Close Your Eyes And Stretch Your Ears

Starring

Actress, Citron Citron, Common Saints, Mellt, Nerina Pallot, Press Club, Sam Moss

The Front Runners

Cinema 3000 : Common Saints

Hitting the bullseye, Commons Saints’ collection of chilled, soulful electronic pop will guide you gently into, through and out of the day.

If you want them to, Common Saints will become your new transcendental guru. Taking ‘Blackbird’ as an example, they come across as healers providing balm for the spirit. And if your needs aren’t that highfalutin, this is also the music you want as you linger in a steaming, candlelit bath at the end of a tiring week.

‘Sweet Release’ is exactly what you want to hear as an opening track. It’s a slice of soaring, soulful pop and builds hope that if the following songs maintain the same standard you’re in for something special. Cinema 3000 does not disappoint. You can file it under the same mood creator space as Air or Zero 7 with a dash of current soul men such as Leon Bridges. It has a quite gorgeous, indulgently addictive, French electropop feel.

‘Sandman’ and ‘Blackbird’ draw you into the realms of cosmic electronica. There’s a sudden swerve into a catchier sound with ‘Celebrate’ and ‘Activate’. They’re both good songs that sound as if they’re a deliberate stab at a hit single in the spirit of Charles and Eddie. ‘Idol Eyes’ will have guitar Gods searching for a new opportunity to show off their guitar work, reaching for their plectrums. ‘Dreams’ returns us to the spacey, blissed out feel, and has the intimacy of a soothing voice inside your head.

The great strength of this album is the way it borrows from soul and RnB, late 70s non psychedelic Temptations, the best of French pop and improvised rock while remaining true to its core feel.

This is an indulgent wallow in chilled positivity. Don’t resist.

Taster Track : Sweet Release

A Psalm For Emily Salvi : Nerina Pallot

From time to time it’s nice to have a break from music that challenges you and enjoy an album of classic Radio 2 type songwriting. Nerina Pallot’s album from last year fulfils that brief very well indeed.

Nerina Pallot has been a singer songwriter for nearly 25 years. With a little more luck she could have become the next big thing but, for whatever reason, it never quite happened. Starting with the surprising, gentle funk of ‘Pressure’, complete with wraparound psalm, this album shows many signs of why this was thought possible.

It’s an assured album, self produced and showing immense self belief. It’s not a quintessentially British sound. Over the years she’s drifted to the mid Atlantic but has no difficulty staying afloat. The songs cry out for the MTV treatment of glossy, soft treatment, hi definition videos. It’s a consciously retro album, back to the sound of mid 80s yacht rock, or 70s Sunday morning Radio 1,but strong enough to qualify as timeless too. It’s comfortable but in the good way that makes it feel as if you’ve known and enjoyed it for a long time.

Her sleeve is full of more than a few tricks, which she uses discreetly so that they don’t feel overdone. As they should, they add colour to songs that would have been more than decent demos. It’s one of the skills that made Carole King such a strong writer of classic pop songs.

It’s a well structured collection The album opener, ‘Pressure’ catches the ear immediately and the closer, ‘And Here A Garden’, provides a satisfying crescendo. In between, there’s only one song - Lover -  that wobbles along the line that marks out uninspiring slush. ‘Regrets’ has a jaunty, communal gospel feel, a vibe that returns in ‘Call Your Momma’ - always good advice - with the soulful gospel tone of the backing vocals. The backing vocals throughout are a delight, with ‘Hold My Hand’ a particularly strong example. ‘Madison’ wins you over with its gentle, arms aloft, swaying momentum.

This is classic songwriting at its finest.

Taster Track : Hold My Hand

The Chasing Pack

Statik : Actress

There are a number of reasons that this collection at the border of Intelligent Dance Music and ambient electronica shouldn’t work, but it does.

It’s a disorienting listening experience at times. ‘Hell’ is surprisingly lovely considering its title. Yes there are moments of crunching industrial sounds, but they swap places with extended moments of quiet beauty. It’s strangely muffled, as if heard from within a sealed container. That’s a quality it shares with ‘System Verse’ which is filled with the sounds of an amusement arcade heard from the generator room. It’s a feeling that you’re not quite in the same space as the music.

