Monolith Cocktail Blog

Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’s Roundup Of What’s What

SINGLES/TRACKS

Gillian Stone ‘Amends’

This is a beautiful and moving single; a ballad of lost horizons and forgotten hopes, the folk bewitchery that indeed bewitches a long float down an aural river of despondency and regret but offers brief glimpses of the nature of life in all its ugly beautiful full-frontal explosion of sex love and lust. A song that tickles the chin of death until it smiles and bares its rotting teeth. A true example of the art and magic of music.

Hal Cannon  ‘Thirty-Six Miles’
(Okehdokee Records)

Thirty-Six Miles is a beautifully written song taking in the magic and pure nostalgia of all the old country music, just like my dad use to play as I was growing up. A song that takes in the simplicity and wonder of discovery and peace; a song that demonstrates the purity and power of the simply written poetically inspired word framed by a lone picked banjo and tinkling piano. Truly beautiful.

The Legless Crabs ‘I Wanna Be A Cult Musician’
(Metal Postcard Records)

I cannot have a round up without an offering from the wonderful Metal Postcard Records, and this month’s chosen track is the new single by the Legless Crabs. A couple of minutes of adrenalin pulsating weirdness with a guitar solo that one should write home about, and I am renowned for my distrust of the guitar solos, but when one happens to sound like it is disgusted with itself for being a guitar solo – if it is in fact one, it could well be a heavily distorted keyboard – it is indeed a thing of rock ‘n’ roll legend and off kilter brilliance, a bit like the Legless Crabs themselves: off kilter brilliance.

Beija Flo  ‘Waiting For The Sun’

I like a little deranged angst in pop music. Sometimes it is a good thing, and I enjoyed this little angst-ridden pop song of heartbreak and want a great deal; plus the video has the added attraction of a dead clown, who does not like a dead clown, especially on a nice sunny day, which it is today as I type this. An ideal way to start a review session: the sun an egg roll and a dead clown lying on the pavement dead whilst the songstress emotes anger and heartache. If only all pop music could be as entertaining.

ALBUMS/EPS

A.D Luck ‘WORMWOOD’
(Submarine Broadcasting Co.)

Exploration into the unusual psych of adventure is the perfect description of yet another off-kilter release from Submarine Broadcasting Company.

A.D LUCK has offered us here a captivating delve into the land of experimental electronica but with a pop edge, which at times reminds me of The Art Of Noise but without the annoyance. And I can imagine many an alternative radio show featuring a number of tracks from this fine album, and can well see it being all over the wonderful Dandelion radio station. For this is pop music Jim, just not how we know it.

It has melody, humour, romance and sex, or am I just a little strange? Whether I am or not there is no denying that to these ears the track ‘NICFITNIC’ is pure cartoon addiction pop brilliance, so much so I have just spent the past thirty minutes listening to this strange beguiling number over and over again. THIS IS PURE POP FOR NOW AND AGAIN PEOPLE.

The Doomed Bird of Providence  ‘A Flight Across Arnhem Land’
(10 To 1 Records)

If you can imagine the Wicker Man set in the Australian outback instead of the Scottish Isles, than this could well be its soundtrack. For this album of 16 slightly gothic sounding folksongs has an eerie and wonderfully disturbed texture, the songs being vocal driven pieces using text from Australian Newspapers from the 1920/30s.

The songs start to merge into each other, and you start to think have I not already heard this one, which only adds to the strangeness and unsettling nature of the album. To my mind only a good thing and it is lovely to come across something a bit different and a band that isn’t a Woolworths Beatles/Byrds/Nirvana. This is an album for those who want to dip into something a little bit unusual.

The Meltdown ‘Its A Long Road’
(Hopestreet Recordings) 29^th July 2022

This is a very mature sounding album; one that is very well produced and has the old sixties country soul vibe about it, which is to be honest something I normally avoid like the plague as I normally put on immature badly produced pop for my listening pleasure, and if I am in a soulful mood I will put on some 60s/70s soul, when soul to my ears was at its finest, and I think The Meltdown will completely agree with that statement as they have just produced an album filled to the brim, brimming in fact, with the inspiration from 60s country soul.

You hear the Stax horns and blue eyed soul melodrama which when done badly and uninspired can be as exciting as watching paint dry, and not even your own paint but someone else’s, maybe a neighbour’s or a recently renovated public house that has lost all its old charm and is now frequented by people in white shirts and short skirts who support Liverpool or Man U or whatever team at the moment is doing well. But Meltdown avoid that by sounding like a pub that has been given a new coat of paint but has managed to keep the charm and authenticity of the original, and of what the people found so appealing in the first place, so will attract new customers but keep the old regulars perfectly happy. So not all 60s inspired soul bands have to sound like The Commitments, it can sound like The Meltdown, and thank Little Richards 60s soul recording pants for that.

The Burning Hell ‘Garbage Island’

Garbage Island is an enjoyable romp of poptastic glee taking in the influences of Lou Reed, They Might Be Giants, XTC, early Costello, The Modern Lovers and even Steely Dan and mashing it into a stew of musical hits. There is certainly something enjoyable losing yourself in the wash of the many lyrics and fine pop melodies.

It’s nice to come across a band that isn’t scared to be intellectual and witty. I come across far too many bands that write the trite and the obvious; who use one word when ten is obviously better. I call it the Oasis syndrome. The Burning Hell I am happy to announce have not succumb to the syndrome and are happy to paint beautiful pictures of a not too beautiful world promoting the joys of the magical different pop song.