Round Up Reviews

There's a frankly embarrassing backlog of things I've been sent recently, so rather than let stuff sit in the inbox forever, here's a very quick round up of the shorter things, singles and demos.

If you've sent something over and it's ended up on here instead of getting a proper review then sorry, but there's only so much time in the day.

Palace Ballet - Gabriel/City of Lights

This was meant to get a full review weeks ago. Clearly, that didn't happen so instead through no fault of it's own, it's ended up in here. Gabriel is straight up indie pop, complete with a big catchy chorus and lots of "whoa-oh-ohs". Nothing particularly groundbreaking, but perfectly enjoyable all the same. I could have lived without my copy having a radio friendly edit of the "happy as a pig in shit" lyric though, but that's a small complaint. City of Lights stands out a bit more and shows off that there's more to the band than you might expect. Lots going on without being cluttered, lots of shifting styles and moods. Good stuff really. Shame I kept forgetting to review it till now. Gabriel/City of Lights is available as a download from iTunes now.

Night Noise Team - You Won:
I had to check a couple of times I was listening to the right thing here. I've heard a fair chunk of Night Noise Team before and didn't expect their next single to be some big dancefloor monster. This is ace. You Won is released as a download on May 17th.

Happy Vandals - Dusk

A wee bit like Last Shadow Puppets for me, but decent enough. Gets a bit more interesting towards the end, and there's some nice jangly guitar in there. More promising that exciting, but nowhere near bad. Download some demos free here.

Tokyo Knife Attack - Cool Kids:

Gloriously retro synthpop. The kind of thing that - similar to X-Lion Tamer - I usually start off thinking "I shouldn't like this" then after about 30 seconds give in, abandon my snobbery and dance my arse off to. Excellent. Cool Kids is released as a download on May 31st.

Blue Sky Archives - EP:

Ah, I like this. It's pretty much indie pop with a bit of post-rock slung in, but it does what it does really well, and manages to find it's way right up my street. Well, apart from the very start of second track The Highest of Fives, which always makes me think I'm about to hear Natalie Imbruglia sign Torn. Still, it's a pleasant surprise when I don't have to suffer that. Aaaand now I'm rambling. EP closer Sleeves Rolled Up, The Team Rolls Out has a bit more drive and urgency to it than the first two tracks, which rounds things out nicely. Liked this a lot, so you can probably expect me to bring up Blue Sky Archives again in the future. The Blue Sky Archives EP is available now on Bandcamp.

Indian Red Lopez - KYS:

All a bit run of the mill, plodding and indistinct sadly. I've heard much better from this band before, so we'll write this off as a blip. Still, bit disappointing.