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Dua Lipa live at first direct Arena review – a flamboyant new queen of British pop
6
Jan

No expense was spared on the Leeds leg of Dua Lipa’s victorious world tour, after 2020’s Future Nostalgia changed the face of modern pop. With slick transitions and memorable visuals, this was a performance dense with bona fide pop smashes and jaw-droppingly theatrical highlights.

Rocking up in central Leeds in a group of five friends poorly dressed to spend any significant period of time outside on a disappointingly cold Easter Monday, there was a moment on approaching a T-junction in paths that we had no idea exactly in which direction Dua Lipa was gearing up for an arena concert. Already beginning to shiver, we decided we might as well pick a stranger and follow them through a nearby underpass. Soon enough, the stream of punters became a river and then a torrent, with crowds in the 100 metre viscinity of the first direct Arena more akin to what I’d expect ten minutes after a gig, rather than 3 hours before it. It may have only been half past six, but we wasted no time grabbing drinks and finding a spot amongst a crowd buzzing with anticipation.

The truth is, that night it would have been a challenge to find someone walking through that northern corner of Leeds that didn’t have 70-odd quid’s worth of arena ticketing stashed in their wallet. An antithesis to Jeff Rosenstock in every way, Dua Lipa has been vying for chart-topping mainstream appeal for years now, and she’s frequently been granted her wish, garnering millions of fans worldwide. Her latest album, Future Nostalgia, is packed full of the sort of hits that manage to infiltrate the consciousness of virtually everyone in society. Even if you think you don’t know mind-blowingly successful smashes like Don’t Start Now or Levitating, trust me, you do.

What was new with Future Nostalgia was the wave of critical acclaim that came with the endless radio play. The album was bold in its unapologetic support of what I like to call the ’20s disco revival; a stylistic shift towards retro styles in contemporary pop music that is generally deemed to be a result of the dancefloor-yearning brought on by the pandemic. Giant names like The Weeknd, Doja Cat and even Kylie Minogue are all in on it, although whether the new world of modern disco-pop will survive now the society is opening back up again remains to be seen. Nevertheless, Lipa continues to position herself as the movement’s flagbearer, adopting an 80s-inspired public image whilst digging deep into the realm of slap bass lines and superfluous glitterballs.

To that end, me and my friends Emma and Hattie had to crane our heads towards the distant roof of the arena on entering to tot up the evening’s glitterball count: a somewhat underwhelming three (and, once they had been lowered during the performance, they turned out to be more like cheap-looking shiny balloons). The no-doubt immense budget for the Future Nostalgia Tour had clearly been utilised in other aspects of the show, not least a dozen-stong dance troupe that bounced and boogied their way around Lipa all night. Lipa is of course a great dancer in her own right, and the sheer amount of moves and she memorised and pulled off for the performance was impressive. For her, it was mostly a case of ticking off all the things arena-sized pop divas are supposed to do: we got Dua playing with a sparkly cane or Dua throwing poses behind a morphing wall of umbrellas or Dua being carried face-up across the stage in the middle of a verse, singing all the while. She may lack some choreographic originality, but that’s not to say she wasn’t convincing. The astounded crowd around me fumbled for their iPhone cameras whenever Lipa so much as flicked a gloved finger in our direction. On occasions when Lipa responded to the cameras and flashlights with a brief smile, the screams almost drowned out the music.

Physical, Lipa’s gleefully self-aware pastiche of Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 hit of the same name, was an excellent choice of opener and a statement of intent, with lines like “baby, keep on dancing like we ain’t got a choice” finding a match with zumba class-ready dance moves. An early onslaught of Future Nostalgia bangers ensued, finding a highlight in Break My Heart, Lipa’s most whole-heartedly disco number. The glitterballs remained dormant, but instead a dense web of tiny spheres descended above Lipa and her dance crew, pulsing with colour in time with the shimmering rhythm guitar and chest-rattling bass line. Then there was the unbelievably funky Pretty Please, plus groovy midtempo hit Cool, during which Lipa was joined by a pair of dancers on rollerskates, each encircling her and beaming from ear to ear. They got one of the loudest applauses of the night when they stole Lipa’s spotlight for a moment to perform a few somersaults and headstands on the well-implemented satellite stage.

If the rollerskaters weren’t Eurovision enough, We’re Good – a dubious inclusion at the best of times – featured a cameo from a giant inflatable lobster for reasons that never quite became clear. It seems that money to spare can occasionally work out as a hindrance rather than a benefit for shows like these. Early hit IDGAF, here demoted to We’re Good‘s introduction as a 30-second snippet, would have been both much more sensible and much more effective, with or without a lobster.

Somewhat trite strings ballad Boys Will Be Boys gave the night some necessary breathing space, although I’ll admit I was relieved when Lipa got seemingly impatient and threw in synths and a thumping electronic kick drum two choruses in. A slew of Lipa’s biggest dance hits followed and, having reserved all my excitement for Lipa’s pop and disco songs, I was pleasantly surprised at just how compelling the segment turned out to be. It helped that Lipa and her troupe had ventured out onto the satellite stage once more, surrounded by the crowd and seemingly caged up thanks to clever lighting and a metal rig that had descended from the ceiling. The claustrophobia suited songs like Electricity and One Kiss, which now sounded perfect for a gloomy, body-filled nightclub. Extended remixes allowed for more dancing, more energy and more outfit changes, with Lipa switching from one glitzy leotard to another just as one global number one hit blended seemlessly with the next global number one hit. I could have danced to that handful of songs long into the night.

A lighting rig descended for an intimate dance music segment

I spent a majority of the night in giddy anticipation of awarding Undertone‘s second ever five-star gig rating, so I was a little disappointed when Lipa eventually started to lose her momentum in the final third of the concert. Future Nostalgia bonus track Fever was a poor set list choice over Blow Your Mind (Mwah), particularly becuase it entailed a pre-recorded feature from Belgian popstar Angèle on the big screen. Elton John was similarly featured on tribute track Cold Heart, but I remained unconvinced by the song’s lack of fresh ideas whilst Lipa and the troupe attempted a tear-jerking end-of-gig group hug.

