Flashy Knob Twiddling Fellatio - It's Singled Out!

Share

The Chemical Brothers have got the formula down to a tee, take a catchy little synthesized hook, add a few screeching beeps and bips and sit back while Bloc Party’s wailing wordsmith Kele Okereke catapults you to a sure fire hit with ‘Believe‘. Putting upstarts like LCD Soundsystem back in their place they show they are still the Kings of the crossover taking Dance ethics and adding a sprinkle of indie cool to produce a monster of a second single off latest album ‘Push The Button’. When Kele sings ‘I needed to believe in something, I need you to believe something’ it means absolutely nothing but who cares cos you your already dancing around making a complete twat of yourself.

Minotaur Shock’s ‘Vigo Bay EP’ is a beguiling mixture of simple acoustics and processed beats, mainly instrumental apart from third track ‘This Side Of Vigo Bay’ which features the simple but affective vocals of Dominic Jones. It drifts in and out of your consciousness, striking a fine balance in being atmospheric while still remaining interesting. Each song has a different feel, title tack ‘Vigo Bay’ is like a journey through South America while ‘Lady Gazelle’ is an acid jazz trip in to outer space.

Psychid’s ‘Room 512’ opens like a happy hardcore/helter skelter revival, chugs along on a wave knob twiddling electronica and crashes and burns in pile of driving guitar riffs. All overlaid with the most preposterous lyrics you heard in your life, the chorus consists of the words ‘An Actress, A Miracle’ repeated about fifty times. And as for the verses, lets just say you’d get more sense out of a Mark E Smith interview. It’s all very pleasant enough but without doing anything particularly new, it all feels a little too obvious and mechanical. That’s said its still a hundred times better than this weeks Scottish turkey.

‘Smile Like You Mean It’ is probably what the photographer said to Brandon Flowers during his 2 millionth photo shoot of the year, promoting yet another single off ‘Hot Fuss’. You’d think the world would have had enough of The Killers by now, but not this monolithic monotone synth anthem. The kings of the indie disco are back and with Flowers deadpan vocals bemoaning the indifference of today’s teenagers it’s like the last few months never happened and The Bravery were still just a twinkle in some dread locked ragamuffins eye.

After all the synthesized electronic mayhem so far on Singled Out this week lets settle down for a nice camp fire jamboree with our friend from Massachusetts Willy Mason. ‘So Long’ is Mason’s ode to his dreams of having a hobo lifestyle but instead finding himself locked behind the bars of the conformity of society. It’s an upbeat skiffle come bluegrass, eat your heart out Dolly Parton ding-dong-athon. The thing about this song is its so bloody infectious it just makes to get up and do some kind of jig, slap your knee and play the fiddle. God darn it, take me the Grand Ole Opry!

It would appear that Rivers Cuomo has been spending far too much time in LA and ‘rolling like a celebrity’.Weezer’s new single ‘Beverley Hills’ is flashy, trashy and as fake as a Playboy Bunny’s tits. Like fast food it hits all the right spots at the time but leaves you feeling empty afterwards. Its certainly lowest common denominator rock, but hey everyone likes a hamburger or a piece of fried chicken every once in a while. Its like a guilty secret, you like it but you’ll never admit it.

Maximo Park who take their name from a municipal gardens in Cuba named after a famous communist, write a song ‘Graffiti’ about the student riots of Paris in 1968. Full of confusingly beautiful lyrics and romanticisms this is an art-pop masterpiece. Twisting and turning through tight angular guitars into complex melodies, you thought they couldn’t surpass ‘Apply Some Pressure’, well they just did. When front man Paul Smith sings ‘I’ll do graffiti if you sing to me in French’ a thousand little indie girls get down on their knees, say ‘Qui Monsieur’ and offer fellatio.

Dark and brooding, ‘Love Is A Unfamiliar Name’ is roused to a reverberating crescendo of a chorus by the vocals of The Duke Spirit’s first lady Liela Moss. It pounds on like a satanic mass accompanied by metallic guitars, with obvious comparisons to the Velvet Underground, Moss adds a Nico-esque edge which raises this song above the mundane. Its hypnotic nature drags you over to the dark side. You just wonder where this band would be without the smouldering intensity of Mosses vocals, stripped down just to the music its difficult to imagine it really getting anywhere. The boys of The Duke Spirit must be thanking there lucky stars as they are dragged into indie hype-dom on the coat tails of their enigmatic front woman.

Dogs’ front man Johnny Cooke is well known for his flowery diction. Now we the reviewers at Gigwise would never stoop so low as to pander to his base instincts but new single ‘Tuned To A Different Station’ is a fucking beast. Fuck that its the proverbial bollocks! Three minutes of fucked up, guitar shredding indie punk that beats the living shit out of you and then makes you come back for another fucking kicking. Well Done Mr Cooke. Or I could just be talking bollocks for the sake of it.

The Eels aka Mark Everett and his backing band return with ‘Hey man (Now You’re Really Living)’ taken from new album ‘Blinking Lights And Other Revelations’. ‘Novocain For The Soul’ this ain’t, we find Everett in an extremely happy mood, toasting the joys of life from the sunrise to sitting in freshly cut grass. You can take this song two ways, at first it’s a catchy indie pop tune - an instant hit of happiness - but then after a while it starts to get really annoying until you just want to walk up to Everett and shout at him about how life’s not that happy all the time and can he just shut the fuck up!

On the other hand, don’t you just wish The Dears would cheer up a bit. Murray Lightburn we know you like Morrissey but in the end he just became a boring bastard, please don’t go the same way. That’s said new single ‘22: The Death Of All Romance’ is a touch of class. Reminiscent of 60s avant-garde French pop ala Serge Gainsberg, its like a night out in the Latin Quarter. Theatrical, bittersweet, a story of star crossed lovers. The Dears produce the closest thing in music to a black and white art house movie, a melodramatic symphony of a pop song.

Turkey  Of The Week: Lets have a recap of Idlewild‘s year so far - Firstly they release an album of MOR Rock tedium, then release a first single of MOR Rock tedium and now follow that up with another single of MOR Rock tedium. You could say that 2005 hasn‘t been a particularly good year for Roddy Womble and Co so far. Anyway, on with the review of their latest offering. ‘I Understand It’ is the dreariest thing to come from north of the border since the creations of a certain Hoxton Finned, out of tune Glaswegian. Gone is the excitement that drew fans to early Idlewild records, replaced by music suitable only for sound tracking the opening of a library. They’d like to think it was big and beautiful, all expansive melodies and Womble’s ridiculously over the top arty lyrics. It’s not, its just boring. Goodnight - ZZZZZZZ