Irma Vep 'Embarrassed Landscape'

The new album from Irma Vep Embarrassed Landscape is out now from Gringo Records

Irma Vep is the alias of Edwin Stevens, a Glasgow based polymath musician, a man who has reached the potential now in his fourth album release.

Vep has garnered quite a reputation in recent years as a singular songwriter with immense confidence using a multitude of influences from across the musical spectrum to still sound like a unique voice.

From the outset, album opener 'King Kong' is as big a song you are likely hear as it is both bold, fresh and exciting.  It sets Stevens out as the sort of performer who has that intangible that you cannot measure - ambition. It is both brave and ballsy to open with a ten-minute track on any album, but it is neither grandiose nor showing off, it is a statement of intent to grab the listener from the beginning.

It continues in the next tracks which are more insular and reflective using violins and piano for atmosphere on 'Disaster' and 'Standards'.

More rockier numbers return with 'The Feeling is Gone' and 'Purring' which gives a balance to the open as a whole.

This album seems like the work Stevens has intended to make for several years, his growth as a person and artist has come to full fruition in the work of Embarrassed Landscape which is both a pleasure and privilege to witness.

Embarrassed Landscape is out now from Gringo Records.

My thanks to One Beat PR for the review opportunity.

Wild Pink Announce New EP

Following the success of their album Yolk in the Fur in 2018, the New York band are set to release a new EP in March 2019 entitled 5 Songs - featuring remixes of three existing album tracks and two unreleased songs from the album recording sessions.

Existing between the space between the understated debut album and the more expansive Yolk in the Fur which was a triumphant panoramic soundscape of an album. Featuring the hallmarks of The War on Drugs coupled with the adulation for the late Tom Petty, composer and lead guitarist John Ross could well be helping his side break for the mainstream.

Yolk in the Fur garnered much praise from many connoisseurs of rock music featuring on many a Best of 2018 list from Pitchfork to Steven Hyden.

On the EP, the remixes of album tracks in order 'There Is A Ledger', 'Love Is Better' and 'All Some Frenchman's Joke' from Shy Layers, Dondadi (side project of Connor Hanwick - sometimes member of Wild Pink) and Eerie Gaits (solo guitar project of John Ross himself). The two unreleased tracks are 'Coaches Who Cry' and 'How's The Tap Here' again showcase Ross' knack of writing subtle songs with a universality to them.

This couples with news of tour dates ranging from mid January culminating with a more expansive tour commencing in late April in Los Angeles ending in Philadelphia on May 10th. Support comes from Strand of Oaks.

Yolk in the Fur is out now from Tiny Engines.
5 Songs EP is out in March 2019 from Tiny Engines.

My thanks to Tiny Engines for the press release.

Restorations 'LP5000'

Released by Tiny Engines at the end of September, the fourth studio album by Philadelphia band Restorations entitled LP5000 is out now on all platforms.

Coming in at seven tracks long and under 30 minutes in length, this is an album full of vigorous energy and an abundance of heart; with hard work dripping from the amplifiers and the smell of the end of week bar screaming through the short set list.

Throughout the album there is a polish to the musicianship, a band who are tight together and in unison reminiscent of The Hold Steady and the working-class roots of Bruce Springsteen; vocal young men shouting to be heard, and hopeful the world shouts back at them.

From the album opener 'St.' there is a rhythm to match the rock and roll that strikes through the core of the listener; there is more melody on second track 'Nonbeliever' coupled with the subtlety of 'Remains'.

The album has its marker though on 'The Red Door' a shout of adrenaline that will get toes tapping and heads bopping at once.

For fans of The National and Band of Horses, this is a rock and roll album fit for the current age of attention or lack there-of. This is not a disservice to the album, it is short, sweet and superb.

LP5000 is out now from Tiny Engines

It Looks Sad. 'Sky Lake'

The debut album Sky Lake from It Looks Sad. is released by Tiny Engines on 9th November

The first material from this pair in nearly three years, It Looks Sad hail from Charlotte, North Carolina a region of America which has beaches and gorgeous coastal lines but nothing that would make you think of rich Californian beaches in the pure sunshine.

Following band changes, the band now comprise of the duo Jimmy Turner (vocalist and keyboardist) and Alex Ruiz (drummer). Despite the hiatus Turner has not stopped writing and progressively has moved from the earnest writing of three years ago to a more formative composition; writing songs within a sonic landscape.  He asks you to embrace the sound and feel of the record.

