see much more about them, and from a cursory glance around, nor did many others. So it seems a bit strange that they have finally popped up with a (self-released) record now. Trying to regain buzz given how fickle the industry is isn’t the easiest of tasks, but on the basis of this album, the band are more than up to the task.
I commented a little while ago that this has been a truly spectacular year for new music. I can rattle off a whole list of albums I’ve loved, when in an average year I’d struggle to name three. City of Glass by Love Ends Disaster! has certainly added itself to the year’s tally though. The most intriguing thing about it is that it seems to want to be all things to all people, which tends to be a recipe for failure. Somehow it pulls it off though, jumping from boisterous post-punk to grand, sweeping arrangements to just having fun all in equal turn. It’s a slightly jarring experience at first, but an ultimately rewarding one.
MP3 Loves Ends Disaster! – City of Glass (Cowboys)
City of Glass will be released on July 26 through Warning! Records. Order from Rough Trade and you’ll get an extra five song EP of brand new songs.
Great British Hopes: Kid Canaveral
11 year ago
I very briefly wrote about Kid Canaveral a couple of months ago after stumbling across them on Bandcamp. I posted up their song Good Morning, which was a lovely little indiepop song, but if I’m honest, I didn’t give them much thought after that. Then a few days ago a copy of their upcoming full-length album dropped into my inbox, and suddenly everything that made that song great came flooding back. Twelve times over. Shouting at Wildlife easily has the potential to be the next big break-out indiepop record. It’s a suitably upbeat record that has some of the best tongue in cheek lyrics that I’ve heard in a while. There’s a sequence on the wonderful Smash Hits about an indie snob’s date that had me grinning like an idiot. What makes the album really work though is that it doesn’t go all out in one direction. There’s a decent dose of melancholy thrown in here too that recall the sound of Ballboy, and not just because of how much both bands wear their Scottishness on their sleeves. If this were a year where Allo Darlin’ and Standard Fare hadn’t put out astounding debut albums, this would almost certainly be a strong contender for my album of the year. Not that there is any shame being just behind those two, and I truly hope that Kid Canaveral can find the audience they deserve.
Kid Canaveral’s new single, You Only Went Out To Get Drunk Last Night is out today, and you can stream all three songs from it above. You can also click through and buy it from Bandcamp for a mere £1.49. The album, entitled Shouting at Wildlife will be released on July 5.
Great British Hopes: Standard Fare
01 year ago
Great British Hopes are the main reason we do this in the first place.
It never ceases to amaze me how a band can suddenly just pop up out of nowhere. Standard Fare have apparently been about since 2006. The first I heard of them was a few months ago when their Christmas song Tinsel Politics started doing the rounds. It seems that I wasn’t alone in that either. The first music blog mention of them I can find is from July 2009. Seeing as music blogs are the only gauge of how noticed a band are, I can only assume that they were playing gigs to three people for the three years in between.
This year though, Standard Fare seem to be blowing up. Everywhere I look, there they are. London Popfest? Check. SXSW? Check. Indietracks? Do you even need to ask? Their suddenly ride in these particular circles actually reminds me of the great Los Campesinos! explosion of 2006. Hell, both bands even have recognisable songs with “dancing” in the title. Can’t argue with reasoning like that.
Of course, none of this would be happening in the first place if the talent wasn’t there to back it up. Standard Fare provide a nice throwback to the days when jangly guitars and half-bored female vocalists were all the rage. Clever indie pop for those who likes things just a little on the harder side of twee.
The Noyelle Beat will be released on March 29. You can buy the album from the band directly though and receive an instant download. How modern! Now you can stream the whole thing below too!
Great British Hopes: Sir Yes Sir
22 years ago
Great British Hopes features the very best bands that make us party like it’s 2011. Oh yes.
Now this is my cup of tea. You play sceptically through tons and tons of mp3s by bands that don’t do very much, and then one will make you sit up and go ‘wow’. Granted, my standards for that aren’t that high. Sound vaguely like Pavement (or a bunch of other 90s bands) and you’re already halfway there. Sir Yes Sir are far better than one lazy comparison.
This is guitar rock just the way I like it. Sloppy sounding through the verses, laced with distortion through the choruses. It jumps about all over the place, in both time and sound, and it’s all the better for it. A wonderfully punchy two minutes from a band I expect to hear a lot more of this year.
Great British Hopes: The Kabeedies
02 years ago
Every now and again, being a music blogger heralds unexpected rewards. About a year and a half ago, I briefly wrote about The Kabeedies on here. I haven’t really kept up with them since then, only really giving them a thought when the iPod would throw up one of their songs. Today I went to the Another Form of Relief Mail Centre (a PO box) to pick up a couple of things I had ordered (the Nosferatu D2 disc and the new Superman Revenge Squad record) as well as whatever the promo companies had sent over. I was slightly surprised to find a promo copy of the debut album from The Kabeedies in that stack. I likely would never have realised they had a record out without it, and that would have been a damn shame.
