Speakers Push The Air Jackie Collins thought that the world was full of married men. Wrong, the world is obviously full of fucking idiots as this isn't perched dizzily on top of the charts. This is a scary and beautiful track as Coldplays testicles finally descend as they start hanging with Nick Drake in the darker corners of the playground. In short, masterful mainstream noises with cooly jagged edges and late night lyrics of the superior variety.
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Losing Today The
eagerly awaited follow up to the absolute gem-like ‘Black Water’
released earlier this year sees Brighton’s finest hitting all
the emotional heart tugging buttons all at once to deliver one of the
seasons truly defining epics. Again strictly limited to just 500 vinyl
copies so be warned because once this starts getting any hint of deserved
airplay it’ll rocket out of the racks faster than sun block in
a heat wave. ‘Fifty Eight’ opens the set to the familiar
sound of a ‘Crooked Rain Crooked Rain’ era Pavement, a tale
of gender bending revenge set to a strangely alluring sprightly though
darkly woven web of lazy countrified accents that will if your not to
careful trip you up and put you firmly on your backside. Flipside offering
‘Torch’ is an altogether different proposition. Starting
out almost hymnal in texture it soon gathers pace enlisting a jaw dropping
expansive sound that literally consumes everything in its wake, hits
you with the intensity of a front line battering ram of tidal waves
– draining, dragging and deluging you beneath its ferocious current
– imagine a 100 ‘Yellow’s trailing reams of blue touch
paper to be lit by a seriously fucked up and ravaged sortie of U2 /
James derived arena shakers. A broodingly beautiful beast that burns
to the touch. Single of the Missive.
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Tangents
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ShadowPlay Hot stuff in Brighton with their Customers' Club (night) this, their second single, is simple, melodic and ultimately very, very, pleasurable. Featuring all that a good indie/rock song should contain in an instantaneously catchy tune, a strong and memorable chorus (Gregg sings: 'I'm gonna find ya, kill ya, move on') and a singalong mood. Add to this the fact it's the second in a trilogy of songs of revenge in lawless times then what can you argue with? The flipside, 'Torch', is voiced by other singer Gabriel and is really a little too adventurous for its own good trying to stretch between the Beta Band, Verve and Elbow and not really coming up to any of those indie standards reaching only the shores of bombast. It does not, however, detract from the gem that is this single.
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Speakers Push The Air Brighton fivepiece The Customers are blessed with the kind of mannered quirkiness that would, if there were any justice in this world, propel them to the dizzy heights of which so many Coldplay clones wistfully dream. At a time when an army of self-obsessed whiners have smothered the airwaves like a fetid blanket, The Customers new double A side, 'Fifty-eight/ Torch', is a most welcome breath of fresh air. Opening track 'Fifty-eight' sets a mournful pace, generally understated instrumental performances draping themselves around a simple organ riff. Pitched somewhere between Nick Cave’s gothic murder ballads and the indie noodlings of Hefner it turns out to be a really rather skewed proposition, albeit a skewed proposition with the kind of swaying chorus for which cigarette lighters were probably invented. Singer Gregg pulls the same gender bending trick that White Town did years ago with 'Your Woman' (don’t pretend you don’t remember) his unsteady warble becoming more appealing with each passing moment. He (or she?) may sound too polite to quite pull off the chorus’ ominous refrain of “I’m gonna find you, kill you move on,” but, then again, they’re always supposed to be the ones you should watch, aren’t they? 'Fifty-eight' is followed by 'Torch', which, on the surface at least, is an altogether more straightforward proposition. Scratch away, though and you’ll find a little gem of a love song which, ambles along unobtrusively enough for a while, before slowly unfurling into a shimmering pocket-sized epic of an almost frantic intensity. It’s an impressively dynamic display, but for all the apocalyptic imagery (“Bridges burn, cars overturn” anybody?) and soaring codas, The Customers still somehow retain a peculiarly British restraint which enables them to just about avoid any unfortunate over-indulgences. It’s this talent that marks them out from the rest of the overwrought crowd. In truth, The Customers would probably sit uncomfortably in a genre which at times seems to pride itself on a lack of originality or invention. While some of the usual suspects may be present – from the ever-so-slightly histrionic Buckleyisms of 'Torch' to the Mercury Rev whimsy that prevails throughout – both tracks exhibit enough nous and imagination to ensure that they’re destined to escape any musical straitjackets they may ultimately find themselves forced into.
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Sounds XP ‘Fifty Eight’ is keyboard-led Big Music, epic sounding and full of grand gestures. The juxtaposition of sweet melodies and lines like “I’m gonna find ya, kill ya, move on” is seriously unsettling. It’s even more subversive when Greg sings: “some men do right, some men do wrong/ but I’m a woman and I’ll do what I want” and you suddenly realise you’re listening to a potential murder-ess. So far so good, but the overall musical effect is a little too polished for these lo-fi ears. If Keane or Coldplay want a set closer at Glastonbury, the B-side ‘Torch’ would do perfectly, building from slow and gentle beginning to stadium rousing climax but, again, the world doesn’t need another Starsailor. They’ll get attention from a certain crowd for this single but, for once, the Customer(s) isn’t always right.
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