>>Nostalgia For Infinity

At the beginning of the year I made hyperbolic noises about how great this band’s last EP was, and further how great their first album was. An album they wrote when they were eighteen, the lucky foetus-faced bastards. And now here we are, three years on from the release of ‘A Lesson in the Abuse of Information Technology’ and just under a year on from ‘Hold On, Dodge’.

What’s immediately obvious is that this record is a lot closer to ‘Hold On, Dodge’ than that incendiary first release. As on last year’s EP the songwriting is a more mature, measured and sophisticated affair. The album boasts some fantastic vocal harmonies and the trademark dual guitars, chuggy power chords from one Menzinger complementing intricate and deliberate lead work – which, happily, never strays into masturbatory territory.

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Del.icio.us links for May 24th through May 30th:

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“I would say that this is a very very dangerous situation. We are entering a new phase which respectively… what we have been living so far in terms of concrete application of neoliberal policies might appear as just a kind of mild starter compared to what is happening now.

“This is the importance of the Greek case. Greece is the weak link because Greek capitalism is perhaps the most fragile, at least in Western Europe, but it is the weak link also because it is the country where the level of social resistance … and popular struggle is the highest.

“The ruling classes are very much aware of this and they want to make Greece a test case, so everyone should be aware of the stakes now. Solidarity and [sharing] information among all the people, the working people and the young people of Europe is absolutely indispensable because the adversary is common and therefore we need to converge.”

Here’s something I wrote for a friend’s prototype Brighton boozin’ website. I’ve no idea if his project will ever come to fruition but I enjoyed writing and, er, researching this, so here you go – enjoy.

(For other booze-related blogging, why not check out my friend Rachel’s lackadaisical blog Victory Gin? If you do she might update it more often.)

20th Sussex CAMRA Beer & Cider Festival @ Hove Town Hall, 11th March 2010

In the main room, the kids are sat on the floor in the corner. Small groups, laughing and drinking and flirting. The beards occupy the dozen round tables in the centre of the amphitheatre, expressions hidden beneath facial hair. Clear battle lines are drawn: old versus young. The combatants are drunk with courage. Well, mostly ale. But there’s a clear hierarchy at work here: the young are more casual, more likely to be here out of curiousity or a desire to socialise, whereas the older are more serious drinkers, more serious acolytes of booze and priests of ale.

I’m at the 20th Sussex CAMRA beer fest, and a few drinks deep I’ve enough of a drunk buzz to write nonsense like the above. There’s no sense of conflict here: everyone’s just happy to be present, enjoying the wide selection of beverages on offer. But stood on the top balcony within Hove Town Hall, looking down on the drinkers and barrels arrayed below, especially with synapses doused in sweet cider, it’s hard not to let your imagination fire.

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90s power-pop/college rock revivalism seems to be on a bit of an uptick at the moment with great bands like Cheap Girls and Failure’s Union rocking awesome melodic rock styles. I’m also occasionally reminded of Weezer… good old Weezer, not shit new Weezer, and with less irritatingly tweenie lyrics. Sundials are walking a similar path though they’ve got a more upbeat sound. Despite this they don’t shy from tackling darker subject matter in their lyrics.

This free download EP opens with ‘Names That Matter Most’, a very mildly country-flavoured tune about a girl… well, of course. It’s about falling for someone and wanting to get to know them better than not at all, a pretty common refrain for power-pop!

Most of the songs on here focus on memories, such as ’It Stands a Ground’ which features the chorus line “I called up my friends to buy me drugs when I was young / these memories protect me from remembering anyone”; a wryly observant tale of misspent youth. The song breaks down for a bridge that, for a moment, focuses on a darker memory, before returning to its more upbeat recollections.

‘Fox Hunters’ is another highlight, a fast-paced tune with jangly hooks and a lot of charm. As far as I can tell it’s about hunting and tradition and, perhaps, is a metaphor about the innocence of youth being confronted with something unpalateable: “it’s tradition don’t you know / it’s taxidermy in your room / you said we always let them go.”

If you like to rock to heartfelt poppy tunes with great harmonies, you could do worse than downloading this. There’s a nostalgic and backward-looking attitude to the record that befits its retro styles, and Sundials rock with aplomb.

