Mayfire have never featured on WJAHOM before, well actually they have as they used to be called City Snakes. This is their third single using the new moniker and it is a proper banger, but also a song about yearning with a pinch of sadness. It has a Tom Petty and power pop feel to it. I particularly love the underlying heavy riffage and guitar solos which underpin the yearning soulful vocal. This band, one of the finest to emerge from York, is destined for much bigger things!
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York’s delightful psychedelic drone noiseniks Soma Crew release a new album ‘Confused OK’ on 3rd April. It is their fifth album and coincidentally the fifth time we have featured them on WJAHOM. The album will be available to purchase via Bandcamp on CD or preferred digital download. The album was written during the latter end of the pandemic and recorded last year. According to the band the album “addresses the turmoil in the caged conditions of lockdown, reflecting on recent years of political unrest, public mistrust and personal mental health“. If you read this before the evening of April 3rd you can catch the band at a launch gig for the album at the Fulford Arms in York. I will be there!
The album opens with “These Careless Lips” which seems to describe anxiety about and fear of those in power. It evokes the finest moments that the Velvet Underground left us with. “Tranquilizer” has a very dark feel and has an eerie almost demonic guitar riff. This track would be an excellent inclusion on the soundtrack of a great British psychological horror film. The reverb effects that underpin the song are phenomenal and the extended close is full-on psychedelic. I sense a cryptic element to “Mirage” is it about the forced confinement of lockdown, is it about oppression or is it about someone fighting with doubt and confusion? I think it covers all three and so much more. It has the usual Soma Crew righteous riffing but the stand out here is a driving hypnotic bass part from Chris Goodhead. If you put Television, Spiritualised and the Stooges in a blender and had the about record a song it might turn out to be “Let It Fall”. The song is about finding hope after deception for me and I love it! Like many of us I have experienced at least a small degree of mental health issues and “This Illusion” describes the way people with mental health are treated by physicians and those around them. This one has a bluesy dreamy (or maybe nightmarish) vibe. The line “there is only I that is me” says so much more than seven words ought to. The long fade is mesmerising and stays with you long after the track has finished.
Who knew that Soma Grew could take glam rock and turn it into an obsidian twisted music fantasy? Well, they have with the magnificent “Another Life”. On hearing “The Sheltering Sky” I wondered if this might be what Jim and William Reid might have sounded like had they ever had the chance to collaborate with Marc Bolan. The first single from the album is also the final track, “Propaganda Now” which is accompanied by a stunning video. This is probably the heaviest track on the album and it rocks like an absolute bastard. This is a tune that Hawkwind would be proud of. Lyrically it is my favourite track, and there is some tough competition. On their YouTube page, the band describes “Propaganda Now” as ” lyrically informed by an awareness of the increased discrepancy between fact and its interpretation through social media. Participation in the dispersion of information is unavoidable in contemporary society, and it is virtually impossible to be sure of the veracity of sources. Visual cues are taken from historical posters where images are used to persuade the viewer of a particular point of view. In these circumstances we are presented with a dichotomy, and our innate circumspection is smothered”. The band is firing on all cylinders and Si Micklethwaite’s vocal delivery is his best on the album. If you have not experienced Soma Crew yet, get this album, you will not be disappointed. I had a CD copy of the album for review and the gatefold sleeve, booklet and the CD itself showcase some beautiful art and concepts. The really wonderful old-school touch of including the lyrics in the booklet gets top marks from me. By all means, download or stream the album, but the CD version is something special to behold.
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I haven’t actually counted for a while, but I believe that I own around 120 books about David Bowie. Thanks to Nicholas Royle I now own 121, or at least thereabouts. I was completely unaware that Royle’s book ‘David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the sun machine’ existed until I took a look at the schedule for the 2024 York Literature Festival and saw the title. As a Bowie fan, I therefore had to be there for Nicholas Royle’s session at York St. John University to talk about his new book on Tuesday 12th March. Royle, who is the Emeritus Professor (English) at Sussex University, opened the session by playing Bowie’s older song “Memory Of A Free Festival” as this was the song that provided part of the book title with its repeated refrain “The sun machine is coming down and we’re gonna have a party”. Then he read from the book. But the most interesting part was the interview with Nick by Dr. Sam Reese originally from Aotearoa New Zealand, and now a senior lecturer at the Centre for Writing at York St. John University. Reese asked some insightful questions about how the book came about and what it actually is. In essence, the book came about thanks to Covid, well at least that was probably the catalyst and it is largely a memoir, or is it? Anyway, that whole evening saw me buy the book and get Nick to sign my copy and now, while on holiday in Cornwall (I am not sure why I said that, is it even remotely relevant?) I have got around to reading it.
