One to get them talking

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UP-AND-coming rockers A Silent Film could well do well following in the wake of Elbow's recent success.

For the Oxford-based group's debut sound is closely aligned to Guy Garvey's group, as well as adding hints of Snow Patrol, Athlete and even Pablo Honey era Radiohead.

A slew of epic, emotive piano-driven rock that gets grander as the album goes on, debut offering A City That Sleeps is never going to break down any musical barriers, and is a little naive at times.

What A City That Sleeps might do however, judging by fine nuggets such as the magnificent You Will Leave Your Mark, is wake up the record-buying public rather fast.

Buy Belleruche

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ONE that passed me by on it's inital release last year was Belleruche's debut, Turntable Soul Music.

Penned by dj Modest, singer Kathrin deBoer and guitarist Ricky Fabulous, the album is a fantastic halfway house between Cut Chemist and Sharon Jones And The Dap-Kings.

If the London-based trio's album, a collection of rich, soulful trip hop, did the same to you, check it out now.

LOTP interview

I MENTIONED in a previous post that an interview with Late Of The Pier was in my pipeline.
You can now see the result of this chinwag on the Loughborough Echo site by clicking here, or in this week's paper, you skinflints.

It's a steal!

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FOR their fifth studio release, Washington DC-based trip hop duo Thievery Corporation are about to go global.

Sadly it's unlikely to be global in a Baby One More Time way - instead the group have enlisted the help of international talent ranging from Brazilian vocalist Seu Jorge to Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti to Indian sitarist Anushka Shankar for their latest LP, Radio Retaliation.

Melding trip hop, hip hop and dub with a world of other influences, the album is political without aggression, and without losing their trademark chilled out charm.

In short, Radio Retaliation is one i'd recommend you tune in to.

Shri delight

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LEADING British Asian musician Shri, full name Shrikanth Sriram, releases his third solo LP Seven Steps next Monday, marking an expansion as a solo artist.

And listening to the album, it's clear these steps are onwards and upwards.

Having worked with leading lights of the scene such as Nitin Sawhney and Talvin Singh, as well as notably teaming up with DJ Badmarsh, as well as putting out two LPs alone, Shri is now a producer as polished as a showroom car.

Fusing sturdy breakbeat and electro with rich, textured subcontinental instruments and influences, tracks like Just For A Minute and Pulse show Shri is equally at home in both fast and slow gears.

There are a few blips on this track list - the sketchy Mad B-Line for instance - but for the most part, Shri's latest is Seven Steps in the right direction.

Rap from the Bay area

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HAILING from Cuba's Guantanamo, yes, that Guantanamo, Madera Limpia - duo Yasel Gonzalez Rivera and Gerald Thomas Collymore - mix traditional Cuban music with modern rap.

It's a kind of Buena Vista Social Club meets The Roots.

And it's absolutely fantastic.

Granted, the duo rap in Spanish - and the only Spanish I know I've learnt from my daughter watching Go Diego Go - so I have no idea whether the pair are addressing social ills or undressing Cuban chicas in their lyrics.

But musically the mix of traditional Cuban styles, all brass and dance, with menacing beats and growling basslines lifted from hip hop and rap shown on La Corona just fits.

The album, the group's second, really is a crowning achievement.

Young Knives shed light on LP three

ECCENTRIC rock three-piece The Young Knives have revealed their third album's working title as Royal Daylight.
The group, who hail from Belton and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, are currently writing for the album, the follow-up to this year's supurb Superabundance.

Max out

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BRITS Max Pashm's new album may have been created in a London studio, but the sound is a little more exotic than that.

The group, which describes their sound as "KlezmerBalkanGreekGypsyPunk with Electro-beats", is a melting pot which fuses influences ranging from Robert de Niro speeches to Zorba The Greek-style traditional tunes to contemporary breakbeats.

Sadly the result on Never Mind The Balkans... is not always as exciting as it sounds, if that makes any sense.

Too often, for example on Anarchy and The Tongue, Max Pashm take the whole thing too far and it's just a bit cringeworthy.

That said, for the best part the album is an inventive take on the traditional music of a region not normally given much of an airing on these shores - for example on Once Upon A Time In Hellas and I Nervo - and it works really well.

Cold War Kids hot stuff

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LESS obvious than Kings Of Leon's release, today also saw the sophomore album from Cold War Kids go on sale.

Loyalty To Loyalty is the follow-up to the magnificent Robbers And Cowards - an album I emplore you to check out - and it sees the group's ramshackle blues-indie continuing with vigour.

Probably best demonstrated in the stomping I've Seen Enough and the White Stripe'd Something Is Not Right With Me.

Perhaps a leveller for the band - less peaks but less troughs too - Loyalty To Loyalty won't disappoint the group's loyal following, and might perhaps gain them a few more to boot.

Kings Of Leon are rock royalty

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THIS post is the first in a two-part series today, of paranoid American bands whose timbers are too shivered to send out promo CDs for fear of pirates.

I would normally not bother if an album's been released in this situation, unless it's something special.

However I've been on tenterhooks waiting for them both and had to part with my own hard-earned cash to buy both Kings Of Leon's Only By The Night and Cold War Kids' Loyalty To Loyalty, so I'm going to blog about them now, even though they're already out.

Luckily Kings Of Leon's fourth album is worth every penny.

Although continuing the band's evolution from garage rock to stadium rock started on Because Of The Times, the latest LP shows the group sitting more comfortably and assured in this changed role.