If there’s one word that comes to mind throughout this album, it’s “joyful”. Everything is so full of glee that it could easily run the risk of being utterly sickly, but it never quite crosses that line. Which is impressive on a record that uses handclaps, jangly guitars and extensive boy-girl harmonies. It’s all rather chaotic too, but if anything, that’s the one thing that holds me back from completely loving it. I like my songs to be chaotic, but here the chaos seems to be rather well thought out. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, and it’s a minor niggle on a superb little album. There’s a great band here though, and one that could go to the top of an already crowded indiepop scene.
Great British Hopes: Hold Your Horse Is
12 years ago
Great British Hopes features the very best in new British music. You know, stuff that doesn’t sound like James fucking Blunt.
I’ve spent the last 24 hours trying to decide whether or not Hold Your Horse Is is a good name for a band or a bloody terrible one. I’m still not entirely sure, but the more I think about it, the more it’s growing on me. The band come to us from the mean streets of Hampshire. So mean in fact that they rarely tend to produce decent bands.
Hold Your Horse Is are a very loud, very fast band with more than a little in common with those other unwieldy band name scamps Dananananaykroyd. Perhaps not quite as all over the place as that band, as indeed here each element has a little room to breathe. It’s rough and ready, yet the vocals, guitars and drums all get their chance to shine.
There seems to be a lot of these bands popping up at the moment. The aforementioned Dananananaykroyd seem to be at the forefront of it. The wonderful Pulled Apart by Horses are certainly up there too. It’s a fine line to balance a lot of noise while still sounding good. Hold Your Horse Is fit right into nicely with this lot, and it’s a fine stable (ha, I’m hilarious!) to be a part of.
The Everyone Runs Faster With A Knife EP is out now and available directly from the band for just three of your English pounds.
Website / Myspace
Great British Hopes: Pocketbooks
02 years ago
Pocketbooks have been one of my favourite bands to cover since I started this blog. Watching them rise from a few rough early songs to releasing their first proper album has been a joy to behold. As such, Another Form of Relief is delighted to present a free download of their next single, which also happens to be the opening track to the aforementioned album. It’ll be released on June 15, but you can download it here right now.
Footsteps follows in the, er, tread of those earlier songs, while also representing a natural progression from the band. Regular vocalist takes a step back on the song, allowing Emma a chance to shine, which she has no problems doing. Her calm, precise demeanour allows us to get to know her and take in her story. One of the most appealing parts of Pocketbooks has always been the imagery that they can evoke. Managing to walk a very fine line between the contemporary (“on the top deck of the 23″) through to throwbacks to gentler times and places (“the beaches of a south coast town”), they almost seem to exist in a world of their own. That world is centred around the mundane, the tiny nuances that dictate our lives. Yet somehow Pocketbooks manage to turn that into a magical place that we can only dream of.
Footsteps will be released on June 15. It’s taken from the album Flight Paths, which is released July 17 on How Does It Feel To Be Loved?. Apparently copies are being sent out now though, so there’s no excuse for dithering.
Great British Hopes: Tigers That Talked
22 years ago
Continuing the seemingly never-ending trend of great bands coming out of Leeds, Tigers That Talked may well be the best of the current crop. Despite being together for a while now, I only discovered them recently, meaning I’ve skipped any early awkwardness the band may have experienced. This meant the band I started listening to was fully formed and almost ready to be the UK’s own Arcade Fire. It’s the obvious comparison to make, but the sound is certainly eerily similar at times.
Which is actually a disservice to Tigers That Talked. You see, if there’s one thing I never really cared for with that band, it was the words. Sure, songs like Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) were stunning, but most of them were rather too abstract for my own tastes. Tigers That Talked seem to have found the perfect balance. The verses are reasonably vague, but after a few listens you notice that there are grounded meanings in the songs.
Talk Black Heart Blue Eyes. Listen through a couple of times and you think it sounds rather pleasant. Listen a couple more times and you start to notice nice little wordplay like “bigotry’s obligatory round here”. A few more times and you’ve realised you’re listening to a song about something as mundane as the threatening atmosphere for a seaside town. Which is something you’ll be familiar with if you’ve ever visited Margate or a hundred other such places around the country.
Then there’s the video. I’m loathe to post videos usually as I don’t really like the format, but when one captures a song as perfectly as this, it only seems appropriate. Filmed largely at a British Legion club in Blackpool, you get to see the awkwardness of a band and an audience who are completely incompatible. Glimpses of the town punctuate throughout, seguing easily between the tourist glamour and dodgy looking estates. It’d be a remarkable achievement even without the song.
The Black Heart Blue Eyes EP will be released on June 8 via Bad Sneakers Records. Obviously on 7″ and download only because vinyl is far more useful to those who us want a physical copy that a round bit of fucking plastic that’ll play in anything.
