Comeback Album of the Year: Shed Seven

There’s been a lot of discussion in the last couple of months about which Britpop legend has made the best album in 2017, Liam Gallagher or Noel Gallagher. But what everyone seems to be missing from the question is the inclusion of Shed Seven.

Shed Seven actually reformed ten years ago in 2007 having broken up in 2003, however 2017 saw the release of their first album since 2001’s ‘Truth Be Told’ in the form of ‘Instant Pleasures’.

The immediately enjoyable single ‘Room In My House’ and the vibrant bright red album cover marked the album launch campaign, with probably one of the most visually striking covers of the year.

Shed Seven have toured many a time in the last ten years and played to big crowds at festivals so it was little surprise to find they still had an audience to release an album to after a 16 year gap. But what was more of a surprise was the sheer size of the audience.

A Number 8 chart placing in the UK Charts and a Number 6 in Scotland helped illustrate just how big the band still are. This was followed up by a massive UK Tour which had largely sold out months in advance, including some cities like Glasgow where the band were playing more than one night. To top it all off the band recently announced a huge show headlining the Castlefield Bowl in Manchester next summer back by one of my favourite bands Reverend & The Makers and The Twang, the biggest in the band’s history! Not bad for a band who had, in the eyes of some, been away for so long.

So now we’ve established there’s still an audience for the band, let’s take a look at the actual album they released. The 12 track, 51 minute album kicks off with the single ‘Room In My House’, which builds up with a chant of ‘whoa oh oh oh oh oh’ until Rick Witter comes in with a trademark vocal to really kick off the album. A very strong, gripping opening track really setting the tone for the album. ‘Nothing To Live Down’ picks up the tempo even further in the form of a song you just know is going to be a live favourite in the style of the classic ‘Bully Boy’.

‘It’s Not Easy’ is up next and is arguably even better than the first two songs. When Rick builds up to the crescendo of ‘You knock me for six with your spellbinding tricks, that’s how you get your kicks, It’s not easy’ you just know this is a band back on top form. ‘Said I’m Sorry’ keeps up the quality with a message we’ve all said many times before the spiky ‘Victoria’ rides in. On first listen of the album this song gripped me right away, a properly exciting, entertaining tune.

But the masterpiece of the album is up next, ‘Better Days’. One of the best songs of 2017 and one of the best ever Shed Seven songs. It’s an absolute anthem and the 2017 tour has proved that fans are already placing it alongside the iconic ‘Chasing Rainbows’. Seriously if you like Shed Seven (or similar bands) and haven’t heard this song, you’re missing out.

The double-punch of energetic rockers ‘Enemies & Friends’ and ‘Star Crossed Lovers’ are up next, keeping the standard up. A gospel backing floating along nicely along with some brass on the large-scale ballad ‘Hang On’ which picks up where ‘Better Days’ left off. The bridge from 3 and a half minutes in this song proves to be one of the musical highlights of the album before one more triumphant chorus saunters in. The immediately striking ‘Butterfly On The Wheel’, taking us back to Alexander Pope’s 1735 quote “Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?” Not the first time this quote has been reference by Britpop legends!

The penultimate track ‘People Will Talk’ is possibly the poppiest song on the record with an easy to sing a long chorus. The song is undoubtedly good fun, with great use of instrumental backing to supplement vocals at the end of lines during the verses. While this is not necessarily one of the strongest tracks on the album the one that proceeds it is. Closer ‘Invincible’ is probably my second favourite song on the album with a classic Shed Seven sound. Musically the song is quite chilled, with a stylish guitar line backing a chanted vocal by Witter. I think this is my favourite ever closing track from a Shed Seven album.

This caps off a very strong comeback album for Shed Seven, one has has proved to be one of the best albums of 2017. ‘Instant Pleasures’ contains some excellent songs which will go down very welcome in next summer’s massive Castlefield Bowl show.

I haven’t touched upon the second disc of the Deluxe Edition of the album, but I would urge fans of the band to pick up this version rather than the Standard Edition. There are four very good songs on here plus three demos, including a beautiful version of ‘Better Days’ which is worth it alone, and finally three remixes. 10 songs for a second disc is well worth spending a few extra pounds!

