I suppose I’d descibe this as a very, very old school sunshine pop album which has been recorded through a blanket of fuzz.  In fact, this sound has been achieved by capturing the music on a four-track before it was handed over to anything at all computerised, retaining that trademark growly sound, particularly on the vocals, which I am so fond of at the moment.

If I had a criticism of the album at all it would be that it is slightly downbeat for just a little too much of the time.  The problem with writing a stand-out hit like Lalita is that, when it is in pretty stark contrast to the rest of the album in terms of energy and atmosphere, you can end up wrong-footing your audience somewhat.  I spent the first listen waiting for the band to go mental again, and they don’t.

Once you realise that the album is more brooding than you’d thought, perhaps a little more gentle, then you can start to appreciate it for what it actually is: a splendidly crackly perversion of something that was supposed to be innocent and sincere.  They’ve taken something nice, and broken it slightly.

I can’t really deal with genuinely carefree pop most of the time, and the fact that The Love Language have knocked the corners off it slightly puts this right into my kind of territory.  Really good.

The Love Language – Lalita

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The Love Language – Manteo

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The Fightcast?  Yes, the fucking Fightcast.  Why?  Well because mp3 bloggers have been taking it in the arse with some force over the last week.  Posts are being deleted left right and centre, so presumably the major labels have decided to declare all-out war on blogs.  This is because they are scabby old unwashed cheesy penises.  This is not slander, I can prove it with charts and graphs.

Ultimately this is about corporate control of culture.  I don’t want to sound like a ranting conspiracy theorist, but put simply, this is how it works:  people pay for things they feel passionate about.  People feel passionate about art, the creation thereof and the participation therein.  Consequently any company vaguely engaged in cultural endeavours desperately wants to own the loyalty and devotion of as many people as possible, and anyone participating in this arena is a threat.  Grassroots art has more emotional resonance with people, people are more loyal to and more devoted to it and it is more personal.  Due to social networks of all sorts – blogs, networking sites, even something as simple as email -  it is an ever bigger and less controllable threat.

They want blogs to exist inasmuch as we provide free market research and free A&R, but if we think we have any influence, any rights, or indeed any genuine loyalty, they wish us dead.  Fuck them, fuck their little games and fuck the horse they rode in on.  If they don’t want to play with normal people then let them withdraw.  Let them take REM and U2 and fuck off.  I would rather form a massive great list of small independent record labels that do want to play nicely and only ever cover them and unsigned bands, and let the big boys compete with the X-Factor, if they think they can.  Fuck them, let them drown in their own greed.

Toadcast #43 – The Fightcast

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01. The Love Language – Lalita (02.20)
02. Honey Claws – Shout Out (07.14)
03. Findo Gask – One Eight Zero (10.56)
04. The Avett Brothers – Murder in the City (23.25)
05. Yusuf Azak – Ursa Major (28.02)
06. Miracle Fortress – Have You Seen in Your Dreams (30.53)
07. How To Swim – From Here to Dundee/Eternity (33.55)
08. Jib Kidder – Flip Flap (45.09)
09. Situationists – Onwards & Upwards (46.17)
10. Yusuf Azak – 19.19 (53.45)
11. The Avett Brothers – The Greatest Sum (Acoustic) (62.02)