Sounds Like Now #10 | Brand New Brand New
WORD UP. We were moving house and got lost down a couch. It’s been a strange few weeks, huh? Daphne & Celeste (yep, them) returning with a shockingly damn good art-pop effort, the awful Madonna/Drake fuss about absolutely nothing and everyone losing their shit over Kurt Cobain again.
BUT NEVER MIND ALL THAT BECAUSE…
SONG OF THE WEEK
Brand New – ‘Mene’
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Brand. fucking. New. are back. It’s been a long six years, or longer if, like me, you found Daisy to be a rather unsatisfactory follow-up to The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, but Jesse Lacey and co are once again shredding and shouting and all that good stuff. ‘Mene’, having previously debuted to shocked and hysterical concert-goers, finds Brand New snarky as ever but in a more jaunty fashion. More of this is fine, guys…
BEST OF THE REST
Villagers – ‘Everything I Am Is Yours’
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Taken from the winsome Darling Arithmetic, ‘Everything I Am Is Yours’ catches Conor O’Brien in delicate and quite excellent form. A shame that the video is so very on-the-nose but you can’t have everything, I guess…
Alias Empire – ‘Home In A Week’
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Despite their penchant for the energetic, the best parts of Alias Empire’s sophomore album saw the Dublin outfit adopt a more pensive, patient approach. Comeback single – from forthcoming album Focus – ‘Home In A Week’ is more in this vein and it’s pretty damn beguiling for it. Strong work on the video from Ciara Corrigan, too.
Mew – ‘Witness’
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Mew go all Interpol-lite. It’s a damn sight better than whatever the fuck ‘Satellites’ was aiming for, anyway.
Roisin Murphy – ‘Exploitation’
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Disorienting as fuck yet strangely engaging. Nice work, Miss Murphy.
Liza Flume – ‘Sheets’
[sound[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/199649625" params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166" iframe=”true” /]p class="p1">Dublin-via-Sydney chanteuse Liza Flume returns with a new three-track EP entitled Morning Light. The minimalistic ‘Sheets’ is her finest work yet.
ALSO OUT
Spector – ‘Bad Boyfriend’
[iframe id[iframe id=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/0s7iuLkVflo”]re like BAD SONG LOL! Ah not really, I just wanted to say that. It’s not all that good though, which is a pity as ‘All The Sad Young Men’ showed some promise for Spector’s follow-up to the middling, almost prophetically-titled Enjoy It While It Lasts. ‘Bad Boyfriend’ would have fit right in there.
‘NOPE’ OF THE WEEK
Mumford & Sons – ‘The Wolf’
[iframe id[iframe id=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/wRgJZFpoBxg”]ass="p1">There appears to be some FEVERED DEBATE amongst Mumford & Sons’ fans (imagine being stuck amongst a cluster of those mutants) as to whether the live version of this track is better than the studio edition. I’ve not heard the studio take and will be doing everything in my power to avoid it so let’s weigh in on the above: it’s rubbish. If you find The Gaslight Anthem to be a touch too raucous for your blood, you may dig it. Gutted for you if so.
