No Sun, No Light, November

The Cast : Albums

B-Movie, The Last Dinner Party, The Lemonheads, Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, Lovers, Rianne Downey

The Cast : EPs and Singles

Assistant, Caoilfhion Rose and Svaneborg Kardyb, Goodbye Wudaokou, Prolapse, Shapes Like People, The Soft Hearted Scientists

Corporal : Lorelle Meets The Obsolete

Best for : Those who enjoyed ghost trains as a child or watched Dr Who from behind the settee.

This is a wondrous, strange electronic album from a Mexican band without a Mariachi band in earshot. It turns dark before the end but remains a captivating listen.

Capturing the special effect of these songs is tricky. It feels like music that is barely under control. ‘Regresor / Recordar’ is typical, taking on a force of its own, while remaining catchy in its own way. ‘Ker’ is equal measures of science, experimentation and magic.  This is the listening equivalent of watching a plasma lamp that sparks lightning as you touch its side. You never know where the next flicker is coming from. It’s a breathtaking ride, carrying you through excitable and riotous crowds on an unstable platform. It’s both threatening and exhilarating.

Here’s an album where pulse, rhythm, beats and drones take centre stage swamping everything around. It’s undeniably a heady, giddy mix but also one that presents the possibility of violence at every turn. It’s wholly immersive. Abrupt endings in songs like ‘Regresor / Recordar’ and ‘Dilacion’ heighten the tension. ‘Palabra’ is noisy and discordant in industrial quantities. ‘Rusgo’ is like being locked in a deafening machine room in the presence of an unseen but clearly sensed monster. It’s as close as you’re ever likely to come to ambient metal, and that’s an achievement in itself.

The closest reference points I can find are the experimentation of Stereolab colliding with the electronic horror of Death In Vegas’ ‘Aisha’.

You might need to catch your breath anew by the end of the album. It unsettles, thrills and drains you but ultimately it’s a satisfying experience.

Taster Track : Regresor / Recordar

Lettres d’Amour : Lovers 

Best for : Reminding us that pessimists deserve good music too.

Lovers are Linda Olah from Sweden and Giani Caserotto from France. It’s the Scandinavian character, particularly the despair and nihilistic mind set, that marks them out.

So, you’ve been warned but it’s still a good album on its own terms.

The early signs are promising. There’s a quiet, atmospheric beauty that fills ‘Mundane Things’ with enchantment. As the album proceeds though, it feels like the last moments of sleep before you awake and remember that you have experienced a recent, devastating loss, and are fated to experience it again and again every morning.

The following track , ‘Stop Reasoning With My Heart’, has a rumbling tone with ominous portents. ‘Dancing In The Dark’ is full of drilling, or perhaps nearby gun fire. It’s typical of an album that is metallic and threatening, painted with aural sounds that are as cold as a nuclear winter. As a musical representation of a post break up, breakdown mindset it’s hard to beat.

Moving aside from the atmosphere to the mechanics and you’ll find a mix of tones that make for something intriguing but not immediately accessible. It’s clever and creative but a little self conscious in painting a picture so full of hurt, fear and despair that it almost seeks to repel the listener. In its own way, it's a highly impressive if difficult listening experience.

The overwhelming tone might be bleak and hopeless but there are slight easements to the darkness in songs such as ‘Mundane Things’, ‘Beautiful Things’ and ‘Summer Dreaming’.  In these moments you can feel that it’s the kind of thing that Durutti Column’s Vini Reilly might appreciate.

This is an album that exposes the weakness in my self imposed constraint of providing immediate reactions to an album after the first listen. It’s an album that demands a lot from the listener, and I suspect that its rewards will be fully released slowly through repeated listens.

Taster Track : Mundane Things

Love Chant : The Lemonheads

Best for : Lovers of the classic pop punk meets garage rock sound. And it’s the Lemonheads!

Sometimes it feels like a miracle that Ewan Dando is still with us. A 90s alternative icon, his rock and roll excesses would have felled many of his peers. We can be grateful he’s still with us, because Love Chant is an album that earns a worthy place in The Lemonhead canon.

It’s six years since their last album and, in some ways, this sounds well within their comfort zone. ‘58 Second Song’ is classic Lemonheads all fuzzy guitar, great melody and killer chorus. Their comfort zone though is where they are very good indeed. They’re a band that long term fans won’t want to change and they don’t disappoint .