‘Static’ and ‘My Ways’ feel like incidental fragments caught in mid composition. They’re interesting and listenable but leave you short changed. If they were works of art, they would feel separate from you like an exhibition piece seen behind strengthened glass. They ask you to admire it, gasp in amazement maybe or nod your head appreciatively and not necessarily in time with the music. They do not ask you to feel. As with the album cover you can’t quite tell what’s going on or why.

You may become impatient with how the album is panning out, but wait. It builds its effect cumulatively and gently. There is musicality in the ambience. ‘Rainlines’ shows this, and it has a beat that could qualify it as I.D.M. - just! ‘Dolphin Spray’ is glitchy and bleepy but also gently blurping, squelching and bubbling away.

Unexpectedly, you’ll realise that this is a comforting album. ‘Ray’ is a reassuring reminder that sound and music will carry on regardless. It will be a constant  when all around is breaking down in chaos. It’s a soothing experience too as it weaves its way intricately across your headphones and into your head.

This is an album that asks you to trust it, and it’s more than OK to do so.

Taster Track : Rainlines

 Mareeternelle : Citron Citron

Citron Citron are a brother and sister duo whose synth pop music comes from the Swiss underground scene. I enjoyed it, but it was occasionally infuriating.

The trouble is, they’re a hard act to pin down. Just when you think you’ve got their measure, they prove you wrong. If you can get to know it you’ll like it, but they play hard to get. Opening track ‘Nuage Defile’ slowly emerges from its noodly backing into a fully formed song. It’s cryptic and enigmatic, offering no concessions to easy access such as hummability. It’s going to be a long 40 minutes. But the following track ‘Est-ce Que Tu Dors’ is much easier to like.

Further on, the instrumental ‘Portamento’ highlights that the thin vocals are a barrier. They offer little by way of feeling and emotion. They’re neutral and deadened. Lyrics sound intoned as much as sung. But, no sooner have you reached that conclusion, along comes ‘Mer du Nord’. It’s the cascading and alternating vocals there that bring the song to life, transforming their sound into something immensely likeable.

There’s a suggestion of early synth pop, influenced by the sound of the late 70s when excitement at what a synthesiser could do for you sometimes overpowered any belief in good tunes. As acts like OMD and John Foxx demonstrated, synths were the future and impressed through their new sounds. Famously, one reviewer noted that OMD couldn’t decide if they wanted to be New Order or Abba. Citron Citron don’t know if they want to be intense and mysterious or, as on ‘Par Un Temps Pareil’, bouncier, snappier and out for a good time.

‘Dans Ma Bulle’ is just one example of a song that has an ethereal beauty buried within it. It’s in the sliding guitar and ambient rain, a beautifully atmospheric combination. It’s not a one off moment either.

Mareeternelle is an album that tests your patience, but if you pass the test there is much here to enjoy. You have to listen for it, but you’ll be pleased you did.

Taster Track : Mer du Nord

Dim Dwywaith : Mellt

From 2023, Mellt’s album shows that rock can sometimes be a more thrilling and all consuming experience even if, or perhaps because, you haven’t a clue what it’s about.

This is alternative rock not just because it’s sung in Welsh. It has an early Creation Records feel, the rawness of the young Teenage Fanclub combined with the broken rhythms and momentum of bands loved by Steve Lamacq.

Listening to this record is like stepping out of an alleyway and being swept along by a crowd high on adrenaline to who knows where. It’s like arriving at a storming gig half way through when it’s already begun building to its climax. If you let this wash over you, you’ll be impressed by its energy and power, rendered alive and tingling as if you’d taken the ice bucket challenge. If you listen more carefully you’ll be able to reassemble melodies, and make sense of its rhythms and structures. It’s helplessly and irresistibly thrilling.

