Monolith Cocktail Blog

A ROUNDUP OF REVIEWS FROM BRIAN ‘BORDELLO’ SHEA

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Heskey ‘Crack In The Mirror’

Do you like Teenage Fanclub and bands of tuneful guitar strum? If so you are going to enjoy this blissful pop song of tunesmithery; it has all the ingredients one would want for such a release; if it was fish and chips it would just have the right amount of salt and vinegar.

John Howard ‘Safety In Numbers/In The Light Of Fires Burning’
(Kool Kat Music)

The brand new single from John Howard is upon us and it is a double A-sided thing of nostalgic beauty, two brief glimpses of how songs where written and performed, with a pop eloquence that sadly seems mostly a thing of the past. To kick things off we have “Safety In Numbers”, a sublime pop ballad that brings to mind The Beach Boys in their Pet Sounds days; wonderful harmonies drift upon a sea of piano tranquility. The second little pop gem is “In The Light Of Fires Burning”, which again is another nostalgic gem a song that captures the magic and sadness of growing old whilst celebrating your youth and memories through the joys of pop song: A song worthy of Sedaka at his finest.

Liam Gallagher & John Squire ‘Just Another Rainbow’

I was expecting nonsense I will be honest, but was taken aback by just what an explosion of nonsense it was. We have John “I have all the Led Zep albums on vinyl, cd and cassette” Squire showing he knows all the chords, and he has six strings, and he is going to play everyone of them with as little subtlety as possible. He has seen rock school. He knows how it goes. Is it original? No, we have heard it all before. Is it good? No. Did I want the monstrosity to stop? Yes! Not to be outdone by John “I have all the Led Zep albums on vinyl cassette, cd and 8 track” Squire, we have Liam ‘I have done poo poo’s in my pants” Gallagher once again demonstrating his vocal prowess; the singing like he has just been told off by his mum vocal emoting. And to show that he is not going to be outdone by John “I have every Led Zep album on vinyl, cassette, cd, 8 track and download” Squire he decides to demonstrate how he knows the names of all the colours in the laugh out loud badness of the lyrics. I once wrote that the Oasis song “Little James” could be the worst song ever written by a grown up. Well, maybe not any longer. It is a close run thing. So for that, Squire and Gallagher should be proud.

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James P M Philips ‘Spite, Bile & Beauty’
(Turquoise Coal)

Punk, folk, rock and a medieval becoming strangeness all collide to bring us another album of psychedelic whimsy from the head and heart of James P M Phillips: an album of joy, sadness, humour and pain. Whether it be the quite wonderfully disturbingly jagged “My Head Is Full Of Rats” or the quite beautiful folk strum of “My New Friend”, James has his own unique way of making music and writing songs; dipping his own original thought patterns into a hybrid of musical genre hopping eccentricity. And it is pleasure to listen to an album of short snippets of musical madness and joy.

The Incurables ‘Inside Out & Backwards’
(Big Stir Records)

It does make me smile when middle-aged men sing about growing up, as The Incurables do on the first track ‘When I Grow Up’. As I well know, middle-aged men who play in bands never grow up; that is the power and magic of music and long may it continue.

The Incurables are a punk pop band that performs punk pop well, and at times they remind me of Green Day but without the annoying singer and with a more bubblegum sometimes New York Dolls feel, and some quite wonderful Batman bass riffs: in fact, some just wonderful bass riffs. This music is no longer going to change the world but sadly I cannot see any music anymore doing that, but The Incurables have their place and that place is in any pop punkers record collection.

Corduroy Institute ‘Take A Train To Manchester’

I have taken a train journey to Manchester many times in my life and none have been as enjoyable or as interesting as this, or indeed, as experimental – is it possible to take an experimental train journey I wonder? Anyway, the title track is a wonder: imagine Funkadelic being sucked into a video game whilst Delia Derbyshire juggled fruit. And from there we are taken on a long and dreamlike journey, calling at stops that are both rewarding and disturbing in a good way.

