October 2010
47 posts
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The Flaws: Constant Adventure
Words: Gareth O’Malley
‘The flaws in this world take their toll on all of us’. That’s what the band themselves said on one of ‘Achieving Vagueness”s highlights, ‘Sixteen’. It’s fitting, then, that The Flaws’ second album, ‘Constant Adventure’, should take this sentence and run with it, forming the backbone of the...
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New Music: Retro/Grade
Escape Sequence by Retro/Grade
Here’s something absolutely sublime from Retro/Grade, in the form of forthcoming single ‘Escape Sequence’. For starters, there is nothing retrograde about this seven-minute wonder: full of propulsive rhythms and vibrancy, it shows that the duo (Serge Santiago and Tom Neville) are intent on continuing to move forward. The moment the...
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Halves: It Goes, It Goes (Forever And Ever)
Words: Gareth O’Malley
…and here’s number three. If that didn’t make any sense to you, this probably will. A few years ago you would have struggled to find an exceptional album come out of Ireland. Director, Delorentos and The Flaws all impressed, but it’s only now that I can say their debuts were stepping stones for the Irish scene. The bar was then set for...
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mpfree: Highlife - F Kenya RIP
words: Jamie Milton Although I’ve had this for over a year now, it seems Highlife have evaded many a person’s attention. The reason why ‘F Kenya RIP’ finds itself onto MFM today is mainly because Jon Hillcock included it as the “hidden track” on his New Noise podcast (it’s amazing, go get it). Highlife first exposed himself to me when he awkwardly...
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mpfree: Lykke Li - Get Some
Sex-ravaged and a little bit Western, ‘Get Some’ sees Lykke Li return with flying colours. Her debut, ‘Youth Novels’ didn’t quite give the full picture; people expected a little more. Here, we get that step up. Big drums, brash vocals, boldness, boldness, boldness.
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I Like Trains: He Who Saw The Deep
Words: Gareth O’Malley
‘Uptempo’ is not a word you would associate with I Like Trains. The band have become well-known as one of the most maudlin acts in the country, having spent a few years peddling their post-rock influenced songs that have been noted for Guy Bannister’s baritone vocals - and a startlingly bleak view of the world.
Yet some of the songs on their...
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65daysofstatic: Heavy Sky
Words: Gareth O’Malley
Some bands just can’t keep still. While there are those who will go into the studio with the sole intention of making an album after whittling the tracklist down to, say, ten tracks, after which they’re finished with the sessions and gear up for touring, others will take every viable idea they’re created and run with them, releasing these tracks as...
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Her Name Is Calla: The Quiet Lamb
Words: Gareth O’Malley
Everything about Her Name Is Calla spells out their ambitious nature. They are a truly talented bunch of musicians whose style could be called as eccentric as it is beguiling. They are completely comfortable with multi-part epics, too: of ‘The Quiet Lamb”s running time, a whopping 75 minutes, two tracks account for just about half of the entire record.
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Mixtape - Autumn Leaves →
image credit//
My buddy Tom over at Yellow Laces spent a little time compiling a pre-fall playlist. It contains a lot of husky voices and muted guitars and it goes hand in hand with the rush of red-tinted leaves sprinkling down from the trees. We’re talking log cabins with Justin Vernon and wintery road-trips with The Middle East. Here’s the link (sorry, not Spotify-ers). ...
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Houses - All Night
words: Jamie Milton scribed for The Line Of Best Fit When the stock market collapsed in on itself and talk of recession and doom came into clear view, many of the curious amongst us speculated as to what this would mean for music. With loss of jobs, there was the exciting possibility that a push of new music would come through and expose itself as a response to the financial meltdown....
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mpfree: Parlovr - Hell, Heaven
words: Jamie Milton Stop whatever the hell, heaven it is that you’re doing and lunge into the heady skies of yes, ‘Hell, Heaven’. Hell and Heaven. The two grandest ideas we have floating around in our busy minds. And if thinking about the possibility of either/or is a daunting enough process, try putting yourself in the shoes of Parlovr, attempting to record another song quite...
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Is Criticising Kings Of Leon Just The "Cool" Thing...
words: Jamie Milton The reviews are beginning to pour in. ‘Come Around Sundown’ finds its feet a mere two years since Kings Of Leon hit the big time; releasing ‘Sex On Fire’; establishing themselves as full-time festival headliners. To little surprise, the album’s received a more than mixed reception from the music press. The follow-up to breakthrough ‘Only By...
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Stream: Warpaint - The Fool
Set your ears on this staggering debut album before you do anything else today. ‘The Fool’ surprised me and many others; it’s a cohesive, well-developed first album that cements Warpaint as a seriously exciting prospect.
