This is the third of three reviews of unremarkable, but nevertheless very enjoyable records I have reviewed this evening. The Zincs are an American indie band fronted by a displaced Englishman, James Elkington, and that is exactly how they sound.

Maybe I have Luna on the brain after learning that their former guitarist lends his skills to the new Elk City album, but The Zincs seem to sit in a sort of middle ground between the mellow, only slightly jangly guitar indie of Luna and the sort of new century crooning of the likes of Cousteau or Richard Hawley. They’re only rarely as downbeat as any of these can be however, and Jason Toth’s rat-a-tat drum rhythm tends to keep Black Pompadour bowling along at a decent lick.

Ultimately, this record is unlikely to reach out and grab you by the lapels, bar a couple of songs, but if you give it a chance, there’s definitely something engaging about it. Maybe the unhurried pace, and maybe the deep, comforting croon that Elkington so effortlessly delivers, but this album feels instantly familiar and comfortable.

The Zincs – Coward’s Corral
The Zincs – Rich Libertines

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Elk City are another landscape band. One whose album I will happily chuck into my music library and, although I’ll probably rarely deliberately seek them out, I’ll be most happy when the randomiser throws out one of their songs.

New Believers is a sunny album of enjoyable, harmony-laden twee guitar pop. The Roaring Machine may actually have been the reason the word twee was invented, so Liz may have to correct my terminology, but all those ooh-la-la choruses and that strong 60s girl-pop influence sounds pretty twee to me.

Apart from having one of the prettiest covers in a long time, there’s something equally pretty about the music that just about distinguishes it from a run of the mill Sunday afternoon pop record. The presence of former Luna guitarist Sean Eden may have something to do with that, as there are definitely some nice touches in the guitar department. By and large, however, New Believers is unremarkable; but it is tunesome and somehow very satisfying at its best.

At times some of the slower songs drag a little, but by and large this is a pretty enjoyable album that I am slightly surprised to find myself liking. Maybe it’s the bedroom eyes and enigmatic, somehow rather French look of the lass on the cover. I always was depressingly shallow…

Elk City – Los Cruzados
Elk City – Cherries in the Snow

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This is the first of three reviews of landscape bands. Bands and albums that are deservedly part of the landscape but which may be a little difficult to notice at times.

I saw the Endrick Brothers support Richmond Fontaine at ABC2 earlier in the year and loved them. There was something so honest and heartfelt about them, something so frank and disingenuous about frontman Niall Holmes that I couldn’t but take to them. He painstakingly explained every song to us and clearly put himself into the songs, albeit in a restrained non-ostentatious way.

The album is really just straightforward country-rock (from Glasgow funnily enough – you wouldn’t think it) that reminds me strongly, as I said at the time, of a group called Jolene. Both write in a very similar style and, despite the general predictability of the music they seem to find something in almost every song to latch onto. Brendon Benson has this knack as well although I would baulk at describing the Endrick Brothers as being at his level just yet.

There’s something extremely warm and likeable about this record which I find myself quite drawn to. You’ll probably think I’m mad, because it’s hardly an overly distinguished sort of album, and certainly not one that jumps out at you at all. It’s not great, but it just has its own kind of friendly charm which Song, by Toad sort of likes.

The Endrick Brothers – Thorns on Every Rose
The Endrick Brothers – Star of the Silver Screen
Jolene – Calling Madeline

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I bought tickets for The Pastels largely because they represent a particular sort of left-field Scottish indie royalty. The sort that would diminish you everso slightly in the eyes of serious Scottish indie-lovers should you not really have heard of them, not in an unkind way, just in a telling way.

As part of the three-band Triptych Festival template they were supported by The Royal We and Electrelane. The Royal We, excellently but a little harshly dismissed as an A-Level Band by a certain member of the party, started a little slowly. In fact they seemed to be operating very much in second gear, but they grew on me throughout the set and I certainly think they’d be worth giving another bash. I get the impression they’d be better in a sweaty, noisy underground nightclub than here, so we’ll see. There are a few tracks on their myspace player if you fancy a gander.

Electrelane are a band I know next to nothing about, besides having heard the name, although The Daily Growl has recently lamented the cancellation of Arcade Fire dates, due to the loss of the exposure they would have achieved from their support slot. Judging from this performance it is a big loss indeed, because they absolutely smoked their set. I don’t want my cohorts of Lady Toads to be upset by this, but generally women are shit at guitar music. There are very few really furious indie guitar wielding women out there, and this is a very, very bad thing: one Electrelane are here to address. Mia Clarke looks almost nonchalant as she plays, bar a veil of hair that gradually slips down across her face as her head nods along, but she produces a wall-of-sound indie bashing that many a group could do well to learn from.

