SUNBENDR from San Diego are what might be called a super group with Chris Cote (Kut U UP) on bass and vocals, Brandon Parkhurst (Kut U UP and Yovee) on guitar and Frank Dixon (Nancy and Sister Juanita) on drums. The trio are augmented on this track with backing vocals from George Perks (Mogwai and Doves) and Benjamin Ward. Just to add to the stellar cast layers of dynamic cinematic synth are applied by Tom DeLonge. The song was recorded at DeLonge’s home studio in March of this year.
Sonically it rocks and rolls like a song that has been in your head all your life. The drumming is huge and the riffs hit you hard. Vocally I was reminded of Billy Corgan and also Jordan Bell (Avalanche Party). The tune is laden with great hooks and deserves to be a huge hit. The hooray for the B-sides lyric hook is pop rock perfection.
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Imagine, if you will, a mad professors laboratory in the Stygian darkness of deepest Transylvania. Then imagine that someone has captured the creative brilliance of Talking Heads, added the essence of My Chemical Romance and sprinkled that with some Mark E Smith. Are you picturing it yet? You are? Well good, but now you no longer have to use the window of your imagination. Out of that laboratory has emerged the stunning new single from Erotic Secrets Of Pompeii, “Bring Me Back From The Black Beyond”. It is their best yet and it gets better with every listen. In their own words the Erotic Secrets of Pompeii are an apocalyptic art rock band from Bristol. Frankly I think they have injected their songs with a tiny dose of the apocalypse in the name of art.
The song is underpinned by a dark disturbing synth riff and Thomas Hawtin’s vocals are on the verge of madness, but seemed to be reigned in for now. Lyrically I believe it describes a journey into some kind of purgatory and a desire to be able to bring someone back from that bad place. There are so many great lines, I particularly love “Life holds no meaning here in the realm of death. As love holds no meaning in the realm of hate”. The video, directed by Saul Knight, is a wonderfully weird fun fest and I love it! I was going to add that this is a band made for the 21st century, but fuck that, this is a band made for the 22nd century! Inject the Erotic Secrets Of Pompeii into your veins right now!
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Regular readers will know that I have never been a huge Robbie Williams fan and that in fact I have been quite negative towards him over the years. That changed when I went to the cinema to see the Robbie biopic ‘Better Man‘. I saw him in a very different light after that. As soon as we returned from seeing the film my wife Catwoman (a.k.a. Catherine) suggested that we book tickets to see him in Edinburgh, so we did and here we are! So was Robert Peter Williams any good? You will have to read my thoughts on the support acts before you find that out.
First it was the Lottery Winners and this was the first time that they have ever played a stadium. This Manchester band are riding the crest of a wave after two UK number one albums and playing a number of UK festivals. Off the back of that I think they might be the perfect act to open the show on Robbie’s Britpop tour. Frontman Thom was incredibly excited just to be there and that carried through into a sparkling performance from the band. There were many highlights, “You Again” was great but “letter To Myself blew us all away on a wave of emotion. Next up it was Rory Charles Graham a.k.a Rag’n’Bone Man. I have loved his voice from the first time I heard his soulful baritone on his first album ‘Human’ back in 2017. I have seen him a few times since then, but this was the first time for quite a while. His band is incredibly tight and wonderfully funky. “All I Ever Wanted” was good but even that was topped when he ended the set with a two song knockout punch. First it was a supremely powerful “Human” followed by a stomping run through of the huge hit he had with Calvin Harris in 2019, “Giant”. The recorded version is good, but live it takes on a whole new life.
Finally it was time for Robbie to hit the stage. He opened with the first ever live outing for rocking new single “Rocket”. He took the stage bedecked in an astronaut costume and thanks to some excellent wire work soared above the stage while performing. When he came back down to earth and lost the spaceman gear he exploded into “Let Me Entertain You”, what a performance. It is clear that whatever you think of Robbie you cannot deny that he is a towering performer. Then it was time for an eclectic medley which included “Song 2” (Blur), “Seven Nation Army” (White Stripes), “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” (Proclaimers) and “Minnie the Moocher (The Ho De Ho Song)” to name just a few. If anyone in the stadium was for some strange reason not enjoying the show by the time “Rock DJ” was unveiled they would have had to submit then to towering take on a Robbie classic. An emotional highlight for me personally was “I Love My Life”, those words mean so much and I did shed a little tear.
