More musical thoughts from Alan Dearling
Barr Brothers – Let it Hiss
“All over the shop” was my first reaction, the first phrase that came to my mind. But on subsequent plays the concept of ‘Let it Hiss’ becomes clear. The brothers, and especially Brad, wanted this to be ‘warts and all’, some genuine hiss in fact. There are a lot of guests on the new album. The opener, ‘Take it from me’ is a wistful, quiet, gentle number. A pondering on the glass half-full and half-empty views of life with a nice, almost Spanish guitar feel to the song with Brad flying to the apex of his falsetto range. And ‘Let it Hiss’ is a bit oddball, sparse with a thumping drum and bass rhythm, a little in awe to ‘Another one bites the dust’. There are a lot of vocal harmony exchanges between Brad and Ariel Engle and Talia Boguski. ‘English Harbour’ with Jim James (My Morning Jacket) has a little of Arcade Fire meet the Fleet Foxes about it. Then, remember that the Barr Brothers hail from Montreal, Quebec and have shared stages with a host of North American musicians.
There’s a hymnal element to ‘Moonbeam’ with fellow Canadian singer, Klo Pelgag.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ-7gqaT2FY
‘She doesn’t sleep with the covers on’ – creates an evocative image. Throughout the album, there is much that is charming and really rather beautiful. ‘Another tangerine’ is a taste of real ear-worm territory – ‘There is a diamond swimming in your eye, I might not get it, but I’ll always try’. And it all ends in a fuzzed-up, freak out, close to the sound of Pearl Jam with ‘Upsetter’. It’s a strong album with plenty of originality.
Brian James – Kicks and Diabolik Licks
This album was the work that Brian was creating when he sadly died in March 2025. Brian was the guitarist with punks, SS London, then the original Damned, and later in the Lords of the New Church. He wrote much of the material on the first two Damned albums. This work is essentially Brian’s musical tribute to the Italian Giallo film genre, popularised by directors, Mario Bava and Dario Argento. It’s dark and violent, but with a considerable world-wide following. Like Brian James himself – it’s ‘cult’!
The album features seven Brian James’ songs plus four tracks from an EP of rock ‘n’ roll covers which includes, Route 66’ and a countrified, deep fried version of ‘Livin’ Doll’, which could be straight out of the Young Ones’ TV series.
‘In the Blood’ is the opener, virtually a sneering vocal demo of what punk still offers, full of DiY attitude.
Here’s video featuring lots of images of Brian and a cacophony of screaming guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToXYMQfTL-I
Overall though, Brian creates an unusual brand of edgy, truncated, punk rock ‘n’ roll. His almost atonal vocals fit perfectly into a mangled, messy and rather lovable melange of chaos. ‘Soho’ proffers a driving riff, then a blast of improvised sounds, whilst ‘Giallo Yellow’ is a primitive slice of wilful darkness with concrete poetry style vocals. It’s a little reminiscent of the darker side of the Stranglers with a nod towards Velvet Underground. There are many examples of truncated choppy rhythms and timings, demented samples of musical nihilism. The final track, aka Zombie Song is ‘Happy Families’, full of tribal rhythms perhaps performed at a cannibal pot-roast at the jungle camp fire. It reminds us that Brian James in his later years developed a considerable taste for improvised free jazz. It’s highly personal, original, rough, dirty and nasty. I really enjoyed listening to it!
Elaine Palmer – Some seek Silver, some seek Gold
Elaine has a pure, yet weathered, voice. But it has a classy, classic American country edge. Her upcoming album was recorded in County Antrim and completed at the Half Moon Lodge in the hills above San Diego with some fine musicians: Michael Butler (who also acted as producer), Christopher Coll and Declan McManus. It is being launched during her tour around England. There’s probably an even broader range of material than on last year’s ‘Half Moon Rising’. I find her style at times a little akin to the world weary, American angst of Mary Gauthier. I think that’s especially true on the title track and ‘Telling of the bees’ – full of ‘drinking whisky and drinking wine’. Lots of heartaches, desolation and yearning. There are also hints of ‘Rumours’ era Fleetwood Mac, especially on the bluesy, ‘I still feel the same’.
