Following a couple of digital downloads, Nashville alt-pop band Sherbert released a five song EP ‘This Never Happened’ in the summer of 2013. With a host of influences taken from the Boston “scene” of the late 80s/early 90s, its shimmering pop qualities meshed with a grubby edge in a way that would surely please the younger Tanya Donelly. A few months later, they dropped a second EP ‘Stupid Hat’, largely constructed of more of the same…choosing not to tinker with what seems, essentially, a perfectly good musical formula.
Category Archives: Album & EP Reviews
THE END MEN – Odds & Ends
With heavy blues grooves and a hoarse vocal, The End Men made a huge impression on their second release ‘Play With Your Toys’. Uncompromising, loud and brash on the surface, yet home of a carnival of characters, the band pushed the limits of the two-musician format. Their follow up ‘Odds & Ends’ does exactly what it says on the rusted tin gathering together some unheard gems, plus providing a proper home for 2013’s two track release ‘Work’/’Ratking’.
ELASTIC SLEEP – Leave You EP
A joint release between Big Tea and FIFA Records, this debut EP by Irish band Elastic Sleep is a like a vapourous retro-fuelled dream. With layers of fuzz dragging their core sound through a technicolour haze, ‘Leave You’ is first class hybrid of dreampop and shoegaze.
CHERRY POPPIN’ DADDIES – White Teeth, Black Thoughts
Something unexpected happened in the mid/late 90s. At the peak of ska’s third wave, typified by the likes of Less Than Jake and Mustard Plug, old fashioned swing bands began to appear alongside punk and ska bands on festival bills. Soon, despite having more in common with Tony Bennett than The Specials, some of the kids who were growing bored of the predictable nature of the ska bands took a shine to the swing crowd with their pin-striped suits and retro spatz. Much as he’d been the poster boy for the rockabilly revival over a decade before, Brian Setzer led the wave with his sassy big band, with the likes of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Royal Crown Revue also doing sterling work with this unlikely resurgence of old big band sounds.
DUKE AND THE DARLINGS – Irwellian EP
In the spring of 2013 Manchester alt-rockers Duke And The Darlings unleashed their second EP, ‘Champagne of the People’, a brief work that showed the band to have a lot of energy – an energy they really harnessed when choosing to record that EP live in the studio, thus capturing their core sound in a much welcomed unfussy manner. While their song writing wasn’t always memorable in the long term, the EPs music had moments of great drive and an enthusiasm which guaranteed those lucky enough to hear it would wind up musing on how the band’s sound would develop in the future. Surely in an upwards direction, taking the best parts of their sound, refining them for an even better release…?