Add that to the rhythmically insistent keyboards and occasionally high-pitched wail of Verity Susman on keyboards and vocals, and a rock solid rhythm section, and you have a turbocharged version of Stereolab at their most full-on, one that even touches at times on early Wedding Present stuff.

I’ve since availed myself of their new album – out this morning – No Shouts, No Calls – but although I have yet to really listen to it more than once there is a very notable absence of the swirling racket of their live performance. Maybe if their producer was heartbroken, alcoholic and angry we might get something closer to their superb live show, which I for one would sincerely welcome. Brilliant!

Electrelane – I’m On Fire
Electrelane – After the Call A random selection from the new record.

After this, The Pastels had an awful lot to live up to, in my eyes, which they didn’t really manage. They started off very late, due to endless fannying about with equipment, but the set began pretty well with a few songs that they are working on together with Tokyo duo the Tennis Coats. The Pastels’ often low-key, Stereolab-meets-Yo La Tengo aesthetic comes across pretty well, but I wasn’t entirely blown away I must confess. The pace was a little slow, although they picked up a little as things progressed, really getting out the guitars once or twice, which I always like. I get the impression this is music to be listened to in your living room first, so I may try approaching it that way instead. They weren’t bad though, and there were lots of elements that suggested I could yet really get into this group. I may start here.

The Pastels – Nothing to be Done

I’ve not too much to say about the support acts today, I’m afraid, but that’s because I want plenty of space to chat about Mr. Hinson.

So apologies to Grant Campbell, who has a room-filling voice and guitar-caressing hands that many a musician would sell their grandmothers to the knacker’s yard for, but I’m afraid I don’t know his music and didn’t quite arrive in time to form an opinion on it. He certainly has the skills though, so if his songwriting can match them, then he should really be one to watch.

Califone I know barely any better, although Roots & Crowns, their most recent album, is excellent. For a group with a five or six album back-catalogue though, that is nothing like enough, although their performance of tense, broody and occasionally beautiful Americana was such that I bought the album before Roots & Crowns on the spot. They seem to create a sort of uneasy atmosphere, a lot of the time, and then there is a lovely tune which accompanies it, but only peeks through the dense blacket of tension on occasions – sort of wafts vaguely to the ear and then is gone again before you quite know it’s appeared. They are perfectly capable of producing Richmond Fontaine style catchy songs here and there, but by and large this doesn’t seem to be their preference. I liked it though, so you’ll probably be hearing more from them in future.

Califone – Spiders House (the accessible one)
Califone – Our Kitten Sees Ghosts (the moodier one)

I’ve seen Micah P. Hinson play in Glasgow before so I sort of knew what to expect here unlike the rather surprised, but thoroughly impressed, Ed from 17 Seconds. On record Hinson produced one of the most intimate, beautiful albums of all time with Micah P. Hinson & the Gospel of Progress back in 2004. His recent follow-up, 2006′s blinding Micah P. Hinson & the Opera Circuit was hugely more varied: honky-tonk, borderline classical and ever-building wall-of-noise crescendos broke out of him to produce one of the finest, most emotive, affecting albums of recent memory.

I’m not sure how easy it is to understand the man or his songs until you see him play live. He’s unhinged, ragged – exploding with emotion. It’s a miracle, in this context, that he was able to keep his music so controlled and spare on Gospel of Progress. On stage it bursts out of him like a whirlwind, and the man with the warmest, most confessional voice in music cuts loose and absolutely fucking rocks. That fireside warmth is transformed into feral howl, his guitar takes the mother of all batterings and all that pent-up emotion bursts out in a torrent. At times he can’t control it at all. On the brilliant Patience he starts with the actual lyrics – “I’m running out of patience to be fucking with this now/you better believe me when I say this now/I’m packing up my nightmares and I’ll be on my way/you better find me some time when you have more to say” – lyrics of betrayal and hurt, and as the wall of guitar builds and bridles he can no longer repress a death metal scream of ‘die, die, die, you fucking cunt’. It’s amazing, somehow, quite awe-inspiring, and it fits but don’t ask me how. Whatever the fuck it is, he really, really means it.

