Monolith Cocktail Blog

Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’s Reviews Spread

SINGLES

Blue Violet ‘Favourite Jeans’
(Me & My Records)

Blue Violet’s ‘Blue Jeans’ is nothing more or nothing less than a beautiful pop song. And that is all I really need to say about this lovelorn little simple fragile ballad of tender regret: “if we were made of Glass we’d have shattered by now”. Pure pop poetry.

Psychotic Monks ‘Post-Post-’
(Fatcat Records / Vicious Circle)

The Psychotic Monks, I saw the band name and thought straight back to the hellish days of senior school when the strict catholic school I attended was run by psychotic monks. But I’m happy to say these psychotic Monks beat you into submission with fuzzy distorted bass and clattering guitars not cane and straps.

‘Post-Post’ is an 8-minute gem of distorted aggression that takes me back to the wonderful live performances of John Peel favourites the Levellers 5. And is a rare thing at just being over 8 minutes long it doesn’t outstay its welcome. A pure 8 minutes of feverish disgust.

Una Rose ‘Resolutions’

‘Resolutions’ is a faded gem of a song. A blink of an angel’s kiss. A summer that never passes just turns to Autumn, and more awkwardly beautiful. A song about the strange and rewarding bond there is between father and daughter or between two soul mates. A song that captures the love that lies between two people who no longer see each other as often as they like but are only a thought away. This song flutters and sways you gently until you feel the loveliest of warm hugs; a magic Autumn pop kiss of a song.

Carla Dal Forno ‘Side By Side’
(Kallista Records)

Oh my dearie lord, what we have here is a sensuous seduction of a track; a song of lovelorn glamour a stroked bedside nightshade crawl of yesterday’s wanton lust. A song of yearning that reminds you that it was best to fall in love when you were both young and attractive and life was one long ride of not caring and laughter and lust. A song to remind you of how you used to be and that makes you beautifully knotted inside. Listening and remembering is one and maybe the most powerful spells the magic of music casts.

ALBUMS

Super Hit ‘Get It Together’
(Metal Postcard Records)

This album by Super Hit is mostly a gentle and swaying affair of short guitar jangle tunes, half instrumental with a smattering of quite charming songs, and is a very relaxing way to spend a half hour or so contemplating having an afternoon nap. This could well be the album to tempt you into a dream like state. At times reminding me of Felt – especially on the rather excellent ‘King Of Suffering’ -, but the stand out track is the 18 minute closer ‘Get It Together’ which is like a unusual compilation of the best of the tracks that came before it, a jarring piece of lo-fi jangle art.

Derrero ‘Curvy Lines’
(Recordiau Prin)

Curvy Lines is an album of prog, pop and psych guitar mastery; an album to put on your CD player and lie back and let the melodies float over you and pull you into the magical world, where such things matter.

It is an album of sunshine ray beams and stardust, an album to enjoy with your morning coffee or a glass or bottle of wine before bed. The Beach Boys, Mercury Rev and 70s pop radio collide into a headlong collision of joy and muse – not the band Muse as they are terrible, but the kind of muse talented Welsh artistic types emit with a longingly frequency.

Curvy Lines is an album of buttercup beauty with the occasional kick in the crotch discordancy. “Numbah Wahn” and Numbah Wahn is were this beauty will be in my personal jukebox in the coming weeks.

Tuomo & Markus ‘Game Changing’
(Grand Pop Records) 14^th October 2022

This is a wide cinemascope of an album, a record that takes one on a ride of nostalgic wonder drawing in psych-tinged soft rock and the MOR country rock of the seventies and leaves one in a blanket glow of warmth and peace. It’s a road trip being soundtracked by mix tape of Crosby, Stills and Nash, Steely Dan, America, Nick Drake and the Flaming Lips.

The opening track ‘Game Changing’ is jaw droppingly magnificent, a beautiful beguiling ballad worthy of Mercury Rev at their magical best. And truly is a wonder of a song. ‘Highest Mountain’ is worthy of Gene Clark’s No Other, and No Other is a fine album to mention as they both have the same all-consuming gorgeous vastness.

This is one of those albums that should be played to the narrow-minded morons who say they don’t make records like they used to do, as this proves they do. And in this case better than they used to do. An album that should grace the record shelves of all music lovers.

David Westlake ‘My Beautiful England’
(Tiny Global Productions) 14^th October 2022

My Beautiful England is an album of pure sadness and nostalgia; an album of songs that bemoans the effects that modern life is having on our once great and beautiful country; an album that takes us back to the time when every day was Autumnal and students used to have a certain charity shop chic and music still mattered: and music does still matter.

Music can lift you when you are down, can soundtrack all those wonderful and not so wonderful times in your life, and My Beautiful England indeed is an album that matters. And as much as I do not like to mention my own music, but I will anyway, it travels the same path as The Bordellos Ronco Revival Sound album, both drawing on music of the past and painting pictures of a country long gone.

David Westlake‘s beautiful songs has one drawn back to the halcyon days of late 60s Kinks or early 90s Edwyn. And the wonderful ‘Mallory Kept Climbing The Mountain’ has one thinking back to the wonderful Go Betweens or Monochrome Set of the 80s.

My Beautiful England is a beautiful album of well written, lyrically captivating and melodious pop songs.

Jd Meatyard ‘Live The Life’

Jd Meatyard is a man who loves music; a man who is soaked in the spirit and the history of rock ‘n’ roll. His alternative folk songs are charged with a natural melodeon charm and this, his 6th album [I think?], is probably his most musically commercial yet.

His love of the Velvet Underground – ‘Story Of My Life’ being lyrically almost made up of Lou Reed/Velvets song titles – and his love of Woody Guthrie folk is combined with the attack of the Pixies and the Fall and the humour and charm of The Modern Lovers. Live The Life to me sounds like the sound of a rock ‘n’ roll poet looking back and celebrating his life taking in the places he has been/lived and the many characters he has met over the years. And it’s a quite bewitching and indeed a hugely enjoyable listen.

Librarians With Hickeys ‘Handclaps And Tambourines’
(Big Stir Records)

Another jump into the sunshine from Big Stir Records – do they specialize in releasing the happiest sounding music possible? Once again we are offered the jangling clap happy sixties sound, this time by Librarians with Hickeys. From the opening track, the organ led ‘I Better Get Home’, it’s all handclaps and shouted hey backing vocals, through the Byrds-like ‘Ghost Singer’ and ‘Can’t Wait Till Summer, and nearly every other track actually. Yes indeed, the Byrds do seem like a big influence on the Librarians With Hickeys Sound, and to be honest they do the Byrds very well, mixing it with an early 80s power pop feel. And there is no doubting their skill and craft in producing an album of enjoyable melodious songs.