Little Stars of Unsilent Nights

The Cast (Albums) : Chris Stamey, Emma Pollock, Nightbus, Pendulum, Slow Country, Wallace

The Cast (EPs, Singles and Songs) : Fatboy Slim and The Rolling Stones, Maud Anyways, Sonia Gadhia and CASTLEBEAT

Anything Is Possible : Chris Stamey

Best For : People who want to celebrate the golden age of 60s crooner pop.

Despite, or perhaps because of its warm sunny disposition this is perfect Christmas listening. It's the kind of album that brings generations together. Like all Christmas indulgences including Baileys and liqueur chocolates it may not be the music you'd want to listen to all year round but for now, it's more likely than not to hit the spot.

This is an album of lovingly recreated sunshine sixties pop featuring wonderful harmonies, particularly with The Lemon Twigs on 'I'd Be Lost Without You'. If Sinatra was still around, you'd be expecting him to sing songs like 'After All This Time'. Its misty eyed reflections are perfect for sixty somethings enjoying a few quiet moments of reminiscing around the tree on Christmas Eve.

It's hard to listen to this with a frown on your face. The aforementioned 'I'd Be Lost Without You' is the embodiment of clean, boy next door pop. It's a luxury experience with lovingly positioned details in the unhurried production. Little trills bubble up through the music like long forgotten thoughts through memory. Of its type, this is unimprovable.

You have to acknowledge the echoes of The Byrds and The Beach Boys, but also of turn of the millennium bands like Cosmic Rough Riders, Hal and The Thrills. Let me stress though that this is a sweet celebration of a bygone age, not a rip off of a much loved genre.

Towards the end there's an appealing melancholy in the mix, the thought that, at 71, Staymer may be approaching his swansong. If so, it's a grand one.

Taster Track : I'd Be Lost Without You

Emma Pollock has an established solo career to follow on from her time with The Delgados, but I'm not sure she's produced an album like this before.

This is unconventional pop that's complex, lush and thoughtful. It veers unexpectedly into chamber pop and orchestral arrangements with much to investigate. There was always a feeling with the Delgados that they were striving for epic but in the wrong genre. On this album, ambition and genre feel well matched. Throughout this album, I can't shake the sense of a modern day Miss Havisham sharing her unspoken thoughts. It adds to the slightly feverish sense of unreality that permeates the album.

These are songs that want to stretch beyond pop into something that feels more like a song cycle. They are songs that are sung for you, not to you. They're a performance . not an engagement with the audience. Songs come equipped with memorable melodies that feel secondary to the sense of drama created. They share that in common with The Last Dinner Party if The Last Dinner Party made greater use of an orchestra.

One of the best songs here, 'Rapid Rush of Red' highlights the unconventional tricks that are played throughout. Towards the end there's an unheralded and unrepeated burst of fuzzy guitar. 'Prize Hunter' strikes an appealing, quirky note, while 'Pages Of A Magazine' builds to a satisfying climax.

Throughout her career, Emma has always had a hand in a number of rewarding quieter songs such as The Delgados 'Make Your Move' or her own 'The Child In Me'. I've loved that approach, but it's absent here. As a result, the album becomes a little too rich for my taste, even as I appreciate its skill and quality. That's a bit like criticising Harrods for being a bit pricey. It's one of the reasons for visiting it.

This is an album for Emma to be proud of, but not one for me to love unconditionally.

Taster Track : Pages Of A Magazine

Inertia : Pendulum

Best for : Anyone who needs a shot of loud, horror comic, electro rock in their life.

I hadn't listened to Pendulum since 2008's drum and bass heavy 'In Silico'. It's not entirely my lukewarm reaction to that album that meant they passed me by as they were on hiatus between 2012 and 2024. They're back now though and, somewhat to my surprise I enjoyed this immensely.

For a start, they're much less drum and bass oriented, less reliant on extreme beats and they've found room for a good number of tunes. I'm not sure they know how to write anything other than huge, stadium sized anthems.

