Latest signings to Marshall Teller Records, the brilliant Grass House are set to release a new single, And Now For The Wild, on June 24. It comes backed with live favourite Spinning As We Turn (which we posted here) and will be released on seven inch vinyl and available to download.
Possibly their finest moment to date (and they’ve had a few damn fine ones already), the new single is a taste of what to expect from the band’s debut album, which is set for release later this year on their new label. Cascading cinematic guitars with a hypnotic rhythm section, the band continue down a more sonic path with truly great results. Whilst Eno, The Velvet Underground, Joe Meek and The Walkmen still exert some external influence on the band, the Grass House sound is unique and very much stands alone.
Murderopolis, the new Sparrow And The Workshop album is a gem, a persistent beggar, once it gets its claws into you it refuses to let go until you have succumbed to its many sonic charms. Is it folk? Is it indie? Is it some sort of 70s Black Sabbath inspired stoner’s odyssey? Well, yes, yes and yes.
Here is the latest single from it, The Faster You Spin is lovingly presented in visual (Tony Blair and George Bush holding hands in suspenders…) and aural formats for you.
Watch videos from longstanding MM faves Murder By Death who have a brilliantly animated film for Lost River and Shakey Graves who has a slightly disturbing one for Unlucky Skin. There is an appropriately sparse film to accompany Nathan K.’s wonderfully plaintive track Bob Seger and we finish with Wolf Alice’s new video for their top notch recent single Bros.
Download Murder By Death – Lost River mp3 (from Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon)
Its been a good while since we’ve put up one of these type of posts, but a plethora of top notch releases meant it demanded to be temporarily resurrected!
So without further ado we have another taste of Laura Marling’s much anticipated new album in the shape of Once, and another taste from the rather weirder folk songstress Amanda Jo Williams and Holster, The Gun It Hangs In There, which is taken from her new album You’re The Father Of My Songs.
Cass McCombs will release a split single with Michael Hurley in the summer and his offering is the cheery shuffle of Three Men Sitting On A Hollow Log. Elsewhere, New Zealand band Surf City’s forthcoming album We Knew It Was Not Going To Be Like This continues their love affair with psychedelic, reverb-swathed guitar pop, drawing from their Flying Nun forefathers The Clean and The Chills, as well as the fuzzed-up dream pop of The Jesus and Mary Chain and the loopy noise of Animal Collective. Have a listen to It’s A Common Life.
Brendan Benson has a new single out titled Swallow You Whole, which is an infectiously jaunty piano led slice of indie rock and by contrast a slow burning, semi-intimidating cover of TLC’sNo Scrubs by Scout Niblett is a gem right out of left field – it comes from her critically acclaimed new album It’s Up To Emma.
Next, turn up the volume for another taste of White Mystery’s high octane garage-punk blues with their new single Telepathic from recent album of the same name, and finally we have the insouciant indie of Smith Westerns new single 3AM Spiritual which comes with a free, lightly sprinkled tinge of 60s psychedelia.
Much to enjoy with these excellent videos from Brazos with the woozily sinister Charm, and from the Baptist Generals and their surealistic flimic triumph of man vs. wild for Dog That Bit You.
From Catfish & The Bottlemen we have a live performance for debut single Homesick, and lastly from Split Screens comes their dreamy collage for the gorgeous Born - melded together using footage from the local Prelinger Film Archives, the video centers around the 1948 educational clip “The Nature of Light” and pairs the film against ads from long lost cigarette companies and “state of the art” 1960’s projectors.
In common with many it seems, we are thoroughly enjoying the noisy, unholy, vibrant racket cooked up by Castleton brothers Eoin and Rory Loveless, aka Drenge.
Their debut single was the brilliant, incendiary punk rock of Bloodsports (which we posted here) and now comes new single Backwaters, which we think is even better. This is rock’n'roll at its most thrilling and visceral – swaggering, galvanising and jagged – listen below, but handle with care.
Believe it or not, Mad Mackerel has been around for more than five years now. During that time we’ve posted more than 4,000 times, and offered more than 5,000 songs for your listening pleasure. And more than three quarters of a million people have paid MM a visit during our lifetime on Google’s godawful blogspot and since April 2010 on WordPress.
We asked some of the regular MM contributors to give us their top twenty songs since MM first went live and we’re also going to give you one big mega-listing shortly, but first up with their personal top twenty is the right honourable Dr Roddy.
Through good fortune and fine sailing I have been lucky enough to be involved with this blog and it has provided me with some of the finest music in genres I maybe wouldn’t have looked in. So when asked to compile a top twenty of tunes from the last five years, I kicked aside the memories of musical turmoil that is involved with the yearly top tens, poured a stiff drink and set about it with relish.
