Track 7 to the rescue...

Elvis Costello may reckon it's generally track 4 on any given record which can be relied on to deliver the goods but for this blog, time and again, it's track 7. Public radio, the second album from Sweden's The Legends is but the latest record to bear this out. And to be honest, rarely has a track 7 been more welcome. Blimey, this is a surprise and so far not a particularly nice one. Largely gone are the all the things that made Up against the Legends so fab - the thick, fuzzed out power guitars, the tambos, the handclaps, the occasional girl vocals. In comes cleaned-up clanging bass and synths and a doomy plod a la Depeche Mode, or a beats-free Heaven17 even. It's still pop but with way less full-on effervescence 'n' thrills than before.
Which brings us to track 7, the aptly titled Something good (or should that be Something good(at last)?), a perfect slice of swish, sweet retropop the Swedish do so well. And handclaps return - hurrah! - only they're weedy and machine-made ones, boo. Still, this one will get plenty of repeat plays along with the final track Do you remember Riley which gets nearest here to the sheer freewheelin'-down-a-hill-with-your-legs-sticking-out glee of the first album. People like us and He knows the sun also have choruses you can't really keep down even if the production and instrumentation here is generally doing it's darnedest...

No, reallyrather is presently having far more fun courtesy of some rather more local talent. Not sure how much more mileage there is to be had from the a la mode post-Strokes, post-Franz formula but The Rakes just make it under the wire with their lo-fat, big fun debut Capture/release. Considering the number of standout pop tunes on here (about 6) for some reason this record's still not quite as well-known as it should or could be (see also Clor). It's not exactly breaking any boundaries with its likeable tales of geezerly woe but it's way preferable to minor league upstarts like Hard Fi...

Rilo Kiley opening for Coldplay took a bit of getting used to ..and now this! Recent blog favourites, banjo-flecked twee-pop mob The Boy Least Likely To have only been signed up as support for the entirety of James Blunt's UK autumn tour. There's official bemusement ('not really sure how it all came about') and, as might be expected, a little consternation ('horrible taste in the mouth') over here. Still, this blog had a lovely time at the Water Rats last month (which was.. whisper it.. a sell-out) and will definitely be giving them the benefit of the doubt back there on Oct 27...

...and apparently (tho' this blog was oblivious) the boy Blunt was there last night when the same venue played host to Austin's Okkervil River . Occupying some midpoint between say Bright Eyes and, frankly, Counting Crows, Will Sheff was v much the heart and soul of this show and certainly gave most of the crowd what they'd come for on upbeat euphoric belters like Song of our so-called friend, For real and It ends with a fall. Aside from the v occasional bass overload, the sound was as good as this blog can remember at this place with trumpet and keyboards rounding things out superbly. It was really only in their slower paces that reallyrather realised why the 'O' section of its meticulously ordered music collection wasn't about to get any bigger, tonight at least. There's a mournful Texan folky side to Okkervil River that rr doesn't warm to anywhere like as much. Centromatic's Will Johnson happily diverts most of his more sombre tendencies into South San Gabriel, thus keeping CM crunchy and electric and still easily this blog's favourite Texan alt-folk-rockin' combo...

...and South San Gabriel come over for a surprisingly ambitious headline booking at Bush Hall Nov 14...

Ripping across the indiezinescene like a big comet-y thing, 'this year's Arcade Fire' Clap Your Hands Say Yeah zip over for their UK debut show at ULU Nov 28. (Actually, there's hardly a need for 'this year's Arcade Fire' since last year's 'Arcade Fire', er, Arcade Fire are still out there fizzing with life.) CYHSY's homemade self-release has been riding high on the Metacritic aggregate chart for a while. Sufjan Stevens (who slots in a solo show at King's College Oct 31 in addition to the sold-out Shepherd Bush Empire band extravaganza) was beginning to look unassailable as this list's year-end topper but for the moment he's just been shuffled back to the no.2 spot by..yes, you guessed it.. another bunch of comet-y Canadians...
Wolf Parade

And apparently - according this guy anyway (rr hasn't yet checked) - if you likeThe Boy Least Likely To and Clap Your Hands.. then you'll want to take a listen to the music of a guy called Drew who puts his stuff out under the name Dog Traders. A panic in a pagoda is the collection's name and it's available to download free over here...

'As crisp and consistent as a Canadian forest,' that's how this blog summed the last full-length release from matt pond PA in the course of ranking it no.2 for the year '04. Swish and superfine indie-soft-rock which has lost none of it's flavour in the intervening year+. Well well, just in time to more or less coincide with the release of their new record, Emblems has finally surfaced officially in the UK. Dopey B-Unique have decided to slip it out without really telling anyone. Go to their site and there it isn't; you can check their A-Z artists roster in vain. It's all Kaiser Chiefs this, those (really very) Ordinary Boys that.. well done, B-Unique! At least they put it under Mojo's nose (4/5 in the lastest ed.) and doubtless Word Magazine will fall upon the band in a 'Why weren't we told' kind of way sooner or later (no sign of it anywhere in the October edition -- wakey wakey, Word guys)...