Electrifying Levitating and Don’t Start Now – surely two of the most monumental (and musically flawless) pop songs of the decade – were rightly saved for the encore, before confetti cannons cued Lipa’s theatrical disappearance into the stage, mid-pout. Lipa aptly took to a platform and floated around the arena for Levitating, leaning against the railings and waving down at the adoring crowd in a third, figure-hugging catsuit. Now unavoidably, we had been reduced to peasants bowing down to our queen of pop as she purveyed her subjects. She had every right to, after all: no popstar in Britain today quite has the global reach or the dense catalogue of hits currently in Lipa’s possession. With all the flabbergasting showbiz glitz and glamour of the Future Nostalgia Tour, she has ensured a firm grip on the crown for many years to come.

Ezra Collective: Dance, No One’s Watching review – jazz champions play to their strengths
7
Sep

The jazz group that set the Mercury Prize alight last year return with an album that goes all in on infectious dance grooves. Their knack for melody seems to have been forgotten in the party, but this bloated record does conclude with the most moving track of this band’s career.

The level of study I devote to albums reviewed on this blog varies, but sometimes, like with this latest Ezra Collective album, I take my journalistic duties to give the entire record a fair hearing seriously: I sit down in a darkened room save for a dim desk lamp, scribbling details of every track in a notepad and staring blankly at Spotify as the highlighted song title gradually works its way down the track list. It took about 20 minutes of listening to Dance, No One’s Watching before I properly read the album title writ large across the top of the screen. Alone on a rainy night in my bedroom, it felt like an instruction addressed directly to me. In fact, cowering over a desk is the exact opposite effect of Ezra Collective’s third album which is, unsurprisingly, a heartfelt ode to the power of dancing.

Ezra are labelled a jazz act – and are the most commercially successful act in the nebulous genre of UK jazz by some margin – but anyone who’s seen the five Londoners take to a stage since their emergence five years ago will know compulsive dance grooves have always been an essential part of this band’s appeal. Their performance at last year’s Mercury Prize (fittingly of a song called Victory Dance) had the attendees in the cabaret seating setting aside their glasses of champagne to clap and frug along to the infectious Latin groove like the band members themselves. It was a joyful musical fireworks show that seemed to render the competition a forgone conclusion. Ezra Collective were destined to be the Mercury Prize’s first jazz champions, and they showed up ready to claim the trophy.

Unfortunately their follow-up album, Dance, No One’s Watching lacks a track quite as thrilling as Victory Dance, but there’s no shortage of peppy Afrobeat grooves to move your hips to. The standout is Ajala, named after a legendary Nigerian journalist who was so busy with his travels his name became Yoruba slang for someone who can’t sit still. It is a fittingly up-tempo, restless number, with Ife Ogunjobi and James Mollison’s skipping melodies played in blunt unison – Ezra Collective are a band far more concerned with delivering a straightforward good time than trying any fiddly counterpoint or melodic harmonies. Ajala has groove in buckets, but what it’s lacking is everything else that makes for a good jazz composition, namely an interesting B section (here the melody simply drops out for 16 bars) and a wild solo.

Ajala is far from the only track where Ezra Collective’s tunnel vision on producing a danceable groove leaves the melodies feeling underwritten. N29 is essentially just one (admittedly very funky) bass riff lacking in hardly any musical development at all, let alone a melody to hold on to. Opener The Herald starts promisingly enough, but again it’s as if they’ve forgotten to write half of the chorus, and Ogunjobi’s trumpet solo is given no room to grow. The devotion to a rock solid groove is admirable – and brothers Femi and TJ Koleoso are without a doubt one of the tightest drum and bass duos in the business – but it should be possible for a funky, repetitive groove and interesting harmonic shifts to exist in the same song.

Intriguingly, Yazmin Lacey and Olivia Dean’s featured tracks – two of the very finest voices on the UK jazz scene – offer a relatively restrained take on the dance-focused thesis. Lacey’s smoky tones are a fine match for the tender horn lines on God Gave Me Feet For Dancing, but with no-nonsense lyrics like “Give me bass line / Give me dollar wine” it’s odd the band don’t rise above a muted throb all song. Dean’s track, No One’s Watching Me is slinkier and sexier and features Ogunjobi’s best solo on the record – each note placed with unusual restraint and care – although Dean’s chorus is scant.

Further down a bloated track list, Shaking Body and Expensive offer a purple patch. The former is pure Ezra Collective joy and a natural successor to Victory Dance, with a Latin hook bubbly enough to justify its many repeats. Mastermind of the keyboard Joe Armon-Jones offers luscious jazz voicings typical of his brand of frantic genius, and Femi Koleoso’s hammering of the ride cymbal in the chorus is a joy to behold. Expensive improves on the light-footed Afrobeat of the record’s first half with intelligent, patient sax and trumpet solos that prove Ogunjobi and Mollison have done their jazz homework, moving beyond the crowd-pleasing screeches found on their most raucous party starters.

The penultimate track appears at first to be some surplus jazz musings from Armon-Jones on piano, but the song is called Have Patience for a reason – Everybody immediately follows, a magnificent album closer and one of the most beautiful tunes the band have ever penned. In an album lacking in strong melodies, here is a beauty: an elegant, sighing rise and fall, shimmering within Armon-Jones’ textured piano chords before emerging in a solemn trumpet line and, rousingly, a distant choir. Before long, Obunjobi and Mollison are up to what they do best – rapturous, euphoric improvisations that come together and fall apart again like two birds in flight. It’s a piece ripe for crowd participation and a poignant marker of how far they’ve come: a band with collective in the name, experts at uniting audiences from summer festivals to glamorous awards shows through dance and crowd participation. Dance, No One’s Watching may not go down as their finest record, but that precious Ezra Collective spirit remains alive and well.

Jeff Rosenstock: HELLMODE review – punk’s golden boy plays it safe
25
Apr

Billed as both his most chaotic and “solid” record so far, Jeff Rosenstock’s seventh full-length is neither, but still provides its fair share of satisfying if familiar punk rock hits.

There are few acts in rock today that can depict this era’s lingering sense of apocalypse (the broken machinations of late-stage capitalism, the corrosion of American democracy, the imminent decay of the whole planet above all) quite as sharply as Jeff Rosenstock. The veteran New York punk who started his career in an unhinged DIY collective called Bomb the Music Industry! (exclamation mark mandatory) has now spent over ten years dissecting his converging personal and global worries in the form of an increasingly lauded and hit-dense discography, peaking perhaps with the smooth-flowing masterpiece of angst WORRY., an album so definitive it deserved a full stop in the title.

