Tag Archives: Fortitude Valley

Spin the big wheel

16 Sunday Nov 2025

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There are so many great acts and accompanying singles, EPs, and albums coming at me I really can’t keep up. So today we play catch up and throw in a word or two about a host of great releases I’ve been sitting on. You can just spin the big wheel and drop in anywhere.

Indianapolis fuzz pop outfit Wishy are pushing the faders into the red all over their Planet Popstar EP. Opening cuts “Fly” and “Planet Popstar” offer up a bevy of distorted guitar hooks and vocals. “Over and Over” then cleans up the sound in a Sugar Ray sort of way. The EP shifts back and forth between a fuzzy and more pristine dreamy demeanor. LA band Momma also do dreamy but with a more conventional rock and roll backing on Welcome to My Blue Sky. Surefire single “Rodeo” launches with a killer lead guitar hook only to soften things up with a smooth, seductive vocal. “New Friend” is more soft, lilting acoustic guitar pop. Turning on Amazing Space’s recent album Parallel Dreams you’d be hard pressed to guess they’re from Bergen, Norway. They’ve really got the Americana sound down. The title track “Parallel Dreams” could be the Eagles. But other tracks diverge a bit from this formula. “Surrounded by the Absence” has great new wave-ish keyboards while “Go Easy On Me” vibes a dream-wash sibilance reminding me of fellow Swede The School Book Depository. Regina, Saskatchewan’s Christopher Sleightholm celebrates all things sunny and laid back on Still Summer. The style is 1960s reinvention with layers of jangle, pedal steel and Beatlesque melodic turns. “Summer Eyes” is so jangliciously Byrds. “Peppermint Fields” tips things toward the Bryds’ country turn. There’s also some serious instrumental guitar work here on tracks like “Hoppin’ Thru The Bog in Fog” and “Coyote at the Trailhead.”

It’s tough when a member of band becomes hugely popular and for something that has nothing to do with music. But that is the story of Post Animal when Stranger Things actor Joe Keery left the group in 2017. After a few albums apart Keery is now back with the band for a new album entitled Iron. The sound is very contemporary indie rock: sleek, intimate and subtley hooky. Obvious LP single is the singalong-ish “The Last Goodbye.” On Scarecrow II The Telephone Numbers dial up some serious jangle pretty consistently over the course of the LP. Standout jangling can be found on “Pulling Punchlines” with its propulsive wall-of-guitars sound and Grapes of Wrath vocals. “Goodbye Rock and Roll” is another standout. Taking things up to 11 for a moment Melvic Centre let a strong guitar grind wallpaper their album Trawler. But offsetting that are some great vocal harmonies. “First to Know” showcases how brilliantly these seemingly dissonant qualities can come together. While much of the album shades toward punk “Late Riser” and “Muddy Mae Suggins” unleash some serious melodic hooks. For me, Lawn’s new record God Made the Highway really takes off at track 3 with “Davie” and its ringing lead guitar work. “Barroom Wonder” is another lead guitar workout, deliciously drawing you in.

New Massage LP Coaster is a wildly inventive time-trip through an 1980s ambience that doesn’t sound in any way derivative. “No North Star” is Madchester jangly while “Daffy Duck” has a distinct New Order-ish vibe. “Without Your Love” has the period’s guitar tone down pat. Basically, the whole record envelopes you like a favourite fuzzy sweater. Durham UK’s Fortitude Valley have dropped some serious stylistic intensity into their recent Part of the Problem, Baby release. The guitar attack and pacing is relentless while the vocals ride over the musical drone with a distinctive air. Sometimes things are poppy, as on “Video (Right There With You).” Sometimes they are dissonant, like on “Totally.” Solid should-be hit single is “Sunshine State.” Nashville’s The Medium go all in for the team on their EP Sports! The atmosphere here is very Todd Rundgren meets 10cc, a 1970s compressed pop sound, particularly on “Feel the Dream” and “We’ve Got a Winner.” “Gimme Some Gas” is more a seventies rock and roll romp. Then “Me and My Glove” could be Harry Nilsson. Ottawa’s fanclubwallet shift the mood again to something more intimate and conversational on Living While Dying. This vibe is more contemporary, with compressed keyboard and hushed vocals. I love the hypnotic keyboard drone driving “Head On” forward. Then there’s the lush pop sound of “Do Over” with its otherworldly theremin solo. “New Distraction” sounds like the radio-ready song.