‘The Losing Hand’ is even a little like Melanie, a darker Melanie, “Going to pick some flowers…pick all of the petals off”. A great evocative video for it, “…going to take that mescal…” and you tend to believe it’s for real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mytTO_4bIVo
The album exudes quality and ends with the fine, ‘The Wildest of Storms’, half-glass empty, waiting for the coming of dawn. And some excellent guitar playing too…
Anarcho-Punk Compilations from Overground Records – Volumes 1 to 4
I picked up these little musical monsters brand new recently at my local market. This is an entire library featuring many of the UK’s nearly-famous, infamous indie punksters. I’ve seen many of them live at small alternative festies, and they have followed in the wake of Crass into independent music legends. They are the bands and musos of protest, squats, class-war. In amongst the detailed and fascinating copious sleeve notes, we are informed that, “Most bands split before 1986”… “The gutsy spirit of the period still shines through.” Lots of it is mega fast and furious, aggressive, sneering, but there are plenty of examples of clever word-play and it reminds us of how punk has been assimilated into mainstream consciousness. You hear Clash and Sex Pistols playing down the supermarket aisles these days. These four collections are the soundtracks for many lives lived, lost and with some still existing around the fringes of the UK’s towns, cities and even in rural communities. They are the purveyors of the vitriol of dissent, discord and offer plenty of Anti-War; Anti-Capitalist; Anti-State and Anti-Society sentiments.
There are so many bands included in the collections. Some are definitely hard core, some offer a mash-up of rave-punk-ska-poetry. One real oddity is ‘Typically English Day’ from the Astronauts which manages to sound like early David Bowie teaming up with the Kinks! Here are the Astronauts in 2017. Sadly, Mark Astronaut is no longer with us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EkoPoypwsM
Many tracks sound to me a lot like rip-offs of ‘Eton Rifles’. But we can still enjoy their gorgeous energy, enthusiasm and the anarchy of Faction’s ‘Obligatory War Song’ and Rubella Ballet’s ‘Belfast’. Across the collections there are some rarely heard gems and some misfires. Listening to too much in one sitting can get a bit much, but it is an enormous chunk of musical mayhem. Amongst the outfits I’ve enjoyed over the years are some who are featured and indeed some who are not: RDF (Radical Dance Faction)/Military Surplus; Poison Girls; The System; Reality Attack; Inner Terrestrials; Subhumans; Chumbawamba; Andy T; Reality Control and Oi Polloi.
Volume 1 on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HTKRhy7bXw
Vandoliers – Life Behind Bars
This new album contains a bunch of fine, strong, memorable songs. Very much in the New Country-Rock, lively cow-punk mode. Energetic and rather dark, there’s a heck of a lot of death in the lyrics: ‘Dead Canary’ opens the proceedings, “Take me down…crying in a bottle”. The songs come from the head-space of singer Jenni Rose. Ted Hutt, the producer co-wrote a couple. It’s definitely a hoe-down, but one that might well begin dancing at the bar, and end up behind the more sturdy, steel ones. Two bits of background. Firstly, Ted Hutt has produced highly popular albums for, amongst others, Flogging Molly, the Old Crow Medicine Show, Gaslight Anthem, Dropkick Murphys and Violent Femmes. ‘Life behind bars’ official video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Po-yxfFKE0
Jenni Rose is increasingly comfortable as the trans-woman front-person for the band. There’s plenty of banjo-picking, mellotron, mariachi brass, steel-pedal guitar, fabulously memorable songs and visually powerful images in the story-songs. There’s very little sense of ‘filler’ tracks; it’s a cohesive collection. I especially enjoyed the trumpet on ‘Valencia’, and ‘Dead in a Ditch’ is a powerful closing number with its message of redemption, it’s almost a requiem, “Never drinking again…I’ve been dying inside…Without you, I’d be dead in a ditch.” Wow! I’d like to witness them live and take photographs.
Reanne Crane/Goldicat
Doctor Crane is an academic, a prolific pod-caster, and one half of a music-making duo based in Mexico called Goldicat. She is articulate and obviously knows exactly what she wants. I’ve met her on a couple of occasions when she has returned to the UK to see her dad. So what is the style of music? Her vocal sound and feel is akin to Dance-Goth, husky voiced, with a haunting undertow. Her partner, Roberto Goldinez, is a fine guitarist. One of their videos is for the song, ‘Another Way’ which is fair example of their overall dark disco vibe. A lot going on musically and vocally… https://www.goldicat.com/
Reanne tells us, “GOLDICAT hatched out of a spontaneous jam session in Sayulita, Mexico, in the summer of 2023. What started as a perilous impromptu experiment soon developed into something dazzling.
Over the following months, we sculpted our homegrown hybrid live set — over 2 hours of continuous original songs — taking inspiration from the likes of Crazy P and Depeche Mode. Our sound has been described as ‘dusky disco’; ‘funk-techno-pop’; ‘ABBA trance’; ‘tropical darkwave’; and ‘like if Daft Punk and Cyndi Lauper had a pet chameleon’ — fusing House beats, Latin flavours, and a little of the iconic gloom of Manchester.”