Listen carefully and you may detect some movement from the classic days of ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’. For a start, behind the melodies they sound more like a rock band than a descendant of punk. The songs may be short but they still find room for air guitar solos. Dando’s vocals also sound surprisingly tender alongside the musical squall of ‘Togetherness Is All I’m After’. There’s a jauntiness in a song like ‘Cell Phone Blues’ that’s some distance from the harrowing feel of their drug buddy days. ‘Love Chant’, the song, is the sound of a half crazed cult leader. Love Chant, the album,  is well named for many of the songs, including ‘Marauders’ and ‘Wild Thing’ that have a mantra at their heart. They’re perhaps more akin now to The Foo Fighters than The Damned, and that’s still good.

The Lemonheads are a rare example of an entity that has evolved into something more basic. It feels as if they have cocked a snoot to any critics and the nay sayers. As they sing on ‘The Key of Victory’ “If we can’t listen, what are those ears for?”  

They’re still a force to be reckoned with and they want you to know it.

Taster Track : 58 Second Song

From The Pyre : The Last Dinner Party

Best for anyone who likes their pop operatic, clever and passionate.

The Last Dinner Party burst on the scene in 2024, like a guest arriving late to a party but immediately owning the room. Brit awards, a heavy touring schedule, a relentless promotional campaign, and a Mercury Music Prize nomination followed. Now it’s time for the ‘difficult second album’, a time when bluffs are called and ponies have to show if they have more than one trick. 

Under that kind of pressure, too many acts lose their nerve. The Last Dinner Party looked at the challenge and laughed in its face. Like a pyrotechnic engineer wondering how to top last year’s gala firework display, they’ve simply gone bigger, bolder and better. It’s as if the reaction to their debut has given them a license to build on a template that they deliver better than anyone else.

It has a Romantic disposition - capital ‘R’ intentional. It’s fuelled by the intense romanticism of the French Foreign Legion, not the drippy mooning of Valentine cards and chocolates. This is for people who fantasise about being Cathy or Heathcliffe, not Wordsworth and his daffodils. It’s for the Lord Byrons amongst us, sweeping conquests off their feet not the Keats followers focusing on the nearest nightingale. They’re a band taking action, not waiting passively on the sidelines.

This is an album full of spark and strong imagery - killers, mutilation and defeating Gods all in the name of love. And that’s just ‘I Hold Your Anger’. If you allow it to, it will sweep you up and consume you. A song like ‘Rifle’ feels like a workout in every respect, something that leaves them, and you, sweaty and exhausted. 

The vocal arrangements and harmonies in a song like ‘Second Best’  are so impressive. They sound like classically trained banshees, five people who could give any fully formed choir a run for their money. 

‘From The Pyre’ is an album that is epic, over the top and operatic in a way not heard since Kate Bush and Queen were in their pomp and The Darkness turned everything up to 12. It’s both powerful and exhilarating. Like Rufus Wainwright, Scott Walker and Marc Almond, the performance is as important as the song writing.

The Last Dinner Party - their time has come, and that time is now. They’re revelling in it and savouring every last drop. You will too.

Taster Track : …Agnus Dei.

The Consequence of Love : Rianne Downey

Best for : Those who relate to Bob Harris’ description of her as Dolly Parton if she came from the East Side of Glencoe.

It’s nice to feel you’re in at the start of something. Rianne Downey was plucked from relative obscurity to be the female accompaniment on the last Paul Heaton album ‘The Mighty Several’. She seized her opportunity and, building on that platform, has now released her debut solo album. It’s a pleasing collection.

First things first. As you’ll have guessed it’s a full blooded country album, full of banjo, fiddles and cracked emotional twang in the vocals. She plays a nice guitar too. The combination of guitar and vocals will draw people to her campfire. Her embrace of country may be a legacy of her work on ‘The Mighty Several’ but it sounds and feels more heartfelt and less imbued with cynicism and take downs.

So far, so much Radio 2 songwriting and loyal followings at the local arts centre. Rianne’s great gift is that she has a voice that contains the promise of a multitude of stories. It draws you in. You may find that you thought you’d play it in the background but, slowly and gently, the songs capture your attention. She could sing an instruction manual for resetting your boiler and it would sound like a contender for a short story literary prize.

Songs such as ‘Good In Goodbye’, ‘Lost In Blue’ and ‘Nothing Better’ are so good that it’s easy to imagine that she’d be successful even if she lost her pure country following. She’s delivered a songwriting master class in country songs, but her crossover potential is huge and shouldn’t be ignored. Eddi Reader, Berina Pallot and, whisper it very, very quietly Taylor Swift, have started in one small camp before moving to a broader palette.