His set reminds me of the Opera Circuit album a little, actually. This record starts with the deceptively pastoral chirping of crickets, and Seems Almost Impossible is a clear link to the earlier sparse beauty of The Gospel of Progress. By the next song he’s cranked it up, the stomping, insistent Diggin’ a Grave using banjo, fiddle and an rattling rhythm to change the pace entirely. Gone is the fireside confessional – this is now clearly a different animal. By the end of the album You’re Only Lonely builds and builds to a frenzy of guitar reminiscent of The Willard Grant Conspiracy’s epic Let It Roll and, with Don’t Leave Me Now, the whole thing closes in a fuzz of noise and intrusively chattering voices, tailing off into a plaintive, lonely violin.

Hinson, when young, got tangled up with a vogue cover girl and rock ‘n’ roll widow, an association which turned very, very sour and descended into a downwards spiral of pharmaceuticals and depression. As it came to its head he spent some time in jail for falsifying prescriptions and on his release, homeless and penniless, moved from one friend’s floor to another until he eventually had to declare bankruptcy, move into a motel room and take a call centre job. During this period he wrote a lot of music on borrowed instruments, which later turned into Gospel of Progress with the help of The Earlies. And now, in his own words, “this is the first time in my whole life I’ve been anything like successful at damn near anything”. He deserves it.

Drawing this explosion of raw emotion to a close, he dedicates a gentle, lovely version of John Denver’s This Old Guitar to his father. He tells us that he’s done some really stupid things in his life and during that time just about the only thing that held his family together was music, and the music of John Denver in particular. Listening to his albums again to write this review, the ragged, raw side of the music so evident in his performance starts to become more obvious, showing through the gentle loveliness that you first hear when you play Gospel of Progress. It’s only now that you start to understand Mr. Hinson, I suspect. The lyrics to This Old Guitar are here. Read them. I suspect they may apply to Micah Paul Hinson as much as they’ve ever applied to anyone.

Micah P. Hinson – Patience From The Gospel of Progress
Micah P. Hinson – Diggin’ a Grave
Micah P. Hinson – You’re Only Lonely From The Opera Circuit
Richard Hawley – Hotel Room Rather surprisingly, he played this. It was superb, too.

Toad, Mr Toad, The Toadster, El Toaderino… yes, I think that works quite well, don’t you? Song, by Toad dearly wishes it was as cool as The Big Lebowski.

Shut the fuck up, Donny.

In no way related to that, I think this Friday’s irregular Bender for the Weekender is going to draw inspiration from the gloriously unhinged Uncle Moon and post some looney circus music to get you all in the mood for going out, getting so pickled you think it’s Tuesday, and waking in the arms of a sweaty fifteen-stone Latvian hooker with a nasty rash and a cleft palate, who you could swear blind was a twenty-year-old Czech lingerie model a mere ten hours earlier.

Well not all circus music, perhaps, but joyous, uplifting, deranged and utterly splendid. The sort of stuff to have your friends asking ‘What the fuck is this nonsense you’re playing?’, just before you slap them for their inexcusable philistinery.

Sparks – This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both of Us This one’s a bit of stretch, I know, but it’s mental so it’s going in.
Eels – Flyswatter (The Polka Dots Remix)
Caramel Jack – The Lady Vanishes
Tom Waits – Kommienezuspadt This is a great, crazy song, despite the awful German spelling. A somewhat acquired taste though, I’ll admit
Quasar Wut-Wut – The March of the Zug It really annoys me that this lot aren’t more popular.
Bruce Springsteen – Wild Billy’s Circus Story Just in case you thought I was getting a little too upbeat!

Every once in a while an album appears absolutely out of nowhere and fills you with joy – it makes you reach for a huge gin and the volume control with the same purposeful intent and praise the day you lapsed into music obsession.

Now this is not a classic in the Bob Dylan/Tom Waits/Nick Cave sort of sense. It’s just a crazy festival of joyous musical Attention Deficit Disorder that lurched through a circus drunk one night and ended up staying there forever. To a degree, you could think of these guys as a cabaret act, really. They leap theatrically from style to style, taking in old time jazz, sea shanty, bluegrass, poetry, Always Ready sounds almost like a Mazurka, and god knows what else is lobbed in there as well. Actually, you know that comedy film staple where a guy hurtles downhill on a bicycle, completely out of control, and thunders through a clothes rail, emerging draped in a ludicrous selection of every costume on the rack and completely unable to see where he is going? Well this is what this album is like. Sort of like the Squirrel Nut Zippers on acid – far more diverse and far more unhinged.