Liam Gallagher vs. Noel Gallagher: the Post-Oasis Battle for the Media and Fans

Since Oasis split up in August 2009, when Noel Gallagher quit the band after an argument with his brother Liam, the Gallagher brothers have walked quite different paths. Noel went solo and created Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, which despite the name suggesting the formation of a band became a solo project for Noel, accompanied with different musicians depending on the album and tour. Meanwhile, Liam, Gem Archer, Andy Bell and Chris Sharrock went on to form a new band, Beady Eye, along with Kasabian guitarist Jay Mehler.

In February 2011, Beady Eye struck first and released their debut album, ‘Different Gear, Still Speeding’, which was a mixed bag of a debut and received mixed reviews to reflect this. There was great tracks on this album, such as ‘Kill For A Dream’, ‘The Beat Goes On’ and ‘The Roller’, written by Andy Bell (x2) and Gem Archer respectively. Liam’s songs unfortunately were not as good as those written by his former Oasis bandmates.

Noel on the other hand released his debut album ‘Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ in October 2011, with 10 tracks all written by the man himself. This album received more positive reviews and included some strong tracks like ‘If I Had A Gun’, ‘The Death of You and Me’ and live favourite ‘AKA… What a Life!’

Not only was Noel’s debut the better album of the two, all of the songs were written by him. Noel had won Round 1 and became established as the media darling of the pair.

Various publications used Noel’s success to have a dig at Liam and, in turn, Beady Eye. This continued to widen the divide between the two brothers but also boosted publicity for both acts with constant barbs between the two appearing in the media. That summer Beady Eye headlined the NME Stage at Reading and Leeds while NGHFB sub headlined T In The Park and V Festival to the newly reformed (and heroes of both brothers) The Stone Roses.

Just over two years later, Beady Eye returned with their second record, ‘BE’, which introduced new sounds not previously heard in Oasis or Beady Eye work. This gained the band some new fans and some interested listeners. Lead singer ‘Flick of the Finger’ was a genuinely intriguing piece of work, with a strong lead vocal by Liam Gallagher. Unfortunately again, the album as a whole did not live up to this standard. Again, reviewers took the chance, seemingly with glee to criticise Liam and Beady Eye. Unlike 2011 Noel did not release an album in the same year. Interestingly though, one of the bonus tracks of ‘BE’ titled ‘The World’s Not Set in Stone’ proved to be arguably the best Liam-written song of the Beady Eye era but received little attention. In October 2014, Liam Gallagher confirmed Beady Eye had split up. While he still received significant media attention as an individual, musically he had become ignored.

‘Chasing Yesterday’, the second NGHFB album was released in February 2015 with the Blur sound-alike single ‘In the Heat of the Moment’, an interesting turn from the former Oasis man given the past rivalry of Blur and Oasis, now long gone! Whilst not receiving quite as positive reviews as his first record the album still was generally well received and spawned some of Noel’s most exciting work in years in the shape of ‘You Know We Can’t Go Back’ and ‘Lock All the Doors’ along with epics such as ‘The Dying of the Light’ and the Johnny Marr-featuring ‘Ballad of the Mighty I’.

Also in 2015 Liam had appeared in a pub signing a new song called ‘Bold’ which sounded like it had real promise, would it ever see the light of day on a record?

Check out the video here:

Bold Live in an Irish pub

Luckily it did! In 2017, this year of course, Liam released his debut solo record, ‘As You Were’, taken from the phrase he used to sign off many of his tweets. The album featured many co-writes with songwriters including Greg Kurstin and Andrew Wyatt. Between them, they created by far the strongest record Liam had released since leaving Oasis. Whilst there was much publicity about the co-writers it was clear that Liam was writing better songs than ever before. Only ‘I’m Outta Time’ from his previous work could compare with his new songs. Tracks like ‘You Better Run’ and ‘I’ve All I Need’ are genuinely brilliant songs and sounded massive live when he toured them in June this year in smaller venues such as Glasgow Barrowland.

Unlike the Beady Eye days, Liam’s new sets were a mix of new solo and old Oasis material, giving him one of the finest back catalogues around to draw from. ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’, ‘Morning Glory’, ‘Slide Away’, ‘Be Here Now’ and ‘Live Forever’ amongst others were all aired and sounded fantastic. The press were back with Liam, as were his fans.

Glowing reviews of the album and his live shows followed. Liam Gallagher is back on top was the general gist of any comments. His album sold over 100,000 copies in its first week and charted at Number 1 in the UK. He announced a UK-wide arena tour which sold out in a matter of minutes. Eventually he announced outdoor gigs for the summer of 2018 which again, remarkably sold out in minutes. He has re-established himself as one of the biggest acts around and the media love him again.

