Artrocker Magazine’s Single Reviews for the week commencing June 28th

Pulled Apart By Horses
Back To The Fuck Yeah
(Transgressive Records)

If you ever fancied simulating the Pulled Apart By Horses live experience in your living room, you've come to the right place! Because here's your guide in five easy steps. 1) slap on this hyperactive, nut-crunching single at full volume 2) take a hammer and smash your knees. Go on, don't be shy! 3) throw your phone out the window to simulate 'losing it in the moshpit' 4) climb the curtains - if you accidentally tear them down, hey don't worry! 5) relax with a banana, possibly while making quiet chimp noises.
On second thoughts actually, don't do 5). People might think you're weird.
Ric Rawlins


Archie Bronson Outfit
Hoola
(Domino Records)

Domino’s Archie Bronson Outfit returned earlier this year with their third full length, 'Coconut'. This latest single is an unlikely choice when considered as part of the LP's bigger picture, but it benefits from having the limelight all to itself here.
Accompanied by a series of somewhat samey remixes, it’s the original that shines. The song's constant metric beat serves as a backbone to jagged guitar lapses and the heavy, familiar bass grooves inherent in the work of post-punkers PiL and Magazine.
Sam Windett’s flailing yelp can create some distance between listener and lyric but it’s hard to be unaffected when, as sinister child like backings vocals swirl, he chants increasingly desperately ‘I came as one, I’ll leave as one’. Such moments stand as proof that at the heart of Hoola is an internal struggle that threatens to boil over into physical realms as we witness the song’s components in their thrilling fight for supremacy.
Mark Wall


Fever Fever
Monster
(Cherryade Records)

Argh! A song that demands mental alertness. Just as I had opened my second bag of salt and vinegar crisps to that new Feeder record too. Hmm. I'd better get out of bed for this one. Martha! Where's my damn pants?!
Fever Fever sent us this single along with a lovely personal letter, accompanied by a photomontage of Kelly Brooke sporting a gorilla's head. The signs were looking good - and the music sounds even better. 'Monster' is a ferociously enjoyable artrock attack, led by drums which snap their jaws like a relentlessly pursuing Pac Man, guitars which quiver like Space Octopuses from a 1950s B-movie, and a female vocal which kicks your teeth out with a steel-capped hiking boot.
Well shucks! What else would you expect from Manchester's fantastic Cherryade Records, home to the arsonist queer-punk Ste McCabe and countless other strange geniuses? The label's gone from strength to strength since Huw Stephens awarded them his label of the year back in 2006, with bands like Fever Fever sounding like the missing link between the spiky, angular bands and the intelligently destructive hardcore ones.
What's more, apparently this Norwich three-piece fight each other live on stage, so you walk into to a gig, you walk out of a girls vs boys deathmatch.
What more could you possibly want?
Ric Rawlins


Wetdog
Wymmin's Final
(Angular Recordings)

At Artrocker Towers we're quite keen on Wetdog: they rattle our bones with spooky tribal rhythms, they shiver us to the core with gothic chanting. For that reason, we're going to give this single a solid 3/5.
But what happens when you shake up the review system? Artrocker has approached a random member of public and put some headphones on them to find out.
Name? "Karin." Nationality? "Japan". Age? "28".
Ok Karin... go for it! Tell me what you think as it plays, just stream of consciousness - go!
"Wetdog! Good name, I like them already!" (music starts playing) "Ooo - Underwater sound. I don't like it. Boring! I don't know what they're saying... incomprehensible! Maybe good at festival when you're drunk. For head butting! I think it brings the Devil in me. Ha ha!"
Next month: Pete from Bristol town center reviews the new Klaxons single.
Ric Rawlins


Villagers
Ship Of Promises
(Domino)

Villagers, the brainchild of one Conor O’Brien, have been garnering a truckload of critical acclaim since their album ‘Becoming A Jackal’ came out.
And rightly so too: the urgent momentum of ‘Ship of Promises’ sweeps you up, with O’Brien looking back to his youth (“The churches I remember well, clocking in and out to the sound of the bell”) and pondering the pros and cons of love (“So I’ll meet you in between what I say and what I mean, and we will make our own mess”).
Light and airy at the start but sailing choppy waters by the end, this is a highly fulfilling piece of music that only gets better on repeated listens.
Max Raymond


Micah P. Hinson
Take Off That Dress For Me
(Full Time Hobby)

Hinson’s country-pop is so straight-forward it’s almost literal. A sort of Guthrie for the Guitar Hero Generation.
His addiction to prescription drugs and troublemaker biog-schtick suggests he might be closer to fellow Texans Kinky Friedman or the Man in Black. But rather than walking the line, with that hard swagger that partly wills a catastrophic fall, this single chooses to carefully crawl along said line, hands firmly clamped to the sides.
‘Take That Dress’ has the brevity if not the wit of a Magnetic Fields song, its confession of nihilism striking a very Stephin Merritt-esque note of existential refusal. But where Merritt has the sparkle of clever production, Hinson’s lone guitar sounds stranded in a desert of obviousness.
Daniel B. Yates