The new Matt Pond record is called Several arrows later, due Oct 11 and it's 'the most immediate and rocking expression of mpPA's music yet', apparently. Which is fine except it's lead someone into thinking it's a good idea to tie the band into a slew of US dates opening for Liz Phair and Guster. Anyone else hear the faint sound of alarm bells off in the distance? Back in '03 one of this blog's enduring favourites Wheat came out with what was undoubtedly their most direct and, yes, 'immediate' album to date. Per second, per second, per second, every second it was called. Not everyone went with it but reallyrather's right arm was sent a-wheeling with those power chords, oh yes. Thing is, to push the record they were sent out on tour opening firstly for.. Liz Phair and then, yep, Guster. Wheat split up soon after...

[Wheat's best-known song lives on, tho'. Don't I hold you crops up on the soundtrack of the forthcoming Cameron Crowe film Elizabethtown, rubbing shoulders with the likes of My Morning Jacket and Jeff Finlin. Oh, and the movie stars Kirsten Dunst, nuff said...]

And it was a case of deja vu all over again recently when reading Mojo's review of the new Supergrass album. 'There's nothing here remotely resembling a hit single...this is a real grower...glam-psych-pop with a bucketful of melancholy...an elegiac, micro-Sgt.Pepper,' they waxed. Now this from The Observer: 'Those who go to it searching for rabble-rousing won't find it...It takes a while for the deep mechanisms of [the songs] to reveal themselves...a pyschedelic soul record...their attempt to be The Beatles of Sgt.Pepper,' etc etc. Critics coming helpfully to the same conclusions you might think except that The Observer was writing about new Super Furry Animals album. Have these two Supers made the same record? Or maybe they're just at the same point in the cycle..the one where you feel the need to jet off to foreign parts to record (rural France, Brazil respectively) and to raid your dad's record collection for inspiration (with special reference to The Beatles and Neil Young). You know, the point where you start running out of energy and ideas...

And besides, there's bands around who have been quietly doing this 'glam-psych-pop' thing all their days, bands like Oranger. New comes and goes is the sage title of their latest (available Sept 20) and you can hear tracks from it over at their flashy new website...

Scandinavian notes:
::The Pipettes recently played Emmaboda festival in Sweden and over at Tangents Jonathan Falcone from the band tips us all to some happenin' locals: 'Sweden is easily half a decade ahead of us Brits on the music front, storming away with no consideration for our supposedly kudos stuffed Goliaths...' [more]
::Summer's on the way out but, defiantly, here comes a new album from The Legends!!!! Anyone wise enough to snag their fuzzed-out, handclaptastic debut will buy Public Radio blind..
::But Amandine seem to be dealing in the Scandinavian flipside, bedding down for those long winter nights with their debut full-length, This is where our hearts collide. It gets a UK release via Fat Cat Records in November but No Ripchord has already heard it: 'Warm, emotive and wistful, with a quiet power surging underneath..influences from the classics, including The Band and Crosby Still & Nash along with other, modern folk artists, including Candidate, and touches of the alt. country/Americana scene – think of Damien Jurado or even Calexico. But they’re also a band with a strong identity, based around solid, intelligent song writing and unfussy yet powerful delivery of their material.'
Amandine / Fat Cat

The last time this blog saw Gravenhurst (opening for Sufjan Stevens at Lock 17 last year), Nick Talbot ended his mostly spare acoustic set on the floor, totally obscured from view, cranking out 8 or 9 minutes of electronic noise. Non-plussed seemed to be the general reaction. Very plussed indeed seems to be Gigwise's early reaction to the upcoming new record, Fires in distant buildings: 'Razor-sharp guitars..hidden pop chops to the fore..dueling guitars worthy of top notch Crazy Horse'.
Holy crap, etc!
'As radical a departure from the familiar fingerpicking formula that 'Fires in Distant Buildings' initially seems, a closer listen reveals plentiful reserves of the mesmerizing, unique magic that has lifted Gravenhurst miles above his fellow minstrels...'
Phew, that's alright then...
Gravenhurst / Nick Talbot's diary

...meanwhile, in a total other musicsl universe..The Weepies get signed, hurrah! Finally, someone's seen the light and snapped up Deb and Steve, in this case it's Nettwerk Records, home to the likes of The Be Good Tanyas and Sarah McLachlan. Deb Talan's folk-pop finesse has been a secret way too long - hey Nettwerk, how about a Deb compilation? Listen to Thanksgiving, Comfort, Forgiven, Two points...you know it would make sense...
The Weepies / Deb Talan

...particularly, this blog admits, to those of a James Blunt-type persuasion. James Blunt. There, I've said it. No, not merely a flagrant attempt to boost this blog's hitcount but the very horns of an ethical dilemma. To wit, one of reallyrather's favourites of this year, country-twee-popsters The Boy Least Likely To being enlisted to support the bare-chested warbler on his upcoming UK tour! Oh look, it's totally sold out...damn, damn, damn...