Album reviews

a strange and rather beautiful concoction

Exquisitely crafted, perfectly distilled and utterly fulfilling in every way.

You can meow right off

Nada Surf seem to be getting better at what they do

akin to drinking a full bottle of bourbon whiskey in about 45 minutes

unsurprisingly, quite a schizophrenic album

Tex-Mex dining for the ears

Indeed it’s as if we’ve just attuned our receiver back into Toulouse Trax’s little world; which has, unbeknownst to us, merely carried on doing its thing

The fuzzy, gloopy atmosphere is what makes this record: it looks to slowly draw you in, by stealth and then drown your senses with its heavy-lidded sensuality.

I do find it a bit of a mixed bag; GBV were always a restless and slightly alien proposition, one that couldn’t really take time to worry about defining itself for eternital judgement.

The thud of the drums and the clash of the guitars give these pieces an almost tribal quality, you can see them being the soundtracks to an induction ceremony of a groovy cult or some such.

....it boasts some outrageously simple hooks and riffs, such as on the tremendous funk marathon that is Sundance - a brutal head trip very much in the spirit of Gavin Russom.

There’s something in certain tracks of Rules that scream “Big Black” at me. Again - nothing to worry about, whereas Big Black were all “nasty” and aggressive, these Civil Civic dudes are relentlessly happy.

I could go on and on about this release but suffice to say that it’s a tremendous record and you need to give it a spin.

There’s a feeling in all of the pieces that is akin to the music in an old adventure film, when the heroes stumble on a lost valley in a remote part of the world, or are transported back to the realm of the dinosaurs

There’s that element of making something that is not going to be heard by millions of people and in consequence has something very appealing about it.

If I was being polemical there’s a case to be made to hold Childish’s records up against an increasingly nervous, over-qualified and timid age.