All Good Things (Come To An End)

It's with a heavy heart that today I announce the retirement of Punch Drunk Opinions. With my heavy work scheduled I am unable to give it the kind attention it needs.. Thanks for reading.

Henceforth, you can follow me on http://deanvannguyen.tumblr.com/

Hope to see you there.

Dean

Super Furry Animals – Dark Days / Light Years

Before Wireless Bollinger went on hiatus I submitted this review of Super Furry Animals' latest album. Since Bollinger's return will probably not include this piece, I figured why let it go to waste.

Super Furry Animals – Dark Days / Light Years

Score: 71

A few months ago I compiled a playlist of my favourite Super Furry Animals’ tracks stretching back to their debut Fuzzy Logic right through to their most recent effort Hey Venus! Listening on shuffle, what struck me was the consistency in their back catalogues sound. Every song happily stood by the next, as if they all could have appeared on the same record. SFA have been remarkably consistent in terms of their sound and the quality of their output, a trait that is exceptionally rare these days. Remember this is a band that formed around the same time Radiohead cut Pablo Honey. A band that has seen the rise and fall of so called “generation defining bands” like The Libertines, and one that has outlasted just about all of their Britpop contemporaries they were once called the alternative to. After sixteen years, nine albums, and four record labels, they may be the same cheeky Welsh boys, but Super Furry Animal’s wide eyed, humorous style of psychedelic pop is still as refreshing as ever. Indeed, if you listen close enough you can almost hear them snigger in the background. Laughing at the world for allowing them to be rock stars. Noone this successful should be having so much fun right?

While there is a consistency to their work, they never simply repeat themselves. Dark Days / Light Years is a complete flipside to their last effort, the super lightweight Hey Venus! Mood wise it scurries away from the light, stalking the darker corners of their psychedelic sound.

Opener ‘Crazy Naked Girls’ is an indulgent, rock jam. Opening with weird, stuttering beats and winding upwards to some sizable riffs, it’s the most immediately memorable track on the album, partly down to the straight forward screaming of “crazy, crazy naked girls” for a hook. But it’s a bit of an anomaly since nothing else on Dark Days / Light Years is as brash. Things settle down a touch with ‘Mt.’, a half decent pop song, but hampered by part time singer Cian Ciaran’s gentle vocals conflicting with the sizeable sting section.

The album’s a slow starter, but vindicates itself with a five star run in the second act. The best track here is the eight minute, prog epic ‘Cardiff in the Sun’. Abusing their squealing guitars to a near hypnotic level, under band leader Gruff Rhys’ haunting, but alluring vocals, the song offers some genuinely jarring moments. I hope when the band cut their career spanning compilation someday, they have the balls to make ‘Cardiff in the Sun’ the opening track. It’s followed by the curiously titled ‘The Very Best of Neil Diamond’. The moody drum and bass dares the Eastern influenced guitars into to keep up with Rhys’ soothing vocals effectively a peace keeper between the two, until they all get swept away by the assault of a cranked up guitar solo.

After the darkness, the light the album title alludes to is allowed to shine. As you might suggest from its name, ‘Helium Hearts’ is a one of the few lightweight tracks. ‘White Socks / Flip Flops’ is a highlight. Its chopped guitar chords chug along nicely, backed up with plenty of cowbell, and a sweet melody. Less impressive though is closer, the unfortunately titled ‘Pric’ (apologies to our Welsh readers), a kind of nine minute studio experiment that seems tacked on to the rest of the album.

Listening to SFA you’d be forgiven for thinking this rock & roll thing isn’t brain surgery. All you have to do is get your mates, form a band, and have a laugh doing it. Not so simple of course, but whatever their formula, these guys have been quietly carving out their own corner in modern rock history. Its nine albums, nine hits in my opinion. And I can’t wait for the next nine.

Alan Pownall - "Love Lockdown" cover

The"unlikely white artists tackles popular rap" genre has been hanging around for a couple years now, but few tracks have impressed me as much as Alan Pownall's cover of Kanye West's "Love Lockdown". While Kanye created a earth crumbling pop classic, Pownall replaces the cold piano chords and military drum beat with and warmer "any instrument in the garage" mentality, freshening it up for the summer. Pownall has also released the shimmering "Clara" recently as his first single.

The following is just a sample. Click the link below for the full track.

Love Lockdown (Kanye West cover) - Alan Pownall

Spotlight - Eric Roberson

In 2001 I was quite taken by a single off Jazzy Jeff's mostly overlooked debut solo album The Magnificent. The song was called "Rock Wit U" and was a slow tempoed, soul jazz jam featuring vocals from singer Erro. I never heard anything from him again, so I was surprised when I discovered he is still releasing music, but under the name Eric Roberson (Erro -Eric Roberson, I get it now).

