ALBUM: REWS – ‘Pyro’

Like the phoenix that rises from the ashes of its own flames, rock duo REWS take the remnants of loves old and new and turn them into tunes that blaze with fun and furious style. Their debut album Pyro, released via Marshall Records, brims with an incredibly dark an delightful energy and it’s setting our cells alight in all the right ways.

The record opens with a rockier reversion of the joyful ‘Let It Roll’, showcasing guitarist Shauna & drummer Collette’s divine dual vocals against a backdrop if gritty guitar. It bleeds perfectly in to ‘Rip Up My Heart’, a heavy lament to the heartache caused by a failed relationship – and a musical remedy for it too.

‘Violins’ is an apathetic but energetic track with a chorus which demonstrates Shauna’s ability to hit the higher notes as well as unleashing hair-raising screams with her powerful lungs. It precedes recent single ‘Shine’, which is glittery and gloriously heavy (like the accompanying music video) and a clear highlight on the record. ‘Death Yawn’ – written about a weird guy who kept staring at Shauna at a hostel during breakfast – is a poppier offering, but it’s drenched in REWS’ trademark infectious melodies and dancing beats.

‘Miss You In The Dark’ is the anthem every girl should listen to post-breakup, with standout percussion from Collette and more of Shauna’s powerhouse vocals which dominate the record. ‘Your Tears’ is a superb follow-up, and it’s a track that refuses to acknowledge “the boy who cried wolf” with it’s swaggering guitar and thrashing drums.

‘We Explode’ leaves its mark, with it’s scorching chorus and lyrics that drip with desire, whilst penultimate track ‘Shake Shake’ will have you shimmying away the bad memories. ‘Running Up Against The Wall’ closes the record, with melodic keys and a sense of uncertainty that listeners will easily relate to. Pyro is proof that the REWS girls take everything in their stride, and they should take great pride in this record which perfectly showcases their musical potential.

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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ALBUM: Best Girl Athlete – ‘Best Girl Athlete’

What were you doing at 18 years old? Finishing A-levels and contemplating university? Maybe starting work? For Katie Buchan, aka Best Girl Athlete, her 18th birthday has brought a second, eponymously-titled album that’s as consciously, comfortably pop-y as it is lavishly produced.  

The album shows that Buchan’s ambitions are as wide as her horizons. Opener ‘Baby Come Home’ begins as a chilled slate of folktronica with Lorde-style vocals that unexpectedly brings in fellow Aberdonian Jackill for its rap-led middle eight. It’s a step that pre-empts the range of influences littered across the album – a Depeche Mode style chorus on ‘Different Face’; a ’90s acoustic feel in the style of Beth Orton on ‘Cigarette Dreams’; the synths of Yazoo and stripped back feel of The XX on ‘In the Morning’.  

All through, there’s a brisk pace to proceedings, as the album’s differentiation keeps the interest. But this is no vanity project, Buchan’s songwriting couldn’t be described as arch. Instead, her youth is contrasted with the maturity of each tune’s orchestration, lending the album a winsome, bittersweet quality similar to Let’s Eat Grandma.

There’s a touch of darkness here too. ‘Join the Masons’ has some of the morbidity of Aldous Harding, while ‘Lucy’ has echoes of Bat for Lashes’ cinematic sound. The album’s final few tracks are a mix. Whilst ‘In Your Head’ is Scandi-pop-rock, ‘Everything Must Go’ is a piano-led piece of chamber-pop and closer ‘Sometimes’ a country-ish slowie that morphs into something mournful.

With influences that range far and wide, and an ability to put them together into a greater whole, there’s great promise for Katie Buchan. On the basis of this album, this athlete’s career promises to be a marathon, not a sprint.

Best Girl Athlete, the eponymous album, is out now via Fitlike Records.

John McGovern
@etinsuburbiaego

 

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ALBUM: Mammoth Penguins and Friends – ‘John Doe’

There are moments that define you, for better or worse, scattered throughout life. The happy, the sad, the shattering. Arrivals, departures and all that’s in between. And then there are the moments which suspend you, that have the potential to break you completely but only fracture – a creased page in the centre of your story.