Traks like album opener Closer, single Sex On Fire, Use Somebody and Be Somebody literally swagger over the speakers.

You can currently listen to the album for free on Last.fm to see for yourself - but if you ask me, you should only buy Only By The Night.

Wallet friendly unit shifter

EVERYBODY loves a bargain - that's probably why I put in all of this effort blogging just for a few promo CDs.
So why don't you get in on the action as well by snapping up a copy of Nick Catchdubs & Mr Ducker's online mix album Radio Friendly Unit Shifter.
It's a 38-track grungey nostalgia trip through songs such as Nirvana's Sliver, Soul Coughing's Super Bon Bon, Primus's Wynona's Big Brown Beaver and Weezer's El Scorcho, and it's free.
Click here to get a copy.

Worth a look

WEBSITE Worth 1000, which runs regular contests for photoshoppers, held a rather good competition recently for people to put together pictures representing band names, as shown above.
You can see the entries they recieved by clicking here.

Stately Stateless

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IT'S probably a bit late for a full review - as this LP was released in July - but I'd like to point you in the direction of Stateless's awesome Stateless.

The album is a trip-hoppy halfway house between emotive indie rockers such as Coldplay and Athlete and the turntablist hip-hop of the likes of DJ Shadow.

Championed by the likes of Roots Manuva and Shadow - who featured vocalist Chris James on his last LP The Outsider - the Leeds-based band's debut LP is well worth checking out.

Hawk aye

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IF YOU don't know what to expect from Glaswegian group Mogwai by now, then Mogwai not.

Because if you don't love them by now, you probably never will.

The Hawk Is Howling, the group's sixth studio album, doesn't break their introverted, instrumental, in the dark mould, ranging from slow-burning shoegazers like Local Authority to metal barrages such as Batcat.

And of course, nobody does this sort of thing better than these five Scots, the standard bearers for instrumental post-rock.

Where other acts of their ilk attempt to scream and shout, Mogwai howl – and that is precisely why this LP is completely engrossing for more than an hour.

Cool Iglu And Hartly

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CALIFORNIAN five-piece Iglu And Hartly, the hitmen behind single In This City, are something of a odd mish mash.

On And Then Boom, keyboard players Jarvis Anderson and Sam Martin lead the group through a collection of new wave synth pop as '80s as Alf.

But then, as unexpected as Tears For Fears dropping a junglist beat, the ivory tinklers light the fuse of their debut LP by rapping over the top with a flow mixing equal parts Doseone and Eminem.

Luckily, like Neon Neon's Mercury Prize-nominated Stainless Style earlier this year, this unholy union of alternative hip hop and '80s pop is riotous fun, and hopefully this means And Then Boom will explode into the charts.

Bloggers Choice Awards

JUST a quick beg and plead - Isaac Ashe's Sound Advice has been nominated in the Bloggers Choice Awards 2008, so please click here and help to give me a few votes.

Rolo pretty sweet

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ROLO Tomassi desribe their sound as "a joyous explosion of melody, noise, anger, youthful exuberance, getting into the groove, not feeling the need to compromise or make music for any other reason than the drive to create something unique, messy and wonderful, a love of science, experimentation and punk/hardcore/what-the-hell-is-that-core".

Kind of makes my job as a reviewer a tad redundant, don't you think?

Nevertheless, I'll soldier on.

An unlikely union of hardcore punk, freeform jazz and ambient, the Sheffield group's debut LP Hysterics is as hard to pin down as a greased hog.

Flitting from thrashabout punk to The Doors-influenced freakouts to serene ambient and back to throat-ruining hardcore again, the album balances precariously between experimental and just plain mental.

And on balance there are more moments or brilliance than otherwise on Hysterics - so go nuts.

Tapping into the charts

LATE Of The Pier, Castle Donington's finest rock experimentalists, are set to re-release Bathroom Gurgle as their next single.
The track, taken from debut album Fantasy Black Channel, will hit stores on October 27.
This will be the second outing for the track, which had a 500-copy limited edition 7" release just over a year ago.

Classic fifteen - Knockout Glassjaw

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COUPLING influences ranging from acts such as Helmet to lead singer Daryl Palumbo's irritable bowel syndrome with an experimental urge to combine incendiary punk and hardcore with anything from jazz to ambient, Worship And Tribute was always going to be that little bit different.
New Yorkers Glassjaw's second LP, the 2002 release saw the group deliberately maturing their explosive post-hardcore sound honed on Everything You Wanted To Know About Silence.
As well as being both challenging and intriguing musically, Palumbo's engaging, acerbic style is also more melodic here.
As a result songs such as Mu Empire and Ape Dos Mil have almost mainstream twist, whilst remaining fiercely unique, creative and raw.
As I alluded to in a previous post, fans like myself are still awaiting a follow-up to this album.
But for the meantime this LP is worthy of both worship and tribute.

Perry poor

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AS HER album title would suggest, cherry chapstick flavour pop tart Katy Perry wants dearly to be One Of The Boys.

However despite her flair for novelty and an obvious vocal ability, and a legion of hitmakers behind her, this debut LP seems to smack of a desperation to be centre of attention – it's the musical equivolent of car crash television.

Either Perry is trying too hard with her Avril Lavigne-style pop rock - as in I Kissed A Girl or Ur So Gay - and just ends up a bit embarrassing, or she's not over-egging it - Thinking Of You or Mannequin - it's not worth looking at all.