Starting with the shimmering thumping of 'Shave' it tells us that there is a series of two-minute interludes which continues with the wonderful 'Bike'. The album is full of hooks worthy of comparison to their label mates Spirit of the Beehive and the UK's own Night Flowers. 

There has been this recent uptick in albums of quantity married with quality - bands want to be short but sweet to linger with your earworms a la Frankie Cosmos and Tony Molina. Maybe this is indicative of the lack of attention span in people nowadays, but if new bands feel this is a sow to plough then its fine by me.

From the pulsating 'Sisters' to the gorgeous 'Palms', this is an album full of priceless pop and at some points reaches moments of glory from a bygone 80s album.

Sky Lake is an album full of summer shimmers and magnificent pop that will make you smile and groove.

Sky Lake is out from Tiny Engines on all formats from Friday 9th November

David Nance Group 'Peace and Slightly Pulverized'

Released by Trouble in Mind Records in early October, this latest album is entitled Peaced and Slightly Pulverised. Below is the single 'In Her Kingdom'

David Nance is anything but prolific, and after a six year period releasing albums for labels Grapefruit and Ba Da Bing, including cover albums of Lou Reed, The Beatles; he returns with a full length album for Chicago label Trouble in Mind credited to the David Nance Group which comprises of himself, guitarist Jim Schroeder, bassist Tom May and drummer Kevin Donahue.

The album is a seven track piece of old fashioned rock and roll, featuring distortion pedals, long solos, meandering lyrics and giving the group the space to seemingly jam and riff to their hearts content to create an album that sounds both fresh and something from a by-gone era.

Endebted to the album work of early Neil Young and Crazy Horse, up to and including the oeuvre of Jim James and My Morning Jacket.  For rock aficionados, there are songs that will rock many a boat from the opener 'Poison' which is perhaps the most ear catchy song with a riff and a rhythm that would not be out of place on AOR radio currently.

While the second track 'Ham Sandwich' is a bit hit and miss due to the abundance of distortion on it, the album regains purpose when '110 Blues' and 'Amethyst' come along - songs that carry you on a wave of emotion and euphoria as solos give way to words.

The album is out now from Trouble in Mind records 

Michigan Rattlers 'Evergreen'

On the first anniversary of Tom Petty's untimely passing, I was pointed via social media to a debut album by the Michigan Rattlers entitled Evergreen.

This is an album that bursts out with the legacy and influence of Americana streaming through its veins; it is in touch with the land, the people who sow the land and those who have laid claim to it. Even more prevalent is that it comes out during the season of harvest, a record that is in touch with the fabric of the American landscape that is devoid of political ideology during this highly charged political contextualised period.

While a lot of records in recent months have attempted to make sense of the mess their country is in by way of the leaders they have elected, this band, albeit one relocated to a base of Los Angeles has not lost touch with its roots - featuring nods to bluegrass ('The Heat'), country ('Sirens') and original rhythm and blues.

Evergreen is an album eager to pay homage to famous musicians, it tells stories about being in love, about falling in love, the difficulty of love, wanting to tell that person that you are in love with them despite it all. You need only look at the chorus to 'Sweet Diane'

'I'll buy you y'all a beer if you want a drink.

And I'll take you anywhere you want to go.

You ain't got to call me by my name if you don't want to,

Just open up the door and we'll hit the road.'

In the same song is the little nugget, 'I think I saw you smile once tonight', this has the air of being in a roadside bar and having a moment that sticks with you forever.

The band consist of a trio which started as a duo when Graham Young (guitar) and Adam Reed (upright bass) where friends in Michigan who played together and worked bars sharing vocal duties. They created a self-titled EP which launched last year, and they added pianist Christian Wilder to give the additional honky tonk feel to the musicianship.

There is an aged humility to the compositional songwriting perhaps due to the shared upbringing of the original pairing, but there is an admiration for the love of music.

Songs do not overstay their welcome, instead they remind you of old friends who have come back to visit leaving you with a knowing smile of days gone by. Perhaps a reminder of halcyon days yes but the fondness of the past never dwindles.

Evergreen is out now on all available streaming platforms.

My thanks to Christopher Porter of Pulp, a Michigan based website for the recommendation.

