Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’s Reviews Roundup – Instant Reactions
ALL ENTRIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
Dr Strangely Strange ‘Anti -Inflammatory’
Album (Think Like A Key) 12th March 2025
Anti-Inflammatory is the first new album from Dr Strangely Strange in decades, and it’s a bit of a beauty it must be said.
Ten songs of their own wonderful mixture of folk, Baroque pop and psych, and is at times extremely touching songs that deal with looking back on life and mortality but with a melancholy smile on its face. “Like Water Like Wind” is a simple and touching ballad worthy of Dylan, and the three instrumentals on the album are woven with a strange and magical inner calmness/serenity that one doesn’t have the pleasure to come across that often.
Dr Strangely Strange are now aged in their eighties and goes to show that both class and talent are two things that don’t wither with time.
Nick Frater ‘Oh Contraire!’
Album 28th February 2025
What we have here is a bit of a pop masterpiece. “Oh Contraire!” mixes baroque pop with sunshine pop and a healthy dose of late 70s power pop and early 80s New Wave, wrapped in a wonderful 70s radio friendly sheen. One could easily imagine any of these wonderful nuggets of pop emerging from your transistor radio on a hot summer’s day in 1976, or any year since.
Nick Frater is a quite wonderful songwriter and a melodian extreme. The twin guitar solo frenzy and fills and frills on “I Know you Know I Know” is worthy of Thin Lizzy at their finest, on a song that sounds like Bad Company covering the Knack (or vice versa) but is a gem of radio pop/rock glory. “Seraphim Called” brings to mind the wonderful Gilbert O Sullivan, Andrew Gold and Dean Friedman; “One Minute” is a fine old-style FM/AM pop rocker, and “All Roads Lead To Home” is a beautiful McCartney-like piano ballad. The whole album is an exercise in demonstrating the beauty and song crafting skill of Nick Frater, and an album that celebrates the magic of the pop song.
Honor Saint Williams ‘London Metal’
EP (Bour Records)
As everyone who reads this monthly outpouring of my ramblings about the new music that I get sent to pontificate poorly about knows, I have a soft spot for DIY lo-fi folk ramblings. And by rights I should really like this. In fact, I more than like it, I love it. I know I’m beginning to sound like Louie Walsh after spotting a banana in the lead singers of a boy bands pocket and kidding himself that he is just pleased to see him, but this is rather lovely. It has all the ingredients of what makes lo-fi alt folk so great and that is songwriting talent: “pissing on the fire in your eyes” is a fine line, and can be found on my favourite track on this fine EP. All four tracks are excellent lovely DIY lo-fi and makes this an EP that I wish was an LP, and one I had in my collection.
Takuro Okada ‘The Near End, The Dark Night, The Country Line’
Album (Temporal Drift) 7th March 2025
This is the first album by Takuro Okada outside his own country of Japan, and one wonders why when an album such as “The Near End, The Dark Night, The Country Line” is so beautiful and comes like a breath of fresh air when spending an hour or so sifting through the oh so similar and unexciting power pop, indie rock that is currently clocking up my email inbox.
Takuro had an amazing skill of crafting gentle beguiling jazzy songs/instrumental pieces with just that touch of invention. The subtle fuzz/distorted guitar on the wonderful shimmering “Shadow” is simply mesmerising. There is a beauty and experimental flair at work that one does not come across every day; jazz, field music and ambient works combine to make this collection such a deep and rewarding listen.
Andrew Rumsey ‘Collodion’
Album (Gard du Nord) 28th February 2025
“Collodion” is a rather beautiful album indeed. Nine short well written acoustic pastoral folk tinged songs. Yes pastoral folk by a paster, or Bishop in this case, for Andrew Rumsey is indeed the Bishop of Ramsbury: whatever next?! Anyway, it is a fine album of love, life, hope and regret.
The whole album lasts less than 20 minutes, and if you want to spend an hour or so relaxing just listen to it three times in a row. It’s not an album you can get bored of, as a well written song is a thing one can never grow tired of, and Collodion is full of them.
Schizo Fun Addict ‘An Introduction To…’
Album (Fruits der Mer Records)
There are bands that light up your life; bands that enforce the knowledge that music is the greatest of arts; bands that bewitch and beguile you with a God given majesty; bands that can turn your stomach into twisted knots of excitement and just as easily untwist them with a calming ease. Schizo Fun Addict are one of these bands. I should write groups, for I’m old enough to remember when people used to ask who is your favourite group, and you would reply, The Beatles or The Beach Boys or The Smiths or The Kinks. I mention this as Schizo Fun Addict are worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as all of those classic groups.
Just listen to the guitar chiming timbre of “Fate Chaser”, you are whisked away to the golden hills and valleys of the Canyon in LA in the days before Charles Manson cast his shadow of evil. Or the pop sussed magic of the Schizo’s version of “In The Long Run”, a song that proves nothing is impossible, for as perfect as the original version is by The Carrie Nations from the Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls film, Schizo Fun Addict somehow manage trump it and make the perfect pop song even more perfect. And to prove that this is no fluke they do the same with The Mamas And Papas classic “Dedicated To The One I Love”, a song they smother in a pure heavenly warmth.
This thirty-seven-track compilation, An Introduction To Schizo Fun Addict, is an album that is a must have for any serious music lover: whether you are already a fan of the band and lucky enough to have their mostly released on ltd vinyl back catalogue or never have been lucky enough to hear or own any of their releases. If you are the latter: well welcome to the sound of your new favourite band; in an ideal world a band that be played on a daily basis on the biggest radio stations around the globe and would make the world seem that bit more special a more magical place to be.
Russ Spence ‘Phase Myself’
Album (Metal Postcard Records) 27th January 2025
I really like this album; it reminds me of what Squeeze would sound like if Chris Difford sang all the songs and had been shot from a cannon to a planet where Bowie’s Scary Monsters album is performed on a daily basis by law to people who eat their cabbage with a plastic fork and wear ill-fitting satin flares with just enough tightness around the crotch. For the power of Russ Spence’s mind and thoughts is a strange and wonderous thing.
Russ is of course lead vocalist with the marvellous Salem Trials, and this album occasionally drifts into the Trials territory as Andy Goz from the band features on guitar on some tracks: “Yeah God” especially. This is the kind of album one can imagine developing into a bit of a cult album over the years; it has the aura of a cult album one that will not be played on radio or written about but will be stumbled over and raved about by those who hear it in the oncoming years – a little like Russ’ namesake Skip Spence and his mighty OAR album -; and will inspire more future artist’s to try and capture their own brand of madness and smother it with super market brand brown sauce.
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years both me and the MC team have featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world: ones that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored, and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love or interest in. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to say thanks or show support, than you can now buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail
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