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HAMFATTER "Cassiopeia" (Hamfatter Limited)
RELEASED? 31st January
SOUNDS LIKE? Their first
album was a kind of Coldplay
with teeth, but without the
songs and this one is pretty
much a plugged in Jamie T
without the teeth or the songs.
So, the mockney bash at
attitude and tales from the
urban playground have no
authenticity, no attraction and no real traction. Yes. it reads like a flip and lazy dismissal of a ten track album, but I did listen, hard, from "The Beats" to "This Is How We Live" and between heard those tracks noted how they muted, or mixed down the cowbell on "So We Go" and that's not only a good way to avoid exciting an unwary listener, but it says everything that you need to know about Hamfatter.
IS IT ANY GOOD? It's well produced, well played and well bland.
WHERE IS IT? www.hamfatter.net

SWEET GORILLA "Feels Like I'm Still In Love" (Lydian Music)
RELEASED? 6th December.
SOUNDS LIKE? All pop songs have good bits and bad bits, even the cynical, write by the numbers for the radio ones. This one is different. Not a single redeeming feature, it's a pop song made up from all the bad bits that the cynical, radio-mongering songwriters rejected as 'too shit'.
IS IT ANY GOOD? I urge you to listen to it, you'll never sneer at James Blunt, Coldplay, Westlife or anyone from X-Factor, ever again.
WHERE IS IT? www.sweetgorillaband.com

BUTCH BERRY "Enamorado" (Sound Cloud)
                                                           RELEASED? Out now.
                                                           SOUNDS LIKE? Well, it starts with the edgy
                                                           Spanish restaurant thing called "Eyes Like
                                                           Fire" and ends with "Amazing", which kind of
                                                           isn't. Now, we have to wonder if it's the laptop
                                                           giving bad sound, Soundcloud giving bad
                                                           sound, or maybe this sounds bad because
                                                           making music with toys always ends in a
                                                           bunch of tracks that sound like they've been
                                                           recorded by The Toddler Collective, a band
                                                           sponsored by the Treble That Treble
                                                           Corporation. It sounds weak and tinny. It'd be
                                                           nice if Butch could blame the technology, but
                                                           other soundcloud samples have been pretty
                                                           hunky n chunky. So, it's Butch and when he
                                                           remonstrates with an ex on "The ABC Song"
                                                           by moaning how he/she "Used to call every
                                                           day" we're siding with the ex.
                                                           IS IT ANY GOOD? No. There's not an
                                                           original note or a lyric free of cliche. If the idea that great art comes from suffering is true, Butch should listen to "Enamorado".
WHERE IS IT? www.butchberrymusic.com

PAUL DUBROVSKY "Fobos" (Unsigned)
RELEASED? Out now.
SOUNDS LIKE? This man comes from Ukraine, which is, he adds helpfully, "Near the Russia". And, that's all the piss that can be extracted because Paul Dubrovsky makes lovely lounge music. All bubbling synths, sweeping strings and growling bass. The melodies wander around, supported by various instruments conjured from the synth. Or there's the stern and insistent bleep and snarl pop-pop-pop-that-fucker stuff like "Firestorm", kiddie tv theme music for arsonists, obviously.
IS IT ANY GOOD? Yes. It's all cybernetic backwash, but clearly driven by a driven man.
WHERE IS IT? www.myspace.com/musicpauldubrovsky

THE BOAT PEOPLE "Antidote" (Soundcloud)
RELEASED? Out now.
SOUNDS LIKE? Australasian noise is distinctive. They have their 'all pop radio' cynics, their Americano droids and Britpop apes, but there's a core that defies dilution. Sprint the timeline and see that Space Waltz were uber-cool, Midnight Oil weren't, Split Enz paved the way for the greater sedition of Crowded House and... The Boat People are covering the bases by ramming a rock urgency through their own indie pop arse.
IS IT ANY GOOD? Yeah, jugs of DB all round.
WHERE IS IT? www.theboaties.com/