Get ready for some ripping reverb when you spin The Berries self-titled long-player The Berries. This is a guitar album, with fabulous nuanced amplifier tones all over its 10 tracks. Just check out the gorgeous spaciousness of the languid lead guitar guiding “Angelus.” Or there’s the striking back and forth between the guitar and vocals defining “Salt of the Earth.” I love the rippling Blue Oyster Cult-like lead guitar lines on “Lie in the Fire Again.” Toronto’s Vanity Mirror infuse a late 1960s psychedelic pop spirit over a lot of the tracks populating their Super Fluff Forever LP. It’s there strongly on “White Butterfly” while “Jack of All Trades” hits the Velvet Underground groove hard. But others lean into whimsy and piano. Or there’s “I Don’t Want to Hold Your Hand,” a brilliant inversion of Merseybeat sentiments. Sweet Nobody strike a more cinematic pose on Driving Off to Nowhere. The mood here is decisively moody, the vibe all indirect lighting and overflowing ennui. It’s there from the stark opening of “I Don’t Know When I’ll See You Again.” Mixing things up, a rippling guitar lead line gives “Revenge” a pulse-racing feel. “Home Sweet Hell” leans into a dark country vein. “Could You Be the One” sounds hit single-ish to me. Maura Weaver’s second solo album Strange Devotion is a collection of constant surprises. Each song is a carefully crafted sonic illustration, balancing both harmony and dissonance. “Cool Imagination” is the kind of song you instantly want to sing along with. “Do Nothing” is a brilliant example of alluring melodic minimalism. Meanwhile you also have tracks like “Breakfast” that go in a country direction.

I’ve spun the wheel on these fabulous albums, showcasing a few great tunes. But why take my word for it? Dig into the deep cuts on these LPs for yourself by hitting the hotlinks to the full album experience on bandcamp.

Photo courtesy Thomas Hawk Flikr collection.

Piping hot hits Vol. 1

06 Sunday Jul 2025

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K-Tel had some great album covers going in the 1970s, one for every musical fad or fashion. Let’s channel some of that over-the-top energy for a serious slab of summer single-age in not one, but two volumes. That’s 42 summer should be hits for your BBQ-ing playlist. Sizzling!

Kicking things off with something that really vibes a lot old school motifs, Police Touch Museum hit all the marks with “Lover.” The song structure could easily be early 1960s Brill Building or 1970s James Taylor soft rock. Tony Marsico and the Ugly Things also conjure up days gone by with a 1980s heartland rock and roll sound. “Goodbye to Lonely Town” has that Jersey organ and rumbly guitar that recalls everyone from Dion to the Boss. I’ve long been a fan of Tristen’s exquisitely compressed sound, so intimate yet with space for a range of great instrumental tones. “New Punching Bag” sounds a bit country, in a Neko Case outsider vein. It’s one of three killer cuts on a new EP entitled Zenith. I love the ambience of the recent Good Neighbours single “Starry Eyed.” Light and uplifting, it reminds me of the textured pop sound of bands like Foster the People. Toronto’s Pup have a recognizable pop punk sound on “Hallways,” a bit edgy and ragged in the verses but out-of-this-world pop brilliant in the chorus. Hooks for days.

Tomas Nilsson stocks “I Thought It Was Love (But It Was Not)” full of jangle and lighter-than-air background vocals. The song exudes 1960s style but in the 1980s revival sort of way. It’s not hard to hear where The Grip Weeds are coming from with “Gene Clark (Broken Wing).” The songs is a tribute to that member of The Byrds who wrote so many great songs but whose own solo career stalled for reasons that are hard to fathom. A worthy and highly listenable tribute. Hidden Pictures tell a story as old as time with “Wedding Singer (Going Through a Divorce).” The people who surround these life epochal events are expected be exemplars of what the event represents but things don’t always work out that way. This is a smooth bit of 1980s AM radio polished pop. Team power pop veteran Chris Stamey up with The Lemon Twigs and you knew something special would result. And it has. A new album is on the way but for now dig what “Anything is Possible” sonically conjures up. I love the tension, the sense of unease what permeates the tune until the chorus delivers us from evil. Austin Texas band Gentlemen Rogues have a rock solid band vibe going all over their recent LP Surface Noise. This is a band that could keep you dancing all night long. But from this record I’m drawn to the more subtle hooks defining “All Out of Crush.”

