That was then, this is...

...still then, sort of. Ducking the blizzard of new year hype, reallyrather has been spending time with some late arrivals at the '06 ball. The aim here having always been to minimize the risk of wasting money on unrewarding rubbish, this blog is happy to report it's last three acquisitions have all hit the back of the net...

Most particularly and in some ways most surprisingly, there's a bullseye shot from N. Carolina combo Annuals. Back in November this blog reported being fairly underwhelmed by their UK debut show at the Water Rats and was certainly unprepared for the pretty much wall-to-wall indiepoprock goodness to be found on Be he me. Big tunes, terrifically supple arrangments, production & playing, this is the kind of record where your favourite track changes with every spin.
For a debut release of such pop fecundity there are impressively few mis-steps. Be he me is not massively original more an effective almagamation of the best dreamy psych-pop and anthemic indie rock of the past five years or so. Always likely to be persuasive hereabouts, there are echoes of Scott Levesque of Wheat's vocal style for instance on Brother where its in exhilarating collision with Arcade Fire, Big Country even. The soaring swoon of Mama and Bleary-eyed's punchy strum are distinctly Lips-y while Dry clothes contains a power-pop chord change typical of someone like Oranger. There's plenty of incitement to annoy those around you by joining in the multitracked sub-chanting vocals (not least on the gorgeous Fair) or clattering martial percussion. Mightily enjoyable, Annuals are well worth your money and also a second chance at The Borderline Feb 15...
[annuals]

Playing at the Brixton Windmill's Christmas bash the drummer wore a Mates of State t-shirt; credited among the players on their debut album is Tim Wheeler. Put Ash and MoS in a blender and Belfast indie-pop duo Oppenheimer is, rather brilliantly, what you get. Another definite point of reference - especially on numbers like Don't call me, Allen died april five and My son,the astronaut - is The Postal Service (with added crunch and thump). The uncomplicated drums, synth swirl, handclaps 'n' tambos of opener This is not a test sets the sub-3min template for all that follows, its slight cloudiness soon blasted away by This is a test's fuzzy guitar rush. Hyper-melodic and smartly punctuated, Rocky and Shaun build it up and break it down just as you'd wish. Strap on your jet packs, boys and girls...
[oppenheimer]

Bringing up the hat-trick, the third full-length from Rivulets finally arrives and proves well worth the wait. You are my home is probably Nathan Amundson's most accessible and consistent offering to date, the trademark ambient acoustic austerity frequently garlanded with sweetly melancholic viola and/or piano. Thematically, the spare dissection of relationships and quietly desperate questing to belong goes on. Which could all be a bit gloomy and excluding but somehow.. isn't.
Following a short palette-cleansing opener, the initially gently pensive Can't I wonder works up into a fine drum 'n' strum frenzy. The sub-emo self-lasceration of Happy ending has a similar trajectory, closing in a style magnificently recalling Weezer's Only in dreams. And Win or lose features an uncharacteristically rock-hard but wholly satisfying drum backbone. These represent the relatively tougher flipside to the transporting loveliness of songs like You sail on and Morning light - the only really picked guitar song here - which drops somewhere between two other rr favourites, Boy Omega and Denison Witmer. But the stop-what-you're-doing star of the show has to be Motioning. A gorgeously spangled strummer featuring just guitars and Nathan's light, beckoning croon, it imports a little of the jangly warmth of, say, the Trash Can Sinatras. Slowly but surely, it would seem, Rivulets are thawing: if this is global warming, bring it on...
[rivulets][on myspace]

This blog's band of the year for '06 My Sad Captains offer up a couple of new works in progress over at mySpace ... where, too, The Weepies have quietly smashed through the one million plays barrier...

To the Scala for The Boy Least Likely To feature girls in the band any more, boo hiss, the winsome charms of Eva Rice and Bahar Bunton having seemingly been dispensed with in favour of an ever more beefy twee-pop assault. Finally, finally putting The best party ever album tour to bed and with only one new song added to the very familiar setlist, this was, it has to be said, another hugely enjoyable show. Adam's electric banjo power chords emphasise the Charles Atlas transformation the songs have undergone on the road, now almost matching singer Jof for hilarious incongruity. With oodles of bubbles and balloons and those giant cartoon creatures crowding the stage at the end all they forgot were our goodie bags to take home at the end. Wah wah...
[tbllt]