This year’s promisingly titled HELLMODE was hailed by promoters and early reviewers as his most chaotic, anarchic and, in Rosenstock’s own words, “solid” record yet, so it’s something of a disappointment that it ends up sounding more or less like the six albums that preceded it. The good news is that any Jeff Rosenstock album is a good one, and his knack for sticky hooks and pithy distillations of a very millennial form of pessimism isn’t going anywhere. HELLMODE is front loaded with tightly written numbers. Exhilarating opener WILL U STILL U is packed with instrumental left turns and belting gang vocals that wouldn’t sound out of place next to the 40-year-old’s very best. Lead single LIKED U BETTER winningly pairs a jaunty keyboard earworm with that sinking feeling of being able to escape your own anxieties. DOUBT follows suit, nurturing a false sense of ease before erupting into a screechy, cathartic polemic. Oftentimes Rosenstock’s dismay at the state of the world – the climate crisis in particular looms over this record – veers towards a relatable defeatism. “The world doesn’t owe you,” he concludes powerfully in standout FUTURE IS DUMB, thus summarising ten years of intense creative output in a single harsh truth.

It’s a shame that Rosenstock couldn’t quite maintain his momentum, especially when it comes to album centrepiece HEALMODE, which does away with the rest of the record’s nuance and undermines the prevailing sense of gloom with the tired, sickly sweet message that love alone can save us from unmitigated disaster. It doesn’t help that the clichéd lyrics are delivered with a cautious softness by Rosenstock, whose voice is much better suited to angry ragers about the constitution than cutesy love songs with an acoustic guitar. Hookless LIFE ADMIN follows, which stands out as one of the limpest tracks Rosenstock has released in years.

As is customary for a Rosenstock album, it all ends in a somewhat theatrical seven minute epic, although there’s very little in 3 SUMMERS that can outdo the much more memorable closing numbers in Rosenstock albums of years gone by. Above all, that’s the key limitation of HELLMODE: with the exception of flawed moment of calm HEALMODE, there’s little invention to be found here, and this distinctive form of volatile rock is better served by most of Rosenstock’s previous releases. True, this is a competently delivered album by an artist who clearly knows how to set a room alight with blaring guitars and verbalised deep-seated dread. It just helps if you don’t know what you’re missing out from the rest of Rosenstock’s oeuvre.

Courting: Lust for Life review – overwrought concept album pulls its punches
17
Mar

The Liverpool band’s drive for creative risk-taking is admirable, but the experiment doesn’t pay off on this disappointingly messy and scant third album.

Depending on your perspective, Courting’s new album, Lust for Life, Or: ‘How to Thread the Needle and Come Out the Other Side To Tell the Story’ was always destined to be genius or disastrous. Frontman Sean Murphy-O’Neill was clear about his ambitions in his interviews before release day: there would be a ‘mirrored’ track list (each song has a musically-related pair), a promise of multiple lyrical ‘Easter eggs’, an overriding theme of duality exemplified by the two figures on the monochrome cover art and that exhausting two-part album title.

In a rock landscape of unadventurous yet ever successful 2000s indie revivalists – I’m looking at you, Circa Waves – it’s hard to fault Murphy-O’Neill’s drive to deliver a high-art modern rock classic. Last year’s New Last Name came with a grand love narrative, but really it was all about a few stellar singles, not least Flex, which brilliantly conveyed the blissful ignorance of youth, sounding a bit like Carly Rae Jepsen if she made rock for teen boys rather than pop for teen girls.

It’s a disappointment, then, that the new album trailered as the culmination of Courting’s ‘evolution’ thus far weighs in at a meagre 25 minutes and eight tracks, two of which are instrumental tone-setters. O’Neill has talked about the band’s newfound search for conciseness but on this, their third album in a little over three years, the end result just feels rushed and underwritten. The lyrical cross-references and much-touted “hidden depths” are no doubt bountiful, but it’s a shame that Courting couldn’t spend more time fleshing out their numerous intriguing ideas.

Divorce: Drive to Goldenhammer review – endearing, open-hearted folk-rock
7
Mar

Framed around a quest to the fictional place of ‘Goldenhammer’, the Nottingham indie band’s impressive debut is packed with one gorgeous duet after another, plus a wealth of plaintive melodic earworms.

Goldenhammer, the destination of the journey Divorce take throughout their brand new album, categorically doesn’t exist. Instead, the band see it as a sort of personal nirvana. “It’s this intangible idea of something that you yearn for and want,” vocalist Tiger Cohen-Towell told Rolling Stone recently. The concept of Goldenhammer breezes in and out with subtlety throughout the Nottingham band’s excellent debut record, more evident in the yearning melodies and uplifting harmonies than in concrete lyrical references.

Having drummed up a buzz from two promising EPs in 2022 and 2023, Drive to Goldenhammer feels like Divorce’s coming-of-age moment, and boasts a maturity and cohesion not found on their previous work. The band have listed Belle & Sebastian and Queen as key influences, but the occasional wayward fiddles and elegant melodies recall recent Adrienne Lenker songs, or perhaps Black Country, New Road in their more cool-headed moments.

Surely the main draw of Divorce over those esteemed artists is the delightful vocal chemistry of co-vocalists Cohen-Towell and Felix Mackenzie-Barrow. Sonically, they’re a delicious match: Mackenzie-Barrow’s tenor rich and slightly gravelly, Cohen-Towel light and youthful, although capable of an almighty pop-punk belt when the song demands it. The pair have been writing songs together since they were teenagers, and you can tell in the dovetailing melodies of opener Antarctica, touchingly echoing each other with the words “I was made to love you”. The duo aren’t, as far as I can tell, actually in a relationship, but Drive to Goldenhammer’s plentiful male-female vocal duets give the record’s musings on love a certain completeness, like two sides of a relationship mirroring back their fears and hopes to each other. Tellingly, lyrics are expressed from the perspective of “we” almost as often as “I”.