Somewhere out in the wilds of Wyoming teen twins Liam and Layne have cooked up a unique blend of ‘grungy mountain folk’ that slides between neat genre divides. “Cheyenne” is their most polished offering to date, IMHO, with killer harmonica and fiddle breaks. The Sonny Wilsons keep teasing us with solid singles. “Miss Kinetic” combines their distinctive guitar and vocal work into another strong effort. Can an album be far behind? The Trews fall into a more Americana zone that I usually get caught up in but their new single “Don’t Get Lost in the Dark” is so guitar-fabulous. The rippling lead lines keep you glued to speaker to see where things are going. A great deal of The Lightheaded album Thinking, Dreaming, Scheming! sounds very 1963 folk fair but “Me and Amelia Fletcher” is a cool departure, very 1980s pop chic. Richard Snow has something to say on his latest stand-alone single “Governments Always Lie” and he’s not being coy about the message. The tune is a very cool, an expertly calibrated slice of poppy indie rock.

With song titles like “Dream Not Found” and “Us Ugly Guys” you quickly get the sense that The King Teen is some serious kind of lovable loser on his EP Us Ugly Guys Got Style. But he sharpens the critique on “Mediocre Man,” a bouncy acoustic guitar-led mediation about over-estimating your competence. Bonus points for including an rousing, updated version of Bertolt Brecht’s “United Front Song” appearing here as “Left Two Three.” Is it just me or does Rhode Island’s Andy Lampert sound particularly English?  There’s a certain kind of sixties poprock from the UK that straddles folk and pop and psychedelia and that’s what hear coming from “The Bottommost of the Poppermost.” Speaking of folk, those folks in The Happy Somethings have resurrected a band member’s old track “A Kind of Loving” and it’s a delight, a gentle paean to unrequited love. Your Academy name the elephant in the political room right now in the US on “National News,” calling out the clown holding the country hostage. Stylistically the vibe is late 1970s Fleetwood Mac in AM radio hit mode. Liquid Mike often leans into a heavier sound somewhere in just about every cut but “Selling Swords” has to be his poppiest offering yet. Very Wavves or SMRS.

The cover and title of the new Fortitude Valley LP says somebody’s is gonna get a serious talking to. Don’t be fooled by the fresh guitar pop vibe guiding early release single “Sunshine State.” Lead singer and songwriter Laura Kovic is only just getting started. Stay tuned for the rest when Part of the Problem, Baby comes out next month.

21 should-be hits and that’s just Vol. 1! Check your fave internet fanzines soon for deets about Piping Hot Hits Vol. 2.

Colouring outside the lines: Fortitude Valley, Gosh Diggity, Golden Apples, and West Coast Music Club

30 Tuesday Nov 2021

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Some bands break the mould. They may sound like they’re obeying the rules but in subtle ways they’re careening all over the road. Today’s artists tweak the formulas, game the genres, and do their own thing. All in all, a very good thing.

Forget Fortitude Valley, inner suburb of Brisbane, Australia. Now Fortitude Valley says pop-punk goodness in the form of the Durham UK band’s dynamic self-titled debut album. Band leader Laura Kovic may be channeling a bit of her Ozzie roots (Fortitude Valley is her home town) but the record is more than that, vibing a bit of Weezer, The Beths, even Juliana Hatfield’s smooth pop vocal stylings here and there. You can hear a whole lot of those influences on the dissonant but still hooky opening cut, “Baby, I’m Afraid.” I can’t decide what I like better here, the addictive melody-rich lead guitar work that threads through tracks like “It’s the Hope That Kills You” and “All Hail the Great Destroyer” or the light endearing vocals defining cuts like “What You Wanted” and “I Won’t Survive.” Then there’s songs like “The Right Thing (Part I)” and “Forget About Me” that launch from a punky space but can’t keep their innate poppiness from coming to the surface. In the end, it’s “Wreck” that’s the obvious should-be hit single material with its stunning lead guitar and very Primitives vocal work. The edgy guitar instrumental break just perfectly offsets the song’s winning hooks. On the whole, Fortitude Valley is a highly listenable long-player whether you put it on random or just let it play through.