There are a couple of covers, a musical take on the (excruciatingly bad*) Scottish poet Rabbie Burns’ O Whistle, some traditional stuff and a liberal helping of original material. I just can’t help but grin from ear to ear when this record is on, and I almost want to grab Uncle Moon by the lapels and shake them vigorously until some more music comes out – if only there was a great big back catalogue to pillage.

There are some that don’t quite hit the mark – LumpyCraddyPopo rather irritates me, as I have a pathological hatred of nonsense lyrics, and This Old Town is no better than decent – but just about every other song on this album is taken and run with to its utterly illogical conclusion, with splendid results. Even Willie Nelson’s classic schmaltz-fest Crazy degenerates into a rambling monologue about a mother-in-law who bites off sheep’s testicles (seriously, I kid you not).

Honestly, if you don’t get all excited by the trend in current indie-pop to use antiquated carnival music and exaggerated old-style jazz sounds, then you should probably steer well clear. And for the more conventional amongst you this may also be a little too bizarre. For Mr. Toad, however, it’s all gin and daisies from here on out.

Uncle Moon – Pepper
Uncle Moon – Uta Hagen It’s a slow starter this one, but stick with it. By the end it’s a deranged festival of tribal barking and a murderous violin screech. Uma Thurman? What?
Uncle Moon – O Whistle

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*I may actually end up being run out of town for this one but, really, he’s shit. I know that because he writes in that hugely overblown Scottish acccent of his that the entire nation take this as some sort of pointless statement of national identity, but it doesn’t change the fact that his poetry’s fucking dreadful. So there.

I’ll pack my bags.

It always amazes me how musicians can turn from the really nice, down to earth people I tend to meet into the sort of egotistical pricks that Johnny Borrell and those Muppets from Kasabian have become. Most of the musicians I have ever met have been so nice and had such genuine enthusiasm for what they do that it seems almost inconceivable. Mind you, who knows what a couple of years of unqualified hero-worship would do to anyone, really. It must be hard to resist.

Back at this rather less stratospheric level of things, I exchanged quite a few emails with Ryan Elliot of Montreal’s Maple Falls on the weekend, when I was in work late and fed up. She started out with a couple of compliments, which always helps when talking to a gentleman so susceptible to vanity and preening as myself, but we talked about the mechanics of running a blog, then I listened to their tunes, which I said I thought were very country, and she had this to say, which I thought was interesting:

“I guess our songs do lean towards the country side of things but we’re just starting out and are still writing and kind of figuring out our sound. It’s weird when you are writing a song because for me personally, I don’t really have any predefined notions for what I want it to be, or sound like. I just start out with a very basic idea and melody and go from there. It’s interesting to hear someone say that it is actually country!”

Not knowing anything about the mechanics of actually writing music, this hadn’t really occurred to me before, and it makes perfect sense I suppose. I can’t really imagine anyone thinking ‘Ah, now to commence writing a three-minute country ballad!’

Anyhow, it’s hard to try and plug a band who are so new that they don’t have anything much for me to urge you to buy, but there are gigs to go to if you’re in the Montreal area, listed on their MySpace page. Their music, actually, is not really my thing entirely. I love country ‘influenced’ stuff, but a couple of the tracks on their player (all downloadable, so off you go) are a bit too country for my personal taste. Penny, on the other hand, has all the country-noir broodiness that I love in so many bands, and I think it’s superb. The lonely trumpet is wonderful, and Ryan herself executes, as I described it at the time, ‘the perfect Gothic country wail’ right at the end – brilliant song.

Anyhow, I’ve no idea where they are going from here, and I hope they don’t let the random views of an inveterate internet pervert influence them too much and continue to write the songs that they themselves like. But they seem really nice people, Penny is a great song, and Ryan cheered me right up on a very long, depressing evening stuck at work, so I think they indisputably deserve their own post, and your full attention.

Maple Falls – Penny

Sometimes I just love gigs; there are so many ways for them to be good. This was a classic example of the kind of gig where it is all about the performer, and the person, and how you relate to him. Turner is confident, charming and very, very funny on stage with the kind of sense of humour that is everywhere at once, although at times a tad too caustic for one or two of the audience members. Personally I appreciated this, as it is comforting to see someone else say something they think is funny, and have the room collectively take a sharp intake of breath, for a change instead of it always being me.