Calvin Johnson 'A Wonderful Beast'

The new album from Calvin Johnson, is as much a collaboration as a solo album. Recorded at the Audio Eagle Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, Johnson with producer Patrick Carney and chief engineer Marc Whitmore, used the motif 'Rock and Roll will Never Die' as a premise honoring the electric guitar, modern synthesizer and trap drum kit circulating around the chords of A, C and Dm. The results is a creation unlike any rock and roll album before.

The name Carney may well be familiar to musos, as one half of Ohio's rambunctious The Black Keys, a band who were built around not setting itself limits by its own mere limitations of two musicians performing.

Johnson has released an album which is an amalgamation of invention and creation, one bursting with promise looking towards the future as well as being respectful of the past and where they have come from.

His drawl is reminiscent of early Johnny Cash and yet there is a vibrancy to the work, he may not sound infused when singing 'Kiss Me Sweetly' but there is a resilience coursing through the album

Major Murphy 'No.1'

The debut album from Grand Rapids trio Major Murphys is released from Winspear Records on 30th March.

Winging in from the States on a bed of summer sunshine as snowflakes continue to fall on this side of the Pond, Major Murphy are a band who happily wear their influences on their sleeve as deduced from a recent playlist selected for the For The Rabbits website.

As the album cover shows, it is a blank canvas to start with but little by little a range of influences and people begin to fill a void - ranging from the importance of relationships to a kaleidoscopic love of art and nature.

Their summery production and gorgeous lovely harmonies embrace universal subject matter of love, life and companionship from the opus of 'My C.C. Blues' to the random-ness of 'Radi-Yum'.

Remember when you first heard 'Nanny in Manhattan' by The Lilys; a little pocket of 60s Gold from the 1990s; well this is the latest breed of American 60s/70s rock radio pleasure - full of nods of the head to The Byrds, The Velvet Underground to the singer songwriter mood of Joni Mitchell and up to the present day Kelley Stoltz.

There is something for everyone on this album; something to listen to while on a long-haul flight, a walk around the park with a dog on the lead, a brief commute to work. This is a good album for all seasons and all kinds of weather, and fittingly their hometown of Grand Rapids also brought us Grant Wood's 'American Gothic' this No.1 album in waiting is as American as that picture depicts.

No. 1 is out from Winspear Records on 30th March.

My thanks to One Beat PR for the opportunity to review.

Margaret Glaspy 'Born Yesterday' EP

Margaret Glaspy returns with the surprise release of new EP, Born Yesterday, debuting 'Before We Were Together'.

The lead track is a gritty love song that goes hand in hand with the three songs she has released on the EP, the song has a slow build but then becomes a good rock and roll song in the similar vein to Anna Burch of recent releases:

“I wrote these songs on the road, in my hotel, on the plane, and at soundcheck,” says Glaspy. “They were the product of the little time that I had to myself - three songs about different sides of love: love gone wrong, love gone right, and love at a distance.”

The EP is a bookend to Margaret's lauded debut, Emotions and Math which featured on various End of Year lists when released in 2016. 

Born Yesterday is available digitally everywhere and the 12" will be available for pre-order (31st May, 2018) 

Born Yesterday Track List

1 - Before We Were Together

2- One Heart and Two Arms

3- I Love You Goodnight

Margaret Glaspy is signed to ATO records.

Follow Margaret on twitter @mglaspy

Ezra Furman 'Suck the Blood from my Wound'

Out today from Bella Union is the next single from Ezra Furman from his February released album Transangelic Exodus, following the video release of 'Driving Down to LA'

Part concept record, part novel, part tale of America in this Trump-era Presidency; the song is a great example of the album on a whole - catchy hook, erstwhile lyrics and a yearning for a better world full of hope despite the anxiety with the current climate, as Furman himself vouches:

“What’s essential is the mood - paranoid, authoritarian, the way certain people are stigmatised. It’s a theme in American life right now, and other so-called democracies.”

Full of intensity but paired with a bracing honesty that has been missing from recent rock records that focus on nostalgia and catchiness, Furman along with his backing band The Visions, may well be able to breakthrough to the mainstream - following critical acclaim for 2015's 'Perpetual Motion People' - by making the first true rock and roll artefact of the Trump administration.

Ezra Furman is doing three brief shows in February followed by a headline show of bigger arenas including the Brixton Academy on Wednesday 23rd May.

The album Transangelic Exodus is released from Bella Union on 9th February, my full review will be following.