Recorded over four seasons in an off-grid location in the Yorkshire Dales, Drive to Goldenhammer has an earthy, faintly nostalgic quality to it. It’s most clearly heard in the atmospheric accordion that opens Old Broken String or on the shimmering, hook-packed Hangman, a song about Mackenzie-Barrow’s day job as a social care worker. Understated stunner Parachuter contains a sighing chorus melody that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Phoebe Bridgers ballad. “Cry your eyes out, we’ll be leaving soon,” they sing nihilistically, the harmonies sounding simultaneously heavenly and desolate.

That said, Divorce are not ones to rest on their laurels. Lord front-loads the album with a bulletproof power pop chorus that arrives like a bolt from the blue, whilst late highlight Where Do You Go features a furious performance from Cohen-Towell, chastising an emotionally unavailable lover over a salvo of gilt-edged guitar hits. Glorious synthpop number All My Freaks sees Cohen-Towell on more playful form, mocking the plight of indie musicians like herself on a glittery chorus so primed for this summer’s festivals you can practically hear the giant balloons and confetti descend over the adoring crowd.

Drive to Goldenhammer’s more ambitious moments aren’t always so successful, and that central idea of a quest towards Goldenhammer often feels lost in the noise. The Queen influences are clear in the dense composition of Fever Pitch, but the end result feels overwritten and somewhat aimless, whilst Karen works it’s way up to a thrilling wall of sound and then bottles it with a strait-laced guitar solo. Much more intriguing is Cohen-Towell’s central opus Pill, which theatrically switches from psychedelic, innuendo-filled art rock to a poignant, piano-led memory of swinging from a bunk bed with a childhood friend. It’s the sort of unorthodox songwriting Divorce had no time for in their previous EPs, and Pill’s unpredictable switch lands an emotional sucker punch.

Perhaps even more so than the fictional nirvana of Goldenhammer, a sense of openness and emotionally vulnerability runs through almost every track on this record. “Loving you with open arms / Kissing you with open eyes,” the pair sing in cathartic unison on Jet Show, whilst Adam Peter-Smith’s guitar and Kasper Sandstrom’s drums sound endearingly rough around the edges. This honesty and degree of youthful naivety masks the shrewd songwriting that underlines Drive to Goldenhammer. Divorce may not have reached their musical paradise just yet, but with this gorgeous record they’re halfway there.

Squid live at Boiler Shop review – oddball post-punk casts a spell
3
Nov

Squid’s twisted, ugly brand of post-punk rock music was a perfect match for the industrial surroundings of Newcastle’s finest gigging venue for a set packed with interest and surprises, not least a theatrical twist at its climax.

Squid’s latest tour, in support of their critically acclaimed sophomore album O Monolith, begins with nothing but cowbells. Two rhythms weave immaculately together whilst drummer and frontman Ollie Judge gets comfortable on his stool, plinthed and silhouetted against a growing storm of technicolour stage lights. A buzzy, detuned synth loop arrives spectre-like, then an eerily off-kilter bass line and dizzying assemblage of dovetailing guitar lines. After a minute or two Louis Borlase lunges forward and unleashes a piercing guitar riff, his instrument scratching and screeching higher and higher, urging this monster of a song towards its startling finale. This is Swing (In a Dream), Squid’s fascinating set opener that serves as a head first dive into the strange, nightmarish underworld in which this band’s music resides, full of unhinged melodies and alien stretches of what can only be described as noise. It makes for unrelentingly challenging listening – unlike their similarly daring peers Black Midi, Squid aren’t tempted to throw in a delicate acoustic ballad just to keep the audience on their toes – but it is all utterly enthralling.

Ollie Judge’s endurance as both drummer and vocalist was impressive.

My friend Liam and I are in the thick of it. Despite arriving shortly after doors opened at Newcastle’s Boiler Shop, we’ve somehow secured the best spot in the venue, pressed against the barriers and right under the nose of a shadowy Judge, who is throned centre stage. With the masses of fans all behind us – Bristol group Squid have garnered a comparable cult following to the likes of Black Country, New Road in recent years – we can fully appreciate the perfectness of the venue, a bare and atmospherically lit former warehouse that seems built solely to recreate the dystopian future so vividly painted by Squid’s music. There’s plenty to look at on stage, too: five musicians and many more instruments. Borlase inhabits a small forest of synths on their stands; Laurie Nanivell makes use of a dedicated cowbell station when he’s not injecting songs with trumpet; Arthur Leadbetter has his own ring of synths, plus an electric cello for good measure. What’s more, it’s not all just eye-candy for music nerds like me; Squid’s ambitious compositions genuinely demand half the stock of the nearest Gear4music warehouse. It’s this vast choice of instrumentation that allows these songs to be so volatile, the band indulging in lengthy song transitions that veer towards the genre of ambient noise, full of indecipherable squeals of synth and undulating tides of electronic fuzz.

It’s in these off-script song transitions that Squid were their most daring and compelling. An early sortie in the preamble to Undergrowth was breathless, Judge emerging from a mist of guitar with a thumping dance groove that sounded like a warped version of Parcels in full nightclub mode. Then there was the song itself, with its heavy hip hop groove and sticky guitar hooks. “I’d rather melt, melt, melt, melt away,” Judge yelped in the chorus, competing with a honking trumpet amidst a superb, head-banging racket. Peel St. was another early highlight that emerged from experimental noise, the band miraculously turning what sounded like a jammed photocopier into one of the most lethal grooves they’ve ever dug their teeth into.

Louis Borlase played guitar and electronics whilst Arthur Leadbetter performed on electric cello.

It was all a bit too much for one man a few rows back from us, who used the few pauses in the music so impatiently shout the lyrics to Squid’s biggest hit, Narrator, at one point getting the crowd to clap distractingly during a quiet section of solo guitar. Liam and I saw him extricated from the crowd and awkwardly heaved over the barriers by half a dozen security a few songs later. “Sunday night… who would have thought it?” Judge mentioned quietly at one point, apparently in disapproval. Tellingly, it was one of the only things he said directly to the crowd all night.

