Let's All Dance with Barbie

CHRISTMAS, as you may have noticed by now, is coming.
And anyone struggling for presents for the pop princess in their life should check out the Barbie Let's All Dance compilation - I've already had a word with Santa and I can confirm my eldest daughter will have a copy of this stuffed in her stocking on Christmas Day.
As we all know, Barbie is one trendy lady, and her latest collection features tracks by some of the biggest names in pop - Alexandra Burke, JLS, Cheryl Cole, Girls Aloud, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Justin Bieber and many more - and a bonus poster to boot.
'Tis the season to party, and Barbie's Let's All Dance will provide the perfect soundtrack until the kids have gone to bed.

Xmas Is Awesome playlist

'TIS finally the Season for decked halls, fattened geese and other such festivities.
So Sound Advice has put together a selection of Christmas crackers - a fine selection of cheese and altrernative Christmas choons - on Spotify to soundtrack the holidays.
Click here to have a listen.

Download Festival unveils Linkin Park as headliner

MORE monsters of rock have been lined up for next year’s Download Festival in Castle Donington.
Nu metal figureheads Linkin Park will headline at the festival, on at Donington Park from June 10-12, 2011.
Musician and film producer Rob Zombie will also be performing, organisers have announced, alongside System Of A Down and Avenged Sevenfold, who were both revealed last week.
Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington said: “We are very excited to be playing Download again next year.
“It’s one of the best festivals in the world and it’s always an honour to play in front of such a great crowd. We can’t wait!”
You can listen to all of the confirmed acts at Download with this Spotify playlist.

System Of A Down return to Download

HERE’S an early Christmas present for metalheads - the first acts heading to Download Festival in Castle Donington next year have been unveiled.
Armenian-American rock goliaths System Of A Down will be returning to headline one night of the festival, while metalcore legends Avenged Sevenfold will also be appearing.
A festival spokesman said: “You said it would never happen – well you were wrong, pal!
“The rumours are true – pinch yourself Download fans, because you ain’t dreaming – System of a Down are reforming, and are going to be headlining Download in June 2011.
“Result!
“This is now the third time that System of a Down have played at the legendary Donington Park site.
“SOAD’s heavily politicised brand of rock has seen them sell in excess of 20million albums worldwide, and the band are known worldwide for their tremendous live performances and unique sound.
“The band released five albums between 1998 and 2005, which spawned the singles and rock club staples Suite-Pee, Chop Suey, Toxicity, B.Y.O.B. and Hypnotize.
“Having been away for five years, this reunion at Download will be one of the most talked about events of the rock and metal calendar.”
A band spokesman said: “We are excited to announce that System will be playing some dates together in 2011.
“We have no master plan of sorts – we are playing these shows simply because we want to play together again as a band and for you, our amazing fans. We look forward to seeing all of you!”
You can listen to all of the confirmed acts at Download with this Spotify playlist.

Tasty offering from Simian Mobile Disco

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A NEW album from Simian Mobile Disco is a mouth-watering prospect at the best of times, but this first taster of their own record label Delicatessan will have you smacking your lips.
This is no slur on their exceptional oeuvre to date - I am a massive fan - but Delicacies steps away from the gimmicky, guest vocalist side of the duo.
Instead - much like the Chemical Brother's 2010 album Further - intense, heads-down, dark dance is on the menu.
Nom nom nom.
Pounding, engrossing, extended electronica pervades, making a sound more akin to Deadmau5 or even Autechre in style.
It's well worth getting your teeth into, and chewing until your jaws ache.

Listen to the Sound Advice Monster Mash-up

HALLOWE'EN is traditionally the time for things to come crawling out of their hiding places - so allow Sound Advice to arise from its tomb and stretch its limbs for a day or two.
Because I've put together a Hallowe'en Monster Mash-up playlist, mixing the cheesy with the slightly less cheesy on Spotify, and I feel duty bound to share it.
Click here to have a listen - if you dare.
Mwahahahahahaha.

