Tag Archives: Cast

Poprock Record’s 25 must-have LPs for 2024

09 Thursday Jan 2025

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Another year, another load of really good albums. Creativity was off the charts in 2024, in both senses unfortunately. But banish despair, here at Poprock Record we make up our own charts, shining light on a deserving collection of should-be stars. Here’s our list of 25 must-have albums from the past year and, trust me, you’ll find plenty of variety within our self-imposed parameters of poppy rock. You’ve got jangle (Ducks Ltd.), gender (Day Dreams) and heartbreak (Tamar Berk). There’s retro (Terry Anderson), metro (Super 8) and fun (Scoopski). We’ve got artists singing in Spanish (Star Trip) and wide variety of accents from the British Isles (the list would be too long). And so much more.

The envelope please, here are Poprock Record’s 25 must have LPs from 2024:

1. Day Dreems Day Dreems
2. Tamar Berk Good Times For a Change
3. Brent Seavers Exhibit B
4. Wesley Fuller All Fuller, No Filler
5. Ducks Ltd. Harm’s Way
6. Aaron Pinto Aaron Pinto
7. Chris Milam Orchid South
8. The Martial Arts In There Like Swimwear
9. The Armoires Octoberland
10. Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass-Kicking Team Got To Be Strong
11. Star Trip Velocidad
12. Bull Engines of Honey
13. Real Estate Daniel
14. Phil Thornalley Holly Would
15. The Trafalgars About Time
16. Super 8 Retro Metro
17. Be Like Pablo A World Apart
18. Nick Piunti and the Complicated Men Up and Out of It
19. Rich Arithmetic Pushbutton Romance
20. Owen Adamcik Owen Adamcik’s Power Pop Paradise
21. Steve Robinson Window Seat
22. Sergio Ceccanti Mysterious Journey
23. John Larson and the Silver Fields Constellation Prize
24. Scoopski Time is a Thief
25. David Woodard Get It Good

Day Ricardo’s Day Dreems project was groundbreaking in so many ways, lyrically touching on gender, the body, ADHD, oppressive nostalgia and more, while musically mashing up hints of Squeeze, Crowded House and the Beatles into their own distinctive voice. It’s a most worthy choice to sit at #1. But close behind Tamar Berk wowed us with yet another winning collection of introspective yet downright hooky numbers. Brent Seavers, now there’s a guy who knows how to pack an LP full of highly listenable tunes. I mean, he does it again and again. I could go on … and do in the original posts hyperlinked above.

The EP format continues to offer artists a creative outlet that falls somewhere between the noble single and a more herculean long-playing effort. True for some it may amount to little more than a glorified single with additional alternative versions, demos and live cuts (not that I’m complaining). But for others it’s a carefully curated musical statement in its own right. I think our cast of 6 must-have EPs from 2024 lean more in the latter direction:

1. Lo Fi Ho Hum Garage Pop
2. Cliff Hillis and Dennis Schocket Pop, Girls, Etc.
3. Sunken Planes Intersections
4. Shake Some Action! Trip to Yesterday / Chase the Light
5. The Genuine Fakes Extended Play Vol. 1
6. The High Elves Early Works

I deliberately leave legacy artists – i.e. those that gained conventional chart success and still benefit from that or have a major label sponsor – off my yearly lists. They don’t really need any push from me. But I do love a lot of those acts and it is great to see them still putting out solid creative works. So here’s a legacy artist shout out to some notable releases in 2024:

1. JD McPherson Nite Owls
2. The Decemberists As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again
3. Fastball Sonic Ranch
4. Cast Love is the Call
5. Crowded House Gravity Stairs
6. Nick Lowe and Los  Straitjackets Indoor Safari

I’m a non-recovering Beatlemaniac, it’s true. I’m always on the lookout for some fun and creative riffs on the Fabs. This year Nick Frater blew away the competition with the further development of his Rutles project, a riff on a riff on the Beatles. So meta! Thus our best riff on the Beatles this year is:

Nick Frater Nick Frater presents The Rebutles 1967-70

Last year I singled out The Flashcubes for their amazing Pop Masters album. It was one where they covered a host of new wave era classics with members of the original bands. This year their spin-off band The Half Cubes produced their own version of that project with equally impressive results. You see where this is going. This year’s special award of awesome poprock merit goes to:

The Half-Cubes Pop Treasures

As I wrote in the original review, “Pop Treasures is a monster of a collection” that is ‘lovingly relentless’ in its coverage of 1970s and 1980s hit-makers and indie darlings. It’s a hits package worthy of K-Tel, and that is high praise coming from someone who lived through the seventies. So many great songs here, including our #1 most inventive cover for 2024 “Make You Cry.” Treat yourself, this is a guaranteed good time.