It was a good thing that the five members of Squid were all far too absorbed in their craft to let a rude audience put them off. The crowd did at least elevate standout Documentary Filmmaker by singing along gleefully to a trumpet riff, then shouting along to Judge’s descriptions of a hot summer (“the sweat dripped off my plastic sheets”) during a suitably stifling climax. The biggest climax, however, was reserved for a deafening rendition of Siphon Song, which was helped by a more restrained use of the robot-like vocal manipulations that somewhat took the sting out of the studio recording. A patient outro that flickered like a dying ember gradually revealed Narrator, the track that many in the crowd will have been waiting for. It was a performance that was bound to fall short of the experience of listening to the original track for the first time – Martha Skye Murphy, whose blood-curdling screams in the finale make for one of the most disturbing pieces of rock I’ve ever heard, was of course not present at Boiler Shop – but Judge’s sheer vocal stamina in the epic crescendo was admirable, even if the song rather outstayed its welcome over the course of a nearly nine-minute runtime. Simultaneously drumming and singing (or, more accurately, wailing) for such a behemoth of a song was no mean feat.

Laurie Nankivell and Anton Pearson completed the lineup.

Whilst Squid’s sonic onslaught was sometimes overwhelming, they could never be accused of boring their audience. In Newcastle this was true right until the very end, with the awe-inspiring The Blades, which started with a clever reprise of the opening cowbell rhythms. Here lies perhaps the most memorable image of all Judge’s sinister lyrics: a drone operator sits alone and watches his screen that shows aerial images of people on the ground which he darkly reduces to “blades of grass waiting to be trimmed.” Judge repeated these menacing lyrics with increasingly uncontrolled yelps, as if playing the drone operator as he gradually loses his mind in the warfare, powerful trumpet melodies and wailing sirens exploding like bombs. It made for a violent depiction of mania that would be compelling even if it didn’t come at a time when war crimes are becoming depressingly common in the news.

Then came the twist. For the first time in the whole gig, Judge stepped out from behind his kit, untangled his microphone from its stand, and positioned himself at the very edge of the stage, almost within touching distance of Liam and me. “Back to bed / Another man’s hand on the joystick,” he almost whispered over dreamlike sustained guitar chords. He looked genuinely frightened, gazing nervously up to the metal rafters of the warehouse building while gradually tangling himself in his microphone cable. Judge – or, more accurately, his character – seemed defeated, lost, hopeless. It was a moment of intense theatre that would haunt me on the subsequent walk home and make me wish Judge had dug even deeper into the performance art that his evocative lyrics so easily lend themselves to. As the quiet final notes of this otherwise thunderous gig rang out, Judge stood alone centre-stage, incapacitated by his own microphone cord. The crowd had been rowdy all night, but something in Judge’s performance seemed to have genuinely struck a nerve. As the stage lights dimmed, all that was left of Squid’s concert was a stunned silence.

Laufey: Bewitched review – the finest yet from vocal jazz revivalist
25
Oct

A breathtaking title track is the climactic highlight of the Icelandic-Chinese artist’s second album, packed with enough gorgeous melodies and intricate orchestration to singlehandedly spur the revival of an entire genre.

TikTok has transformed the music industry in ways that are still becoming clear. Its sudden boom felt by everyone under the age of 30 has changed the emphasis for artists from writing well-rounded singles or albums for the expert ears of tastemaking radio DJs to coming up with marketable 20 second chunks to be listened to millions of times by many app users who may never hear the entire song. With the shortened time span comes new incentives for the artist – accessible hooks and instantly relatable lyrics will ensure instant results, and bright, funk-leaning pop music is the genre of the day (all the better to record a dance to). The big money in the now common phenomenon of charting TikTok songs has practically led to an entire new genre of Gen Z-pandering pop, doing away with bridges (no time for them in a short TikTok clip) and simply speeding up preexisting songs, providing an easy extra uptempo kick with the unfortunate side effect of giving the vocalist an uncanny chipmunk voice.

For that reason, the rise of Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir (say LAY-vay) has been improbable to say the least. Based in Los Angeles and London and with the unusual combination of Icelandic and Chinese heritage, she plies her trade in the notoriously unmarketable genre of vocal jazz, recalling classy melodies and smoky piano trio instrumentation that hasn’t seen mainstream attention for more than 50 years. She’s made steady progress on TikTok, posting quietly impressive performances on cello and guitar, each video invariably graced with her expertly enunciated vocals. A steady flow of new fans became a flood only in this past year with the viral success of Bewitched’s lead single, From The Start. An unusually peppy bossa number (Laufey once wrote that fast jazz makes her anxious), it was catchy enough to win the attention of the app’s mysterious recommendations algorithm and, a few months later, Laufey has the most-streamed opening week for vocal jazz album in history no less, a modest record to break given the lack of competition, but nonetheless a signifier of just how much Laufey is on her own when it comes to her preferred corner of jazz. Boundary-pushing instrumental jazz may continue to thrive both in the UK and the US, but for the moment it is Laufey alone who is fighting the corner of this more conservative, decidedly less cool subgenre with its familiar harmonies and straightforward melodies.

From The Start may be the song powering Bewitched’s success, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this album’s charm. Laufey already has a live album with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra under her belt, and at its best Bewitched shimmers with unashamedly elaborate flourishes of oboe and swelling waves of strings. California and Me is so densely orchestrated that London’s Philharmonia Orchestra gets an official credit, providing momentum to Laufey’s enchanting melodic meanders. Elsewhere, the classical elements of Laufey’s style are more intimate. Serendipity, perhaps the most charming of this album’s many waltzes, sees Laufey trade bittersweet melodies with a sonorous string section and pensive piano. On slinky bossa nova track Haunted the effect of the strings is more an atmospheric shimmer. “I swear to myself as he leaves at dawn / This will end ‘til he haunts me again,” Laufey confides to us, almost whispering before breaking out into a sublime passage of hummed scatting the likes of which the Top 40 Albums Chart hasn’t seen for decades.

The biggest joy of Bewitched lies in witnessing Laufey fall gradually ever deeper in love, song by song. “Boys just make me cry,” she announces resolutely in the delightful opener Dreamer, a classic swing tune with a classy vocal performance that would surely have impressed Ella Fitzgerald, Laufey’s most obvious influence. By Lovesick, though, Laufey’s determination to avoid boys at all costs has evaporated. The central moment of turmoil of the record, Lovesick is the closest thing Laufey has ever got to a rock song, even if the chugging electric guitar is buried under a web of heart-tugging strings and sustained piano chords. It also happens to include one of her strongest choruses to date, replete with beautiful lyrics delivered with an urgency that sounds somewhat out of place on this otherwise soft album, but nonetheless could be a promising sign of more daring genre-mashing to come for Laufey.