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Album of the week: The Phantom Band - The Wants
You need only scroll slightly downwards in order to see our review of this monumental, grand work of moroseness and brooding character. But to back up our completely correct opinion, here’s a list of quotes from ever-so-slightly more important publications: DiS - “Destined to become a classic British record given time, space and the correct exposure” The Observer - “they...
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Paul Smith: Margins
Words: Gareth O’Malley
So apparently Maximo Park aren’t even on a break at the moment. (They’re actually working on new material for album number four.) Most solo artists choose a point when their day job is on a hiatus or something similar (see: Bloc Party, Snow Patrol, Travis etc.). Not so for Paul Smith. Not content with coming up with ‘Quicken the Heart’ last...
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yvynyl:
The Vaccines - Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra)
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WatchAUDIOVISUALS: Gazelle Twin - Changelings Hot on the tail of Zola Jesus comes yet another outspoken, kindred spirit, in the form of Brighton-based Gazelle Twin - aka Elizabeth Walling. The art direction (constructed by Walling herself) of this video for debut single ‘Changelings’ points toward the pitch-black haunting stance of Fever Ray, but Walling’s voice is far more tame,...
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Kings of Leon Stream New Album; UK Fans Get...
Kings of Leon have kindly made ‘Come Around Sundown’ available to stream over on their official site. Ireland gets it; continental Europe gets it; the U.S. gets it too. Natch.
If you noticed a rather glaring omission to that list in the shape of the U.K., we’re sorry to have to report that it’s true. So British fans will have to wait for the release next week. Our...
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Belle And Sebastian: Belle And Sebastian Write...
Words: Gareth O’Malley
What’s this?! Belle and Sebastian writing about love?! They definitely haven’t done that before! Wow, they’re really moving into new territory in the lyrics department, aren’t they?!
All joking aside, while the subject matter of the Scottish group’s new record finds them retreading (over)familiar ground, what has changed is their...
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WatchAUDIOVISUALS: James Blake - Limit To Your Love It’s been a week since this showed its face. It’s taken just over a week to gather in quite how staggeringly brilliant it is. James Blake turns a fairly non-standout effort from Feist’s ‘The Reminder’ into one of the singles of the year. The seconds of barely-audible space that define this song are met perfectly with some...
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The Phantom Band - The Wants
words: Jamie Milton scribed for The Line Of Best Fit Some bands are destined to make their masterpiece at some point. They can record with ease, within an Elbow-like status of being respected but not being demanded of before bam!… out comes the chef d’oeuvre. You get the sense that The Phantom Band are in their own, care-free world, writing songs with no limits, without anyone looking...
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Words With: Honour Before Glory
Gareth O’Malley vs. Whiskas Nicholls
During the week, we had a word with the ex-¡Forward, Russia! man about his new projects. Yes, plural. He’s been keeping busy since his old band went on hiatus in 2008, that’s for certain.
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MFM: You’ve been recording songs with Johnny Foreigner recently - do you think any of your production work has influenced your solo...
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Quick Fix: The Attika State - Measures
Words: Gareth O’Malley
Punk-pop, eh. That should be the definition of a crowded playing field. It’s gotten to the point where a band needs to be either (a) really original (something that’s increasingly hard to come by in the genre these days) or (b) really fucking good at what they do (something that is thankfully more common) to stick their heads above the parapet and get...
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Insect Guide: Dark Days And Nights
Words: Gareth O’Malley
“There’s real life in the dark. Real life is dark.” So said Editors frontman Tom Smith when speaking about his band’s third album ‘In This Light And On This Evening’. I get the impression that Insect Guide would subscribe to this view. The trio are most comfortable with the darker side of life - and love - no matter how uplifting...
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Free Music Friday Part 2: Our Lost Infantry
Yep. Remember them? Well, they’re back, and their new single is quite a different proposition to what’s gone before. Our Lost Infantry’s new single is quite an angular track: never settling, dipping in and out of different styles so quick that it’s hard to keep up.
Therein lies the bulk of the song’s appeal. Never afraid to keep things interesting in the song...
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Free Music Friday Part 1: City and the Sea
This may or may not become a regular feature at MFM, but we’ve just stumbled across the new EP from City and The Sea, found lurking in our inbox a short while ago.
The quartet hail from Hamilton, Ontario, and serve up helpings of rock that’s heaped with soul. There are diverse influences present on ‘Leave A Light On’: a little bit of ‘Aha Shake...
Album of the week: SALEM - King Night
Chris Weingarten says a lot of things that leave me hitting concrete walls with my bare fists, but his anti-SALEM tirade has been particularly eye-raising. The basis of his vendetta stems from a comparison between SALEM’s use of rapping vs. more established, more talented artists that aren’t dishonouring the genre. What Weingarten has failed to realise is that in ‘King...