So where does this leave Noel? A month after the massive success of ‘As You Were’, Noel launched his third album, ‘Who Built The Moon?’ with the lead single ‘Holy Mountain’ to a chorus of “Hold on, what? This is Noel Gallagher?”, which I feel is exactly what he wanted. With the media deciding they love Liam more just now, this was the perfect time for Noel to try something a bit different, and he certainly did. Working with David Holmes, Noel produced music like nothing we had ever heard from either brother before. Once critics put their doubts aside and gave the album a try, many decided they loved it. Noel had cemented himself as a creative solo artist and pushed through his own boundaries. Whilst his arena tour is not sold out at time of writing it’s not far off. But this is interesting in itself, as not only has it sold more slowly than Liam’s, his album sold 25,000 less copies in launch week. Quite a chance in affairs since Noel was headlining festivals with Liam played to 2,000 people.

For the first time since Oasis split, Liam is on top and he knows it. What will be very interesting will be to see what the future holds. Will Liam be able to match ‘As You Were’? Will Noel emulated ‘Who Built the Moon’ or return to his classic Oasis sound? And who be the media darling going forward? Only time will tell.

 

 

Review: The Killers and Juanita Stein Live at SSE Hydro

Last night one of the biggest bands in the world took to the stage as the SSE Hydro in Glasgow. I of course refer to The Killers from fabulous Las Vegas.

Before the main act took the stage though, we watched Juanita Stein of Howling Bells, who played a pleasant set that would have perhaps been better fitted to opening for Jason Isbell than The Killers. Unfortunately the sound seemed rather muffled during the early part of her set, thankfully improving as she continued. The audience were attentive and seemed to appreciate her performance as they played songs from her solo album ‘America’.

Half an hour later, a feeling of anticipation was sweeping through the cavernous room, waiting for The Killers come on stage. Their stage set up was rather spectacular as the band took to the stage one by one to begin the show. There are only two original Killers in the current live line up, frontman Brandon Flowers and the mighty Ronnie Vannucci Jr. on drums but overall there were no fewer than nine people on stage! Ted Sablay and Jake Blanton are filling in for Dave Keuning and Mark Stoermer on lead guitar and bass respectively.  Taylor Milne and Robbie Connolly also joined the touring band this year while Erica Canales, Danielle Withers and Amanda Brown sang backing vocals. With two guitarists, a bassist, a keyboardist, three backing vocals added to Brandon and Ronnie, the band have a pretty huge sound.

The band opened with new album opener and title track ‘Wonderful Wonderful’ the band started in fine fettle with an enticing stage display including some amazing visuals such as thunder crashes to accompany the crashing of the drums. The three ladies singing backing vocals really added to the strength of the vocal for the chanting in the song.

Early in the set the band threw in big hits such as ‘Somebody Told Me’ and one of my personal highlights, ‘Spaceman’. ‘Run For Cover’ was possibly the best of the new material aired from ‘Wonderful Wonderful’ with even ‘The Man’, my least favourite Killers song sounding better live than on record.

The tail end on the song brought a fantastic run of hits with my other highlight ‘A Dustland Fairytale’ followed by a snippet of Dire Straits’ ‘Romeo and Juliet’, a song which the band had previously covered on their rarities collection Sawdust. After this came a triple header of ‘Runaways’, ‘Read My Mind’ and ‘All These Things I’ve Done’ which raised a massive singalong from the 13,000 strong Hydro crowd.

The most surprising song of the show was probably ‘I Can’t Stay’ from third album ‘Day & Age’, a song which I wouldn’t have expected particularly much from or rated too highly. But in fact it was one of the most enjoyable songs of the show, a great performance of a laid back track to contrast some of the more bombastic songs. Overall, the band played a strong 22-song set with a good mix of songs from each of their five albums and ‘Sawdust’. My only qualm would be that I would have liked to hear more song from ‘Sam’s Town’.

After a five minute encore break, the band strutted back on with Brandon now sporting a full gold, glitter-coated suit and sunglasses, looking every bit the part of Mr. Las Vegas. They launched into uber-religious number ‘The Calling’ from the new album with its sharp guitar lines reminiscent of 2006’s ‘Uncle Johnny’. This was followed by three of the band’s biggest hits – ‘Jenny Was A Friend of Mine’, ‘When You Were Young’ and finally ‘Mr. Brightside’. There was no surprise and no doubt that this was the crowd’s favourite song with the venue positively erupting as the track began.