By the time we reach palate-cleansing piano solo piece Nocturne, it is clear Laufey is well and truly besotted. Swooning, helpless love is the mood that Laufey has dealt with most comfortably in her career to date and true to form these final six songs offer the most assured moments of Bewitched. Promise, a heartbreaking tale of a long-distance relationship, is exquisitely teased out before a barnstorming, despondent bridge (“I’ve done the math / There’s no solution / We’ll never last!”). Misty, the only jazz standard on the tracklist, is even more enthralling, with Laufey flexing her vocal jazz muscles in a tasteful performance, even if there’s no space for an instrument to take the limelight for a solo.

And then there’s the title track. Bewitched’s opening orchestral flourish could hardly be more ornate, with strings, woodwinds and horns all tumbling over one another as if soundtracking the magical arrival of a Disney princess. Instead, there’s the gorgeous, softly sung voice of Laufey and a lonely guitar. The melodies and chord progressions are nothing short of exquisite, and the gentle reentry of strings in the chorus feels like quietly slipping into a steaming hot bath. Complete with gorgeous lyrics about “the world [freezing] around us as you kiss me goodnight,” Bewitched is the most complete musical depiction of romance I’ve ever had the pleasure to hear. Like all the greatest love songs, Laufey not only describes her love but invites you to feel it too, with all its profound, all-consuming ecstasy and a nuanced tinge of risk when it comes to “bewitching” and “spells”. Laufey has lost herself in love just as the listener loses themselves in the artistry of the soaring strings and timeless melody. With Bewitched as an album closer, Laufey’s tale of falling in love is immaculately wrapped up with a fairytale ending. It’s the pinnacle of an album like no other in the pop charts today, although judging by the success of this new, unorthodox formula for TikTok riches, Laufey may not be alone in her niche for long.

Rianne Downey live at Oporto review – bigger stages await
10
Jul

Her songwriting ability may be still developing, but Rianne Downey already owned the stage at Oporto, a low-key venue that felt far too small for a vocal talent of this calibre.

It was to be a quiet night for the merch stand attendant at Oporto, a relatively low profile bar in central Leeds that is yet to find its feet amongst the famed venues of Leeds’ independent music scene (namely cosy Hyde Park Book Club, the lovably grungy Key Club and my beloved Brudenell Social Club). The presence of the up and coming Scottish singer had attracted a surprising number of blokes who I suspected were more here for the Guinness available than the popstar’s latest batch of t-shirts. Downey will no doubt face bigger crowds than the one that greeted her in Oporto, a venue small enough for drinks in glass to be permissible and for acts to unceremoniously hop off the front of the stage and into the crowd after their sets simply because there is no backstage area to go to. Still, the fact that Downey sold out Oporto – just like the rest of her headline UK tour – shouldn’t be knocked, and there was a feeling during a set filled out by unreleased material that we were witnessing the very first steps of a promising career.

Perhaps even more impressive than the dense crowd that Downey had summoned at Oporto was her remarkable stage presence. If Downey is a small fry in indie pop circles, clearly no one’s informed her; dressed in dazzling white amongst a greenery-strewn set, Downey was a magnetic performer, engaging the crowd with a flash of her giant sleeves during the songs and delivering relaxed banter between songs. “If you want to, you can meet me at the merch stand later… and if you don’t yous can fuck off!” she blurted out at one point in her Glaswegian twang, triggering a roar of laughter from the crowd.

If Downey is a small fry in indie pop circles, clearly no one’s informed her.

Downey was an engaging performer. Image credit: Rianne Downey via Twitter

Luckily Downey also has the voice to match her outstanding stage presence. Her vocals exuded the sort of confidence emerging artists aren’t supposed to have and her vibrato was unusually well controlled, occasionally delivered with a musical theatre sheen. There’s plenty of scope for songs with grander climaxes and more challenging melodies to exploit her vocal talents further, but even on the more straightforward tunes Downey’s vocals were the most impressive part of her act.

And so to the songs, which offered a mixed bag. Vibrant, chugging country rock opener Stand My Ground got the gig off to a strong start, with Downey’s three band members offering bulk to the acoustic twang that supported her memorable chorus. Later, Fuel to the Flame was also a poignant highlight, Downey’s endearingly simple chorus wisely given space to shine with a straightforward, unfussy accompaniment. At times, the only problem was that Downey’s voice was a little too good. Paper Wings, one of a large contingent of unreleased songs, had a lovely melody at its heart but an attempt at a showstopping vocal climax awkwardly received only a few half-hearted whoops from the audience. A weedy, undercooked piano backing didn’t help Downey’s cause, and made for a puzzling match to her glitzy vocal performance. It was the accompaniment that also let Downey down on recent standout single Hard, during which the pre-recorded backing track was played so quietly I wondered whether it had cut out completely mid-song. The result left one of Downey’s most assured tracks feeling rather hollow, dragged along by a few bare guitar chords.

Downey’s vocals alone deserve the nationwide attention she is just beginning to receive.

Where Downey can most improve is in her lyrics, which invariably operate in clichés and observations lacking in insight. “You’re a life jacket on a rainy day,” was one particularly clumsy moment in unreleased Dancing In the Rain, and Start Again boils down to gems like “there’s no point in grudges,” and “resentment’s never worth it.” Her magnetic personality – so evident in the inter-song chat – stopped short of the songs themselves, many of which could be about anyone, performed by anyone. It was telling that the line “it’ll be alright, just give it time,” was considered a lyrical highlight enough to be plastered onto the t-shirt merchandise beside me.