ROCKETCLOVER "Anarchy In The UK" (Criminal Records)
                                                                                    RELEASED? 13th December.
                                                                                    SOUNDS LIKE? It's like The
                                                                                    Wurzels slowly losing a punch
                                                                                    up with The Clash. A kind of
                                                                                    poptastic double bluff meeting
                                                                                    a triple bluff. Explain? Okay, les
                                                                                    Pistols were willingly exploited
                                                                                    by a middle class money lover, but still went on to produce the rabble rousing anthem "Anarchy In The UK" and gormless, charmless Rocketclover do a gormless, hilarious cover and release it just when the UK, if not the entire western world could do with a stripped down, beefed up, deadly serious version.
IS IT ANY GOOD? No, no, no. Stop fucking about and start a riot.
WHERE IS IT? www.rocketclover.com

MOJO FURY "Lemon Marine" (Free Download)
RELEASED? Out now.
SOUNDS LIKE? I have absolutely no fucking idea. This time I have no idea because the 'free' download is attached to a whole whack of faffing n fucking about with tweets or facebook. Viral marketing gets itchy and annoying, which is a shame as we've enjoyed some of the Mojo Fury past output.
IS IT ANY GOOD? Let's hope so. The track is meant to trail the forthcoming album
WHERE IS IT? www.myspace.com/mojofuryband

ABOVE THE UNDERGROUND "The Fight We Won" (Free Download)
RELEASED? 24th January.
SOUNDS LIKE? When you see the words "melodic punksters" on a press release you know that the person who wrote them is either too coked up to feel shame or too deaf to spot a shitstorm made sound. This means that there is a lot

of shouting, fast drumming and, as a special treat for those who just can't suffer enough, high kicking synth riffs. It sounds like faux hell, everything is knock off, the rage, the poses, the fuckitty-fuck, sweary-bollox lyric rebellion, this is what bad people hear, for ever and ever when they die.
IS IT ANY GOOD? No it is not.
WHERE IS IT? www.myspace.com/abovetheundergroundmusic

JOHNNY GET THE GUN "Never Far From What We Know" EP (Amazon / i-Tunes
                                                                      etc)
                                                                      RELEASED? 24th January.
                                                                      SOUNDS LIKE? Ah, I see. I must have missed
                                                                      the bit where Eddie & The Hot Rods being
                                                                      dragged backwards through Hoxton became the
                                                                      new sound. The guitarist sounds like he could go
                                                                      a bit, though. In fact, this very much sounds like
                                                                      someone has cleaned up a promising bit of filth,
                                                                      knocked off most of the interesting corners and
                                                                      generally sanitised the hell out of the thing.
IS IT ANY GOOD? It's punk-pop noise, now available at less than cost everywhere, but if they get their gun back, they'll be a lot more fun.
WHERE IS IT? www.myspace.com/johnnygetthegun

Knockers and the insensitively souless will point out that this is an album with more arch than Archway, more affectation than an incoming princess and far too clever to be good for itself. We call those people 'Conservatives' and point out that "Heathcliffian Surly" is the fine dining version of 'Rocky Horror' and that Marmaduke Dando may well be camper than Baden
Powell, but he slips through genres more slickly than a Mozart made of eels. Take something like "The Last Drink", a honky tonk, slow-mo piano stamp around a bordello bar, something that both Leon Russell and Hinge & Bracket would be comfortable with and perfect for. This
is such a lovely record that I'm liable to come over all sensible and suggest that you buy it, a
lot and now.
IS IT ANY GOOD? We don't get a lot of genius down our way, but we know it when we hear
it.
WHERE IS IT? www.marmadukedando.com

CARL HAUCK "Windjammer" (Order Direct)
RELEASED? Out now.
SOUNDS LIKE? Listening to the title track you'd be forgiven for that lazy Paul Simon comparison. Shame on you. It sounds much like an Art free Simon who has let a mad, spendthrift producer loose with reverb and strings.
IS IT ANY GOOD? Yes. The production is laughably bad, but there's a shifting, yawing ache of a songwriter gamely swimming the syrup.
WHERE IS IT? www.unsigned.com/carlhauck