Apart from putting some genuine welly into his songs, his lively chat was the real highlight of this gig, but musically it was great as well. You can tell Turner comes from a punk rock background because, despite the dominance of the acoustic in his songwriting, he really gives the music a good seeing-to. It’s odd though – he’s younger than my little brother, but his songs sound kind of old-fashioned somehow. There is definitely something of the real grass-roots acoustic protest hero of the 80s about him. I reckon 90% of you will think he’s dreadful, but the rest will love him, but I can’t imagine much indifference somehow. Although there were a sizeable number of cool young things listening to this anachronistic-sounding acoustic punk-folk soap-box botherer who reminds me of Billy Bragg more than anyone, which really struck me as odd. Skinny jeans and brightly coloured, stripey tops? Ah well, they’re closer to his age than I am, if I’m honest.

What I like about Turner’s music is that at least half a dozen songs from his album, Sleep is For the Week, make me want to devote an entire essay to them by themselves. I won’t though, so don’t look so scared, I’ll just pop up a couple of tracks and urge you to give him a listen. The Real Damage is going to be released as the title track of a new EP in a few weeks. It’ll have four new songs on it, so keep an eye out for that one.

Frank Turner – The Real Damage
Frank Turner – Once We Were Anarchists

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Afternoon internetters, I trust you are all well and have been popping your pennies in the piggy bank, because once again I am here to make free with your dough and pressurise you into spending it all on good things which I shall choose for you. Why should it be my choice? Because if the masses are allowed to make their own decisions, then we get fucking Coldplay, that’s why.

There are a few good singles knocking around at the moment, and I thought I’d pop them all together in a post, so you can go out and 7-inch yourselves all to pieces.

For the brooding and misunderstood amongst you I’ve already mentioned Spencer Perceval by iLiKETRAiNS (i DO NOT LiKE TYPiNG iLiKETRAiNS, I really fucking wish bands wouldn’t do this – it irritates the living shIt out of me) which is a great single despite the typography. Kid Canaveral’s excellent Smash Hits is a fine choice for the bouncy indie-poppers out there as well. There are some other top ‘uns around at the moment, however, such as the following:

The Young Republic – Blue Skies Lovely, lush, orchestrated indie-pop. One of my favourite new bands, recently signed to End of the Road Records, and appearing at The End of the Road Festival later in the year, due to be graced by the presence of my exalted self. These guys go from swoonsome to playful to tragic in no time at all. Anyone wishing to sample their stuff will find plenty of mp3s on their website and a few to play on their MySpace player. To save you the trouble though, I’ve uploaded a couple of previews myself:

[Edit: What a buffoon. I forgot to add purchasing links. It's available either in shops, or online from Rough Trade.]

The Young Republic – Girl From the Northern States
The Young Republic – She’s Not Waiting Here This Time

The Scottish Enlightenment – Eyes When I first reviewed The Scottish Enlightenment I went on about their dark, Cure-like guitar work. This single is far more upbeat than that – a nicely sharp indie-pop tune with a simple, memorable guitar riff – and finishes with Ambulance, a rather excellently morose lament. Definitely ones to keep an eye on, I’d say. Preview the single on their MySpace, buy it on Amazon or eMusic. For any fellow Edinburghers, they’re playing at Henry’s Cellar Bar tomorrow night. I’ve got a footie game before hand and my back is killing me, so I’ll probably be the one walking like a penguin with a broomstick up its arse.

The Scottish Enlightenment – The Universe is Drifting Apart

Dead! Dead! Dead! – A List of Things Not to Forget Tough Love Records are releasing a new download-only Dead! Dead! Dead! single to coincide with their UK tour supporting the teeth-grindingly awful Mumm-Ra. To download it, you’ll have to attend a gig, watch Dead! Dead! Dead!, clap and holler with wild abandon, collect a special postcard with a download code on it, flee as fast as your legs will possibly carry you before Mumm-Ra commence their ungodly festival of aural torture, and rush back to your computer to download the single from the Tough Love website. For those of us with no intention whatsoever of going anywhere near a Mumm-Ra gig (they aren’t playing in Edinburgh anyway, so I can’t even go just for the support slot) this seems as good a time as any to remind you of their existing single George Lassoes the Moon, which can be bought from eMusic. Try their MySpace player for a couple more previews, as their website is still very much under construction.

Dead! Dead! Dead! – Monocle Fallout (Christ their name’s sore on the Shift finger.)