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NME SINGLES REVIEWS

By Stewart Lee in NME Posted on Sunday, July 11th, 2010

Villagers – Ship Of Fools
Essentially benign, Villagers here lay a tense and never quite consummated Eighties post-punk/neo-psychedelic guitar chug over nautical singer-songwriterly metaphors. Ship Of Fools is sure to comfort morbidly introspective young people who feel adrift, or at sea, or storm-tossed, so to speak, in their daily lives. Sadly, it seems to fade at just the point where older and more reckless musicians would cut loose and wig out.

The Middle East – The Darkest Side
More apparently fearful youths, this time from Australia, where bands could once be relied upon to do something extreme. The Darkest Side is over-produced and over-cluttered with floaty flutes and whispered backing vocals, burying the stark vulnerability it might have had in a slurry of designer schmaltz. Doubtless some depressive teen imagines it speaks directly to them.

The Heartbreaks – I Didn’t Think It Would Hurt To Think Of You
A potentially euphoric indie-pop record is ruined by airless production, note perfect playing, a metronomic failure to push the beat, and X-factor type emotive singing. There’s a strange, context free, nod towards proper rock and roll with a twangy Link Wray run at 1min 55, followed by cheesey Rubettes b-side style sincere spoken word section. The Railway Children revival starts here. Oh Manchester, so much to answer for.

Tuung – Don’t Look Down Or Back
Tuung take the same elements The Middle East muck up, diaphanous female harmonies and softly plucked acoustic guitars, but offset them against twittery electronics, big beats that are equal parts Terry Cox and pro-tools, rural religious chanting, and sudden snatches of noise, lifting the whole thing out of the mire. No-one involved in this need feel the least bit ashamed of themselves.

Ash – Carnal Love
Ash’s first single, Jack Names The Planets, was a hormonal instinctive surge of unknowing genius that they never bettered. Sixteen years later this not un-engaging mid-paced rock ballad is untroubled by either effervescent adolescent enthusiasm, or the gravity of approaching middlescence, but does its job just fine. Once again, in the closing seconds, the briefest of hanging cadences on the closing guitar chord suggests things were just about to get more interesting.

Marina and The Diamonds – Oh No.
Look, I’m a 43 year old man, this record isn’t really aimed at me, and to be honest I’m not even really sure it’s appropriate for me to be listening to it. After four decades on the earth, I am none the wiser about this kind of music. Presumably you jump around to it in night clubs and tap your feet to it in the car. But then what? The young woman’s staccato singing phrasing in the verse is quite amusing and I enjoyed the knowing histrionics in the ‘Oh no’ bit. What am I supposed to be feeling? I don’t know. Can I stop doing these reviews now? It’s twenty years since I read the NME.

Written by Stewart Lee in NME on 11th July 2010. Filed Under: Written For Money
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