What is Chicago band Gosh Diggity’s sound anyway? Lofi electronic? Kitchen techno? Bedroom pop? My gut says something like ‘Casio-drenched poprock’ would be a good label – that distinctive keyboard sound is layered in everywhere on their new album Runaway Rocketboy and it is just so cool. Opening cut “Wings” is a representative sample of what this band does: deft keyboard interplay, understated but alluring vocals, and a marquis instrumental focal point, in this case the addictive MGMT keyboard lead line. But then, surprise surprise, the very next tune “Rad Summer” breaks out some manic rhythm guitar, later swamped (of course) by a swirl of hooky keyboards. “Patch 1.0” even works in some classic 1980s video game keyboard sound effects. Yet this record is not just an homage to retro keyboard motifs, there’s some pretty clever music hiding behind the spare sonic landscape. Check out the Kenny Burrell jazzy guitar forms framing “Burnett’s and Diet Coke” or the Everything But the Girl sophistico-pop vibe on “True Crime.” And this is a band that knows how to throw in a head-turning instrumental break, like the 1980s video-game keyboard-freakout on “Lettering” or just the delicate bells adorning “A.B.B.” A needle-drop skate across this record will tell you Gosh Diggity probably hang with some pretty wild musical company on their own time. But with Runaway Rocketboy they’ve got a record that is eccentric, accessible and just plain fun.

Russell Edling’s Cherry was a going concern with a few EPs and a long-player on the musical resume. But too many bands with the Cherry moniker led to a rebrand this time out and – voila! – Cherry has become Golden Apples on the new LP Shadowland. The sound pretty much remains the same, a slow-burn, almost-Americana-at-times indie rock and roll. But what appeals to me here is Edling’s ability to subtly bury sweet melodic hooks in an otherwise indie rock musical landscape. You can hear it in the sweet dirge-like opener, “Theme from Shadowland,” though in so many ways that’s a misdirection. The next track “Garbage” is more in tune with the thrust of the record, a bit more discordant rock and roll with a Kevin Devine kind of acoustic-meets-electric drive. The album features a few atmospheric sketches like “Reggie” or “Jack” but on the whole delivers a raft of tunes –  “Forever Hollow,” “Banana,” “Tamara Lee” – that start with a bit of discord but eventually turn more luminescent, adding harmony vocals and other melodic adornments. “Futureperfect” sounds like a single to me with its rippling, hypnotic lead guitar work maintaining the song’s tension, only to resolve in the hooky chorus. Other songs like “Fun II” and “Wildflowers” are a broody mix, cutting dark musical textures with lighter melodic currents. The overall effect reminds me of Toronto’s Hayden at his melodic moodiest.

Back where the Mersey river flows Kirby’s West Coast Music Club bring together their recent drip released singles and a wide variety of new material on a just-released LP, Take a Deep Breath. Talk about variety! Sometimes the band just rocks out, like on “Human Vulture” and “Girl.” The rocking out gains considerable subtlety on cuts like “Long Goodbye,” which crashes in like the Beatles’ “Rain” but quickly shifts to a more psychedelic Bryds groove. The album’s mellower material accents the poppier side of the band’s songwriting, apparent on the acoustic guitar-based “Life of Lies” or bouncy “Jenny’s Still Got (What it Takes).” Love the subtle Rolling Stones flourishes on the latter. Then “The Jokes on You” rides a driving lead guitar line that anchors the tune while “Thinkin’” has an almost Moody Blues bit of guitar ring to it. Or check out how “Whatever It Takes” puts us into solidly 1970s jangle-folk rock territory. But possibly my fave here is the should-be hit single “Me and a Friend” with its almost Billy Bragg-ish, brash-yet-melodic lead-guitar hooks and endearing vocal intimacy. From the first guitar notes it radiates ‘classic’. Take a Deep Breath is truth in advertizing, a truly breathtaking affair.

Colour choices can be so subjective. Which crayon is the right one? Well, at least the music’s sorted. Post artwork provided by Swizzle Gallery’s Rob Elliott.