“The Road To Mandalay” was performed while Robbie took a long walk to his C- Stage in the middle of the crowd. He was joined on the C-Stage by Thom from the Lottery Winners for a walk through some songs that might have made the setlist, well technically they all did, right? Anyway that included snippets of a few songs including “Let Love Be Your Energy” and one of my favourites, “Candy”. But the best part of the C-Stage set was the first solo live outing for Robbie doing “Relight My Fire” the Dan Hartman song that became one of Take That’s biggest hits. For the part that Lulu sang on the original Robbie was joined by the winner of the second and final Pop Idol contest in 2003, Michelle McManus. That woman knows how to belt out a song. An epic performance from the girl from Glasgow. Robbie returned to the Main Stage for “Millennium” and “The Theme From New York New York”. By this time I don’t think there was anyone still sitting down. I loved the emotion in “Come Undone” and in “She’s The One”. The latter was dedicated a a delighted and emotional Debbie from Dundee who was picked from the crowd by Robbie to give a personal serenade to. The encore piled on emotion, pathos and soul with “Feel” followed by “Angels”. There were not many dry eyes in the house at this point. Even I enjoyed “Angels”
Robbie made a point about not being cool which was warmly received by the crowd. He implored us to embrace our cringe and to get in touch with our inner twat! I have done both, and probably have done something similar for years. Mr Williams comes across as a supreme showman who knows exactly who he is and it is hard not to love him for that. Confession time, I am most definitely a Robbie fan now. “Angels” is no longer my least favourite song ever. In fact I loved it as the show closer in Scotland. Would I see Robbie again? Certainly I would. It rained a lot through the show but that dampened no one’s enthusiasm. This was a stunning gig, one of the best stadium shows I have ever seen. Finally a big shout out to the organisers for giving us such an easy bus ride back into the city. Thirty minutes after leaving the stadium we were back in our hotel room in the city centre.
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On 9th June 1972 Bruce Springsteen was signed to Columbia Records by label boss John Hammond and started to assemble the core E Street Band from various Asbury Park ex-band mates. The wonderful thing is that more than 50 years later he is still going strong. He continues to regularly attack TACO Donny and I am glad that he is using his position and voice to do that!
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Kindelan has a new single, called “Cigarettes” and it is once again her best yet! It is a dark tale of break up and maybe being spurned. There is anger in Laura’s strong R & B style vocals which skim wonderfully over a funky, jazzy sound with some great folk injections. The lyrics are deep and buzz with an otherworldly electricity fuelled by a solid and powerful fury. Lines like “I’m a ball that’s been thrown You picked me up then let go. How can you blame where gravity makes me fall?” sum up those feelings of loss, passion, pain and revenge. This song is first class and if there was any justice in the world would be all over the airwaves.
The video sums up the mood of the song perfectly and is simply darkly glorious. The track is available alongside a song called “Wish I Wrote A Love Song” which is a ‘before’ to “Cigarettes” ‘after’ theme on a 7 inch vinyl release called ‘After Before’. I have ordered my copy, why don’t you do yourself a favour and order one for yourself. You will not regret it! Just click here and buy it via Bandcamp.
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Delilah Bon is back after locking herself away in her Princess Castle and now she is out she is fucking angry. This time mostly with those misogynistic arseholes. Those kind of men really won’t like her when she is angry because Delilah becomes the She-Hulk of brat metal rap and fights the fight for fairness and equality for all. Well except for a few stupid men who will always consider themselves superior and who constantly prove themselves to be pathetic human specimens. “Princeless Princess” is up there with the best of Delilah’s extraordinarily great canon of work.
It opens with an echo of “Stand And Deliver by Adam And The Ants. After that it is pure, unadulterated Delilah. It has anger, passion, venom, care and intellect she hits misogynists not just with a double barreled attack but with a whole infantry of heavy gunners. The riffs on this track are huge as is the driving bass. Delilah sings “I don’t need no Prince to save me” and she is right, but the world needs Delilah Bon to help save it! She sings in a wonderfully venomous style that she is a “motherfucking Princeless Princess” and actually she probably is, but I reckon she ranks higher than that, Delilah is the motherfucking Queen! The song is a taster of her forthcoming EP and on the strength of this song that EP will blow the balls off every misogynist that comes close to it!
