Song, by Toad

The Van Allen Belt – Meal Ticket To Purgatory

There are times when this album sounds like a deranged operetta.  There are times when it sounds like experimental lounge pop.  There are times when it sounds like a straightforward twisted indie.  It crashes about all over the place, is riddled with imperfections when the melody doesn’t quite catch, when a couple of songs get lost in one another and so forth, but in general this is pure mental brilliance.

It does feel incredibly familiar – it’s reminiscent of a great many recent bands, but rarely of the exact same ones for all that long.  The Revolution Will be Merchandised is an example of a pure pop song: Broadway choruses, sharp lyrics and jaunty brass.  There are plenty of these moments in this album, which is a very good thing, because this kind of easy enjoyment anchors the more bizarre moments – it just keeps the record from becoming disorientating, which would certainly be possible.

It’s a fucking smart album as well.  Songs called Baby Boomer Backstroke will tell you about the sense of humour of this band, although the wit of the lyrics can be somewhat obscured by their obliqueness and the swirl of the music around them.  I agree with Kevin, head* of their excellent label Indiecater, that this really is a album for multiple listens.  Great stuff.

The Van Allen Belt – Dr. Layman’s Terms/The Hills Are Alive

The Van Allen Belt – Way Up

MySpace | More mp3s | Buy from Indiecater Records

* By head, I mean CEO, head of A&R, cleaning lady, canteen staff and work experience teenager.  Bascially, there’s just him, as far as I’m aware, so whilst he is the head of the label, strictly speaking…  well, you know what I mean.

Indiecater Christmas Goodness

There’s a lot of Christmassy stuff happening in the blogosphere at the moment. Basically, given that the music industry tends to grind to a halt over this period, I guess that there isn’t that much for people to write about, particularly those of us who are primarily driven by new music.

To fill this gap a lot of musicians, particularly Americans – who seem to take Christmas music a little more seriously than we do here in the UK, where it is regarded with a sort of awestruck horror most of the time – seem to record one-off Christmas songs. Nevertheless, it is to an Irish label that I point you, and none other than Indiecater Records, set up by fellow blogger Kevin from mp3 Hugger. Indiecater tend to release one of two kinds of album: either long lost albums which Kevin feels do not deserve to be lost to the mists of time; or Indiecater compilations, which are paid assemblies of songs by independent bands, which Kevin sells in order to both spread the word and bring a little revenue to the artists whilst doing so.

Given this general approach, it hardly came as a surprise when it turned out that he was releasing and Indiecater Christmas Compilation. As per usual, I hardly know any of the bands, but then that is part of the point of things like this. It’s a very small amount of money – six and a half Euros – and that money goes to help support independent music by directly putting money into the pockets of the bands who are the bread and butter of websites like mine, and like Kevin’s.

Two bands on there who I do know are My Teenage Stride and The Winks, both of whom are superb. So here’s an incentive to shell out your hard-earned.

My Teenage Stride – Ears Like Golden Bats
The Winks – Slumber Party Let’s Go