Album fans, the form is in safe hands if the releases from this past year are anything to go by. Sure the kids may not be into them the way their 1960s through 1990s peers were but they’ll have something to dip into when they get older.

Photo of John Baldessari’s art piece ‘Record Collector’ courtesy Thomas Hawk Flikr collection.

Around the dial: Cast, Rich Arithmetic, Paul Collins and Declan McKenna

23 Friday Feb 2024

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Today’s radio waves feature four stupendous releases from reliably melodic rockers that take up the mission from different strengths. Get ready to do some involuntary humming along.

I was definitely late to the Cast party, only showing up in 2016. But I quickly became a die-hard fan of their canon. There was something shivery good about John Power’s haunting vocals while the band’s musical vibe seemed to deliver on what The La’s had only promised. The band did pop up with a new album in 2017 but Kicking Up Dust sounded more like a Power solo album but for the very Cast-alicious “Baby Blue Eyes.” This time round though I’m in on the ground floor with their brand new LP Love Is the Call and I can report it is a concentrated blast of everything that once made Cast so exciting. The songs here are strong, really sing-along good. John Power has clearly got his song-writing mojo back and then some. As Cast fans might expect, the acoustic guitar features strongly in a few songs here, like “Bluebird” and “Tomorrow Call My Name.” Seductive vocal arrangements also get a look in on the cathedral haunting “First Smile Ever.” But that won’t prepare you for the stunning hooks of should-be hits like “The Rain That Falls” and “Faraway.” “Love You Like I Do” and “Love Is the Call” up the rock quotient but without moving the melody needle any distance from superb. Trust me on this one, Love is the Call is the one you’ll really want to take.

Rich Arithmetic is like a painter who colours his songs with shades of musical yesteryear. And his new album Pushbutton Romance offers a wide variety of sonic hues: new wave, jangle, baroque, and a whole load of sixties vibes. “When You Want Somebody (To Make Love To)” starts things off strong, vibing early 1980s retro with just a touch psychedelia in the vocals. The distinctive guitar riffing throughout really buffets the tune. Then “Carry You (Redux)” steps on the jangle pedal and harmony vocals to good effect. Really, the guitar tones and vocal arrangements on this record are something else. Listen to how “Battered and Broke” uses some jazzy guitar to set a different pace from the rest of the album, more American songbook as a contribution. Or there’s the fab rumble guitar giving the instrumental “Saving Sunset” a cool Shadowy Men on Shadowy Planet strut. For vocals “Moral Blight” lays on some pretty sweet harmonies that really launch the tune in the chorus while in “You Are Always Right” it is the vocal arrangement that really shines, beautifully supported by some distinctive jangle and rumbly guitar work. The tune sounds Mersey but like the non-mop top bands. Other highlights for me include the folk rock “Bend the Arc” and Beach Boys-ish “A Teenage Hymn, Pt. 1: Tan All Over.”

If there was a godfather of power pop it might be Paul Collins. Member of the legendary Nerves with Jack Lee and Peter Case in the late 1970s, later making waves with his own Paul Collins Beat throughout the 1980s, Collins always seemed to be just this side of making it. But like the Velvet Underground, everyone who caught his act started their own power pop band. On his brand new record Stand Back and Take a Good Look Collins has decided to revisit a range of songs from his many bands and solo records, with help from the likes of Dwight Twilley, Prairie Prince, Richard X Heyman, and many others. The results are a rollicking good time. Opening cut and title track “Stand Back and Take a Good Look” puts the Nerves song into a swinging, easygoing register. “In Another World” strips the Americana coating off a track initially covered by the more country-ish Paul Collins Band – and I like it. Some songs hit the jangle just so, like “Liverpool.” Others slip into a more country feel, as on “You Can’t Go Back.” All in all, 67 year old Collins sounds in fine form here. Tracks like “I’m the Only One For You” sound as fresh and full of energy as anything from his deep catalogue.

On What Happened to the Beach? kid wunderkind Declan McKenna stretches his musical range, offering up dance, power pop, English folk, and efforts the defy easy categorization. There is a Bowie-esque sense of daring and curiosity to what is going on here. Yet amidst all this adventure and experimentation the results are always recognizably Declan. “Wobble” showcases this playfulness, with a McCartney-worthy falsetto and a carefully staged, sometimes overlapping introduction of different sonic tones. “Elevator Hum” is another interesting collage of sounds, sparse and airy, then building to a dance floor groove. “I Write the News” nails the 1970s English folkie vibe of John Martyn and Roy Harper before it scales up into something else completely. But the heart of the album for me is the set of radio-ready singles, “Sympathy” and “Nothing Works.” Both are just fabulous instances of melodic single-age, masterfully put together. Given all this variety, it’s clear Declan’s not done exploring yet.

