Another Form of Relief

Great British Hopes celebrates new British music that is really bloody good.

As I was preparing to write this, I came across a fact that threw this piece into question. I tend to write these Great British Hopes pieces as a way of talking up the absolute best from all of the new bands I hear. Doing some research on Butcher Boy though, I discovered that they have been playing for 11 years. Which begs the question of whether they can really be hailed as a hope for the future of music. I decided to go with it though, as regardless of their longevity as a band, this is just too damn good.

Butcher Boy have floated around my mind for a while now. A Drowned In Sound review here, the odd promo email there. Even with that though, I never paid them much attention. I got the impression of another Scottish miserablist, and really, a man who already has a complete Arab Strap collection probably can’t take much more. Then the magic phrase appeared. “Compared to Belle and Sebastian” read the email, and I was in*.

Not that the end result is Belle & Sebastian exactly. Sure, you can hear those elements in the strings, but this is a band that is more down to the earth. Earnest lyrics sung out by someone who has listened to a lot of Smiths records but doesn’t quite know how to be Morrissey. No, if I were to place this on this indie pop landscape, I’d slot it alongside recent Swedish offerings like Jens Lekman or Pelle Carlberg. The sound is certainly British, but it likes to travel.

This kind of indie pop seems to be short supply in the UK at the moment. Butcher Boy may have formed 11 years ago, but with their second album release in three years, one gets a sense that they may have finally found their way.

React or Die will be released in April, but the lovely How Does It Feel To Be Loved? is selling advance copies through their shop right now.

* It occurs that I’ll probably now getting death metal bands mentioning the fact they sound like Belle & Sebastian in their promo emails.

And so our little week of days of the week theme posts comes to an end. Sunday isn’t the strongest day it seems, but there’s still a nice enough selection to work with. I think that monday was my favourite one of these for the nice variety that it had, but most of them have turned out pretty well. What has everyone else liked?

MP3 The Velvet Underground – Sunday Morning (expired) (from The Velvet Underground & Nico, 1967)
Excellent dreamy pop that captures the whole “I’m wasting my life” feeling oh so perfectly. I don’t know if that’s what the song is supposed to be about, but it works well in that way for me anyway. I’ve never been a big Velvet Underground fan, mostly just giving ‘Loaded’ the occasional listen, but this is still rather good.

MP3 The Mountain Goats – Tell Me On A Sunday (expired) (from Hot Garden Stomp, 1994)
Apparently this is actually a cover of an Andrew Lloyd Webber song, but you’d never be able to tell just from listening to it. In the hands of John Darnielle it becomes an incredibly lo-fi, stripped down song. Which helps it a lot given it allows us to focus on the words, usually a staple of the Mountain Goats as it is. God knows how this compares to any other versions, but I can’t imagine anything else suiting this kind of song so well. It’s the kind of thing I think Bright Eyes would be at home with actually. Guy knows girl is going to break up with him, does nothing to argue with this, just asks her to make it as painless as possible for him. In fact, with words like “I don’t want to fight night and day / it’s bad enough that you’re going / don’t leave in silence – no words at all / don’t get mad and slam the door / it’s no way to end this”, it just may be the least bitter break up song ever.

MP3 Morrissey – Every Day Is Like Sunday (expired) (from Viva Hate, 1988)
Morrissey has apparently commented that no one really knows what this song is about. I’m not particularly inclined to try and argue with it. I do however know that it sounds far better than the average Morrissey song, who I really can’t stand on the most part. It comes across as a wonderful nostalgia trip, backed with some excellent strings, something that will usually improve just about any song. It doesn’t really matter that a meaning isn’t easily pulled from it when it sounds so good in the first place.

MP3 Sonic Youth – Sunday (expired) (from A Thousand Leaves, 1998)
Another song where I don’t have a clue what it means, but boy does it sound good. An incredible use of bass, distortion that doesn’t go too far and beautiful lyrics over the top of all it. It doesn’t sound particularly like a sunday song, and I don’t think it has any direct relation to the day, but it’s an excellent piece of work nonetheless.

MP3 Beulah – Sunday Under Glass (expired) (from When Your Heartstrings Break, 1999)
Well we may as well end the week on a happy song, and this certainly fits the bit. One of my favourite Beulah songs from my favourite Beulah album (that I can’t seem to buy anywhere at price that isn’t grossly inflated.. suggestions?), it’s yet another song that has no clear meaning (what is it with sunday?). It may have something to do with the fakeness of modern life, or maybe something more literal about film, but I don’t really care that much. It just sounds too jangly and cheerful for me to be that bothered in analysing it too much. Oh how I miss Beulah.

That’s about it for our ‘Hooray for..’ series then. I hope you’ve enjoyed the songs as much as I enjoyed putting them together, and hopefully discovered something new along the way. I’m not sure how often I’ll do extended theme posts like this, as it has dominated the entire week when I’ve had a ton of other stuff that I’ve been waiting to write about, but I guess we’ll see what I feel like doing at the time. Your regular service of rambles about bands you’ve probably never heard of before will be resuming shortly.

Following the disaster that was the middle of the week, our little themed posts get right back on track with a, if I may say so myself, rather good selection for friday. It seems the weekend is the time of the week that really brings out the more interesting material from the songwriter, as will be proved by the awesomeness to follow on saturday and sunday.

MP3 Morrissey – Friday Mourning (expired) (from Let Me Kiss You single, 2005)
It’s Morrissey. He’s not very happy so he’s leaving. And that’s about it.

MP3 Bright Eyes – A Few Minutes On A Friday (expired) (from A Collection Of Songs: Recorded 1995-1997, 2000)
One of the things I particularly like about Bright Eyes is the way every song tells a whole little story. Now I know nearly all songs do this to a point, but the level of detail that goes into a Bright Eyes song is something more. That Mr. Oberst is so good at doing that now is one thing, but the fact he was doing it ten years ago (he would have been around 15 when this was recorded) is just downright scary. And makes me think I’ve wasted my life. But no matter. In this tale, young Conor is obviously in love with a friend but can’t say anything to her because either she won’t feel the same, or there are always other people in the way, or whatever reason he’s stopping himself this week. Didn’t think this could get any more miserable after Morrissey? That told you.

MP3 The Cure – Friday I’m In Love (expired) (from Wish, 1992)
Fine, you want a bloody happy song? Here you go then. I shouldn’t really need to explain anything about this song to anyway, as honestly, who doesn’t know it? It’s simple, it’s happy, and most of all, it’s damn catchy.

MP3 Silver Jews – Friday Night Fever (expired) (from Bright Flight, 2001)
I’m not a big enough Silver Jews fan to know whether this song is a flat out and out country song, or whether there is some hidden wry joke involved in it all that I’m too dense to miss. I suppose it doesn’t really matter either way as the song is a great little country ditty (how often can I get that word in without seeming weird?) that kind of subverts the usual country stereotypes. It seems ol’ Dave is slightly bored in his marriage so hits the bar on a friday night, but while stressing “She knows I love her and I need her / And I’m no cheater / I’ve just got that friday night fever” and that he’ll be straight back home to her at closing time. It’s actually all rather nice in a twisted kind of way.

Which brings us to a close for friday. Be sure to join me tomorrow for no less than seven songs that don’t really go together but all happen to have saturday somewhere in the title. Excited? I know I am.