The scene at Oporto during Rianne Downey’s set

Home, an undemanding ode to, well, home, was particularly one-dimensional, but got a surprisingly heartfelt performance in Leeds. Whilst the song had an odd reluctance to build towards a proper, anthemic finale that the percussive guitar strumming begged for, the quietness did at least offer a chance to hear Downey’s fans audibly singing along to the charming little melody. At that moment I realised I had been soundly proved wrong – this wasn’t just a room of men looking for some light entertainment as they down their pints, and Downey’s core of fans very much exists and is no doubt growing. Oporto is undoubtedly humble beginnings but the roots of Downey’s fanbase (which is more varied than my stereotypes allowed) seem firmly set, and her vocals alone deserve the nationwide attention she is just beginning to receive. If she can equip herself with songs that offer a bit more musical bite and lyrics that emulate her exceptional stage presence, much bigger venues and keener crowds await. Takings may be modest for now, but it’s a matter of time before that merch stand becomes a two man job.

Prince Daddy & the Hyena live at the Key Club review – a hit and run blast of mayhem
1
Jul

Straightjacketed into a fleeting 45 minute set, this performance from the New York emo rockers was agonisingly defined by all the great songs they neglected. At least the berserk crowd didn’t seem to mind.

Standing in line outside the Key Club, it felt almost as if the pandemic never happened. Just like we did in 2019, me and my friend Ewan were discussing the latest developments of curiously named New York emo rock band Prince Daddy & the Hyena ahead of their performance a few hours later, shivering a little in the queue outside Merrion Street’s KFC. Seeing so many fellow fans of one of our favourite niche bands was still a thrill, as was the fact that Kory Gregory, a loveable frontman worth rooting for, was once again awaiting us somewhere deep within the building we stood next to. If it weren’t for my new Prince Daddy t-shirt or Ewan’s new hairdo it might have looked like nothing had changed at all in the intervening four years.

The Key Club brought a nice familiarity for us (we’d even both played an early Ewy gig on the Key Club stage) but it would perhaps be less welcome to Prince Daddy themselves, who have evidently made little forward progress in terms of popularity across the pond in recent years. Cosmic Thrill Seekers, a somewhat overambitious but nonetheless hugely rewarding concept album, felt like the talk of the town back in 2019 but in reality it struggled when it came to streaming numbers, perhaps due to the inaccessibility of an album made up of three through-composed opuses, each confusingly assigned three different names. Last year’s self-titled album was somewhat better received but the hard truth is that this band remains confined to the cosy Key Club, a suitably all-black underground dungeon of indie rock, with ceiling pipes low enough for crowd surfers to hang off during the most raucous performances. Even more humblingly, just as in 2019 Prince Daddy are still reduced to a split-billing for this evening’s show, this time playing second fiddle to labelmates Origami Angel (who haven’t even toured the UK before!).

(C’mon & Smoke Me Up )concluded with a deeply satisfying thump à la Beethoven.

A notably more excitable crowd than the group’s last visit to Leeds seemed to be the extent of their career progress. “You guys weren’t like this last time; I love it!” frontman Kory Gregory giggled early on. His surprise was understandable – the crowd this evening was remarkable. Virtually every song incited a riot: think limbs flying, mosh pits swirling, sweaty heads thrashing about in ecstacy. Even the slower songs gave fans the urge to climb up onto stage (refreshingly free of overscrupulous security guards) and leap outwards onto the hands of their comrades. At one point a mosh circle formed before Gregory had even started a song, before hilariously deflating when the song in question turned out to be the only slow ballad of the night. Plus, of course, there were plenty of garbled chants of “Yorkshire!”, seemingly shouted as much from Leeds tribalism as an attempt to confuse Americans for the fun of it (Jeff Rosenstock and cleopatrick have been similarly baffled on previous visits to the great city).

A boot to the head seemed the most likely injury during Prince Daddy’s blistering set.

Unfortunately for the average spectator, the main consequence of Prince Daddy’s recent mediocre self-titled album is that the big hits of their early albums are now spread few and far between in their live set. Ewan and I should have been worried when a fellow fan showed us the rumoured set list before the show: material from that latest album formed the bulk of a set, including several of the less remarkable corners of the Prince Daddy discography. Do we really need the forgettable, broad brush indie rock of Shoelaces or Jesus Fucking Christ? Did the utterly limp 90-second non-song Something Special really deserve a look in to an already selective set list? Sweeping ballad Curly Q was an inevitable inclusion but no less underwhelming, with a sickly sweet chorus so whiny and uninspiring it almost pacified the rabid crowd in the Key Club. Keep Up That Talk was the exception to the rule, boasting a whiplash-inducing finale that surely marks the most thrilling 40 seconds of guitar music Gregory has penned to date. It was that riff-filled rush that compelled me back amongst the moshers at the front after spending more songs than I would have liked waiting at the sidelines for a worthwhile banger to come along. Bouncing up and down in and embracing the chaos seemed the only way to properly enjoy a song that felt like hitting maximum velocity on a rollercoaster.

The problem for Prince Daddy wasn’t just that their set included so many middling songs, but that so many great songs were left unplayed. Only three songs from their debut album, I Thought You Didn’t Even Like Leaving, made the cut despite the fact virtually any song from that record could have maximised the bedlam in the Key Club. Expansive showpiece ballad Really? was featured somewhat grudgingly in abridged form, leading to palpable disappointment in the audience when the band swiftly moved on to another boilerplate cut from the latest album. I Forgot To Take My Meds Today still bites hard, but equally venomous sister tracks like Clever Girl, Pop Song or the delightfully named I Wish I Could Ctrl+alt+del My Life all were left neglected.

It had been barely 45 minutes, but the sweat-drenched faces in attendance resembled a few hours in the Amazon rainforest.

If anyone shared my disappointment in the room it didn’t show. It was lift off from song one, perhaps powered by the knowledge that the band would likely be gone for another several years in well under an hour. Enveloped in the mayhem, most of us were too busy to catch the detail of smartly constructed thrasher Klonopin or the even neater C’mon & Smoke Me Up, which concluded with a deeply satisfying instrumental cadence that landed with a thump à la Beethoven. El Dorado, lead single and obvious standout from the self-titled, was always destined to be compelling live, yet in Leeds the relatively sedate tempo – and awkward placement right at the end of the set – meant the crowd failed to ignite to Gregory’s punchy chorus. For a band with plenty of fiery candidates for closing number (not least two awe-inspiring album closers in Really? and Wacky Misadventures of the Passenger), this was a poor choice that left the crowd desperate for a proper finale that never came, regardless of how well executed El Dorado‘s breakdown was.

Virtually every song was greeted with stage divers.