The ambiguous grief suffered by those around a man who fakes his own death only to return years later is the subject dealt with on Mammoth Penguins and Friends’ new album John Doe. From the record’s opening domestic sounds of tea cups nudging against saucers through lush strings and folk picking, and electronic bleep and scratch around indie-esque guitar, the album weaves this story, each track the view of someone around the disappearing John Doe. The not knowing, the resignation, the hope, the questions without answers in living through this event are all beautifully, painfully, and painstakingly crafted here.

Many will already know Mammoth Penguins, led by indiepop royalty Emma Kupa, but musically the addition of the ‘and Friends’ to the Penguin party has changed the shape of the band’s sound significantly. Haiku Salut’s Sophie Barkerwood and Joe Bear add programming, samples and synths, while Russell Lomas adds violin. The band also added to their three-piece indie stomp as bass player Mark Boxhall made field recordings across the space of a month, and to the tracks are the subtle addition of photocopiers, butter being scraped onto toast and Ramsgate beach. This brings a depth, a startling reality to the tales being told, sharpening their poignancy.

From those at the epicentre we get the innocence and disassociation of ‘The Child’, and album closer ‘The Wife’, a piano and found sound scratch beyond Kupa’s high, wavering and yet never-less-than-sure vocal. The effects of the disappearance ripple outward, to the dehumanising monologue of ‘The Line Manager’ and then sloshing back with two more up-tempo numbers in ‘The Ex-girlfriend’ and ‘The Ex-girlfriend Pt 2’. Each track has its own viewpoint, and its own distinct sound, revealing the mundanity and the monument of every day life and one person’s decision; but together the songs bring comfort and sadness in knowing even broken hearts keep beating.

Concept albums are not without stigma, often feeling heavy-handed and overwrought, and – while the subject matter here could easily have been rendered that way – it is the expert crafting of gentle yet raw emotion and melodic resonance which make John Doe an album of exceptional bittersweet beauty.

John Doe is out 13 October via wiaiwya.

Sarah Lay
@sarahlay

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Album: MALKA – ‘Ratatatat’

“I wasn’t afraid, lyrically, of going back to my folk roots. I would write a lot of social commentary then and I’m quite politically aware; with 6DR there was a lot about what’s going on in the world, and with MALKA I kind of didn’t do that. I’d popped it up a little bit… but I went back lyrically to my roots and found a balance of who I wanted to be on this album.”

The second album from Tamara Schlesinger under her MALKA moniker (and her eighth overall) follows 2015’s Marching To A Different Beat. Musically, pop synths and tribal rhythms provide a bright counterpart to the shadow cast lyrically; in a time of societal upheaval and global uncertainty, Ratatatat provides a brief freedom from those fears, and a commitment to life-affirming art.

Opening with ‘Fell For You’ there is a hint of MIA, whilst the bubbling classic pop bass lines are reminiscent of The Cure; but there’s also an edge as chirps, chants and whoops play around a snapping beat. It’s a great introduction to a fascinating and immersive collection built on intricate details of loops, found sounds and repeating refrains.

‘Wonder Why’ may be the track that listeners are already familiar with – released between albums, it caught the ear of Lauren Laverne and made her best of the year list. It’s bright and brilliant pop, catchy in the ubiquitous way but with a depth and a creativity that delights.

There’s a definite theme to the melody throughout the album, but enough variety between tracks that the only sense of repeating is in the deliberate loops of beats and vocal. With lead vocals that are often sing song, and layered with deeper backing there is an Afrobeat element to these pop tunes, lifting them and embedding them in your head.

Intelligent, creative and as hopeful as it is reflective, this is an album to excite in all the right ways; a light in dark times.

Ratatatat by MALKA is out on 20 October 2017 and is available for pre-order here. And you can catch her live throughout November:

1 November – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
2 November – Hug and Pint, Glasgow
3 November – We Are Robots, London
13 November – The Walrus, Brighton
14 November – The Lexington, London
15 November – Hare & Hounds, Birmingham.

 

Sarah Lay 
@sarahlay

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