Coritani - Death And Rebirth

CORITANI'S new CD is heavy going - but that's what you'd expect from a band who are, to quote Vivian from the Young Ones' jacket, very metal.
Each track is an epic patchwork of chugging riffs, throat-ruining growls and thumping drums, with only one of the five tracks shy of five minutes.
Stylistically, the band's sound is a brave take on traditional heavy metal, groove metal and sludge - with no relent and no concession throughout, although the band clearly don't take themselves so seriously, with tracks like Electric Donkey Zombie Sheep and stand-out Trevor The Ice Turtle.
Death And Rebirth - a reference to the group's rising from the ashes of the outstanding Evangelion - is a snarling beast of an EP, and if you don't run scared it really gets its teeth in.

Ben Matravers - Step One

LONG Whatton's Ben Matravers Step One starts out on the right foot with Say.
The opening number is an emotional effort which communicates through a Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly-style guitar and vocal laced draped with fleeting ornaments like guitar harmonics, warm hums and tinkling keys.
Pianos take over with Blood On My Hands, with the singer-songwriter stripped bare of Say's production bar a desolate echoing effect, before title track Step One steps up proceedings with a full band, a less introvert approach and, I imagine, a dark twinkle in his eye.
My Place Is Here rounds off the four-track EP with a guitar picking exercise which teeters between being melancholy and upbeat throughout.
A dark, folk-tinged, atmospheric effort, I can't wait to see how Mr Matravers steps things up from here.

So long and thanks for all the discs....

REGULAR readers of Sound Advice may have noticed that, of late, the blog has been pretty irregular.
After nearly three years of reviewing, a combination of ridiculous DMCA complaints downing posts, a lull in readers and my laptop dying losing me a huge wad of albums yet to be reviewed and my schedule of when they needed to be reviewed, the posts have stopped.
So for now, Sound Advice is on a hiatus, and is unlikely to return in its current form.
I'd like to say a massive thank you to everyone who's read, commented on, linked to or otherwise engaged with the site - it's been a real pleasure and has introduced me to some amazing music.
In the meantime, check out my football blog Goaltastic at http://blogs.loughboroughecho.net/goaltastic/ and feel free to have a vote on my hideously early Albums of the Year vote, which runs until December 31.

PVT A-OK

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AUSTRALIAN band PVT don't like doing things by the book - in fact, when they formed they were a completely improvisational act.
And this boundless approach to music making is evident of PVT's latest Church With No Magic, which seesaws between electronica and rock.
The LP by PVT, previously known as Pivot, has an ever present electro throb and piston-like beats balanced in varying degrees with a Robert Smith-like vocal and Joy Division synths throughout.

Summit intense to listen to

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IF YOU'RE not too into your sludge metal, a first encounter with Thou is more like "ow".
However for fans of the genre such as myself, the up-and-coming act don't so much tick the boxes as slowly crush them.
Downbeat, deep, dark and deadly, the fact the throat-vocal heavy metal group drag five tracks out over an hour tells you all you need to know about Summit.
However among this intense, thick miasma of metal, flecks of experimentation appear, such as acoustic instruments and choirs.
With Summit Thou haven't peaked, but they're inexorably on the up.

You'll love Love Ends Disaster! in the end

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IT’S ALWAYS nice to have a local band doing good - and Love Ends Disaster!, having swapped Loughborough University's Freefest for Reading and Leeds, are doing just that.
With their debut album City Of Glass, you can see them emulating the likes of Belton’s The Young Knives, Castle Donington’s Late Of The Pier and Wymeswold’s Wave Pictures.
An inventive collection of indie rock which sounds like a cross between Talking Heads and The Rakes, the group seem at home in the studio.
Eschewing standard songwriting formula, the group throw off-kilter riffs at the listener and frequently explore unexpected musical avenues.
As a result it’s a rock LP that intrigues the listener rather than knocks them for six - but it grows on you eacha nd every listen you give it.

