Get Inuit – ‘All My Friends‘
Everyone’s favorite loud pop band Get Inuit have unveiled their angriest song yet and it finds them complaining about the way people grow up and get mortgages and forget to have fun: ‘All my friends now rot, their pens have lost their plot’ before talking about Fridays and substance fun. They then reveal how ‘All I want to do is dream’ and explain how they were ‘born a child and it’s terminal’ all over early Maccabees-style guitar and Weezer-esque melodies. It’s a call to arms for those who feel adulthood is overrated.
Dexy – ‘The Lonesome Death of a One-Man Cabaret Act’
Dexy is releasing his first album, ‘Tear It Down’, via 3 Minute Records on 19 May and ‘The Lonesome Death of a One-Man Cabaret Act’ is its opening track. Wasting no time in showcasing his early Springsteen-esque garage rock meets alt-country sound, it opens with a frenetic feel as Dexy examines the effect that constant long hours and working on your own has on both a cabaret act and a solo singer. Dexy talks about the fake adulation that they have to deal with when they go back to ‘normal life’ (‘Everyone looks perfect from the stage in a light, so we fuck them in the stars and the matinees’) and then how the work they pour their heart into ‘is not a circus, this is no cabaret’. It has the heart of ‘Boys and Girls in America’-era Hold Steady – and the rest of the record (buy it from Bandcamp here), which touches on themes of mental health with openness, is just as exhilarating.
Ratboys – ‘Control‘
‘Control’ finds Julia Steiner from Chicago’s Ratboys singing: ‘Now I’m sitting on a bridge out in Portland, Oregon’ and it appears they’ve taken some influence from this fantastically independent city where the ‘dream of the ’90s’ remains alive… with Julia’s delicate vocals and country-esque, Dawes-style guitars it’s a jangly and wistful four minutes and 44 seconds you won’t be able to resist humming. The bursts of trumpet just add to the C90-esque warmth.
Poppies – ‘Told‘
Signed to Super Fan 99 Records and based in New York City, Poppies are a relatively new band who specialise in ‘sultry guitar pop’ a la Built to Spill. ‘Told’ will feature on their new 12″ (coming out on cassette via Topshelf Records in the US) and it combines the self-effacing purity of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone with the more traditional songwriting tomes of Willy Mason or Evan Dando’s solo material. The dual vocals add another dynamic as a male voice opens up about how ‘I never said so you’ll never know all the things in my head…’ while the female explains how ‘I don’t believe what I am told’. This extra level of complexity makes the song even more haunting.
Annabel Allum – ‘Eat Greens‘
Spectral Nights favorite Annabel Allum delves into a grungier sound once again with ‘Eat Greens’. Opening with the admission: ‘I should probably stop smoking, I’m scaring my mum…’ and following this up with more self-observation regarding trying to fit in with certain sections of society: ‘All my friends drink (excessively). I’m trying to not. All these reckless nights, they should probably stop’. Combining the spirit of Patti Smith and with the no-fucks given attitude of Karen O, the song gets ever heavier in a Bad Seeds style as Annabel chants about eating all her vegetables and keeps repeating the telling line: ‘Remind me of all my sins’.
Filed under: New music, Preview, Top 5s Tagged: All My Friends, alternative music, Annabel Allum, Bandcamp, Dexy, Eat Greens, Get Inuit, indie music, new music, Poppies, Ratboys, rock music, soundcloud, Super Fan 99, Super Fan 99 Records, YouTube