She has a European Tour coming in October, but before that, in August, she will be unleashing the power of Delilah on the USA. Hopefully the Mango Mussolini won’t have destroyed it by then!
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The wonderful and super talented singer songwriter that is Molly Rymer has a new release. It features a couple of different versions of “Say The Same” which was originally included on her ‘All You Can Eat’ EP from October last year. The first is a spacious and stripped back acoustic version in which every emotion is palpable. The lyrics deal with toxic relationships and karma and those deep dark words suit the pared down instrumentation perfectly. This is a live recorded version which was created with the help of the mightily talented Fin Vallance.
The second take was recorded live at Mollie’s inaugural headline show at Oporto in Leeds last year. Sadly I was unable to make that gig. At its very essence “Say The Same” is a beautifully constructed pop song with some delicious folk overtones. This was Molly with a full band made up of Angus Bates on drums, Joe Wilkes on double bass, Luca Vitale on cello Sam Cooper and Gabbie Clarke supplying backing vocals. Overlaying it all is Molly’s ethereal, soulful vocal performance. While the song seems dark from a lyrical perspective Molly really seems to be enjoying performing it. The Tasting Menu collection is rounded of with the track in the form of its original release from last years EP. Get this collection into your life, it really is a bewitching and wonderful collection of takes of a beautiful track.
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Sleuth Gang are a fucking awesome live band and with every release they prove that they are fucking awesome in the studio too. New single “Safe Bet” is their best yet, it deserves some live festival exposure. Reading/ Leeds are you listening? It has their signature three pronged vocal attack and an incessant heavy groove with riffs that could power a Saturn V rocket. I bloody love this track!
The video is superb. It has the band introduced to a sparse, bored and almost silent crowd at a Working Men’s Club by a wonderfully camp drag queen before they go on to perform “Safe Bet”. So many videos these days are dull and generic, this one is neither dull nor generic!
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York’s Drop Dead McPhee are back with a delightful new single. It reminded me of a classy acoustic style indie band spliced with the Byrds. Vocally it is their best yet and shows that they have an ability to move in any style or genre. There is a bonus B Side too, “Opposite Day” which has a great early 70s McGuiness Flint style vibe. These boys certainly know how to write a decent hook!
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I must confess that until my good friend and colleague introduced me to the music of Leo Middea I had no idea who he was. Eva had discovered that he was playing a gig in York and having heard some of Leo’s songs on Spotify I jumped along with my wife Catherine (a.k.a. Catwoman) at joining Eva and Mollie (another colleague) at the Basement in York last month. Leo has a huge following across the world and exceeds 150,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. He has released four well thought of and wonderfully sounding albums and was the first Brazilian artist to reach the finals of the renowned “Festival da Canção” in Portugal. He also received an invite from Portugal’s Prime Minister to perform at the celebration of the Bicentenary of Brazil’s Independence. Middea is Brazilian, born in Rio De Janeiro, and currently lives in Europe, spending his time in Lisbon and Barcelona. In 2024 he finished third in the contest to select Portugal’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest with his song “Doce Mistério”. Still relatively young, at 30 years old you have to wonder how much bigger he can become in the music world.
The set in York, which was part of a reasonably extensive 12 date UK tour, was both intimate and inclusive. Armed with just his acoustic guitar and ethereal and mesmerising voice he captivated the audience from the first note. He is abundantly talented and overflows with charisma and energy. The audience, many of whom were Brazilian or Portuguese, mostly sang along to every song. Me being one of the small band of people that are monolingual did my best but obviously didn’t know the words, although joining in with the non-linguistic vocal hooks was easy. The music has a gorgeous Latin feel and could be used to samba to. It is folk based but 21st century style rather than old school and leans nicely to a joyful funky jazz sound. Leo’s guitar playing is rooted in a kind of classical Spanish style and he shows expertise and prowess with his instrument. All of his songs are in Portuguese, apart from one which is his only attempt to write in English to date. But regardless of language I believe his songs show that music is truly universal. Leo’s songs are simply great pieces of music and he is one of the finest performers I have seen recently. If you get a chance to see him live then do it! You will not be disappointed. If you are anywhere near Montreux next month Leo Middea is playing a set at the world famous jazz festival on 6th July.
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