Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
The Phantom Band
Checkmate Savage
(Chemikal Underground, 2009)
Improve your life with the darkly swirling sound of Heavy Motorik Folk!
Riffling through the racks at HMV this week it struck me as ominous the quantities of the rising Glasgow combo's debut that sat there unbought. Perhaps it was a brand new batch, replacing those that had disappeared just minutes earlier, clutched by a cohort of the soon-to-be-amazed. Let's hope so, for everything about Checkmate Savage is amazing, from the spooked stories of supernatural activity narrated in Rick Anthony's broad, baritone brogue to the astonishing, genre-busting backings, which have taxed every inch of my taxonomical lexicon (currently I'm favouring "Heavy Motorik Folk" or "Krautrock meets the Stone Of Scone"). While in the hands of younger men in tighter trousers this would come off as some trendy urban fusion (it would be easier to ask who isn't a bit motorik right now) the Phantoms make you think not of other bands, but of a menhir at twilight, in a remote glen empty of all but the dead. The Howling allies banshee wails to a nuggety rock groove; Folk Song Oblivion conveniently sounds like its title, and features the cracking line "You have a voice so loud / You break the mountainside"; Crocodile is a chthonic invocation embroidered with artful laptoppery (there's a rhythm that sounds like someone tapping their teeth), but the detail is not the thing here, not when there's such windswept melody and anthemic singalonga vocal fun to be had amid the delicious mystery and oddness. One of those records that comes out of nowhere and, unbelievably, they're just as good live.
Danny Eccleston
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 27/04/2009
Further Listening
The Beta Band – The 3 Eps (Regal, 1998)
De Rosa – Mend (Chemikal Underground, 2006)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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-
Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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it is really excellent. even the big country bits (eg the 'hee-uh, hup-hup' in folk song oblivion)
Posted by showbizwhines at 9:45 PM GMT 27/04/2009 Report Abuse
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