I think that my fear was that this would be a very academic and deep tome that I might find difficult to read. It is academic at times but Royle writes in a style that even a bloke with one English O Level from 1974 can read and devour easily. One of the first things that intrigued me was the title. How can you write about Blyton and Bowie in the same book? Sure they are both associated with Beckenham and were great artists in their own spheres. Well, what Royle focuses on is their ability to access the undermind or the subconscious mind or self. I think from this book it is clear that both Bowie and Blyton were able to work in their own undermind with natural and unknowing skill. The memoir thread of the book takes the reader through Royle’s personal experience of Covid and lockdowns and his reacquaintance with both Bowie who he kind of lost touch with in the 1980s, and Enid Blyton. The book is written as a series of “ghost lectures” from a university lecturer who has opted for voluntary severance. The lectures flow together beautifully and are all anchored with a specific piece of music or song. Mostly Bowie songs but also some classical pieces.
I have not read anything by Enid Blyton since I was in junior school, but I am encouraged to go back and reread some of my favourites. The Famous Five, which features strongly in Nicholas Royle’s book and my personal memories of loving the Secret Seven series. Some of the insights into Blyton are drawn from biographies and also her own autobiography and perhaps something that is personal to Nicholas Royle’s family. His paternal grandmother and artist and illustrator had an affair with Enid Blyton sometime in the 1920s. There are many things that I love about this book, perhaps the biggest thing is the continued discussion about what a sun machine is. Maybe a time machine, maybe a way that an idea dawns on an artist, or something that might be different for every artist. Do I have an undermind? I hope so. Can I access my undermind? I hope so. If you are a fan of David Bowie, Enid Blyton, or indeed sun machines you need to read this book. It is eye-opening. I loved it! And finally, I was going to put together a playlist of all the music used in the book, but someone on Spotify has already done that! Thank you tommymackay1959, click here to play it.
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Iconic Manchester band James who formed more than 40 years ago have released a new single, “Life’s A Fucking Miracle“. The song is the third single to be released from their forthcoming album ‘Yummy’. I listened to it a few times when reviewing the album and it really is shaping up to be a classic James song. This is the ideal festival sing-along song! In the album review, I said “The way that “Life Is A Fucking Miracle” evokes the work that Brian Eno did with David Byrne, with added bird noises is rather wonderful. The melody and beat have a Talking Heads feel about it too. But what raises this song above so many is the way the melody plays tag with the beat and Booth’s voice. He is right, life is indeed a fucking miracle. I love the injection of a pronoun refrain towards the end too“. I stand by everything I said then, yeah lazy reviewing, right? This will be one of my go-to songs for the foreseeable future and is highly likely to feature on the Mayhem Chart soon. I had wondered if this would be released as a single, given that radio stations won’t play songs with fuck or any variants of it in their lyrics or title. Then I thought, could you blank it, bleep it, or change it to fluffing? The band has gone for the option of changing the title and lyric to “Life’s A Shocking Miracle”, if it gets this great tune on the radio then I am behind it all the way. Check out “Life’s A Fucking Miracle” which is a Fucking (or perhaps Shocking) Order!
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James have a new album out on 12th April, their 18th studio record. That number makes me feel old, how about you? But one thing I love about James is that there is never a reliance on resting on tried and tested success from the past, this is not a collection of “Sit Down” clones, nor is it a rehash of my favorurite James album ‘Laid’ (1993). ‘Yummy’ is the work of a band that is still vibrant and most definitely relevant. Not bad for a band that formed in 1982 and released their first album in 1986! The lyrics throughout are sharp, incisive and full of the whole range of human emotion. There is nothing nubilous in Tim Booth’s lyrics. ‘Yummy’ was produced by Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno, Jarvis Cocker, Jon Hopkins, Imogen Heap, Regina Spektor) and mixed by Cenzo Townsend (Courteeners, The Specials, Everything Everything).
The album opens with the single “Is This Love” where musically, lyrically and vocally the band is firing on all cylinders. How could you not love lyrics like “Love is a bomb, a Tsunami that rolls over our life as we cling to the wreckage of our peace of mind”. This stands, for me, as one of James’ finest singles to date. The way that “Life Is A Fucking Miracle” evokes the work that Brian Eno did with David Byrne, with added bird noises is rather wonderful. The melody and beat have a Talking Heads feel about it too. But what raises this song above so many is the way the melody plays tag with the beat and Booth’s voice. He is right, life is indeed a fucking miracle. I love the injection of a pronoun refrain towards the end too. The backing vocals on “Better With You” evoke a slightly more subdued Fabulous Wealthy Tarts (Paul Young’s backing vocalists from the early 80s) performance. The song feels like a love song, but not an obvious love song, so some wonderfully typical James obliqueness then, right? “Stay” is a song that oozes hope and is a call to arms to the younger generation to stay and fight for the planet and themselves. Well, that is what I took from words like “Life’s a struggle of love, and often a struggle to love“.
