Canterbury - Heavy In The Day

 There are some albums in my collection that are timeless, purchased in one phase in my life but never removed from rotation. Others, like today's selection, remain forever linked to one point in time, conjuring memories of the age I was when I discovered it. Heavy In The Day by Canterbury is part of the fabric of 2012 for me; it's an album I listened to a lot at that point which slowly fell out of rotation as bands like them split up and I moved on. I saw Canterbury a total of 9 times between 2011 and 2013, first supporting The Blackout and then at their own tiny headline club shows. My memories of them are fond so I hope the album gives me that same fuzzy feeling. 

1. Heavy In The Day 🟢
A fade-in intro opens up to a mid-tempo number with lush vocal harmonies. Vocal duties in Canterbury were shared by the guitarist and bassist, Blink-182 style, so there are gorgeous moments throughout the album. Even as the title track this is an unlikely opener, all atmosphere and expanse like the clifftop landscape of the artwork - it's a sign that even though Canterbury spent most of their time supporting pop punk bands, there's more depth to their sound.

2. Something Better 🔵
A heavier, more raucous song kicks things off properly.  I can feel the crush of bodies in the pit when I hear this, the pounding drums and gang vocals give it an urgency that feels like clinging to the barrier while fans push to the front. There's something about the hugeness of the chords and vocal sounds that is reminiscent of the Spector Wall of Sound production - I'm sure Canterbury were fans of that American 1960s sound and it shows here despite the genre differences.

3. More Than Know 🔵
There are 4 songs on Heavy In The Day that I knew prior to the album's release, via a mix of seeing them live in late 2011-early 2012 and pre-album single releases. These songs are all sequenced together on the album and this is the first of them. Again the sound is huge and it has great melodies and backing vocals working together. Canterbury were really talented and underrated constructors of songs which shows here and also in their previous album which I find especially interesting lyrically. More Than Know is short and sweet, a slightly aggressive little package with a tiny guitar solo just to prove that they could do that sort of thing if they wanted.

4. Gloria 💜
Of all the songs on this album, Gloria is the song I remember most vividly from the band's live set; I looked forward to hearing it every time I saw them.  A subdued verse opens to a massive gorgeous chorus that I remember the crowds singing back to them; it's a beautiful love song that would have sounded perfect in huge arenas if they'd gotten the chance to play there. I played this song a lot at the time and it has big sentimental value to me, which might be why I rate it higher than the rest of the album, but I think it still holds up to my adult ears too. 

 5. Ready Yet? 🔵
One of the lyrical themes of Heavy In The Day is commentary on their lives as a band - making industry contacts, keeping up momentum, the task of writing an album, the boredom of hours and hours of travelling and hanging around... Ready Yet? illustrates that with lyrics about mistrust and having nothing to do, juxtaposing lyrics about waiting around with a short, fast-paced melody. It's effective not just as a hype song in a support band set but also in putting us into their shoes. Case in point, this album came out in summer 2012 but the video for Gloria, above, was released in early 2010, which shows how much struggle and work it was for them to fund and make this album.

6. Calm Down 🔵
This song opens with a super catchy bassline and then a really crisp clear vocal, made extra impactful by the absence of that wall of sound production. Again I have strong memories of live shows when I hear this; I want to be yelling the chorus in a packed venue. It has a long middle 8 section which kind of loses momentum for me but I can't deny the feeling of excitement and nostalgia I get from the big chorus.

7. Wrapped In Rainbows 🟢
The keyboard intro to this is another clue to their 60s influences - it's a little psychedelic, every-so-slightly Doorsy. Wrapped In Rainbows is another sweet love song, this time with a marching beat that opens into a big, heavy chorus. I think it would be more effective if it was one verse shorter but it's a nice song nonetheless.

8. She's A Flame 🔵
A proper ballad next, acoustic and soft-spoken. She's A Flame is another highlight of the album for me, I think it's really pretty and while they're good at the big rock songs, I like that they show off this side of themselves too. The chorus lyric is probably my favourite on the album: "where did you find me? Was I asleep? I was having that dream everything fell at my feet. You were there, you fell the same like you always do". A lot of their softer songs still bring in that big wave of sound at the choruses and in this case they hold out right up until the last chorus which makes for an effective contrast. 

