Singles - January 2012

Auction for the Promise Club - One EP

The press release mentions shoegazy influences, which immediately caught my attention as a fan of the genre at the turn of the 90s, but I genuinely can't hear any of that. Instead you get a similar feel to Metric - clean poppy structures overlaid with fizzy distortion, almost like taking an electronica approach to guitar music, with breathy, harmonised female vocals completing the picture. There's a balance of space and pace that's dynamic enough to grab your ears through each of the four tracks and, while there's not a great deal of diversity, what you do get is nicely listenable. I'd lay odds that the live show puts some of the shove back in that's often lost in the mix on such records.

St Spirit - Pigeon EP

Four tracks running the spectrum from huge and fuzzy, to strung-out and emotionally charged bode well for these young Londoners. Imagine moments of Boxer Rebellion, Frightened Rabbit and early Radiohead all swirled about in a lo-fi melting pot. They seem able to swap from fist in the air anthems to dark loungey tales with ease. The final track is slightly self indulgent art rock, but I can forgive that. The only question mark is over the vague production which was apparently 'recorded in a living room and mixed in a garden' and sounds like exactly that. Lo-fi is a result of circumstance, not a desirable target. That moan aside, you should have a listen - I think they've got a storming future if the shows live up to their promise.

Capital Sun - Forgotten Songs

Immediate impression - echoes of early Manic Street Preachers, in both the vocal style and the unexpected, edgy chord progressions. This is a good start. Thing is, there doesn't seem to be the emotional peak you'd expect and it feels a little like the song's been held back all the way to the abrupt 'Ok, that's enough of that' ending. The second track, D.O.C is mellower, more expansive and creates a decent atmosphere but never really takes off. The elements are all there, but I think there's better to come as they draw in their focus.

Therapy? - Living in the Shadow of The Terrible Thing

Andy and the boys are back after what feels like an age with the first track from their delayed new album A Brief Crack of Light. Right from the off you get exactly what you expect - a snappy snare tightened to breaking point, hack and slash guitars and mildly psychotic vocals that never let up. The chorus isn't the strongest compared to their finest moments, but the track has enough mosh-friendly punch to pull it off. It's a decent taster for the album and, as a fan for nearly 20 years, I can't wait to hear it.

Sharliza Jelita - Claustrophobia

From what I can gather, Sharliza has a knack for putting on odd and unorthodox stage shows that have more in common with performance art than gigs. Maybe that's the missing element I'd need to make sense of this. It's essentially minimalist electropop overlaid with Ms Jelita's oddly nasal and heavily compressed vocals, and has possibly the most irritating chorus I've ever heard. It's so far removed from anything I'd willingly choose to listen to that I feel adrift when trying to describe it, so I'm afraid you're on your own.

Jenny Gillespie - Belita EP

On first listen, the Belita EP strikes you as classic 60s/70s folk but with an expansive, more experimental feel. Gillespie namechecks Vashti Bunyan and Joni Mitchell, and seems fully justified in doing so; The five songs are all loosely structured, encompassing delicate and brooding stories punctuated by freeform instrumentation. There's no sense of convention or received wisdom in their construction, so nothing is immediate to the listener; persevere though and you'll be drawn through the apparently subtlety of the sound and into surprising depths of understanding and appreciation. Genuinely beautiful.