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The Xcerts: Scatterbrain
Words: Gareth O’Malley
There is a real sense that this album’s artwork eventually defines it. For those of you who have not listened to ‘Scatterbrain’, yet, we would think that that photograph would be enough to pique your interest. A man turned away from the camera, the white of his shirt only partially exposed to the light. Shrouded in darkness.
Those three words are...
The Walkmen - Lisbon
Words: James Dyke
The Walkmen have been around longer than most people realised, well over a decade now. Sixth studio album Lisbon is a far reach from previous Walkmen efforts, especially from ‘everybody’s fave track’: ‘The Rat’.
Lisbon is relaxed, ‘Juveniles’ is an upbeat opener with a repetetive guitar chime backing the oh so familar vocals of lead...
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Still Flyin’ - A Party In Motion (EP)
words: Ben Ross scribed for This Is Fake DIY Self described as ‘Hammjamm’ - when a good time gets better - Still Flyin’ are something of a musical oddity. With a DIY band aesthetic like no other and their current line up’s size – made up from people from all over the world - matching that of a full rugby union team, Still Flyin’ are band for the everyday person, with everyday concerns; Beer,...
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mpfree: Nightlands - Suzerain (A Letter To The...
words: Jamie Milton Secretly Canadian are fairly picky about who they sign. This year they’ve released albums from Yeasayer, jj, Here We Go Magic, Antony and the Johnsons and very little else. But before the year runs out, little known Nightlands get their debut album, ‘Forgot the Mantra’ put out in November. ‘Suzerain (A Letter To The Judge)’ reminds us of a whole...
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October UK Albums Release Schedule
October 4th
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British Sea Power - Zeus EP (read our review) Maps and Atlases - Perch Patchwork (read our review) Marnie Stern - Marnie Stern Violens - Amoral Carl Barat - Carl Barat Crystal Fighters - Star Of Love Clinic - Bubblegum Tinie Tempah – The Disc-Overy Gold Panda - Lucky Shiner (stream) Magnetic Man - Magnetic Man Pariah - Safehouses War Child - A Tribute to David Bowie...
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Clock Opera: Once And For All
Words: Gareth O’Malley
My god. To release one spectacular single is quite common. To release two in a row merits considerable interest, but to put out three on the trot is nothing short of unbelievable.
Unbelievable, yes, but not impossible. Just ask Guy Connelly and Clock Opera. The chop-pop wizard is back, and his backing band seem to have become part of the studio line-up. A few press...
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Emerging: Luftwaffe
words: Jamie Milton Hailing from West Philadelphia, Luftwaffe craft inventive and stylish pop music that rarely exceeds its welcome. Their debut, ten-minutes-long EP ‘Quiet Summer’ is a well-crafted notion of escapism; each of the three tracks oozing with charm and energy. ’Never Let Me Go’ allows lightly-strummer guitars to flutter by as bold, delayed vocals and rampant...
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Pilotlight sign to new label, release single and...
London-via-Dublin quartet Pilotlight have been making a considerable amount of noise this year. Their album, ‘The Post-War Musical’ left us impressed back in February, and now it’s getting a wider release through Glasstone Records on November 1st.
For the less patient among you, it’s available on iTunes from Monday, so if you’re yet to acquaint yourself with the...
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Fenech-Soler: S/T
Words: Gareth O’Malley Scribed for This Is Fake DIY
British indie guitar music is dead, or so many would have you believe. Barely anyone is interested in doing that kind of thing anymore. We recoil in horror when we think of the sheer amount of bands who have fallen on their own swords because of their failure to progress and adapt.
So, if it is indeed dead, what killed it? The...
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September, In Reviews
9.1 - Of Montreal - False Priest 9.1 - Oceansize - Self Preserved While The Bodies Float Up 9.0 - Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest 8.9 - Adebishi Shank - This Is A Second Album… 8.9 - Calories - Basic Nature 8.8 - Love Lake - S/T 8.6 - No Age - Everything In Between 8.5 - Manic Street Preachers - Postcards From A Young Man 8.3 - Mice Parade - What It Means To Be Left Handed 8.2 - Grinderman -...
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WatchAUDIOVISUALS: Tamaryn - Love Fade If you’re into The Guardian and you like your Soundcloud (you ought to, if you’re visiting this site!), you might be interested in Paul Lester’s New Band Of The Day - his daily column has been summarised into one nifty playlist. I rushed through this last night, hoping something would grab me from the off. And it did. Three-piece Tamaryn’s...