9. Saviour 🔵
The screech of feedback takes us in to a faster song. I think this was a single and deservedly so, it's the sort of thing I would have wanted to hear on Kerrang Radio. It returns to that struggling-artist lyrical theme with lines about 'losing pounds' and 'wasting the day', set to a groovy rhythm and great lead and backing vocals. We get a proper guitar solo this time to add to the angst but this would have worked equally well as a mainstream-radio pop song. 

10. Drive. Ride. Drive. 🔵
Drive. Ride. Drive. sounds like a whole heap of different My Chemical Romance songs rolled into one - it has the guitar sound and 'na na na' intro of something from Danger Days mixed with the pace of a song like Give 'Em Hell Kid, so it ought to have been huge at this point in time. There's so much energy here that if you were to drive to this, you'd be at risk of breaking the speed limit. I think the problem for Canterbury, which shouldn't be a problem, was that they could do fast-paced rock songs like this but they also wrote the sort of gorgeous ballads that were better suited to indie radio. In the decade or so since, we've been a lot more open to crossover in our music but 2012 was the tail-end of the era where rock kids liked rock music and pop kids were put off it - I wonder whether things would have been different for them if they'd just come along a couple of years later.

11. Garden Grows 🟢
I forgot about this song, which is a shame as the guitar part is so good! Again it has a retro vibe but applied to a modern rock context. I think the flaw here is that they do 2 verses before going into the chorus which makes it less memorable. When they finally let loose on the chorus proper, it sounds huge, but it's just a little bit too late. The song has a real end-of-album sound - it's expansive with one of those big messy outros where everyone is going all out (for too long). It closes with a riff that I wanted to recognise as a motif calling back to earlier in the album but I wasn't able to pinpoint what it was. Mostly the song makes me feel a bit sad that they didn't get to be more successful.

12. Seen It All 🟢
Following that big end-of-album outro, the actual last track is slow and atmospheric with strings and soft harmonies. Mood-wise, it's not unlike a Radiohead song; it's floaty and restrained, returning to the mood that the title track hinted at which isn't really replicated anywhere in the middle. There's a big crescendo 3 minutes in which was a make or break moment for the song, and I think they just manage to get away with it although it leads into an instrumental part. The final chorus mixes ethereal vocals with that wall of sound production again which borders on shoegaze. Both Garden Grows and Seen It All are a bit of a change of pace from the short, sharp rock songs earlier in the album - I suspect that as they wrote it over a couple of years, their sound was developing faster than they were able to release music so there's a mix of new slower stuff and live favourites.

Heavy In The Day is an album I hadn't sat down and played through for years but I definitely still think that it's a good collection of songs even if it's not perfect. I feel that Canterbury are the lost heroes of the early-2010s British rock scene - they had real songwriting prowess which should have brought them fame, but instead they're a time capsule, a footnote in the nostalgic recollections of emo teens of the time. They deserve better and I hope the members are doing well, wherever they are now. 

Music Review: 7"s #817-820

 This week we're complying with the wishes of Marty McFly and going back to 1985.  This week's selections are all from the very middle of the 80s and 3 out of 4 were big hits that I'm already familiar with.  
Sidenote - I usually write about 5 singles at a time but #816 turned out to be a 12" single - I'm On Fire/Born In The USA by Bruce Springsteen - which is stored away in a box of 12" records that didn't interest me enough to keep within reach, so today there will only be 4.  The Boss will get his day eventually as the Born In The USA album is on my shelf so I'll cover both songs at some point. 

#817 - The Coward Brothers - The People's Limousine 🟢
I've never heard of The Coward Brothers so I had no idea what to expect from this single.  The sleeve doesn't give away much either; it's striking but plain (and sticky... it has left-over sticker residue stuck to the front).  Best-case scenario: some old-school dance/hip-hop.  Worst case: novelty.  My best guess, however, was that it was going to be country-leaning and I was right about that.  It's got that snare beat that sounds like a train coming down the tracks, clean guitar and bass sounds, and a classic verse-chorus structure with back-up vocals joining each chorus.  It's very American sounding but rather than the classic Southern twang to the vocals, they're more New Wave influenced which adds a modern twist.  I don't listen to much country but this isn't bad.

b/w They'll Never Take Her Love From Me 🟢
We have a slower-paced ballad on the b-side which again follows a typical country sound and structure with its two-note bassline and harmonising vocals.  I found myself swaying along to this and picturing it being performed on stage in a big barn with tables set up, occupied by people in checked shirts and cowboy hats.  It's a sad song about the 'her' in the title choosing someone else, but it's still a pleasant sound to listen to. 

