Reviews – Singles
August 2006
SIX OF THE BEST
SINGLE OF THE MONTH
Kasabian
Empire (Columbia)
Kasabian’s self-titled debut album mixed and matched Oasis’ arrogance with Happy Mondays’s druggy grooves, all topped off with tight contemporary electro-rock production. Initially it sounded a bit of a pastiche but the songs are insidiously defiant and catchy and it remains, perhaps, an essential album of the post-millennial decade. The Leicester rock monsters return in ebullient form with a mighty racket wherein the drug-funk has been replaced with a bombastic glam-rock throb. Kasabian continue to be contenders, a populist rock’n’roll band in an age of post-rock reassessment, folky bores and Coldplay wimpery. Fire up the sound system, get out the drugs and ignore the endless critiques from old bastards who reckon they’ve seen it all before. ‘Empire’ is a 24 carat stomper and that’s all that matters.
Man Like Me
Wine & Dine (Non Stop)
From worrying that he’s spent half an hour laying into Chelsea Football Club in his opening pitch, through to self-recriminations over a pint the following lunchtime, Man Like Me’s view of a night of chatting up followed by the next day’s paranoia of is truthful, funny and endearing. He’s found an intriguingly unique MCing voice – very male but also comically self-critical. Happily the accompanying music isn’t the usual sub-Dizzee grimey racket but a muscular electronic rumpus that holds the attention and holds its own (as showcased on the various remixes).
Pop Levi
Blue Honey EP (Counter)
Ninja Tune’s new ‘proper band’ sub-label (or at least we think that’s the idea) kick off with the Super Numeri avant-rocker’s solo project and it’s a cracker. Like Kasabian he’s decided to grab a chunk of early ‘70s glam and smear it all very his very 2006 production. Funnily enough, he even looks like a member of Kasabian on the cover art but before we get carried away with the analogy, he owes the Leicester rock band nothing. Pop Levi’s T Rex-ish racket is very much its own thing, bursting with zippy riffs and vocal harmonies, and with a vibrant good time attitude to pilfering rock history.
Ulterior
Weapons (Advanced)
Cheap journalism but… Underworld on speed. At long last some of techno’s boys have realised that there’s fun to be had embracing punk raucousness. With the guitar hordes invading the electronic arc, it’s about time some of the original beat-slingers tried their hand at rocking out. Paul and Benn McGregor and guitarist Paul Simmons owe the usual huge debt to Suicide but who cares – their seething bullet train of beats’n’noise surges out of the speakers with visceral intent, and the singer happily has the same addiction to speaker echo-units that the Butthole Surfer’s Gibby Haines exhibited for years.
Smatka
Mr V (www.smatka.com)
Coming on like a mutant fusion of Grace Jones and Gina X Performance, ‘Mr V’ is a narrative about the eccentric character of the title, delivered over a squelching computer meltdown. Smatka hails from the Polish-German border and her vision of pop is particularly skewed, like Toni Basil one moment and an elecroclash Slits the next. Pronouncing all her ‘w’s as ‘v’s, she marches through these three offbeat tales with a strident Teutonic singlemindedness. She’s certainly a one-off and her untempered derangement is a tonic.
Culprit 1
Sway EP (Exceptional)
A nice opening shot from a promising electronic talent. He must have learned a thing or two during his years at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, mostly that tuneage doesn’t have to be JUST bangin’ or JUST chilled as long as there’s something lush going on, a lesson the often wonderful Orbital made their raison d’etre. Nothing on this five tracker is outstanding but all of it tempts the taste buds to hope for more, whether in the shuffling majestic grooves of the title track or the washes of My Bloody Valentine-esque fuzz on ‘Amoh’.
Singles for review should be sent to…
Thomas H Green, Beatmag, PO Box 4653, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 9FG, UK
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