The Chakras
Build Me A Swan
(Flock Music)

Rocky, the lead singer of the Irish five-piece The Chakras, asks: “Can you build me a swan?” How does one go about building a swan? I suspect that only he and the rest of the band know for certain.
Apart from a memorably emotional chorus and an eerie post rock intro, this is a paint-by-numbers ‘Epic Indie Rock Anthem’. The majority of the lyrics are completely cliché-ridden, and sung in a bizarre Brian Molko style.
And so it is, what started as potentially interesting crumbles into something predictable and dull. The Chakras seem to have it in their DNA to cause a destructive racket – which makes this all the more disappointing.
Max Raymond


Chief
Breaking Walls
(Domino)

It's a bit of a cliche for American bands to sound like the Beach Boys at the moment. It's time for a change. It's time for a revolution. It's time for a band that sounds like... the Mammas and the Pappas!
Which is kind of what Chief appear to do: their heavenly harmonies are rooted in the sunshine hippie ideal, although the music more realistically falls somewhere between early Verve (thanks to the acid-washed guitars) and Arthur Lee's Love (thanks to the acid-washed melodies). Conclusion: this band is on acid.
Ric Rawlins


Gyratory System
Pamplona
(Angular Recording Co)

When I think of Pamplona there’s really only one image that springs to mind: that of hundreds of Spanish mentalists running like their life depended on it (which, to be fair, it probably does) away from a rather pissed off Bull, and diving over walls at the last minute to escape it’s wrath.
So when I received this latest single from Gyratory System and saw it was called ‘Pamplona’ I kind of expected that it might serve as the soundtrack to this magnificently batty event. In short, a record that would convey the enormity of adrenalin you’d feel as you ran for your life.
In reality what we have is a fairly good electro track, full of blips and beeps but lacking in the urgent ramped-up bass lines I would expect. I’m not sure you could even dance to this, let alone use it as the soundtrack to the adrenalin rush of your life.
Mark Cousens


Mother Mother
O My Heart
(Last Gang Records)

Kicking off with a disgruntled bass riff straight out of the Kim Deal rulebook, it’s nonetheless unkind to say that Mother Mother have cut themselves entirely from the cloth remnants of The Pixies’ Doolittle.
The quirkily offset boy/girl vocals certainly point in that direction, but lyrically there’s a wealth of imagery to be crediting Ryan Guldemond for on his own merits – not least the metaphor of fish on rocks which he uses to describe his decaying heart.
Meanwhile, the vocals of Molly Guldemond interplay with Ryans to striking effect, particularly in the melodic harmonies of the middle eight.
It may not be all that forward thinking, but when the template is as alluring as theirs, who cares?
Emily Kendrick


Blacklisters
Belt Party
(Childhood Sweetheart Records)

I know a lot of people who drink too much booze. But even the most depraved ones don't sound as pant-wettingly buggered as the singer of Blacklisters does here: "You can have me if you like!" he slurs. "I cried my f***ing heart out!" he gibbers. "YEEAAARGGHH!" he shrieks, possibly while knocking over a vase of flowers to disapproving looks.
Before you begin slowly shuffling out of the room however, it's worth noting that musically, 'Belt Party' is a tightly controlled and dramatic piece of hardcore music; it's like a gun that's aimed but not fired - and all the more terrifying for it.
Ric Rawlins


Four Tet
Angel Echoes (remixes)
(Domino)

This new 12” release from Four Tet features two remixes of the track taken from fifth studio album ‘There Is Love In You’. The original track was a slow ambient piece of electronica featuring the lyric “There is love in you” repeated ad infinitum – it never really went anywhere and was somewhat lacking in the tune department.
The first remix on this 12” by Caribou is a little faster and has plenty of blips and beeps added in. Removing the endless lyric it even manages to extract a bit of tune, but despite the effort Caribou fail to make enough improvements to the original. The second remix by Jon Hopkins brings the vocal back and slows everything down again to the slow plodding pace of the original. Boo.
Mark Cousens


Lavotchkin
Widow Country EP
(Shark City)

It’s a bleak world, goes the Lavotchkin philosophy, so let’s get pissed off, let’s channel our anger, and let’s go absolutely f*cking mental! I think it’s safe to assume they’re leaning to somewhere to the right of Buddhism then.
It’s hardcore time at the throat-destroying zoo again, and these chaps (who’ve previously supported Trash Talk and are now stepping up to the superleague courtesy of Rolo Tomassi’s producer) present a peculiarly action packed variety of it.
The whole EP leans heavily on the accelerator pedal, spading its own brains out in a tornado of anger, then gobbing on the remains as they steam on the floor. If World War Three breaks out, make sure you are on the side… of Lavotchkin! ™
Ric Rawlins


Dirty Projectors
Stillness Is The Move
(Domino)