#818 - Sister Sledge - Frankie 🟡
It's universally accepted that this song is bad so there's two possible reasons why my dad has it in his collection: either it was bought during his 'buy a copy of every number 1' phase (somehow this was top of the charts for 4 weeks) or someone bought it for him because he shares a name with the titular character.  The single is in a very 80s pink and blue sleeve which gives it a tacky girly look.  I think they're aiming for a throwback to the classic girl group sound and look but it has horribly cheesy 80s drum machines.  They even echo the "down, down" backing vocal from Leader Of The Pack, but this is not The Shangri-Las.  Nile Rodgers produced the record which ought to be a good sign but this is not his best work - it's really flat-sounding, the opposite of Spector's Wall Of Sound production.  The chorus repeats the phrase "Frankie, do you remember me?" but I have already forgotten the tune. 

b/w Hold Out Poppy 🟠
More 80s drum machines, accompanied by what I presume is Rodgers playing the bassline.  This sounds like it wants to be gay club dance music but it's all rhythm and no top line so it feels unfinished.  The group vocal gives this big Bananarama energy, which itself is not a compliment, but this is somehow worse because at least Stock Aitken Waterman would have made a convincing hi-NRG single out of this.  It almost gets a pass but it really grinds my gears how the Americans pronounce "hold out Paah-pay" at the end of almost every line. 

#819 - Dire Straits - Money For Nothing 🟡
This is one of those songs that you always hear on TV shows about the 80s because it references MTV and the consumerism of the era. The sleeve features a boxy, square CRT TV which was probably modern in 1985 and to be fair, it looks effective on the cover.  On the back there's dates for a massive 2 month UK/Euro tour listed.  I can't imagine a band touring the UK for a whole month now, can you?  They included 2 dates in Deeside and 2 in Shepton Mallet (I don't even know where those places are), 7 nights in London and 3 in Edinburgh (Edinburgh! Not Glasgow! What a concept!).  I just checked Setlist.fm to see the venue size and they weren't arenas, which is fair, but this was less than 6 months after 11 nights at Wembley, breaking in the middle for Live Aid.  The dates on the back of the sleeve include 3 weeks without a day off which is also mad and I'm calling the 1985 union to have a word.
Anyway, Money For Nothing.  I've always found Dire Straits pretentious with long songs, but this is their attempt to do mainstream rock.  After a mélange of 80s drums, the way that the riff cuts through sounds so good - definitely well-produced.  I get their point about Yuppiedom being distasteful but I think their use of the f-slur throughout the second verse is just as gross.  The song is decently catchy but I don't think it's anything special and it's remembered because of its political commentary rather than for the music itself.

b/w Love Over Gold (Live) 🟡
One thing I know about Dire Straits from my parents owning some of their LPs is that the live album they put out only has 2-3 songs to a side which means their songs are far too long; The Ramones could get through 10 songs in that time.  For that reason, I wasn't looking forward to this but they've kept it to a reasonable single length here.  A live b-side is probably a smart move when they're promoting a tour too but it's very clear what kind of act they are even with a short song.  Knopfler feels like a reluctant vocalist - he's half mumbling and I get the impression that he just wanted to play his guitar and produce but the band needed someone to step up and be the singer.  It leads to a combination between musicianliness and Bob Dylan's tuneless delivery; Prog Dylan, if you will.  Aside from a lot of whistling towards the end, there's no crowd noise on the live recording which makes the motivation for this recording obvious; they're selling competence, not entertainment. I pity the boring fuckers who wanted to see this for 11 nights at Wembley. 