With an impressive back catalogue built up over the past eight years, it's taken me awhile to play catch up, but it's been a rewarding experience. Roberson is one of the many soul artists working today that gets criminally overlooked and deserves to be heard by a wider audience.

Pretty Girl - Eric Roberson

The Best Irish Albums 1999 to 2009

To celebrate its 10 year anniversary, Cluas.com recently polled its writers to determine the top 50 albums of its lifetime. It was an interesting exercise assembling my own personal list, and underlined that for a small nation we've produced some memorable albums. Just take a look at what wasn't present (Super Extra Bonus Party!?!). I wrote a couple of mini reviews to accompany two of my choices. Enjoy, and check out the full list.

43: The Urges
'Psych Ward'
(2007)
On first inspection Psych-Ward sounds like it belongs in Tower Records nugget bin. It’s a surprise then to find out it’s actually the debut album from Dublin’s finest 60s garage band. Psychedelic swirls, fuzzed up guitar, gritty drums, there all contributed to an album that plays like a napalm assault on the senses. Noone ever accused The Urges of being the most original band in Ireland, but they channel the spirit of a by gone era so flawlessly it’s hard not to be impressed. In a strange new world where the search for originality has pushed rock and roll into often unlistenable territory, The Urges emergence felt like a cold breeze on a hot summers day. And that makes this a relevant album in my book.

14: David Holmes
'The Holy Pictures'
(2008)
Belfast born musician David Holmes had a pretty sweet thing going in Hollywood. After a couple of well received, but rarely heard albums in the mid nineties, he began scoring major American movies and became one of the most sought after composers in the industry. He could have bounced from one film to the next, recycling the theme to Ocean's 11 again and again, but in 2008 he returned to solo action cutting this fine collection of energetic pop rockers and moody instrumentals. Inspired by his own childhood experiences, Holmes couldn't resist debuting on lead vocals and his voice adds a wispy texture to songs like 'Love Reign Over Me' and 'Holy Pictures'. But it's the energetic guitar driven opener 'I Heard Wonders' and damned piano chords of closer 'The Ballad of Jack and Sarah' that leave the biggest impression.

Spotlight - Middle Distance Runner

If like me you still love a good 7" single check out this savage little rocker from Middle Distance Runner. "The Unbeliever" is available on vinyl, as well as digital download. The band formed 15 years ago and have been tipped for success for the last couple of years, particularly after their song "The Song & Earth" did the rounds, appearing on several adverts and trailers. "The Unbeliever" is the Texan outfit's first music video and in my opinion could be their long awaited break.

Middle Distance Runner "The Unbeliever" from maxwell sorensen on Vimeo.

Middle Distance Runner on Myspace

Download - Middle Distance Runner - "The Sun & Earth"

Download - Middle Distance Runner - "Momma"

Hollywood Slim & The Fat Cats

I've spent my last couple of Friday night's in JJ Smyth's being thoroughly besotted by Ireland's finest blues act Hollywood Slim & The Fat Cats. I first discovered the band in The Blue Note bar on Capel Street and have followed there progress since. Performing a stunning cannon of famous blues tracks by the likes of BB King, plus a few fine originals. The group draw from West Coast American blues, with Slim providing a belting vocal, complimented by Junior Hynes' ferocious guitar licks. Providing some extra spark recently has been 18 year old newcomer Duke D on the piano.

This video was recorded by yours truly and the sound quality is better than most youtube, camera-recorded gig vids.

There latest album Tryin' To Make A Living is available in Tower Records. You can also check out their website.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have emerged as one of my early '09 favourites. This review is probably the most "first personish" thing I've ever wrote. Tell me what you think. It originally appeared on Bollinger.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
87

I’ve been listening to The Pains of Being Pure at Heart constantly since their self-titled debut album unceremoniously landed on my desk. Some days it’s the only album I listen to. I know about judging books by their covers and how you’re not supposed to do that, but this is an album that defies the music reviewer’s sixth sense on what will be good and what won’t. On first inspection it doesn’t look like much - an almost-indigestible band name and a dreadful cover that resembles a Belle & Sebastian album with the contrast levels turned up in Photoshop. Even now, I know almost nothing about this band. I still couldn’t name a single member, or what part of America they are from. But despite little or no expectations The Pains of Being Pure at Heart has quietly worked its way towards being an early contender for album of the year.