Okay Bells

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THEY may not be as festive as their name would imply, but dance act Sleigh Bells sound like they’re trying very hard to get some form of festivities going.
The problem is on Treats they’re trying too hard - with speaker-busting levels of samples and sound effects taking their toll, even the sturdiest of speakers will struggle not to fart out these tracks.
On the occasions everything gels - like the Funkadelic-sampling Rill Rill - Sleigh Bells really are a treat.
The rest of the time they need to treat their work with a less is more attitude.

Classic fifty - Pretty nifty

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FOLK, especially English folk, doesn't get a fair outing.
Bands like Shooglenifty, alongside peers including Seth Lakeman, Lau, Jim Moray, Patrick Wolf - all of these oft-ignored folksters deserve plaudits beyond plaudits.
Folk fusion band Shooglenifty are an instrumental act playing traditional reels and whirls and suchlike, but they add to this on Venus In Tweeds a dance element, making a sort of post trad folk.
It may not be traditional folk, but the Scottish band are what folk music is all about - it's accessible, upbeat, entertaining and you can work up a sweat to it.

Safe In The Steep Cliffs top

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ALTHOUGH I’m a month behind the release of Emancipator’s Safe In The Steep Cliffs, I’m bursting to blog about it.
The DJ came to the fore supporting Bonobo recently after a steady ascent to fame, and you can see how he landed the job - with similarities between this LP and Bonobo’s brilliant Black Sands.
Equally chilled out and possessing the same head-nodding beats, the LP is an abundance of warm, string-soaked, orchestral cinematic electronica, and deserves an equal amount of plaudits.

Autoluxurious

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THE sun-soaked climate of Los Angeles normally reflects in the sunny output of its bands - but not in Autolux's case.
The group's second album, Transit Transit, is a downbeat collection of slow, shoegazing rock more in line with Radiohead than The Beach Boys.
Not that this is a bad thing, and while it takes the listener a while to tune down to its rhythms, Transit Transit reveals itself to be a moving piece of work when you do so.

Classic forty nine - Dreadbanging

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WHAT do you get if you mix dub reggae and heavy metal?

Dreadbangers?

No, the offspring of that unholy union is Dub Trio's third album, Another Sound Is Dying.

The album, which is instrumental apart from the standout No Flag featuring Mike Patton of Faith No More on vocal duties, fuses heavy metal riffs fuller than Rik Waller leaving an all you can eat buffet with ponderous Mogwai style space rock and skanking Lee "Scratch" Perry dub sections.

On paper this should be a shambles, but on record it actually works.

The movements from one section to another never seem to jar, and there is a unlikely unity that carries through the whole LP.

Incog-not bad-o

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TRANSATLANTIC RPM, the new album from Incognito, packs in more energy than a jet engine.
Having invited along a guest list including Jamiroquai bassist Stuart Zender, icon Chaka Khan, spoken word goddess Ursula Rucker, Motown legend Leon Ware and more, the tracks here are all slick as they come.
Sure, a lot of it is very cheesy, but you can't help get caught up in the sheer exuberance of it all.

Kelpe taster

LOUGHBOROUGH knob-twiddler Kelpe is releasing a new EP in September.
The Margins EP will be put out by Bristol label Black Acre on vinyl and as a download.
Kelpe said: “I’ve grown pretty fond of a lot of Black Acre’s material recently, having released artists such as Loops Haunt, Blue Daisy, Tokimonsta, Fantastic Mr Fox, Brokenchord and a load more.”
As an appetite whetter, Kelpe has also uploaded a taster of some of the EP tracks, which you can hear below -

Baths go public

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CERULEAN, the debut album from Baths, is worth dipping into.
Showering the listener with subtle beats and awash with delicate, acoustic-based samples, if you want to gauge Baths' temperature imagine an ever-so-slightly more tubthumping version of Daedalus.
Glitchy productions akin to impossibly 'now' acts like Toro Y Moi and Junk Culture over echoey hints of indie rock a la Broken Social Scene, Baths deserves to tap into some of these more established acts fanbases.