Brandon promised that The Killers would try to be back very soon, prompting us to think that they will be headlining next year’s expanded TRNSMT Festival, which you can here more about here. If they do, they will yet again be very worthy headliners.

The Killers Setlist:

Wonderful Wonderful
The Man
Somebody Told Me
Spaceman
The Way It Was
Run For Cover
I Can’t Stay
Smile Like You Mean It
For Reasons Unknown
Shadowplay (Joy Division cover)
Rut
Life to Come
Human
A Dustland Fairytale
Romeo and Juliet (Dire Straits cover)
Runaways
Read My Mind
All These Things That I’ve Done
————————————————————
The Calling
Jenny Was A Friend of Mine
When You Were Young
Mr. Brightside

Review: Maren Morris and Ryan Hurd Live @ ABC Glasgow

Last Monday’s one of country music’s brightest rising superstars, Maren Morris, brought her Hero tour to Glasgow for her first Scottish headline show. She had blown away the crowd earlier in 2017 at this year’s Country2Country festival to the extent that she sold out her first UK headliner tour completely. Joining her on this tour as her support act was her fiance Ryan Hurd, who released his eponymous debut EP this year.

Ryan Hurd took to the stage backed by his band and rolled through a very enjoyable set of songs, both known and unknown. He played all of the songs from his EP with the closing double team of ‘Love In A Bar’ and ‘City Girl’ the highlight of the set. Other standout tracks included new song ‘Michigan for the Winter’ and ‘Hold You Back’. He also threw in ‘You Look Good’, a song which he wrote for Lady Antebellum. I get the feeling he’s destined for great things and could be a big breakthrough act in 2018 judging by his EP and this show.

His fiance was up next and took to the stage with an immediate impact, kicking off the show with ‘Sugar’, the album opener from ‘Hero’. She followed this up with two more from the album before launching into a John Prine cover, ‘Angel From Montgomery’. Shortly after this she debuted a new song called ‘Flavor’ for its live debut outside the USA. This sounded really good and is a very positive sign for next album.

Ryan Hurd came back on stage to join Maren for a touching duet of my favourite song from ‘Hero’, ‘I Wish I Was’, adding a new element to the song. Next up was one of the songs from the deluxe edition of the album, ‘Company You Keep’ which proved to be one of the highlights. If you have the album but not the deluxe version, I highly recommend you get a hold of those songs!

During ‘Once’, Maren delivered the vocal performance of the night with an absolutely outstanding vocal, one of the best I’ve heard all year in fact. While she was great at C2C, she was on even better form at this show, despite suffering from seasickness after her journey from Ireland. ‘Rich’ brought a great singalong from the crowd, with the audience chanting the lyrics softly while Maren looked to be loving it.

Unsurprisingly, ‘My Church’ brought the biggest reaction of the night before an epic ‘Second Wind’ spliced with Beyonce’s ‘Halo’ seemingly brought the night to a close. However, we were treated to the live UK debut of ‘Dear Hate’ to finish the show. A beautiful acoustic version of a lyrically brilliant song released in the wake of the Las Vegas terror attack, with Maren giving a short speech about unity and the importance of music.

‘Hero’ is one of the best albums of the last few years and I’m pleased to see her live show matches it. Now I’m just hoping for a new album and another UK tour next year!

Embrace Announce UK Tour 2018 and New Single ‘Wake Up Call’

One of Britain’s finest bands, Embrace, have announced a UK Tour for 2018, beginning 28th March in Glasgow and ending 7th April in Leeds. The tour poster is at the bottom of this post. Tickets go on sale Friday 24th at 10 am with pre-sales in the week leading up to this point.

The band also unveiled the official video for their new single ‘Wake Up Call’, an anthemic follow up to ‘The Finish Line’. You can watch the video for the track here:

Embrace’s new album ‘Love Is A Basic Need’ will be released 9th March 2018, including ‘Wake Up Call’, ‘The Finish Line’ and the title track which was released on as EP with two brilliant b-sides last year.

You can purchase the album from the band’s official store here:
https://embrace.tmstor.es/

Having been more experimental with their last, self-tiled album, Embrace have promised a return to a classic Embrace sound, which is certainly coming across in the singles so far.

I’ll definitely be picking up the album and tour tickets and recommend you do too!