#820 - Billy Idol - White Wedding Part 1 & 2 (Shot Gun Mix) 🟢
As we all know, Billy Idol is sexy, so I'm immediately sold on the sleeve which features him dressed in leather and chains, midway between a pout and a sneer.  I'm also a big fan of his logo which appears prominently on the front and back.  White Wedding, like Money For Nothing, makes for relevant incidental music so it's reasonably common to hear this accompanying any wedding-themed TV moments.  It's made up of hard rock drums and guitars with a subdued vocal, which he keeps reined in until the 2nd chorus.  You can tell he's an old punk with rock-n-roll influences by the way he sings with a curled lip.  Even after he lets rip on the "it's a nice day to... START AGAIN" chorus, there's still a feeling that we're building up to something which remains unresolved at the point where he's yelling his way through the closing fade-out.  I was looking forward to this song but this mix is too restrained to make for an effective 7" pop single. 

b/w Mega Idol Mix - Flesh For Fantasy/Hot In The City 🟡
The metal guitar with electronic drums which opens this sounds ahead of its time but then they add a staccato funk guitar part which is horrid.  It's a megamix so I expected it to be full of excitement but instead the intro part repeated for far too long before Idol's voice comes in singing the chorus. "We want Flesh! For Fantasy!" is such an evocative lyric that it's criminal of them to wait so long to drop it in and then use it so little.  The 'mix' that the title eludes to isn't much of a mix at all; rather than fade naturally it switches abruptly to an entirely different-sounding song which again sticks with an instrumental for so long that it loses any excitement it might have held.  The trademark feature of a Billy Idol record is his trash-glam voice which is underused on both halves of this mix.  My impression here is that he's trying to break new ground in the heavy rock/punk genre by finding a way to adapt it to the 12" club mix style that electronic music was doing so well, but unfortunately he's not got it right here.

I'm a bit disappointed not to have uncovered any gems this week - who knew that Billy Idol could be so boring?! - but at least this was an eclectic group of singles.  On to the next one.

Music Review: #172 - Summer 2016

 Staying in similar territory to last week, where I wrote about January 2015, but my life felt quite different by Summer '16.  By this point I was established in my job and overall pretty happy with how things were going.  Will my music taste reflect that?  Let's see...

1. Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Born To Run 🎀
Hearing this song kick in gives me an instant rush of pleasure.  It's Springsteen's classic sped up and sounding even more triumphant than the original.  It's a little tongue-in-cheek, being sung by an obviously gay frontman, but the way that the instrumentation gallops along like a machine makes me want to take off on the adventure that the song promises.  It's bold and powerful, and in my eyes, the superior version of Born To Run.  In 2016 I fell in love with the first Frankie Goes To Hollywood album and this song still thrills me - a strong start.

2. The Last Shadow Puppets - Miracle Aligner 💜
I've said it before but Alex Turner doing his Euro-crooner thing just makes me melt.  This sounds like it should soundtrack a movie set on the Riviera; it's lush and palatial and sun-soaked, the smell of suntan lotion and expensive perfume mixed with sea air.  I love the hushed vocal and retro guitar sounds.  Do I understand what the lyrics are about?  No, I've never taken the time to think about it - I don't think I need to. 

3. The 1975 - Sex (Acoustic) 🔵
The 1975 were my favourite band of 2016 and I was still in my 'honeymoon phase' in the summer.  This version of the song sounds so, so different to the one on the album with its capoed arpeggios and Matty singing the lyrics in that barely-comprehensible indie boy accent with an added layer of melancholy.  With the addition of a synthesised string part played long chords to underpin the whole thing, it turns a big emo song into a reflective ballad.  Sex was the first The 1975 song I loved and the acoustic version puts a different spin on it that's no less beautiful. 

4. Cocteau Twins - Cherry-Coloured Funk 💜
We are now entering a dream world.  Where Matty was barely-compehensible, Elizabeth Fraser is entirely incomprehensible in the way that she sings - it might be English but it's impossible to tell, and it's like being in another universe.  That shoegazey guitar part is hypnotic, like being taken by the gentle waves on a calm sea.  Cocteau Twins are one of the greatest bands ever to come out of Scotland; their beauty is unsurpassed.

