Tag Archives: Vicky von Vicky

Extended play party

22 Sunday Sep 2024

Posted by in Poprock Themepark

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The EP is back baby and ready to extend its play. Perhaps not quite as far as the more ubiquitous LP but farther than a maxi-single for sure. To that end we’ve rounded up a bevy of new EPs to stack up on the record changer and let them have their way.

Henry Chadwick keeps on pushing the frontiers of his melodic journey. His latest EP Leaving sounds like it’s been put through a Beatles pop-psychedelia filter and come out the other side all dreamy and a bit shoe-gazey. Opening cut “I’ve Hate the Sound” is a sonic seductress, lulling your cares away. Then “Reruns Alone” has an off-kilter midnight movie ambience. “Leaving” sounds more Ben Kweller meets Apples in Stereo. The whole package of songs has a tentative, explorative, gentling vibe I’m digging. Derbyshire UK trio The Happy Somethings also sound contemplative but in both a lyrical and melodic way. Their new six song release Caught in the Web delivers more of their hooky social commentary, this time ruminating on all things social media. You can feel the tension animating “Is This Broken” and the unceasing uneasiness of “Prey.” This gives way to sunnier jangle sound on “Kiss of Life” but the message remains dire – basically, web life is a pretty shallow endeavor. Should be hit single “Smitten” has the band acting as reverse sirens, warning listeners away from the seductive allure of a life lived online. Pale Lights Phil Sutton revives his Love Burns project to give us another dose of his folky pop. Blue offers up seven songs that oscillate between earnest lamentations and more upbeat sentiments. The title track is a lowkey poppy number with a strong Lloyd Cole vibe. “To Say Goodbye” balances a recurring cool lead guitar with a piano rhythm section. Then “Hard to Fall’ harkens back to REM’s take on country rock. But perhaps saving the best for last “What To Do About Us” has got a riveting lead guitar and a tight overall band sound. This one is the radio-ready repeat-player.

Moving over to more rock side of street Justin Kerecz blends an Americana esthetic with a more stripped back rock and roll feel on Nobody Man. For instance, “Barking Dogs” has an almost stark simplicity but the pre-chorus builds tension that the chorus opens up nicely. By contrast, opening cut “Been Crying” reaches back to a neo-1960s melodrama sound. Toronto’s Vicky von Vicky lean into a more guitar pop rocking style on Broken Chairs. “Jealousy” kicks things off with a rough and ready feel only to have “Freak Me Out” smooth out the vocals in a most alluring way. Both “Goodbye My Love” and “Be Still My Heart” have a classic 1980s melodic FM rock sound while “Not The Man” drop a bit of pop anguish into the mix. Five strong cuts here. I wrote about The Feeders fantastic “Congratulations By The Way” a while back but now it is included on an equally good self-titled EP. Here you have more of group leader’s Sam Vicari’s dissonant melodic musings. “Sara You’re My Saviour” and “Mrs. Duluth News Anchor” are definitely highlights here. Somehow I missed The Pozers guitar poppy outing last year Something Pop. This album is not really an EP but as only three songs are up on bandcamp I’m treating it like one. “Alison With an Edge” ambles along with buzzy guitars and a vocal melody that turns out the hooks. “Save a Kiss For Me” works the 1970s layered vocals effect into the tune so well. Meanwhile “Missing You (Missing Me)” has a buoyant power pop that will have you beaming.

Speaking of smiles, my first listen to Cliff Hillis and Dennis Schocket’s “For Everly” had me grinning unstoppably, so successfully did it conjure key musical ages for me. I can now report that their subsequently released EP Pop, Girls, Etc. is equally magical, hitting the marks of a host great poprock eras. I mean, dial into “Violet Blue” and transport yourself back to AM radio 1979 with the sleek guitar and exquisitely shaped vocal work so of that period. The duo rock things up a bit on “The Girls Are Back in Town” and offer a variety of jangle with “Carrie, the One” and “Here Comes Joanna,” the latter a masterclass in Byrdsian songcraft. Toronto’s Drywall Heels have also super enriched their sound with a bit 1960s swagger and jangle on their new outing Today’s Top Hits Playlist. This is a sunny collection of winsome tunes, aided by interesting guitar tone shadings on “Screens” and “Little Critters.” “Any Hollow” adds some luscious vocal layering to the mix. And check the maximum jangle dressing “Caterina.” This EP is a breezy good time.  Tampa’s The Easy Button add a good dose of distortion to the tunes on EP2 but that can’t obscure the hooks driving the songs. Their Weezer-meets-FOW melodic instincts are in full force on tunes like “Liberty Bell” and “Private Beach.” “Honor Roll” punks things up a bit but in a hummable way. “The Best Paths Are Never Clear” is an epic should-be hit single. And Halloween even gets a look in “Friday the 13th 2.”