Tour dates are as follows:

 

 

 

TRNSMT 2018 Expands to 5 Days

We at Mumblings and Ramblings were intrigued yesterday by the news that next year’s TRNSMT Festival in Glasgow was expanding from 3 days in 2017 to 5 days covering:

Friday 29th June – Sunday 1st July, Friday 6th July and Sunday 8th July

Many have speculated the change, leaving Saturday 7th July free is due to the potential clash with the Orange Walk in Glasgow on that date.

However, whatever the reason this change has exciting potential for the festival! With the debut event having been such a success DF Concerts will be hoping to take the festival to the next level.

Hopefully this will be reflected in the line up with headliner rumours online including Foo Fighters, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys and Liam Gallagher. Personally, I’d like to see Green Day and Gorillaz in addition to those bands.

More will be revealed soon as we’ve been promised the line up will be announced later this month!

Ten Smaller Bands to see at TRNSMT 2017

This summer’s TRNSMT Festival has some massive headliners in Radiohead, Kasabian and Biffy Clyro but as with any festival it’s not all about the big bands. Mumblings and Ramblings has helpfully picked out a few of the best acts from the smaller stages for you to see, clash dependent of course.

Check out what day and stage these bands are on and watch a video from each of them, then if you like them why not and go and look them up and see them at the festival! All of the band names in the article are links to their Facebook pages.

Sundara Karma (Saturday – King Tut’s Stage)

BlackWaters (Sunday – JackRocks Stage)

JR Green (Sunday – King Tut’s Stage)

Superfood (Sunday – JackRocks Stage)

Tijuana Bibles (Sunday – JackRocks Stage)

The Amazons (Sunday – King Tut’s Stage)

Neon Waltz (Friday – JackRocks Stage)

Medicine Men (Saturday – JackRocks Stage)

Louis Berry (Friday – King Tut’s Stage)

Vida (Saturday – JackRocks Stage)

The Gaslight Anthem unleash new track ’45’ and album release date

One of America’s finest rock ‘n’ roll bands are back with a bang. New Jersey’s The Gaslight Anthem put out their new single ’45’ online for fans to hear today online.  The track is classic Gaslight but also sounds like they’ve continued to grow as a band.

They also confirmed their new album ‘Handwritten’ will be released on the 23rd July, an exciting treat for me just after my birthday. This album will be one of my most highly anticipated this year and if 45 is anything to go by it hopefully shouldn’t disappoint.

The group’s previous two albums ‘American Slang’ and ‘The 59 Sound’ have both been contenders for album of the year in their respective years so to quote a Gaslight song, bring it on!

You can hear the great new single 45 here:

http://soundcloud.com/thegaslightanthem/45-1/s-iVlvZ#new-timed-comment-at-184536

Maxïmo Park unveil new single ‘Hips And Lips’

Having their new album ‘The National Health’ last month and premiered the title track, Newcastle’s finest Maxïmo Park have today unveiled their new single ‘Hips And Lips’ to the world.

The song starts slowly in a style reminiscent of frontman’s Paul Smith’s solo album ‘Margins’ before bursting into a classic Maxïmo blast of uptempo indie rock. This and ‘The National Health’ are exactly what I’ve been hoping for from the Park.

The band’s third album didn’t quite reach the same stratospheric heights the first two did so I’m sure fans and band alike will be hoping the new album matches up to the first two and propels them back up into the top circuit of indie.

A small three-date tour has been announced for early June but no dates in Scotland to date which makes me wonder whether they might pop up at T In The Park or Rock Ness, or whether they’ll just do a bigger tour in the autumn. Either way, it’s looking like an exciting year for Maxïmo Park.

You can hear ‘Hips And Lips’ here:

Sharks – Arcane Effigies Single Review

Sharks put out their album ‘The Joys Of Living 2008-2010’ last year but in March 2012 they will release their proper debut album ‘No Gods’. I’ve been looking forward to this album for quite a while so when I heard they’d put out a new single ‘Arcane Effigies’ I got right on it.

The song doesn’t have quite the raw punky edge of earlier Sharks songs like ‘Trains’ but it seems they’ve continued to develop their more melodic side which they began to show last year. I’ve found ‘Arcane Effigies’ to be very reminiscent of early Ordinary Boys, which is undoubtedly a good thing! They’ve rolled out a catchy chorus which seems to take its influence from ska/reggae judging by the use of the name Rudi. It looks like a great single to promote ‘No Gods’ with.

You can watch the video here:

And download the song for free here (thanks to Rolling Stone):

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/exclusive-download-sharks-anthemic-arcane-effigies-20120125 

M&R Rating: 9/10