Song, by Toad

The Loon was a bit of a minor masterpiece, albeit one which started to wobble a little and run out of steam in the latter third of the album.

Walk it Off is a disappointment really – more of the same, but without much of the urgency and drive that made The Loon so good. That is about all I can really add, to be honest. Y’know, it’s like Tapes ‘n’ Tapes but for the most part less good.

On something of a tangent, Tapes ‘n’ Tapes, like Beirut, were groups from 2006 that I absolutely loved, despite the fact that no-one around me had even heard of them. I started writing Song, by Toad around this time and suddenly it dawned on me that all this completely obscure music that I was listened to was a telltale signature of a very specific target market, many of whom are to be found in the blogosphere. Now, I am not ashamed or surprised to exhibit herd-like behaviour myself – lets face it, we all do it and as long as you’re being sincere then it’s nothing to be afraid of – but what I did wonder about was where I’d absorbed these influences from.

See, I never really read blogs until shortly before I was writing one, so it can’t have come from peer group influence of any sort, so how did I end up liking the exact same music as an army of bloggers, whilst living completely isolated from their influence? Presumably, and without wishing to state the obvious, social factors play a massive part in musical tastes. And perhaps those of us who grew up with Dylan and the Band on one side and Bowie and Depeche Mode on the other, are very likely to end up with a very specific set of tastes of our own.

But I was surprised at just how exactly my tastes seemed to mirror those of the blogosphere average, especially having developed in what I had assumed to be quite different conditions. Presumably not so different after all. Anyhow, erm, oh yes, don’t buy this album because it isn’t very good.

Tapes ‘n’ Tapes – Hang Them All
Tapes ‘n’ Tapes – Time of Songs

website | hype | amazon

The Long Blondes’ last album wasn’t bad, I thought. There were some excellent, catchy indie-pop songs with plenty of bounce and a bit of wit and sparkle to elevate them above the crowd, but all in all it was a decent album rather than a really good one.

This is one step down from that. There are a few decent songs – The Couples, Guilt, Century – but the album tails off horribly after that and limps across the finish line with barely enough life left in it to raise a whistle.

They’ve gone a bit electro-disco, although they’ve always sounded a little like Blondie, and the sound isn’t too bad. The problem is the tunes. Their previous output was straight from a pretty well-established template, but the catchy melodies they were able to produce made the difference. In the case of Couples, the template may have changed, but it is template-rock nonetheless, and the tunes don’t cut the mustard. This album does not make me feel like dancing or even tapping my feet, and for something so formulaic that is the one thing it must do.

The Long Blondes – The Couples
The Long Blondes – Guilt

website | hype | amazon

Well well well, another week, another flutter through the pages of Edinburgh’s virtual classifieds for the finest tuneage known to man.  Or at least, Edinburgh man.  And woman.  For this week.

Tuesday 8th April: Alex Cornish at The Ark.
Me old pal Alex will be playing at The Ark on Tuesday, so for Scotland’s finest dose of mellow, pianoey pop songs, this is the place to be. Pop up and say hello afterwards too, as he’s the friendliest chap imaginable. I’ll be away unfortunately, so I won’t be able to make this one.
Alex Cornish – This One’s For You

Friday 11th April: Randan Discotheque & Sanna at The Village, Leith
This is part of the Club Welto folk night. Randan Disco is acoustic stuff, but written with that trademark Scottish humour permeating every song, and Sanna bring some gentle electro underpinnings to matters. The Village is a top way to spend your Friday nights in general, I’d say.
Randan Discotheque – Heather the Weather

Saturday 12th April: Chippewa Falls at Henry’s Cellar Bar.
Bart’s Gentle Invasion promotion sideline are hosting this one at Henry’s. Instrumental rock is a bloody hard thing to pull off, but the only reason Bart got out of the promoting lark in the first place is that he refused to put on gigs where he didn’t love the entire lineup, and that ginger man’s word is good enough for me.
Chippewa Falls – Wolfy

Update: now definitely CANCELLED. Sunday 13th April, Make Model, Found, Frightened Rabbit at Cabaret Voltaire.
Frightened Rabbit have a new album approaching called The Midnight Organ Fight, which I am pretty interested in having a listen to, as soon as it’s possible. I haven’t given the band that much thought for a while, I have to confess, so it’s time I started to pay attention again I think. Between their indie rock and Found’s electronic indie-folky stuff – bleep hop, they call it, which makes more sense – this is an excellent lineup only slightly let down by the headline act who are no better than reasonable, in my eyes. Be a little careful with this one, as Found have it down on their site as cancelled, whereas the others do not, so it may just be that Found themselves aren’t playing, which would be a shame.
Frightened Rabbit – The Modern Leper
Found – FCN Mapa Remix

I bloody love Elbow. I don’t like all of their music, and I am not always a committed lover of their albums, but I love a bloody good chunk of it and as a band I reckon they genuinely are the dog’s bollocks. They emerged from Manchester at about the same time as the briefly phenomenal Doves, but their own brand of slightly more melancholy epic indie rock has decisively outlasted their contemporaries.

I struggled a little for the word epic, because it implies bombast and pomposity, of which Elbow seem to be entirely devoid, but I couldn’t think of a better way to describe the grand sweep of their music without making it seem pretentious, which it genuinely isn’t. In fact, as a band, using the word pretentious would seem like the greatest travesty known to man. I’m not sure if it’s possible to be an internationally famous indie rock band whilst remaining normal, down to earth nice blokes, but if it is possible to be such a band, that band is Elbow.

Having drunkenly accosted Guy Garvey in a club in Edinburgh a couple of years back and miraculously not having been told to fuck right off, despite eminently deserving it, I always suspected he might actually be a genuinely nice bloke. Anyone listening to his show on 6Music will probably confirm this. He’s a handsome devil too – a genuine rock star – albeit in his own slightly portly, dishevelled, disarming Manchester way. In other words, these guys honestly are the Real Deal.

Elbow write music that grabs the heartstrings more than pretty much any other group you can mention, but they do it in such an unassuming way that it only now starts to dawn on me the extent to which they will rightfully be remembered as one of this era’s great bands. Personal, political, grand or small, there’s something about their best songs which simply transport you, take hold of you, and pour every ounce of emotion in the song straight into the very core of your soul.

Now, again, I don’t claim to love every song they’ve ever writtten and I will go so far as to state that Cast of Thousands is a downright mediocre album, but listening to this performance, and the number of euphorically brilliant songs they are able to draw upon, it’s like a massive great big slap in the face reminding me how good this band really are. Sensitive, emotional, sad, and then when they need to crank it up a notch, all hell breaks loose.

And did I mention what nice blokes they seemed. Really, genuinely unaffected by all that ‘being famous’ bollocks. Great, great gig, and I was sober all the way through, believe it or not!

Elbow – Leaders of the Free World
Elbow – Newborn
Elbow – Fugitive Motel Perhaps one of the best songs in the universe. Really.