Hugo Race Fatalists – I Made it All Up for You
This sounds to me like ‘talking-blues’, hushed and often half-whispered. You feel consumed by Hugo’s broken-down life, lived hard, hard words and even harder cracked emotions. “You and me against the world”. On many of the tracks he is aided and abetted by Jennifer Charles, singer from Elysian Fields. His gravel-inflected voice blends neatly with her doom-laden floating vocalising. ‘I tread softly’ almost evokes the ghosts of Leonard Cohen, Hugo refers to them as ‘Ghosts of time’. A little later, the trip into the heart of darkness continues: “Let my demons out…This is no time to get older”. There are many ruminations on life and death. ‘45 in the shade’ provides for an almost Tom Waits’ rap, a beat-poem, maybe even a nod towards ‘King of the Road’ with a talking-blues noise-quality infused in its over-used veins.
Live in March 2026 in his native Melbourne: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1537199147837302
Hugo has said of this new album, “I wanted to create something melodic and beautiful in defiance of our current reality”. He adds, “Every ending is a new beginning, but it’s how we experience transformation that really matters. I hope you love this album. I made it all up for you.” The downbeat vibe is ideally suited for late nights, hours of deep contemplation. It’s pretty dark, with some ethereal lightness at times in amongst the despair, such as in ‘The Comet Drops’. It all ends in a ‘Dream Country Home’ where Hugo further contemplates, whilst drinking wine and smoking weed, “…the crossroads of a long term relationship unravelling under a blazing antipodean sun.”
Liar, Flower (aka Rubythroat) – Ornamental Gardens
Katie Jane Garside has been a larger-than-life cult figure in and out of the music biz for much of her life. She is probably especially revered as the front-person in Lady Chainsaw, a radical Riot Girl post-punk outfit. Courtney Love with Hole has commented that she borrowed a lot from Katie’s performance style. More recently, in between around-the-world adventures on the high seas, Katie has been performing in a duo with American musician, Chris Whittingham. ‘Ornamental Gardens’ is the most recent of their output and is a zillion miles distant from the in yerr face punk and noise performances of Lady Chainsaw and other iterations created by Katie. It’s mostly William Morris ethereal, a vocal stream of whimsy, floating off into the infinity of Deep Space. A child-like fairy voice and I think auto-harp. Well-weird – a witch amongst the Pixies. Katie still exhibits some venomous, noise-tendencies too. A mix of genres. I rather like it, and it is exceeding odd! Their music is available at Bandcamp. The previous album, ‘Geiger Counter’ was reviewed as being ‘mesmerising’ and a suitable album for fans of David Lynch and Tom Waits… Say no more…
Video: https://youtu.be/WqzgTF6zbbc
A comment on the liar, flower website, ‘an excerpt from the Viaduct Diaries’:
“…did the flick flicker? subcutaneous, do faeries come to the manmade river of diminishing returns? ‘maybe we stay here for ever’, i saw you there before the fall, granular and coded, watching cut stone, you said to me ‘be me, to not be me’ as the dragonfly plays her future in algae…”
Cult Figures – Reports of People
Apparently formed in Birmingham way back in 1977, but lead singer, Fraser Gillespie often sounds on some tracks a bit like Billy Connolly or Ivor Cutler, sharing with us a selection of ironic, Scottish poetry in motion. And it all takes place against a soundscape of relatively charming harmonies, lilting guitars. Plenty of swirling, whirling soft-synth sounds. It’s fresh-sounding, imbued with chunks of quirky humour in their lyrics: when abducted by aliens, “…they were really rather nice in their way…” As the band’s promo tells us: the track, “ ‘Death of thousand cuts’ is when your partner chooses to leave you but wants to tape your albums first.”
In all, it is a mix of jangling guitars, of choirs of voices, some clean cut guitar and plenty of melodic moments. Post-punk light-weight.
‘Lunatic friend’ video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQOnqIEvXUY
The final track is an odd-ball, weird song about an old chum from school-days who joined the force/polis/police, ‘Scum’ – “…it always comes floating to the top…And I don’t ever want to set eyes on you again.” At best, it is fun and one can sense that live, much of the material will be crowd-pleasing.
Uncle Wally and Uncle Steve
They say on their Facebook page: “Steve and Wally have been playing in the shed for a few years now…” Their last three albums are now available on Spotify. Lots on Bandcamp. ‘Fractal’ seems to be their most recent release. It’s light-weight fare pop music, friendly and pleasant, cheerful chappy music… ‘Union’ opens the album and like everything they write, it’s created to make audiences raise a smile. Indeed, their final track is titled, ‘Make me Smile’. They certainly pump out a lot of music! Since I sort of agree with it, I’ll share the review comment from ‘Sound on Sound’ magazine’s Nell McCloud, who said of their first album ‘Songs from a Shed’:
“…a tribute to just about every musical genre of the past 100 years, all in 49 and a half minutes. Bonkers? Undoubtedly. Successful? Partly. Enjoyable? Um, yes, yes it is.”
Here’s the link that Uncle Wally sent me: https://unclewallyandunclesteve.bandcamp.com
.