Originally released last summer and now re-released to coincide with a live appearance at the Barbican, ‘Stillness Is the Move’ is taken from The Dirty Projectors album Bitte Orca.
The vocals, supplied by Amber Coffman, are delivered in the horrible R&B acrobatic way so often favoured by female participants in the nation’s most reprehensible talent show The X Factor. It’s the sort of singing in fact that makes me want to boil my own head with enough strawberries and caster sugar to make a nice jam (today’s cookery lesson there).
However, backed with an interesting hip hop/Chinese fusion it actually works quite well. In my opinion remixes are rarely any good and B-side ‘Stillness Is the Move’ remixed by Lucky Dragons does little to change my mind. Sounding exactly the same as the original but on speed, it is indeed quite rubbish.
Mark Cousens


Zebra And Snake
Nighttime EP
(Label)

Just when you think you've heard all the new 8-bit-style techno-pop you will ever hear, along comes Zebra and Snake.
While opener ‘Big Bad Drummer’ comes across as some sort of Kraftwerk death-rattle on the autobahn of Euro-pop and ‘I Felt Nothing’ lives in a parallel universe where Gary Newman went Sci-fi instead of Goth, things don’t really get going until the corrupted synths of ‘Modern Art’, which lends an early-Crystal Castles digital blitzkrieg to shake things up.
‘We Never Go When We Have To’ brings a little Duran Duran bass to the proceedings, and fairs pretty well as a result, while the textured synths and myriad percussion lines of ‘Weaker Arm’ contrast beautifully with it’s blissed-out chorus.
Overall, Zebra and Snake display interesting ideas, but sadly, fail to make your jaw drop.
Martyn Boyle


Drum Eyes
50/50
(Upset The Rhythm)

Innovative instrumentalists, Drum Eyes release this cosmic offering in an attempt to psych you up for their up-coming festival appearances and album (Out August 9).
After opening with a minute-long drum roll, '50 50' ticks along rather nicely. It initially making you long for a field, a sunny afternoon and some funny cigarettes to indulge the sleepy mood in which it envelopes you.
But, beware! This is a work of 2 minute-odd segments- progressive, and in some mental-states, potentially mind-blowing. Use with caution!
Martyn Boyle


Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
All In Two Sixty Dancehalls EP
(Greco-Roman)

Orlando Dinosaur is a producer that wears his influences, not so much on his sleeve, than on enormous sandwich board placards.
An electic grab-bag of electronica tropes, grime technopop and po-mo pop are flagged up as if we might not notice the Amen break kicking our ears down like its 1999 all over again.
‘Garden’ kicks off like a rave-step hymn. Blissed out synth riffs bring the trascendence, while chippy breakcore brings the body. As the vocals kick in we realize we are getting a pop song, a boy girl duet at the crossroads between Hot Chip geekiness and the detachment of The XX.
‘Blood Pressure (featuring Riko)’ employs the Roll Deep veteran to make like a general ordering his troops into battle, over a heavy junglist thicket. The whole thing is fine. He’s a competent guy. Riko is fine. And if that sounds like damning with faint praise, well spotted - it is.
Daniel B. Yates


The National
Anyone’s Ghost
(4AD)

This latest release from The National’s much-lauded ‘High Violet’ album is a timely reminder of why so many fell under the band’s spell again this year.
The dark, frustrated mood of ‘Anyone’s Ghost’ is detectable, with fragility all too audible in the guitars from the outset. Not only does it make for an arresting record in isolation from the context of its parent album, but it also shows just how accomplished the Cincinnati quintet are when it comes to setting an immediate tone.
Similarly, the hypnotic quality which goes hand in hand with much of the Americans’ work is there to hear in abundance, thanks to Matt Berninger’s intriguingly understated vocal style and Bryan Devendorf’s unwavering drum patterns which drag the listener along an unstoppable path.
Lines such as ÒBut I don’t want anybody elseÓ soon become etched on the brain, with Berninger’s seemingly lovelorn state-of-mind inviting affection and mutual belonging.
Charlie Ashcroft


The Dead Weather
Blue Blood Blues
(Warner Records)

God is that Jack White? He’s fallen to earth pretty hard. When did he start making records this bad? It’s cliché’s to argue that artist were better early on in their career, but the two poster bands of the early noughties, The Strokes and White Stripes, have completed the declining scale with a level of panache only comparable to that of a political leader in office. Both bands declined faster and further than Tony Blair, but at least in the case of the former-PM, we’re not being subjected to him no mo’. If only both groups were to head his advise and tour the world playing high-profile corporate bashes the rest of the world could remain indifferent to their output…oh!
Samuel Breen


Ou Est Le Swimming Pool
Jackson’s Last Stand
(Fire & Manouvre)

It’s always been difficult to know whether Ou Est Le Swimming Pool are hipster nepotism machines or not. Either way, their recent activity sees them in accessible territory, hanging out with La Roux and Alphabeat and turning out alt.radio-friendly hits like ‘Jackson’s Last Stand’.
It’s a juddering new wave track. As a result, it sounds like a lot of other juddering new wave tracks. However, this is darkly danceable, with a central hook which sounds almost Lady Gaga. It’ll draw radio heads and roller-disco refuseniks alike. Their debut album is due in August, and it looks as if the band are headed towards electro pop primacy.
Max Feldman