Bounding on stage at Shepherds Bush Empire, girl-hipped and beard-faced, Devendra Banhart assessed a crowd made up of copy-cat males (long hair and moustaches gleaming), flower-adorned teenage girls, and a rather large chunk of what I can only describe as…
Category: Reviews
[Hundred Bands] 5: Lissie
Wow. Already our gargantuan task is worth it. Lissie is a Californian troubadour who made her EP ‘Why You Running’ with Band of Horses man Bill Reynolds. Lissie vocals are deliciously smoky, and she scuffs up her pretty melodies with…
Album: Dan Mangan, Nice, Nice, Very Nice
Dan Mangan is a folk-rock musician with a soft touch and vocals less strained and ragged than Mark Lanegan’s. His latest album, Nice, Nice, Very Nice, is, indeed, a pleasant ode to songwriting and traditional craftsmanship. Piano, horns, claps, female…
EP: Johnny Flynn – Sweet William
Singer, musician, actor, poet and annoyingly handsome fellow Johnny Flynn follows up the success of his 2008 debut long player A Larum with this delightful little package, a taster of what to expect from his second album due out early…
Album: Paper Aeroplanes – The Day We Ran Into The Sea
Born from the ashes of acoustic pop outfit Halflight, Paper Aeroplanes are the combined musical talents of vocalist Sarah Howells and guitar-man Richard Llewellyn – and it doesn’t take Poirot-esque detective skills to work out that the debut from welsh group Paper Aeroplanes is an indie-pop record – from the sweetly fairytale-ish album name to the cover art depicting vocalist Sarah Howells running through a field strewn with feathers – everything about Paper Aeroplanes screams of the kind of doe-eyed, twinkly twee currently being peddled by the likes of Noah and The Whale and Theoretical Girl. So how does the music itself measure up?
EP: She Keeps Bees – Revival
She Keeps Bees are a little 2-piece from Brooklyn consisting of Jessica Larrabee and Andy Laplant, but don’t be fooled by their size, the band should really be set for big things. With this EP, Revival, we hear exactly what these guys are about- simple stripped down bluesy genius. And stripped down/ simple bluesy genius just so happens to be my favourite kind of genius. There’s just something about a band that have the power to blow away an audience with a single vocal, a guitar and some drums that gets to me.
[Hundred Bands] 4: The Mountain Parade
The Mountain Parade got in touch to ask if they could play The Allotment, and I’m very glad they did. They’re an I-don’t-know-how-many piece from Oxford with an ever revolving (and expanding?) membership. There’s certainly a trend for a load…
Album: The Tailors – Come Dig Me Up
Wannabe paleontologists The Tailors’ second album, Come Dig Me Up, is brilliantly varied, blending folk and country sounds seamlessly and addressing themes that range from extinction to teenage angst.
[Hundred Bands] 3 – The Very Most
The Very Most are a five-piece led by Jeremy Jensen, brother of Paranthetical Girls’s Rachael, from Idaho in the US. They have released two albums so far – Making the Case for Me in 2004 and Congratulations Forever in 2008…
[Hundred Bands] 2: AVI Buffalo
AVI Buffalo is Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg. An 18 year old singer songwriter from Long Beach California who describes himself on his myspace as an alternative/southern rock. Their music has the same sunshiney tinny sheen as the polyphonic spree. It sounds like California sunshine,…