They can lay fair claim to being both the danciest rock band and the heaviest dance act. To a delicate listener, this is the definition of hardcore. On 'Halo' it seems they have mutated into a horror comic band, but it's an entertaining transformation. On 'Save The Cat' they've mixed a dance version of Slipknot with a cartoon cat. Weird, but enjoyable. 'Napalm' brings an avalanche of electronic effects. Parts of 'Guiding Lights', their collaboration with AWOLNATION, are almost pop. There are some quieter moments. 'Nothing For Free' includes something that's quiet, but like the eye of a hurricane - you know that the storm isn't over yet! And is that mariachi trumpet that opens 'Silent Spinner'? That's just ridiculous, but it works. It's a quieter song only in the sense that the immediate aftermath of an explosion contains all the shock and noise of what came before.

It's the presence of tunes that makes this album. The songs are exhilarating, like standing in the centre of a prism during an explosion. Shards of colour are flying all over the place. They've ended their hiatus with purpose and they're bigger and better than before. The album is a resounding success in part because they just don't make music like this any more.

Taster Track : Archangel

Passenger : Nightbus

Best for : Lovers of sweetly sung, hauntingly delivered, dark synthpop

Have you ever been on a nightbus, alone with your thoughts with the stares of a few fellow passengers causing you to feel uncomfortable? Those feelings of tension and apprehension are at the heart of this record although it takes a little while for that to become apparent.

This is an album for when you're tired, but not ready for sleep, for when you want to trigger dreams that are dark and haunting but strangely seductive too. These songs are not sweet lullabies though. They're quiet but only deceptively soothing, full of suggestive fears lurking in shadows and heard from somewhere out of sight.

'Somewhere, Nowhere' sets the tone, an instrumental that is atmospheric and eerie but with a haunting melody. It leads into the excellent 'Angles Mortz', full of early Cure influences but with the emphasis more on melody than anguish and self loathing. That comes later.

The lyrics tell the true story. Take these typical lines and hear them sung with the sweetest vocals

"I'm a whore, I'm a sadist

Mi amore, it's so tasteless"

There's a hush to the work on songs like 'False Prophet' that make for something unsettling and sinister that volume alone can never provide. It heralds the start of a downward spiral. By the time you reach the harder edge of 'Host' a trap has been sprung and a knife twisted, dragging you onto the darker nightmare world of '7am'. If you come to this record, as I did, through their 2023 single 'Mirrors', you'll find that they've exchanged the desperation of that record for a more polished icy control. It's memorable for all the right reasons.

As well as The Cure influences, there's a lot of early New Order in there too. It's the balance between the sweetness of the vocals, the accessibility of the music and the nightmare feelings of the lyrics that give this record its unique character.

Nightbus are a band to be spoken about in the same breath as Honeyglaze and English Teacher, at the very top of contemporary indie.

Taster Track : Angles Mortz

Red, Yellow, Black : Wallace

Best for : Anyone who loves a great sonic adventure

This fascinating blend of ambient and dance electronica is the perfect way to wind down 2025.

From the opening sound of growling thunder on 'Waterfall', you're embarking on a compelling expedition into rhythm and sound. It's absorbing, a pot pourri of sonic sensations - storms, oriental gardens, sirens, electro effects, spoken word to name just a few. It's a journey through exotic soundscapes with something different around every twist and bend. It's a travelogue of sound, blending music and nature without ever veering off course into the realms of new age.

'Labyrinth' is the album's centrepiece and it highlights all that's good in this album. It avoids abstract concepts and offputting difficulty by carrying you along on a flow you can relax into.

Red, Yellow, Black turns your expectations of genre inside out. You'll tap your feet, shuffle your hips and let your shoulders sway but it's also dance music where the chief rewards come simply from listening to it. It's ambient music that demands to be heard.

