Singles for the week starting 30 January!

Cut Yourself In Half
Said Goodbye To The World
(New Heavy Sounds)
* * * * *

Something tells me this could only have come out on the New Heavy Sounds label: Cut Yourself In Half combine the floor-collapsing fuzzy bass riffs that have become one of the labels calling cards, while also nodding towards the classic Sabbath line-up. On top of this, we get a pseudo Egyptian guitar solo, a two-minute instrumental section, and all sorts of frankly exhilarating riff-acrobatics. That's some heavy shit.
Danny Canning
Out Now

Dead Skeletons
Om Mani Peme Hung
(Too Pure Singles Club)
* * * * *

You know how, once you've seen The Omen, you can't hear religious choral music without imagining that four year-old freak and his evil little eyeballs? Well similarly, once you've seen the music video to 'Om Mani Peme Hung', you'll never be able to listen to the thing again without picturing Skeletor, dressed as a Nazi, climbing out of a volcanic rock pool and climbing his way slowly towards you. It's on Artrocker.TV now. Go! Watch it! And feel the fear.
This isn't to say that Iceland's Dead Skeletons can't be enjoyed without the comforts of Youtube: their debut release for the Too Pure Singles Club is a hypnotic and tribal thing, with space-synths playing the pipes of pan as shamanic tambourines and psychedelic Moogs oscillate in and out of synch with one another.
In fact, it would sound like quite an uplifting, reassuring groove were it not for the fact that I can see Skeletor dressed as a Nazi climbing towards me in the corner of my eye. Second thoughts, avoid the video! Avoid the video!
Ric Rawlins

Clock Opera
Once And For All
(Moshi Moshi/Island)
* *

I’ve read reviews by my comrades at Artrocker praising these falsetto-boosted electro-pop artists, which can only lead me to include they’ve got the Marmite Factor. From start to finish this single lunges in the direction of an epic, emotive climax – but save for the odd likeable vocal hook the ideas just aren’t there.
Danny Canning

Concrete Knives
You Can't Blame The Youth
(Black and White Records)
* * *

This EP by French indie-poppers Concrete Knives is an upbeat affair about wanting to escape and dreaming about the places where you'd rather be.
The highlights by far are ‘Greyhound Racing’ and ‘Time For Disco’: the former is playful and powered by a ruffled-up rhythm whilst the latter is the sound of someone being dragged onto the dancefloor at 2am.
Elsewhere things feel a little undercooked and over-familiar (the use of glockenspiel on ‘Happy Mondays’, in particular, feels like a cop-out). There's two paths Concrete Knives could go down. Here's hoping it's the less twee one.
Max Raymond