20 Dan Auerbach – Heartbroken, In Disrepair
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19 Dirty Bourbon River Band – Train Is Gone
Download Dirty Bourbon River Show – Train Is Gone mp3 (from Volume 2)
10 The Cave Singers – I Don’t Mind
Wonderfully carefree and happy song that could so easily be heard drifting out of a doorway in Haight Ashbury with some interesting smelling smoke circa 1967. Yet this song never bows or becomes a pastiche of that, it rises above it all with its own verve and character.
9 Brown Bird – Wrong Black Mare
Sullen, desperate story songs are a bit of a fave of mine and to be honest I think I can trace it back to this song. A tale of woe, desperation and unpaid debts are told here with such clarity, it’s as if you’ve got drunk with Brown Bird and they have decided to spill their guts to you. You understand though, ‘coz at some point we have all backed the “Wrong Black Mare”
8 Mummy Short Arms – Cigarette Smuggling
When I wrote my first review of this song I thought I had described quite well. Upon re-reading it, I can safely say that my view has changed and will probably change on my next listen to it. The insanity, confusion, and babbling of this song are what holds my love for it. It’s an enigma wrapped in a riddle, all encased in a funky B-line, foot tapping beat, gravel throated, roister of a song.
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7 Strayfolk – What Wouldn’t I Do
This is such a beautifully crafted song. Simple, but packed with a rich warm sound that feels like it lends weight to the honesty of this tale of lost and forlorn love. Perfect Americana direct from Sweden.
6 Withered Hand – Religious Songs
A piece of lyrical mastery is on display here. A fantastic sing-a-long arrangement supports the witty word play that Dan Wilson sings with a vulnerability to his voice. This doesn’t stop him from punching the words that need emphasis. This song also ask the obvious question “How does he really expect to be happy, when he listens to death metal bands?”
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5 Tweak Bird – Weight
I love the in-your-face nature of this song. Right from the start, it sets its stall out – flat out, foot on the amp rock, and proud of it to boot. The guitar plays a gritty riff that sounds angry and frustrated, while the drummer is hell bent on punishing every bit of his kit.
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4 Grass House – A Cradle A Short Breath
The deep sombre tones that lay across this song act as a perfect partner to the bass as it pounds along at a merry old pace. It never fails to make me give a wry smile as I bob along to it’s woeful chorus of “A cradle, a short breath”.
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3 Roadside Graves – Far And Wide
I still think Roadside Graves is the best band name of this century and Far And Wide is a song that has stayed with me since my first listen – I was hooked. A great country riff lures you in and you hardly notice that the song fills with more and more sound and pleasure until it finishes and you’re left with a hole where the music once was, so you reach for the replay button, you know like musical heroin.
Download The Roadside Graves – Far And Wide mp3 (from My Son’s Home)
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2 Wooden Wand – Servant To Blues
As this track rolls effortlessly on, Wooden Wand spills his bleak melancholy tale of a servant to blues. In other words, the relationship equivalent of the Church’s pious man. I love the rhythm of this track, it almost seems to tick along like a clock. The peacefulness of this song is speared through the heart with a great screeching guitar solo, this then just seems to ebb back into the shadows it leapt from, only to be covered by the warm sound of the organ. Truly blissful…
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1 Henry’s Funeral Shoe – Stranger Dig (Everything’s For Sale)
For just two guys damn! They make some noise. Great heavy blues tinged riffs and rolling drum beats – I’m loving that all day long. There is talent and passion in abundance here. I’m sat here trying to write something for this whilst listening to it, that has had to stop, as when it plays it just grips me up and I can’t do anything other than get right into it. If you’re looking for something new rock wise I beg you to check them out, live if possible. Disappointment won’t be on the menu.
Portland, Oregon’s Typhoon are certainly rapidly becoming one of the most talked about new bands on the web and elsewhere. They have released a new song, Dreams of Cannibalism, from their upcoming album White Lighter, for free download.
We wondered what all the fuss was about – now we know. Orchestral, vibrant, energetic, emotional, flamboyant, melodic – describe it how you like, but the hype is more than justified for once!
Ah, how we love Matthew Sawyer and his unique/oddball/visitor from Mars perspective on the world. His 2010 album How Snakes Eat, with backing band The Ghosts remains one of our all time favourites.
Good news then to discover that he is returning with a new album later this year on our favourite label Fire Records. We have a track from it below, the typically original Feeeeling. Given the plethora of wonderful releases Fire have already put out in 2013, they should be having their best year ever.
See previous posts here. You can catch him live with Ned Collette & Wirewalker and Pete Astor on the 23rd May at the 12 Bar Club in London. To book tickets call 020 7240 2622.