By the time we had reached that muted end it had been barely 45 minutes, but the sweat-drenched faces in attendance resembled a few hours in the Amazon rainforest. To discuss exclusively the performance of the band is to ignore half of the experience – and probably the most important half. To a large extent, the crowd was the main spectacle at this gig. Stage invasions got so frequent that Origami Angel had to halt their subsequent set to instruct the fans towards an open space on stage so people would stop treading on Ryland Heagy’s guitar pedals.

What was most clear throughout was the kindness in the crowd running just beneath the surface. Rock naysayers looking in from the outside may see it as a brutal, angry mess of primal emotion. To some extent it may be, but the act of collectively lifting a stranger above your head feels more obviously an act of communal human love. Over the course of the night, fans of all shapes, sizes and genders found themselves surfing the waves of hands, each one of them eventually lowered down with care to the ground wherever they ended up and often congratulated by the strangers around them with broad smiles and enthusiastic hand horns. Even when simply jumping into each other in the pit, the first rule of moshing is to immediately lift up anyone around you who falls over – an intervention urgently required on a few occasions this evening.

It’s difficult to know what might have unfolded had Prince Daddy been at their propulsive best. Gregory may well have concluded in advance that the rip-roaring, deafening metal of the brilliant Hollow As You Figured would have likely led to some sort of structural damage to the Key Club foundations. That said, the disparity between the band’s humble billing and the eagerness of the crowd was baffling. With a fanbase like this, could the New Yorkers really not fill out this smallish basement on their own with a more comprehensive 90 minute set? It may well be another four years before we find out.

Vulfpeck: Schvitz review – scattergun sixth lacks inspiration
22
May

A return after a prolonged hiatus could have spelt creative reinvention for Ann Arbor funk group Vulfpeck. Instead they continue to underwhelm on a sixth album let down by vapid hooks and lazy rehashes.

After some years spent climbing the pinnacle of the undersaturated genre that is contemporary funk music, Vulfpeck reached the summit on 28th September 2019. Having successfully resisted the temptation to sign to a record label ever since the group started up in an Ann Arbor basement eight years prior, the endearingly nerdy five-piece delivered a career-defining set at a sold out Madison Square Garden in New York, being only the second independent act to do so. The 100-minute whirlwind tour of the band’s discography was a glorious achievement duly immortalised in a live album and film, featuring a host of special guests and multiple unforgettable performances (see Woody Goss’s spectacular baroque organ improvisation or Dave Koz and Chris Thile’s saxophone-mandolin duel for starters). 2020’s The Joy of Music, The Job of Real Estate soon followed and featured a handful of standout tracks amongst inconsequential instrumentals. Since then Vulfpeck have taken their first hiatus, with Cory Wong and Theo Katzman finding considerable success in their solo careers and eccentric frontman Jack Stratton apparently hunkering down in his Los Angeles home, masterminding the next era of Vulf.

Few could have guessed Stratton would return quite like this: drumming in a steamy sauna and dressed in a white towel robe and sauna hat alongside half a dozen similarly barefooted bandmates. It’s certainly a concept, but quite why the aesthetic was chosen beyond a good album cover and clickable Youtube thumbnails is anybody’s guess. Disappointingly, saunas are almost entirely irrelevant in the ten tracks that make up Schvitz, but perhaps that’s for the better.

Stratton’s nasally vocals as ‘Vulfmon’ are nothing but unbearably irritating

More pertinently, Schvitz also marks the return of ever-lovable guest singer Antwaun Stanley, who takes lead vocals on five of the ten tracks and is often the album’s greatest asset. He’s radiant on chirpy highlight New Guru, joyfully riffing his way through the verses and digging into a catchy classic funk chorus with gusto. He also elevates well-written Simple Step alongside a pleasingly crunchy upright piano and Joey Dosik’s smoky sax hook. The lyrics, as often is the case for fun-loving Vulfpeck, are simple placeholders for a melody and demand little attention (Simple Step focuses on describing a single dance move), but the quality musicianship does well to smooth over any deficiencies in Stratton’s penmanship.

Elsewhere, Vulfpeck are less lucky. Earworm lacks both lyrical depth and musical interest, and Stratton’s nasally vocals as his alter ego ‘Vulfmon’ are nothing but unbearably irritating. It’s a song told excruciatingly from the perspective of an earworm (“I’m not in your stomach / I’m not in the ground”) but critically lacks an earworm of its own, with Katzman’s slurred hook too convoluted to live long in the memory. By no exaggeration, it all amounts to the most insufferable two and a half minutes of Vulfpeck’s career. Curiously sleepy closer Miracle is marginally better and features a corny chant of “all life is a miracle”, which lacks any self awareness of its own soppiness. There’s hope Joe Dart’s smooth bass line might lead to something more interesting, but it simply doesn’t besides a clunky key change. By the time the lyrics nonsensically start discussing Pokemon, all hope is lost.

For now, Vulfpeck seem to be settling into their life as former world-beaters now past their prime a little too easily

Antwaun may be back, but what hasn’t changed is Vulfpeck’s distinct lack of genuinely new songs. Theo Katzman’s quite sublime solo tune What Did You Mean by Love? gets a remake, and the clever chord progressions and neatly crafted lyrics prove incongruous on Schvitz. Stanley gives a strong performance, but the changes from the original are so minor there’s nothing to recommend the Vulfpeck version above the original. Joey Dosik’s delightful In Heaven also gets a cover and the switch to sparkling acoustic guitar for the cheerful hook is a welcome one, although there’s a niggling feeling that Vulfpeck are rapidly running out of ideas for new songs. A faithful but uninspired reproduction of Bob Dylan’s bluesy Serve Somebody drives the point home.

Schvitz may not completely devoid of highlights, but it is nonetheless an album that tests the patience of even the most dedicated Vulfpeck fan. Covers and joke songs are all well and good, but they largely end up hiding a lack of ambition that could drive the band on to new heights. Songs with more spectacular musicianship and lyrics that dig deeper are entirely within the realms of possibility for Vulfpeck (Katzman has long proved himself as an outstanding lyricist), but for now the band seem to be settling into their life as former world-beaters now past their prime a little too easily. Madison Square Garden was fantastic, but there are more hills to be climbed. In this album, Vulfpeck seem to have stopped trying.