Sheer Mag 'Need to Feel Your Love' - Album review

Released on July 14th from London's Static Shock Records, Need to Feel Your Love is the debut full-length release from Philadephia's Sheer Mag.

Already beloved in underground punk circles, this album is an attempt by the band to cross-over into a more rock and roll mainstream, and helped by the whirling dervish of their lead singer Tina.

Sheer Mag (L-R) - Matt, Hart, Tina, Kyle, Ian

The album is not an out and out punk record, it contains moments of pop delight and rock and roll heaven from a by-gone era; reminiscent of heady 70s licks on guitars from Thin Lizzy or the Allman Brothers to the pop delight of many American bands in the late 20th century. This can be seen in the video for 'Suffer' below.

When listening to the band this reviewer was reminded of a band called Young Heart Attack, a band whose only hit single, 'Starlite' which mixed The Who and The Darkness, with a high pitched lead singer. Sheer Mag have a female vocalist in Tina whose voice will recall Beth Ditto of The Gossip, and whilst their debut album had a very heavy punk tinge, Sheer Mag have a more inclined rock sound.

The video for rock ballad 'Just Can't Get Enough' is a great pathway into the album and if you give the album some time it will grow on you from the grit of album opener 'Meet Me in the Street' to the statement of intent that is 'Expect the Bayonet'; the rock vibe from halcyon days is perfect for these summer days in the city.

Sheer Mag 'Need to Feel Your Love' is out on July 14th.

You can pre-order the debut album from Sheer Mag from the Static Shock Records website.

American Band

American Band, is the 11th studio album by one of the best and still unheralded bands in America, Drive-By Truckers.

Consisting of a five piece with duelling compositions by Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood; the band is one of those spit and sawdust bands you imagine exist in every bar in the Southern states of America. And yet the older they have got as a band, the better they have become as a unit but also as a voice of the disillusioned masses.

The bands writing has consistently had a great sense of story and narrative, one of this reviewer's favourite albums of the 21st century remains Brighter Than Creation's Dark, which consisted of such fables as 'Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife', 'Three Dimes Down' and 'Monument Valley'.

When Drive-By Truckers released their first single of the album 'Surrender Under Protest', the point was made by Patterson Hood in a statement:  

"These are crazy times and we have made a record steeped in this moment of history that we're all trying to live through. We've always considered ourselves a political band, even when that aspect seemed to be concealed by some type of narrative device i.e. dealing with issues of race by telling a story set in the time of George Wallace or class struggles by setting "Putting People of the Moon" in the age of Reagan.

This time out, there are no such diversions as these songs are mostly set front and center in the current political arena with songs dealing with our racial and cultural divisions, gun violence, mass shootings and political assholery. Once again, there is a nearly even split between the songs of Cooley and myself, with both of us bringing in songs that seem to almost imply a conversation between us about our current place in time."

The band are celebrating their 20th anniversary with the release of this album, and it can be interpreted that the album is a call to arms about the way the world is but also a sense of America coming to terms with not being the biggest noise in the room anymore, a realisation that the country's time is passing with the possible calamity of a Donald Trump presidency mere months away.

The album has the usual bombast and rock and roll guitars from the opening riffs of 'Ramon Casiano', but there is more subdued tone in the lyrics from the lead single of 'Surrender Under Protest' to the wrenching 'Guns of Umpqua' to the reflective 'Once They Banned Imagine'

Cooley and Hood's vocals are great to hear as they mix maturity with the ever optimistic streak throughout their oral history, yet there is still that sense of a moment passing by and of America changing in this current political climate.

'I might get better when the sun don't shine,

Much rather watch the clouds go by'
- 'When the Sun Don't Shine'

The album is a must for all Americana fans and those who love the sound of riffing guitars be it from Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen; this album packs a direct punch and will get your toes tapping quicker than a line dancing contest.

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
AMERICAN BAND TRACKLISTING:

1)      Ramon Casiano
2)      Darkened Flags on the Cusp of Dawn
3)      Surrender Under Protest
4)      Guns of Umpqua
5)      Filthy and Fried
6)      When the Sun Don’t Shine
7)      Kinky Hypocrites
8)      Ever South
9)      What It Means
10)    Once They Banned Imagine
11)    Baggage

American Band by Drive-By Truckers is released by ATO Records on 30th September 2016

Catch the band on tour
Follow them on Twitter @drivebytruckers