Cheaply-recorded guitar-and-bass debut albums arrive at the Bollinger offices every day, and there are depressingly few I listen to again once my assignment is finished. So what makes this one special? The Pains of Being Pure at Heart seemed doomed to shelf-dwelling status but have etched their way into regular rotation with their feelings of nostalgia and infectious melodies. Sonically, they draw influence from the shoegazing days of the eighties and early nineties. Bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine can be heard all over this album and it urges you to dust off Psychocandy and Loveless too. But rather than simply pinching elements from that era, this is an album that actually sounds like a lost gem from 1989.

The album begins in a haze of feedback before the drumless, dreamlike ‘Contender’ flickers on, setting the tone. It’s one of the best openers recent memory, its melody skipping alongside the guitars with ease and grace. The production is flawlessly fuzzy and the highlights come thick and fast. ‘Come Saturday’ and ‘Young Adult Friction’ really get things going, resembling a couple of genuinely impressive A-sides from yesteryear, while the excellent closer ‘Gentle Sons’ even pilfers the distinctive drum beat from The Jesus and Mary Chain’s classic ‘Honey’. In fact, so many of these tracks could qualify as classics of the genre, and had they been released on 7” they may well have been regarded as such. But the real showpiece is ‘Stay Alive’, which bustles along like a Smiths single before making way for more rusty guitars.

So there we have it; lots of enjoyable melodies and taut guitar and drum lines. But what does it all mean? How do I feel about this band? Perhaps being clueless to their roots has helped me accept this album as a gem from the era that influenced it, except it’s not. So where does that leave The Pains of Being Pure at Heart? Do they move forward like the bands that influenced them by cutting a grunge record, or move into a more commercial indie sound? As it stands, as a fan of infectious, fuzzed up indie pop, I’d happily take another three of these.

Spinnerette @ Cluas

My Spinnerette gig review I recently posted can now by seen on cluas which has had a nice face list since the last time I contributed. Check it out here.

Spinnerette – 23rd February, 2009 – 02 Islington Academy, London

A scan over Queens of the Stone Age’s Wikipedia page reveals no fewer than nineteen groups considered to be ‘associated acts’, including Spinnerette, the latest vehicle for former Distellers frontwoman Brody Dalle. The association here is that Dalle is married to Queen’s main man Josh Homme and by mentioning this I’ve committed a cardinal sin in the eyes of her superfans, who will immediately make the point that her career was a success before the two’s union. This is true, and I apologize to those fans who turned up to see the new band perform at London’s O2 Islington Academy, including the friend who accompanied me (who is a superfan, as well as being my main reason for being at the gig). But my point is that on early evidence, while Spinnerette might be pigeonholed into this clutch of acts, they have the potential to be one of the better ones on Homme’s speed dial.

The scene for their first ever gig in the UK was the O2 Islington Academy. It’s a slickly run venue located in the heart of North London, with bars on either side of the room ensuring short queuing times for drinks and a high risen stage making for good visibility. Opening for Spinnerette were the uninspiring Chapman Family and Future of the Left, only really noteworthy for the Chapman Family’s frontman smashing his guitar (note to The Chapman Family: it loses the mystique if you come back out and check the guitars ok after the sets finished) and Future of the Left burning some hecklers with crude, but hilarious retorts.

Dalle and co strutted on to stage with minimum fuss, opening with a couple of tracks from the group’s EP Ghetto Love. The short punk, punch of ‘Valium Knights’ and the Stooges throwback ‘Bury My Heart’ brought the crowd to boiling point and they never lost that energy. Away from Ghetto Love, the band also presented a number of new songs which I assume will be on their debut album released this May. ‘Driving Song’, as the title suggests is a standard enough rocker. Plenty of guitar layers hide its shortcomings, probably making it a decent album track. ‘Cupid’ was also particularly enjoyable. You know what you’re going to get when Dalle promises a song is about “fucking your man” and the front woman didn’t disappoint, sliding around stage in her tight outfit and heels to the delight of the male audience. She was in fine form, at first opting to play guitar but for the most part strutting around stage, sometimes relying on her elbows, knees or back to give her movement. New single ‘Sex Bomb’ expectedly got the loudest cheer. Dalle’s loveletter to sixtees pop still sparkles despite it’s well worn melody thanks to Tony Bevilacqua’s cranked up power chords and her crooning make it especially appealing live.

The gig ended in a haze of confusion when Dalle disappeared into the crowd. Bevilacqua looked concerned as she urged those who swarmed around her to “back the fuck up” before being smuggled backstage. I heard from some girls on the subway home that she had leapt in to crowd surf but landed on some skinny teenager girls who couldn’t hold her weight. The house lights went on almost instantly bringing an abrupt end to the evening. It was somewhat anti climax to what was an exhilarating night. But no matter; this was an evening intended to be a statement of arrival by the newly formed Spinnerette, and one that left me satisfactorily rocked.