London based singer-songwriter Tom Hector has an old spirit. On this, his third EP, his music has a dreamy quality, resurrecting sixties pop and sunny attitudes, replayed through a sort of nineties filter. It results in four tunes that might appeal to fans of the Beach Boys or The Feeling, yet at the same time he presents material that holds on to a slightly woozy attitude that might just catch the ear of those who’ve followed the solo career of The Bluetones’ Mark Morriss.
Tag Archives: stream
TOM BAKER & THE SNAKES – 4 Stars EP
“Ah. What’s that, K-9? A huge sound coming from that far off nebula? Things might get rocky, so you’d better stay and guard the TARDIS.” It’s hard not to hear the name Tom Baker and not visualise a curly-haired, long-scarfed eccentric and his camp robot dog, isn’t it? Well, joking aside, here’s a different Tom Baker for you: a Boston native primed and ready to crack your skulls with a semi-raucous three guitar assault. To kick off 2016, Baker, sometime member of The Dirty Truckers, has teamed up with various other Boston alumni – fellow Trucker John Brookhouse (g/v); Gymnasium’s Charles Hansen (g), John Sheeran of Family Township (bass) and Watts’ tub thumper John Blout, all of whom are on hand to bring more than a touch of their own Stones obsessed style on three very sweaty and shamelessly retro numbers.
CLIMBING ALICE – Melt Yourself Up EP
Wakefield’s Climbing Alice mix various alt-rock styles into a sound they self-bill as Alt-Popp. For the average listener, what this actually means is that they’ve taken a slab of post-grunge guitar noise, a generous helping of goth and a pinch of shoegazey jangle and come out winning. There mightn’t be anything overtly new about this band’s music, but – as evidenced upon this debut EP – it’s all played with a fiery passion…and most importantly, it’s got the riffs.
SUGARUSH – Sugarush EP
As the summer of 2014 faded, Israeli avant-garde rock band Memory In Plant released their ‘Epic Triumph’ EP, an angular collection of arty noises that wasn’t always the easiest to digest. Despite their deliberately obtuse stance, the EP somehow managed to bring entertainment value as bits of tunes fought their way through the cracks of the many spliced together ideas. Unsurprisingly, though, they weren’t so quick to follow up that release…
JOE 4 – Enola Gay EP
With a band name taken from the US nickname for Russian nuclear tests and an EP named after a famous bomber (as opposed to the poncy and rather smug Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark single from 1980), you could say that Croatian noise rock quartet Joe 4 are a rather angry lot. This, their first English language release – from 2011 – is somewhat of a hidden gem.