Photo by Paul Dixon
If this album is a universe, then it has as its sun “Shadow Of A Giant”. This is an elaborate and yet simple epic tune. From the orchestral and piano driven overture through to the almost gospel-like refrain of the chorus. Who is the giant that Tim Booth is singing about? Honestly, I am not sure, could it be God, government, Gaia, parents or Booth as a rock god? Whatever you feel the subject of this anthemic, and beautiful tune is you cannot deny that it is beyond special and for me the best song on this stunning collection. In case you were wondering I think the song is about Gaia, or the living planet. The protagonist of “Way Over Your Head” appears to be someone who has found it hard to handle life and succumbed to addiction, maybe alcohol or drugs. I think it has a message that shows how close we probably all are to a horrendous break down if our luck and circumstances changed quickly or catastrophically. Sometimes all we need are friends and perhaps we all need “a simpler life, a spit of land, community“. Booth takes a shot at AI and the modern curse of technology in “Mobile God” and how we are all controlled by that slim little box of apps made of plastic, metal, and glass. The lyrics are incredibly dark and in contrast the music and chorus hook make you feel instantly happy. I think Tim Booth speaks for all of us and our electronic device addiction when he sings “I’m the last thing you stroke in the evening before bed, I’m the lover you touch in the morning“. Talking about AI Booth says, “It’s shocking the way we’ve given up our responsibility to AI, We are already cyborgs“.
James take issue with the corporations that see themselves as running the world in the OMD-like “Our World”. I love the positivity in the message that perhaps the human family will come good, and we will learn to share not spoil. In my heart I long for that to happen, but I fear that it never will. In a message to the greed mongers the lyrics state “Our world isn’t your world, you just stole the world“, that is the truth in my view. I don’t believe that ageism is as bad as it might have once been, but we need to embrace the knowledge and experience that age brings to many of us (not everyone though!). When Booth sings “I’ve been a punk, a saint, a fool, Vishnu” I think to myself that in my own head I have been two of those and in a fashion sense one of them! The introduction to “Hey” suggests a real dance vibe and like many of the songs here it would be a prime candidate for a really good dance mix. It deals with our world and its conspiracies, notably the UFO stories. When Tim sings “my UFO’s landing soon” he means it. He says this of the whole UFO conspiracies, (or are they just hidden stories) “In the past the government has ridiculed/threatened anyone who said anything about UFOs. The two CIA whistleblowers have now provided us, with the Government’s blessing, with radar and cockpit pilot footage. [Theoretical physicist] Michio Kaku has said the burden of proof is now with the sceptics to prove UFOs don’t exist because we have the proof that they do. And yet no one, in the mainstream is looking at it. It’s fascinating to me how in denial we can be now that very strong physical evidence is being produced, and that this hasn’t become the biggest story of the century“. “Butterfly” perhaps discusses the fragility of the current generation but continues to believe in the power of the youth and their ability to change the world. The orchestration and harmonies on “Butterfly” will send shivers down your spine, in a wonderfully, quasi-religious way in which you can imagine rock ‘n’ roll actually having the ability to save the world. This is the song from which the album draws its title (the “yummy, yummy, yummy” lyrical refrain) and the inspiration for the record’s cover. As artists get older, they often deal in songs of death, notably David Bowie and Leonard Cohen on their final albums. On album closer “Folks” James confront the reaper and they don’t fear him. Musically the song is 100% James, but it has a mood of both Richard Hawley and the Arctic Monkeys at times. ‘Yummy’ showcases a band that is firing on all cylinders musically, lyrically and vocally. Many of James’ contemporaries are showing signs of being past their prime, but Booth’s band of merrie men (and women) are still on an upward trajectory! You can catch the band live around the UK in June and if you are a James mega fan the deluxe 2 CD release of ‘Yummy’ contains a second CD called ‘Pudding’ and that incorporates demos produced by the four songwriters in the band. Another twelve tracks! Finally, Tim Booth has written a novel called ‘When I Died For The First Time’ Apparently it is “A dark comedy musing on the music industry, addiction, racism, altered states, creativity and love, written from the point of view of a fucked-up singer coming back from rehab” The book is published on 28 March 2024.
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Liz Davinci’s new single “Dynamite” showcases everything that she is good at. It is a pure slice of piano-led baroque pop with a happy melody and a dark feel in the lyrics. Vocally Liz pulls off a sound so gorgeous it not only makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end it keeps them in that position for long after the song has ended. The Tori Amos influence is in there as is the invisible, unconscious Kate Bush stylings, but this time around I also felt Lene Lovich, Hazel O’Connor, and even a softer Toyah Wilcox. This track is perhaps the best Liz Davinci track to date. The B-Side “Underscore” is sublime and sultry and feels almost Stygian in its dark, deep depths. Liz is no stranger to these pages, and we love her music over here at Mayhem Towers. As a harbinger of her new album, these tracks herald something that will be damned good!