The album starts with a curveball. For a few seconds ‘Marconi’ sounds almost progressive until its scintillating chorus arrives through. ‘Edrych Nol’ pushes off from pop into the chaotic but glorious noise that characterises the album. The off kilter rhythms that you find on ‘Dysga’ and elsewhere carry that noise and those tunes on their shoulders. It’s an attractively rough and ready sound, the sound a shattered window might make if it’s still held in place by its frame.

Thinking of other Welsh bands, Mellt are less mainstream than Manic Street Preachers or Stereophonics, harder edged than Super Furry Animals, more Welsh than any of them. 

Mellt are a band that show that quality rock is alive and most definitely kicking.

Taster Track : Marconi

To All The Ones I Love : Press Club

Self styled Australian punks, Press Club deliver an album of songs that rock but don’t quite convince. 

Maybe it’s an unfortunate use of the term ‘punk’. It raises expectations but over time it’s become blurred into other genres - post punk, power pop and emo for three. It’s quite anti-punk to adopt the label to sell themselves, to use it as part of their brand. In its purest form - as heard in authentic Australian punks The Saints - it felt necessary. Press Club are in danger of trying to be all things to a market demographic. They need to let the elements that make them necessary rise to the surface.

‘Champagne and Nike’ has the spitting snarl and sense of an onslaught needed to abduct your attention, and generally they shout rather than letting their music do the talking. And let’s face it, musically they don’t need to be as raw or basic as punk. They’re more than capable of playing more than three chords!

Does it matter how they describe themselves? Maybe not, but the effect is that this sounds more like a display than the greater authenticity delivered by Amyl and the Sniffers. Perhaps they’re a band in transition, tentatively moving away from something less into something - whisper it quietly - more mature and thoughtful. If that’s the case ‘Vacate’ is a good example of how they might sound next time around. 

At the moment, this doesn’t convince. They’ve retained some punk elements but, overall, this sounds like they want one foot in the corporate festival (‘To All The Ones I Love’) and an eye on the latest young adult soundtrack (‘Staring At The Ceiling). The danger is, their fans will outgrow them and move on leaving them behind to battle it out with the next new thing.

Despite this, the album has its moments. It captures the sense of releasing pent up anger and frustration on ‘No Pressure’. They’re a good songwriting team, even if they’re not completely sure who they’re writing for.

Sadly though, these are punks that didn’t really make my day.

Taster Track : Vacate

Swimming : Sam Moss

Sam Moss takes us to a place where a deep rooted country meets a bluesy Americana. It’s admirable, intense and serious.

To do justice to the music here, it sometimes felt as if you needed to pass an entry exam to demonstrate your fitness to listen to it. This is the music of exam pieces, not end of term celebrations. I wanted to feel a part of it, but it was a struggle and ultimately I felt apart from it. I can appreciate though that in the right company it could be wonderfully atmospheric.

The tone is sombre, even downbeat. I was excited to see that he has worked with James Xerxes Fussell, who I reviewed recently and found magical. A quick comparison between the two might prove instructive. Fussell strips down his songs to reveal the essence of beauty. Sam Moss keeps it relatively simple, but reveals the core to be a heart of hard endurance. Fussell creates tunes for around the campfire that stay with you; Moss tells you ghost stories around a wood fire that’s down to its last glowing embers.

Usually I can note things down as I listen to new music, but this requires full eyes closed attention. Moss’ singing is internalised so it felt good that the backing vocals, particularly on ‘Swimming’ and ‘Answer’, felt as if they came from a member of his inner circle stepping up to help out. The stubbornly relentless blues of ‘Eyes’, complete with the sound of swords clashing and anvils being tapped felt like a passion performance. His lyrics are as much poetry as songwriting. That’s a good thing. ‘Feathers’ contains a banjo. For some people, that’s all they will need to know.

This album feels like a creditable labour of love. For me it was a labour to listen to it as well.

Taster Track : Swimming

As ever this week's Taster Track playlists can be accessed at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/42qDXrw3nLMlCSg45kCnRy?si=4499207642034207 or via the Spotify link on the Home Page.

The link to the Youtube playlist is https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwV-OogHy7EjHZr5_M3m0Zn5LEu_F3fMm&si=OhQF-ZPaBjUn4VMT