“[A] Girl Named Philosophy” is a bass heavy vacuum of Scott Walker like lust and mystery – just how much I miss that man and his artistry. And I could be wrong, but Scott could be a big influence on the excellently named Corduroy Institute: at least they are reading from the same book or singing from the same hymn sheet.

I love how the Corduroy Institute take jazz, pop, classical and funk and mold it into a warm expression of artistic splendicity; from at times sounding like Japan tuning up – not the band I might add, but the whole country -, and you opening your eyes and seeing life for the first time for what it is: full of love, hate, sadness and joy. An album of supreme aural wonder, and next time you take a train to Manchester soundtrack it with this.

Orchard Til You Fall Down
(Cruel Nature Records)

Punk rock is alive and well and living in Cruel Nature Records. Another ltd edition cassette delight of lo-fishness from the label that offers you all kinds of alternative delights; this time supplying us with ram jam bag of indie punk experimental joy. With mostly just guitar and drums, and occasional bass, and some fine vocals it reminds me at times of early Siouxsie and The Banshees. And, with all its beautiful post punk starkness, takes you back to an old dive of a small venue that was full of cheap booze, cig smoke and battered leather jackets and dreams of your youth when the world offered the chance to make a difference and the future was coloured in the shade of weekly music papers and John Peel on the radio and local bands blowing your minds on a weekly basis. Til You Fall Down is an album of old hopes remembered: a beauty of a release.

Charlie Butler ‘Wild Fictions’
(Cruel Nature Records) 1^st February 2024

Are you all fuzzed up and ready to take that trip to the local magic carpet store and fly your purchase home, but not first deciding to stop by the local fields to pick a few magic mushrooms to pop into your grannies soup and watch her explode into a explosion of rainbow colours, which Liam Gallagher will then tell you the names of as he is good like that – he knows all the names, he is a clever boy, it won’t be long before he’s been toilet trained. You then decide to soundtrack this event by popping the brand new cassette into your hi-fi that the postman has delivered riding on his old 70s vintage chopper bike; the cassette has been posted by some kind wizard who works at Cruel Nature Records, and you are more than delighted by the magic the tape emits; the sound of all your yesterday’s rolled into four slices of psychedelic keyboard frenzy that slow dances with some augmented guitar. Oh how the soup is warm and refreshing; like how your granny is warm and refreshing, her skin surfing with delight at every organ chime; a lovely of ladybirds sit outside your window marvelling at the aural majesty not heard since the golden days of the Spacemen 3 and those long summer days daisy hopping. The music is all that you hoped it would be, for music without hope is hopeless and this is anything but that; it is the cream cake among lesser mortals.

Fran Ashcroft ‘Songs That Never Were’
(Think Like A Key)

There is magic afoot, a warm kind of musical magic; a treasure trove of forgotten emotions that are plucked and streamed from the past 50 years and gathered together in the form of the greatest of artforms; songs that explode with a cheeky nod and a wink to our musical past, our musical heritage. Yes indeed, Fran Ashcroft has given us a strange and warm sounding album.

All the music that I’ve heard Fran has had a hand in producing is always steeped in a loving glow: From the excellent “Waiting For A Britpop Revival” – a song Luke Haines would sell his left arm to have written – to the McCartney like “I Believe In You” – a song worthy of the Pete Ham album “7 Park Avenue”.

There is a uniqueness about this album; a trueness and soul you do not come across often much in these days of music to be played on phones. These are songs that could have been written anytime over the last 50 or so years, with some quite beautiful melodies and great lyrics; songs made for and by a music lover…already one on my end of the year best list.

Cumsleg Borenail ‘…Plays The Beatles’

I am a huge Beatles fan and this album captures all the magic and experimental forward thinking music the Beatles recorded. These are some of the finest and well thought out and performed covers of well known classics; songs you can hear everyday by turning on the radio can eventually sound stale, but these have been reworked and reimagined to such a degree that they would have the avant-garde young 60s Macca waving his thumbs in delight. This is an album to be heard and cherished by all Beatles fanatics.