It's the work of a man with music in his soul. Nothing feels taken off the shelf or put together off the cuff. Listen to 'Midnight On The Mountain' and hear how everything is carefully crafted and stitched together. Admire the restraint at play in the bubble effects on 'Bubbles'. Nothing is overdone, everything is perfectly pitched. This isn't a work that feels that it was composed under the pressure of studio deadlines. It feels that it's a work that should be listened to as one extended track, a showcase for all that's positive about modern electronic music

This is an album that expresses Wallace's personality and it's one you'll want to spend time with. In the bass lines you can hear a little of Groove Armada, but in the inventive and playful spirit you can hear the completely different approach of Simon Jeffes' Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

Arrive at the end of this trip relaxed, entertained and bedazzled.

Taster Track : Waterfall

You Still Believe In Me : Slow Country

Best for : Lovers of stunningly beautiful and soothing music

In the last record review blog ('Eat. Drink. Party. Sleepzzzz') I reviewed Jim Twenty-one's 'Nadine', a thrillingly raucous blast of 80s alternative noise. Kenny from the band released a solo instrumental album a few weeks ago as Slow Country. Kenny describes the album a little modestly as "new, instrumental stuff exploring the idea of making tunes without the standard verse-chorus etc structure, and allowing the absence of vocals to leave listeners free to use their imagination as they hear it kind of thing."

I'd describe it differently. It's a stunningly beautiful, quiet and tranquil collection of music that rests somewhere between pop and ambient. It has a strong pop core, and there are moments throughout, such as on 'Rain On Fire', when you can imagine this is what shoegaze might sound like completely shorn of effects.

Slow Country is the sound of a man at peace with himself, comfortable with an ambience of his own making and choosing. It's a zen like experience listening to this. The tunes drift by, gently nudging you to recognise that they contain something special as they caress, soothe and move you.

Slow Country are based in Japan which may account for that experience and for the faint but welcome oriental sounds in a track like 'Upright'. Although not trapped within conventional pop structures, you'll still find wonderful and overt melodies in pieces such as 'Forever Tones' and 'A Plateau, A Sunset'. Brass appears in 'Neon Neighbourhood' as guitars descend into something as restoring as warm Winter sunshine on an eyes shut face with the sound of the sea in the background.

One of the most exciting things is hearing the journey taken from the sound of Jim's Twenty-one to this, from the whipping up of a storm determined to be heard to the quiet and happy acceptance of life as it is now. It's a musical journey that we all take to some extent. You can experience the end of the journey for yourself on Bandcamp - listen for free or download for what you're able to pay.

Slow Country has given us music that is as unexpected and beautiful as a pearl in an oyster.

Taster Track : Forever Tones (Sadly not available on YouTube or Spotify )

EPs, Singles and Songs

'What's Gone Is For Nothingness' is a new single from French indie artist Maud Anyways. It's one of the most enjoyable shoegaze songs I've heard for a while. Her voice floats eerily above a bass groove that proves to be truly addictive - one of the catchiest bass lines of recent times.The rhythm and percussion on the track feels loose but propelled by perpetual motion. It loses none of the atmosphere of traditional shoegaze but, wait a minute, showgaze you can dance to? Yes please!

You can also dance to 'Prism' from Sonia Gadhia and CASTLEBEAT - an end of the evening, slow dance with someone special who makes your night, Christmas, year complete. It's a lovely slice of melodic dream pop, chilled and warm, upbeat and sleepy. That may sound like too many contradictions but it works perfectly.

Bringing new life to two old songs, Fatboy Slim and The Rolling Stones marry up the 'Rockafeller Skank' with 'Satisfaction'. It's a mix Fatboy Slim has been using in encores for 25 years, but he'd been unable to obtain permission to release it commercially. It's the separated bass and guitar lines and the "Hey, hey hey…No, no no" of Satisfaction that liberates Fatboy Slim's chaotic skank to soar free It's a mash up made in party Heaven and a reasonable bet for this year's Christmas No 1.