Wifey’s debut EP Just A Tease was certainly highly anticipated by me. When I first heard their early release single “Mary Ann Leaves the Band” I was blown away by its lyrical cleverness and drop dead melodic hookiness. The four additional songs here do not disappoint, branching off in different power pop directions from their initial release. Opening cut “DiMaggio” kicks off in a totally different acoustic guitar register, only to scale up to a solid power pop assault when it gets going. “Playing Dead” is another winning tune though a more straightforward slice of guitar pop this time out. Greedy me might say I want a whole album of Wifey but this EP is a already a pretty full tilt blast of poppy goodness. Heading for the ‘best of’ lists for sure.

The lowly EP. Once upon a time it wasn’t even considered important enough to get listed in an artist’s official discography. Now it’s a regular thing, release-wise. And that’s a good thing.

Photo “The Party Makers” courtesy Thomas Hawk Flikr collection.

Life at 45rpm I

17 Thursday Aug 2023

Posted by in Poprock Themepark

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Living life at 45rpm makes for a fast-paced and ever-changing existence. Brace yourself for the first of two installments, 21 tracks at a time.

We’re going to ease you in to this installment of our singles variety pack with the low-key lush acoustic rush of 22 Oceans. They normally lean in a more electronic direction but “Country Home” is a Fleetwood Mac kind of Americana, riding a wave of up-front acoustic guitars and an oh-so-good blend of harmony vocals. Scoopski are a Philly couple that have been cranking out the singles this year. I was going to write about “Seasonal,” a solid bit of melodic melodrama, but then they came out with a super contribution to an innovative project entitled Short Music for Even Shorter Attention Spans. “30 Seconds (I Love You)” is indeed half a minute long, reminding me a bit of George Harrison’s “Piggies” with some ELO tagged at the end. Heck, you might as well check out the whole album. It’s free and you can run through its 17 contributions in just eight minutes. Melbourne Australia’s Cold Irons Bound nail the scruffy Americana sound of the US midwest on their recent album No Place I Can’t Find You. I’m particularly fond of “Book Some Weekend Time” which sounds like a Cerny Brothers deep cut. Check out the lively lead guitar line that opens Sunken Planes new single “There’s a World.” They describe themselves as a ‘jangle-gaze power trio’ and the power part definitely kicks in on the chorus. The Mike Jacoby Electric Trio managed to make a lot of noise on “The Calm Before the Storm” from their new album The Long Haul. There’s a Dwight Yoakam/Steve Earle countryfied rock and roll sound all over the record but this particular song has something extra, a propulsive drive, subtle hooks, and some Eagles-worthy harmony vocals in the chorus.

The Parallax Project are practically an indie supergroup with participation from members of The Split Squad, Minus 5, and the Junior League. Autologous is their first album of original tunes in 14 years but they don’t miss a beat. Hard to choose just one featured tune. “Mary Houdini” is a delightful poppy swinging number that sounds like a mid-1980s Athens 45 while “You Were Never Here” has a more country twang. Power pop legends The Flashcubes have got a winning project going with their new Pop Masters album where they record classic song covers with the bands that made them famous. Get a load of the heavenly collab with The Spongetones on their fab-tastic “Have You Ever Been Torn Apart?” From the “Hard Days Night” opening chord to the omnipresent jangly guitars to the shiver-inducing harmony vocals, this is the stuff of poprock dreams. With “Don’t Go for the Money” Dan Kibler comes out swinging on his new album Idiomatic, exuding a Michael Hutchence or Tommy Tutone swagger with just a touch of Beatles 65 in the verses. I’m also partial to the stunning “Mystery Girl,” such a perfect two minutes of pop song-writing. The Kind Hills are truly an international band, with members located in the US, UK, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Australia. Their self-described brand of ‘slacker indie pop’ is mellow and meditative for most of their debut LP Clusterluck. Except for “Let Youth Take Over.” Here the band get almost anthemic with a slow-burning ‘sneak up on you’ ear-worm. Imagine Vashti Bunyan leading Chumbawumba and you sort of get where this is going. Caper Clowns lead vocalist Rick Kingo has gone solo with his new EP The Truth, The Lies, The Lot, unleashing various shades of soft rock. But it is the opening cut, “Confident in Time,” that really stands out for me. Accompanied by a McCartney-esque acoustic guitar, Kingo unleashes his inner Neil Finn to good effect. And anyone who can fit the word ‘paradigm’ into a song without sounding awkward deserves an award.

