I’ve had a few things sent in by people recently who sound like they are genuine readers of the site. It’s not always all that easy to tell, but Tom from Bearfaced Records pretty much has to be genuine, I reckon. And he told me I was great, which erm… well you should all know what a vain and superficial blowhard I am by now.
Anyway, Tom has an acoustic EP out called One Guitar & a Whole Lot of Whining which I have yet to hear, but the songs below are preliminary mixes from his forthcoming album which sounds rather promising to my ears. If I had criticisms I think they would be that the lyrics on So Sorry are just a little bit repetitive, but that’s just me. Bedroom Nerves is excellent, and I reckon the transition from acoustic to a full(ish) band with bass and drums has worked well. I can’t tell you what it is I like about this – the chord progressions seem to be sort of unhurried and confident, I think. But someone with more knowledge than I about how music actually goes together may well be able to correct me on that.
Tom’s vocal delivery is a little bit of an acquired taste, but I’m a little wary of saying so because every singer I know who is told that tends to become obssessively paranoid about it. It is not, I must stress, a bad thing. Some of my favourite singers have really distinctive voices. You want your music to have its own personality so why wouldn’t you want a voice that’s a bit different?
Anyhow, readers of Toad, meet Bearfaced Records and Eaten by Monsters. I am quite new to their stuff but I’d say it was rather promising, wouldn’t you?
Eaten by Monsters – Bedroom Nerves
Eaten by Monsters – So Sorry
Buy from Bearfaced Records
Oh, now this lot are a little bit good. They sound like Noah & the Whale might do if they played a gig and Broken Records had been on the stereo as they drove to the venue. There’s bits of Johnny Flynn in there as well. The elements will be familiar to readers of Toad: a slightly ramshackle stumble of rolling folk music. They use plenty of banjos and brass and something of a joyous carnival atmosphere to the music.
The elements may all be pretty familiar, but they pull it off with sincerity, panache and energy. One of the most captivating talents they are showcasing here is the ability to mix the rattle of their more upbeat music with the genuinely sad, and just a little epic, sadness of their more lovelorn songs. In fact it is in the sweeping sadness that they escape from their folkier underpinnings – they’re plinking and strumming along and suddenly it all breaks free and starts swooping and turning through some sort of clear sky of melancholy, letting its direction be determined by the elusive currents of the upper atmosphere.
Maybe that’s where the Broken Records comparisons come in. Mumford & Sons don’t actually sound like them at all, they sound much more like the more English folk of Johnny Flynn and so on, but there is something of the grand about them somewhere, which kind of vaguely evokes Edinburgh’s epic racket-merchants in glimpses.
There’s nothing to buy as yet, but their EP will be available on their MySpace page in the next couple of days, and there’s a tour to accompany its release which will be bringing it through these parts – well vaguely: the Captain’s Rest in Glasgow – in the next couple of days. Having heard three of the four songs on the EP I would really recommend you try and catch them and pick up a copy of the EP.
Mumford & Sons – Awake My Soul
I am not sure how to introduce a band whose email suggesting I listen to their music consisted mostly of taking the piss out of me for that god-awful rant about PR people the other week but, erm, ‘bastards’ springs to mind:
i attach an sx3r2tp for ur attention…u open it with the vortex drive version 4.9gti but don’t forget to run scandisk SR4 on any external media drives and make sure u repair all permisions with disk utility first!
See, bastards. Well this particular bunch of bastards play a sort of slightly bored-sounding 80s synth-indie which I can often take or leave, generally. It’s definitely take in this case though, because this is a really enjoyable song. Funnily enough, it was listening to this that I suddenly (and I think you could say ‘finally’) made the connection between the slightly spastic synth-rock that is so popular these days and its origins twenty-odd years ago.
It’s not shocking in its musical recipe in any way, but there’s something in the breezy, cool delivery that really appeals to me. In lieu of a really obvious hook they approach this with more of a musical trajectory that lifts lazily from start to finish. They seem to be more of a mind to use texture to create an atmosphere whereby the song sticks rather than the more obvious ‘here comes the catchy guitar bit’ approach that indie has a bad habit of lapsing into. Anyway, this sound promising and the other couple of songs on their MySpace page are good – bar the dance remix, but then, I was always going to hate that, really, wasn’t I – so I reckon these guys have some good things to bring our way if they can keep this up.
Alex was happy for me to put the song up here, despite the fact that it is supposed to be a paid download, so please respect his generosity and go to the Oxford Music Net website and pay the pound. It’s a good song, and it’s worth it, so go on, piss off and put your hand in your pocket.
Bahnhof Zoo – I Am Not a Murderer