For now, these are well crafted songs brimming with personality. They’re kind on the ears and are likely to leave you humming snatches during the day without consciously calling them to mind. 

Taster Track : Nothing Better

Hidden Treasures : B-Movie

Best for : Remembering a band that could and should have been much bigger

B-Movie were in the first wave of synthesiser groups, forming in 1980. Known today mainly  for their single ‘Nowhere Girl’ they had two singles trouble the Top 75, and another single that was there or thereabouts. It’s not the stuff that legends are made of, but that only tells part of their story.

It’s easy to simplify the musical timeline so that synth pop follows punk as a youth movement. But bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division from the late 70s were always more complex and problematic than, say, The Damned. And before Depeche Mode introduced their smart, chart friendly pop, synth bands were more likely to sound like the experimental side of Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark, or the dystopian pre Dare Human League. 

Flesh out the context, and B-Movie fit right in, as well as adding a little individuality of their own. They were a band that faced John Peel rather than Peter Powell. On the one hand, you can hear that in their foreboding energy, their lyrics concerned with the politics of nuclear safety and their anticipation of an imminent dystopian future. On the other hand, they have one eye on the emergence of the New Romantic movement, Songs such as ‘Crowds’ are songs of alienation in pop clothing. Not bad for synth poppers!

Occasionally it can feel a little busy, as on ‘Ice’, but at the time testing synths to the limit was a necessary development before ebbing away to more minimalism. ‘All Fall Down’ shows increased confidence that they can tone it down without losing quality. Above all there’s a relentless urgency in songs like ‘Citizen Kane’ that you feel would have translated into a seathiing mass at gigs.

Compilation albums serve as reminders,  preservers and tributes. Here, there are ten greatest hits, followed by seven remixes, extended treatments and album nuggets. B-Movie deserve the treatment.

Taster Track : Citizen Kane

EPs and Singles

Singles used to promote albums, now they’re one of the few ways outside of a gig to discover new bands and music. Searching for the particular band that could be your next secret favourite on alternative radio is like listening for a needle in a haystack. Here’s a few quick single reviews that might short cut the process!

Split singles aren’t a new thing, but they could be making a comeback. Starting with Goodbye Wudaokou, whose ‘Glimmers’ is one of the songs of 2025, ‘Sky Lantern’ is sad and melancholy but with a lovely pop sensibility. It’s the kind of song that could worm its way into your heart and maybe even define you in months to come. On the other side you’ll find Assistant with ‘Flowers’. It’s a lofi classic with a naive and catchy melody and an undercurrent of dying dreams. If The Boy Least Likely Too had joined The Field Mice, this is what they could sound like. Sarah Records may be with us no longer, but both bands are a worthy and welcome tribute to their legacy.

A collaboration between Caoilfhion Rose and Svaneborg Kardyb has led to ‘Illusions’. She brings a chaste and pure vocals. They bring their knack for sweet melody laced with a dreamlike atmosphere. It’s good - chilled electronic balladry in the vein of Air and Zero 7.

‘Swearing For Decoration’ and ‘Ectoplasm Untied - A Faust Remix’ is the new single from Prolapse. Back in 1993 they set out to be the most depressing band ever, and their debut album ‘Pointless Walks To Dismal Places’ makes a fair stab at that crown. If you’ve heard it you’ll know that it contains some parental warnings and disturbing material. One part of their new single doesn’t feel quite as extreme. It calls to mind The Fall, Yard Act and Arab Strap. ‘Swearing For Decoration’ is a furiously played but, nevertheless, accessible slice of indie rock. The Faust remix of ‘Ectoplasm Untied is more hardcore, a chaotic and experimental noise. Neither is for the faint-hearted, but both are truly bracing listens.

At the other end of the musical spectrum, The Soft Hearted Scientists call to mind The Kinks, The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and the Who’s early attempts at pop opera in their new song ‘The Laws of Physics’. It’s good natured, humorous, catchy and great fun and it leaves you wanting more.

‘Supergirl’ from Shapes Like People is a delight. Imagine The Byrds making shoegaze pop and you’ll begin to understand its appeal. It’s full of indie pop guitar riffs laced with impeccable vocals. It contains a justifiable air of celebration and triumph that lifts the spirits.

Using a random number generator from one to six, these are the two YouTube selections for this week.

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