What a quartet for your listening pleasure. Don’t be afraid to dig deep and often into these releases. Repeated listenings are the charm.

Blasts not from my past: Shack, Cast and The La’s

16 Sunday Oct 2016

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How did I manage to miss Shack and Cast in the 1990s?  I did hear The La’s at the time but really only the single “There She Goes.”  These bands exude all the essential rudiments of great poprock: sparkly guitar lead lines, great vocal arrangements, with a healthy dose of swing.  They have songs that can be carried off on just an acoustic guitar. Though the members of these bands were contemporaries, the bands themselves broke at different times, which was good because there was considerable overlap in the membership of these three groups.

the-lasReally, The La’s come first in 1990 with their sole proper album, the self-titled The La’s.  As countless re-releases since then demonstrate, the album was actually recorded a number of times through the late 1980s with different producers: John Porter (the Smiths), John Leckie (XTC), Mike Hedges (the Cure), but finally with Steve Lillywhite (Big Country, U2) who upon comparative listens of the different versions really did nail the proper mix.  The band’s creative force, Lee Mavens, was like a mad scientist never happy with his formula.  He argued that the band’s sound was looser than the smooth sound Lillywhite produced, something perhaps better captured on the amazing BBC sessions recorded mostly in the late 1980s and released in 2006.  The La’s is undoubtedly a masterpiece.  Leaving aside the monster single, “There She Goes Again,” picking out the best tunes from this record is kind of like picking out the best Beatles’ song from Revolver or Rubber Soul.  No one is going to agree.  But my own personal faves include the rollicking “Son of Gun,” the sweet downward drift of “Timeless Melody,” the freewheeling acoustic blues of “Doledrum” (particularly the sprightly BBC version), the great guitar hooks of “Way Out,” and the early Beatles sound of “I.O.U.”Son of a GunI.O.U.Doledrum (BBC 1987)

But of course if Lee Mavens had only ever written and recorded “There She Goes” he would still be ripe for a lot of poprock glory.  The song is practically a ‘how to’ of poprock single writing.  The two versions featured here are striking for their differences from the album version.  The first is the original 1988 single where the guitars are a bit more upfront.  The second is an acoustic version recorded by Steve Lillywhite that really captures the range of Maven’s vocals.  Oh what this band might have been if they just had more than one record in them.There She Goes (original 1988 single)There She Goes (Steve Lillywhite acoustic version)

cast_-_band_membersCast features La’s cast off, John Powers, who stuck through the long multiple sessions for the La’s debut, only to leave shortly after to escape Maven’s dysfunctional approach to recording and focus on his own songwriting.  Cast’s 1995 debut, All Change, has some of the La’s acoustic trappings but cast in a broader rock vein – less skiffle, more Who.  The whole record is strong but “Sandstorm” and “Fine Time” stand out.  And unlike The La’s, the record was a hit, producing four top 20 singles in the UK.  Two years later Mother Nature Calls had a great acoustic number in “Live the Dream” as well a strong B-side with “Dancing on the Flames.”  Two more albums followed but by 2001 the band was ready to split.  But their 2012 comeback album, Troubled Times, suggested no diminution in the winning formula, with the swinging acoustic “Bad Waters” a definite highlight.  A new record is set to be released this fall.Fine TimeLive the DreamBad Waters

510c2n1jz4lShack preceded Cast in forming but followed them in gaining commercial success, with the early version the band including Peter Wilkinson, who would leave to join Cast.  After struggling to get three records out between 1988 and 1991 that went largely unnoticed, Shack resurfaced in 1999 with their big breakthrough record, HMS Fable, a seeming distillation of all the acoustic and poprock sounds of the previous decade.  “Comedy” would prove to be the band’s biggest hit but “I Want You” should have been released as single with its swirling vocal arrangements and great hooks.  Discovering Cast and Shack after all these years is kind of like finding another book by your favourite author who is now deceased – you didn’t expect to get it so you enjoy it all the more.ComedyI Want You

I have to include this clip of The La’s appearing as a duo (Lee Mavens and John Powers) on Canadian Much Music television where the clueless Erica Em tries to interview them and in classic understated Liverpool style they dodge her questions but pull off a pretty amazing vocal and acoustic strumming performance.

Today old bands never die, they just live on forever with Facebook and webpages.  Check out these for The La’s, Cast, and Shack.