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Mortimer Nyx has just dropped a contender for single of the year. It’s orchestral, riff-laden, haunting, melodious, other-worldly, and frankly alien sound probes deep into your inner psyche absorbing your id and everything about you before injecting you with an overdose of endorphins. Is this the best opening lines of a song ever? “The devil will lead me in tomorrow, The dawn will greet my sins with sorrow. In a mask of a thousand lies. The laughing face will dogmatize. When my deafened cries fall to heaven the mourning bell rings. Broken, aching hateful pieces of the losers happiness. Shattered thinly on the veil of my piercing screams” Mournful, hurting, horrific and yet strangely beautiful at the same time. This is what great music sounds like! I need more Mortimer Nyx in my life and even if you don’t realise it yet, so do you! Mortimer’s social profiles say “Creator of worlds. Rebellious revolutionary of sound“, I cannot argue with that statement!
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Melbourne’s Drunk Mums has just released a new album full of first-class punk and garage firepower. proceedings are kicked off with “New Australia” which is a perfect blueprint for the album, full of anger, angst, and huge punky riffs with a wonderful Ramones feel. “Slippn’ Up” could have arrived here in the 21st Century via a punk time machine from 1977. It has elements of the Clash and the Damned. If Status Quo had been fed Lemmy levels of speed they might have sounded like Drunk Mums do on “Mutant”. If the New York Dolls came back from the dead to record with Iggy Pop, then the Drunk Mums “Bet On Black” was written just for that occasion. Drunk Mums keep their punk credentials to the fore on “Apocalypse” but they incorporate a filthy and gorgeous dark glam vibe. “Livin’ At Night” showcases everything that is great about Drunk Mums but adds a layer of 1970s classic rock. The punk fun continues with the high-octane “Magazines” which could be like a more punky Jonathan Richman. Do you need a Saturday night party anthem? You do? Then look no further than the Drunk Mums blasting out “Saturday”. Play it alongside Elton’s “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” and the Bay City Rollers “Saturday Night”, now that would be an absolute mental party! All the expletives on this album have been saved for the final two tracks, starting with the epic and warped “Not My Dad” and followed by the album’s closer “From The Hip”. These two are probably my favourite tracks from the record right now. Check it out, this is considerably classy classic punk!
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Dark Miles is the former lead singer of the now long-gone band MOSH from Portugal. Dark Miles is actually Pedro Lima (a.k.a Pete Miles) and hot on the heels of the dark and deep song “Your Heart Is An Empty Street” (released in January) is his immense new song “When The Lights Go Out”. The new track has the makings of a long-lasting epic anthem. His voice is full of power and soul. The song is about freedom and equality and being a decent human. I can hear Depeche Mode, Mansun, Chris Cornell, Iggy Pop, Pearl Jam, Mark Lanegan, and even a shot of 90s Bowie in this gorgeous and classy new offering from Dark Miles. The video is stark, hard-hitting, and thought-provoking. It also made me incredibly angry at the world we have made. It is also age-restricted so you will have to watch it on YouTube, but make sure you do watch it.
Miles said of the song, which was recorded during the covid pandemic, “It was a period where we found ourselves deprived of some elementary freedoms, and consequently rediscovered how fragile these freedoms are,” he added that “whether in what we feel, in what we do, in what we want and in what we are, this freedom is constantly put to the test, particularly in the times we live in, in which the nightmare of war has once again stripped many people of their human dignity.” Check this song out, I think you will love it, I do!
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“Shopping” is one of the most different and original songs that I have heard in quite a while. It sounds like someone put Blur, BA Robertson, Pulp, Talking Heads, and Yard Act in the same wash and they all blended together mixing colours and styles into something brand new. The song is an anti-celebration of the slow death of the UK High Street and the parallel rise of ridiculous and obscene levels of consumerism driven by those greedy online giants. Yes, Amazon and friends I am talking about you! The song quickly works into your head and refuses to come out. Welly is the frontman and obviously gives his name to the band too. Welly was born in Southampton and apparently showed no interest in music as a child, although he was allegedly obsessed with the same six songs on an iPod Shuffle that his father clipped to his school trousers every day! I would love to know what those six songs were! Based on “Shopping, ” Welly is probably an expert in the lyrical kitchen sink dramas of everyday life and has a voice on bigger issues. I can picture Welly being around for a very long while and a band that will adorn festival stages across the UK regularly. The video is ace and it looks like the band had a lot of fun making it at The Keiller Centre in Dundee.
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