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Category: Music Review

  • Bill Coleman: Black & Blue EP Review

    bill colemanBill Coleman has worked his socks off. He’s been on the Irish music scene for a while, honing and perfecting his sound. I happened to stumble upon a performance on Saturday last in the Mercantile on Dame St, Dublin and the man himself gave me a copy of his Black & Blue EP. So what’s it like ?

    Well, Bill Coleman is more than just a singer songwriter. Live, solo, he has enough energy and stage presence to knock four or five members of any band into touch. ‘I want you to know’ shows this energy from its opening kick drum ‘oh eh’ refrain. Coleman has cleverly combined the live feel of a band with electronic noises and effects. The song has lots of lyrics and Coleman impresses with his ability to not make the track sound overcrowded or confining. The track seems to keep building up more and more until the last notes. Cracker.

    Crossfire has a more minimalist style of production, again Coleman uses his vocal hooks to build up the track. He has a knack of writing songs that really suit and bring out the best of his vocals. Church of Second Chances builds from an electronic drumbeat and showcases Coleman’s voice and his lyric writing ability.

    Last track on the EP is ‘Welcome to the Breakdown’ (Joe’s No Handbag Disko Remix), this totally messes with people’s perception of what a singer songwriter is. This track could fully complete the acknowledgement that Bill Coleman is an electronic artist who writes great music and just happens to play acoustic guitar when he does it.

    Bill Coleman just keeps getting better and better. I could listen to this all day.

    http://bcoleman.com/

  • Kate Walsh: Peppermint Radio

    Kate Walsh Peppermint Radio is Kate Walsh’s fourth album and sees the British singer songwriter take on well known UK songs, break them down and give them a twist. Walsh takes on Blur, EMF and Eurythmics to name a few, in this piano led odyssey and features songs which have influenced Walsh’s musical life. The album has a delicate air, as Walsh’s vocals are interwoven with atmospheric harmonies and minimalist instrumentation.

    Walsh has taken on a huge task to convert the listening public to her versions of these well known songs. Sometimes it works really well, sometimes not quite as well. Prefab Sprout’s ‘When Love Breaks Down’ starts with an airy vocal effect and gives Walsh another shot at being featured on Grey’s Anatomy. The track is not as well know as some of the others on the album, maybe that’s why it works.

    Surprise number one has to be ‘Unbelievable’, EMF’s 1990 hit. Despite there being other versions of this, Walsh’s version takes the track reworks the overall arrangement so as only the lyrics are familiar. Very Clever.

    Walsh’s whispery vocals on Lullaby try to echo Robert Smith’s on The Cure’s original but its not quite there. There are, though, some great wind up toy sounds throughout the track. Walsh’s tries to put her individual stamp on each track but Blur’s ‘Beetlebum’ is immediately recognisable and is although it builds up towards the end, lacks a killer punch.

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  • The Saw Doctors: Takin’ The Train EP Review

    saw doctors takin the train
    I’ve never been the biggest fan of The Saw Doctors, they always seemed a little too Irish for me. Saying that though, it’s twenty years since the mighty ‘I Useta Love her’ and they’re still going strong.

    Taken from the album ‘The Saw Doctors…Further Adventures’, the ‘Takin’ The Train’ EP is a great reintroduction to the band. Lead single, ‘Takin’ The Train’ is a midtempo folk rock track and once the unmistakeable vocals of Davy Carton kick in, you know it’s The Saw Doctors. The band have always seemed to base their tracks on stories of Irish life. This is no different, as the song tells of the confines of living and loving in a small town.

    It’s a melodic track with a muted lead guitar sound. They have definitely updated their distinct ‘Saw Doctors’ sound with clever production and a musical break and ‘oh oh’ refrain makes the track sound huge. You’ll hear loads of it on the radio.

    The slower tempo-ed, ‘Be Yourself’ is bound to be a great singalong track while the ‘Hazard’ is an upbeat rock track. Although the band could be classed as a folk rock band there are moments throughout the EP where they veer into a more mainstream indie.

    ‘Last Call’ starts with a drum and piano intro and features thoughtful lyrics and tender vocals. The addition of Eímhín Craddock on drums seems to have given the band a new lease of life. Craddock has three co-writes on the EP and maybe its this new blood that seems to make The Saw Doctors still relevant on the Irish music scene. Either way we’ll be hearing a lot more of them going on these tracks.

  • TJ: Love Letters from Cyberspace Review

    Love Letters from Cyberspace

    I better get this out of the way. Yes, TJ is German. Yes he makes electronic music. Yes he looks like a drummer in a metal band. No, he doesn’t sound like Kraftwerk.

    TJ has been living in Ireland since 2000 and ‘Love letters from Cyberspace’ is his 12th album. It seems that TJ is influenced by 80’s electronic acts and has a definite euro feel to it but there’s nothing wrong with that.

    The tracks are musically melodic and well produced for the genre. Overall the lyrics seems quite confessional and a little sad even. As the album title suggests ‘Love Letters from Cyberspace’ these seem like unwritten letters to a (ex)lover. Interesting concept.

    The lyrics don’t take away from the music though, TJ good a good job but I’d love to hear what female vocals, an octave higher would sound like. The album veers towards the trance side of electronica at times and could quite easily go into soundtrack mode.

    Its a good well paced album. Key Tracks: The melodic poppy ‘You’ve Come This Far’ and the pleaful of ‘Please Love Me’ and reminiscent ‘Nothing’.

    http://www.tj-music.com/

    This was written for MusicReviewUnsigned