Official Site | MySpace (recently abandoned) | If You Make It (free download) | Facebook

Just a quick post to point at a couple of mp3 blogs that I think are pretty cool and you might want to check out. If you’ve got some favourites, feel free to share ‘em in the comments.

Note – none of these are blogs that are likely to post high-profile releases. They’re more about offering exposure to obscure outfits. If you want to know where to download the new Deftones, use Google. I’m not enabling you. You might alternatively want to go listen to something you’ve never heard before instead… in which case, knock yourself out!

Anyway, obviously you’re gonna do whatever you want to do, but if you find some tunes you really like and it’s still in print, go buy a real copy of it. Give something back to the artists and the labels who support them, huh?

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Del.icio.us links for May 19th through May 21st:

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Chris Morris makes his directorial debut with Four Lions, a film satirising homegrown British terrorists (and, to a lesser extent, British anti-terror efforts). It’s been eagerly awaited since its announcement several years ago, particularly by fans of Morris’s work in television and radio. Has it been worth that wait?

On one level… yes. It’s a consistently funny, clever and well-paced film. It lampoons the broken individuals that make up the tiny terror cell its story follows at the same time as making them, for the most part, sympathetic. Omar and Waj are close friends and have been, we assume, for most of their lives. Omar is something of a firebrand and is the leader of the group as he’s brighter than the rest of them – though not by much. Waj is a dim bloke who rarely seems to entirely grasp the severity and reality of the situations he finds himself in. Then there is Faisal, who by all accounts is a simpleton who tags along through not belonging anywhere else, and Hassan, the cell’s most recent convert who seems torn between youth culture and protest. Finally, there is Barry, a convert to Islam who appears to be angry about absolutely everything and confused about almost as much. In essence, they are a band of bullies and idiots, and the film is a catalogue of their failures leading up to an attempt to outdo the infamous London 7/7 bombings.

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The excellently-named Stegosaur hail from San Antonio, Texas, and play tremulous indie power-pop with delicate sensitivity and walloping distorted choruses. The Adventure 7″ boasts three such tracks.

Opener ‘A Headache’ opens with simple palm-mutes and a tamborine underpinning the lines ”Strike a balance between mean and pop sensibility hoping the tracks that we chose keep the interest of record executives pleading in rhyme not to be ignored.” It’s tongue in cheek, of course, later adding “so the equity used buys a van and some clothes.” (I actually can’t make out the lyrics between that bit, which is kinda annoying.) After that things kick off a bit with clean, powerful singing and loud power chords… plus glockenspiel, you know, because that’s how they roll.

I’ve seen Stegosaur compared to Cursive but I’m more reminded of Desaperacidos, the one-album Bright Eyes side-project, as Stegosaur’s singer has more than a hint of Conor Oberst about his delivery. The simple music, quiet/loud dynamics and fragilility of the song also remind me a little of Canada’s Now, Now Every Children.

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Sometimes blogging can seem like a bit of a thankless slog, or worse a pointless endeavour… pissing words into the winds of the internet. This harsh fact is evidenced by the corpses of hundreds of thousands of abandoned blogs and websites. I enjoy writing, I enjoy sharing the things I’ve written and I like the idea that they’re being read, either by friends, those who simply stumble by, or by regular readers who I don’t know. Still, on occasion I wonder if it’s worth pushing myself to keep at it – if I should just focus on my band and writing the occasional story and review stuff when I feel in the mood.

Today a chap I work with, who I think has reviewed books for The Guardian in the past, spoke to me regarding a review I’d written on this blog. He mentioned that the author, who was a friend of his, had sent the link to him as he was pleased with it. The author’s friend realised the reviewer was me… small world, huh? Anyway, it was a really cool thing to hear as I thought a lot of the book in question. Little things like this make the whole endeavour feel a little bit more worthwhile.

It’s also cool when people stop by and leave comments – I’m glad you guys do that. Thanks!

Anyway, I’m posting this mainly because today has been a good day. Despite being shittily hungover and tired all day at work, and getting done pretty much none of the stuff I wanted to do this evening, I feel upbeat about this blog and my writing, and to cap it all off I’ve just found out that my band will be playing its first headline show next month. And now I’m off to get drunk and play music with my friends in said band.

Today is a good day. Have a lolcat.

P.S. Yes yes yes I am still working on my Four Lions review. Apparently a nearby screening this weekend has a Q&A with Chris Morris and the cast. I’m tempted even though I have very few monies…