5. One Direction - Temporary Fix 🔵
Boybands aren't usually my thing and I was never a 'Directioner' but Spotify offered me this and it's quite edgy and sexual, especially if their audience is supposed to be young girls.  It has the sort of rock drums and suggestive vocals that wouldn't sound out of place on an album of the era by someone like All Time Low.  It sounds like a Harry Styles number, the sort of thing that would fit in on his first album, so I was surprised to find that Niall wrote it with some other pop songwriters and that it wasn't an outtake from an indie band that they sold to 1D.

6. Jefferson Airplane - Somebody To Love 🔵
A 60s psychedelic classic.  I think Grace Slick is so cool - I read her autobiography last year and she described how she and her boyfriend started a band with another couple just because she wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life, saw some friends doing well with their band, and thought it looked like a fun job.  I always find it interesting when people talk about choosing music as a career rather than claiming it was some sort of 'calling'.  I'm glad she picked this career because she has such a commanding, powerful voice.  This is my favourite song of theirs; it makes me want to dance and perfectly encapsulates what I imagine it was like to be young during the Summer Of Love.

7. The 1975 - Milk 🔵
Milk is a hidden track turned fan favourite, a rowdy little emo-pop song about drugs which I love to hear live.  They always play it really fast and it's a short song with just two verses and choruses so it's a perfect burst of energy midway through the set.  The combination of simple riff, quiet verses and wild chorus are magic.

8. Cocteau Twins - Pearly Dewdrops' Drops 💜
Some more Cocteau magic.  This song sounds like the sun coming out to chase away an April shower.  The component parts of waltz rhythm, toy piano twinkles, washes of guitar and dreamy vocals combine to create something soothing and uplifting.  It's lovely. 🥰

9. Purity Ring - Begin Again 🔵
This has that 2010s echoey EDM production which I don't love, but I fell for this song because her voice is so, so pretty.  The chorus, and in particular the way she sings 'oh darling', hooked me in.  I think the style is starting to sound really dated; it's got that dubstep build up and drop with keys and heavy beat, but with an indie pop song welded on top.  It's too delicate, vocally, for the club, but too traditional in its EDM elements to be a cool indie record.  I rate it highly for the singer and not the backing. 

10. Nicole Dollanganger - Nebraska 🔵
I've written a couple of times already about Nicole's lyrical style and themes and this song is typical of that.  She plays a simple two-chord guitar part which matches the sweetness of her voice, and pairs that with a lyric about a boy who kills his girlfriend's parents before taking her off on a killing spree which ends only with his execution.  I always assumed it was fictional - a Bonnie & Clyde for the mass-shooter generation - but upon looking it up I've discovered it's the true story of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate in 1958.  Nicole closes the song with "and sometimes I feel we're heading down the same road" which is a chilling ending; no longer just a ballad about the past but now a cautionary tale to entertain her own lover.

11. Blood Diamonds ft. Grimes - Phone Sex 🔵
Opening with synth steel drums (one of my favourite instruments), this would be a fairly conventional dance song if it weren't for the inclusion of Grimes.  She sings in her usual fragile femme voice and adds some unusual sounds into the mix to keep this interesting.  The end result is something more ethereal than the dance music which was in the charts and therefore it hasn't dated as much and still sounds fresh.

12. The 1975 - The City (Acoustic) 🔵
This is called an acoustic version but it's entirely synth-based - it's just a sparse and slowed-down arrangement of the song.  Matty is singing in his melancholy boy voice again as opposed to the knowing smile that The City is usually performed with.  It's atmospheric and a different take on the song which is pretty but doesn't rival the album version.

13. Édith Piaf - Milord 🔵
I've written about Milord already so I won't go into depth again, but it really stands out here.  Following on from the synthesisers and slow acoustindie, the intro to Milord sounds light-hearted and quaint.  I think Piaf works better for me in the context of a playlist than as part of an album - she really shines in contrast to the modern shiny pop.  Milord is a real romp of a song that is brought down by its inclusion on a 12" of ballads. 

14. Cults - Go Outside 🔵
Hearing this song during a pandemic makes me really sulky.  The xylophone part which opens this song and then runs through it is a really cute motif, almost like a jingle.  The song has a 70s rhythm mixed with modern vocal production and I think it's pretty but a bit sad - I think the lyric is about trying to convince a depressed partner to get up and join you outside, and eventually giving up?  Either way, it makes for nice advertising music.

15. Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot - Bonnie & Clyde 🔵
That weird animalistic/yodelling noise at the end of every line is very annoying, but it's something to cling to when you don't speak French so can't use the lyrics to work your way through the song.  I don't know what the couple are saying but have always presumed they're playing the couple and telling their story (running the lyrics through a translator has proved that theory to be correct).  It's a nice ballad, they sound a little bored which adds to the mood of doomed lovers.  The other weird thing for me is hearing them repeat the couple's names, which are American, in a French language song.  I do think it's cool to hear icons portraying icons though.

16. FKA Twigs - In Time 🔵
If I was to pick my favourite modern-day singer it might be FKA Twigs.  I think her voice is perfect, the way she sings in her very English accent with such fragility which is combined with heavy-handed beats and world music influences - it's a fascinating sound with so much going on.  I love that she grew up adoring punk stars like Poly Styrene and Anabella Lwin but didn't go in that direction, she just took what she needed from them attitude-wise and built something modern.  Musically it does sound like the mid-10s which is receding in the rear-view mirror now, but her voice is timeless. 

17. Amy Winehouse - Tears Dry On Their Own 🟢
Like Twigs, Amy is another timeless talent.  This sounds classic due to the retro production and old-school jazz sound of her voice.  Tears Dry On Their Own is a decent Amy Winehouse song but it's not one of my favourites; it's very loose so I find it hard to hold on to this one and really live in it.  

18. Édith Piaf - Padam, Padam 🟢
Again, I covered this when I wrote about The World Of Piaf.  This plays an interesting contrast with Amy Winehouse as they're both mid-century sounds but where Amy is loose and jazzy, Édith is controlled and powerful. 

19. Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls 🔵
A very different mood, from a vintage orchestra with passionate vocals to cold synthpop and disinterested spoken lyrics.  I love the sound of West End Girls, it's somehow both detached and soulful.  "Sometimes you're better off dead, there's a gun in your hand and it's pointing at your head" is one hell of an opening line.  The synth choral and brass instrumental part is very dated now and another verse would have been preferable to this break.  I'm taken in by the way Neil Tennant almost raps this song - I'm not saying it's hip hop but it has political spoken words set to a repetitive beat with sampling throughout...

20. Milk Teeth - Swear Jar 🔵
A rare pop punk number for 2016, with a slow vocals-and-chords intro opening up to the full band for the second verse.  It's the third of the trio of songs on this disc about young people running off and getting into trouble but there's no murder in this one, just second thoughts; it reminds me of the TV show The End Of The F**king World.  It has that last-song-on-the-album contemplative feeling to it and I wish there was one more verse as I'd like to have heard more of it.

21. The Crystals - He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss) 🔵
The bass intro to this song is instantly recognisable.  I am in two minds over whether to refer to this as a 'love song', it's obviously incredibly sad and a lot of people say that it shouldn't exist at all as it glorifies domestic violence but I think it's healthy to have this sort of perspective out there.  Subject matter aside, it's a decent sounding 60s girl group song performed by a group of professionals, it just isn't as uplifting as Then He Kissed Me.

22. Death Spells - Why Is Love So Disastrous? 🟢
What an unsettling intro this has - a sort of horror movie spoken word sample.  By 2016 I was moving away from hardcore music but the sound of these frantic drums makes me long for a packed venue with a wall of death and everyone throwing themselves around.  It ends with a fade-out which sounds wrong, like it's a sample and not the full song (I think it might be faded out before the DJ starts talking).  It's not the best of its genre but not bad. 

Looking back at this list, I'm not sure why I was so obsessed with songs about escapism and violence at this point in time... I think it's coincidental as I don't remember purposefully looking for that sort of thing, although I suppose I was seeing Robbers by The 1975 and its allusions to Bonnie & Clyde and True Romance and all of that.  Unlike Winter 2015, when I was listening to mostly chart pop, this is a mixture of alternative music and old stuff.  The music which was going for a modern sound now sounds very much like a product of its time, whereas the songs taking influence from past movements have survived better.  Not a bad mix overall - nothing that I'd be averse to hearing again - but most of it fits the "good songs that I'm happy to hear but not favourites" category.