Dan Kibler – Mystery Girl
Rick Kingo – Confident in Time

If Springsteen did grunge it might sound a little like Vancouver’s Slip-Ons. Title track of their new EP Heavy Machinery will give you the gist of their sibilant, psych-rock sound. And what a joy it is. Now depending on when you read this post it may or may not actually be Bandcamp Friday. No matter, whether it is or isn’t I think we can all agree it deserves a theme song. Cue those perennial pop-punkers Vista Blue with “Bandcamp Friday is Here,” winning hearts 15 cents at a time. I wrote about New Jersey’s Sad About Girls once before and they were too polite to correct me when I miswrote their name as simply Sad Girls. Their fab new song is excuse enough to make amends. “Lonely One” delightfully channels a load of Merseybeat riffs and verse/chorus transition turnarounds but with a “That Thing You Do” freshness. Richard Turgeon is like money in the power pop bank. His new single “Friend Zone” is more of his reliable brand of melodic rock and roll. The lead guitar opening riff has a seventies Fleetwood Mac tone while his vocals pull between dissonance and rich harmony. Certainly suitable for summer beach playlists. Another utterly reliable power-pop singles factory can be found in Birmingham Alabama. Lolas have been releasing a single every few months now and they never fail to grab me. “Jacqui” has got a host of classic rock and roll motifs going on but somehow they come together in a unique way. The verses remind me of Abba’s “Does Your Mother Know” while the chorus hits the pop boogie marks of The Sweet.

Burlington Ontario’s big bold sound is presently coming from The Penske File. Their new long-player Half Glow is hard to peg stylistically, with a bit of four on the floor sing-along stomping and a whole lot of rock and roll heart. I’d dip in with the single-worthy “Chorus Girl.” This is a track that shimmers and lurches along with a sonic intensity that seldom lets up. In the early 1980s Milwauki’s The Shivvers were an up and coming outfit sporting vintage guitar sounds and vocals that melded Debbie Harry and Chrissie Hynde. But then they folded. Fast forward and today they’ve got a dynamite new song “My Love Calling” that sounds like a peak form Pretenders single. The musical build up in the song is inspired, from the jangle guitar to piano riffs to the tension between the main and background vocals. Another band mining the that killer early 1980s rock sound are Worriers. The title track from their upcoming LP Trust My Gut combines an eighties sonic ambience with a Bleachers pop polish in various key moments of the song. Meanwhile Lauren Denitzio’s vocals pull everything together in a tight poprock package. The Make Three bring together members of the Brixton Riot and The Anderson Council to make music they describe as ‘more power, less pop.’ The album is You, Me, and The Make Three and it has got some rock muscle behind it, but with a pop flavour you’d associate with the likes of The Smithereens or The Lemonheads. Whet your whistle with “Emily Strange” to get a sense of what they’re all about. Toronto’s Vicky von Vicky are a new outfit with, as far as I can tell, just two songs out. “Jealousy” is straight up melodic rock, full of chunky guitar chords and a simple chorus that really hooks you in. More please.

The Shivvers – My Love Calling

We wrap things up on this session of Life at 45rmp with the latest single from South Korean band Say Sue Me. “Mind is Light” is bit more shoe-gazey than some of the group’s previous releases, floating along over a pleasant guitar buzz that is regularly punctuated by other sonic interventions. Things do get a bit psychedelic at times.

21 down, 21 to go. Stay tuned for part II of Life at 45rpm, coming soon.

Photo courtesy Simon Collison Flikr collection.