The Good The Bad "023"

The Good The Bad are one of the most exciting bands I've come across in the last few months. Their newest release, "From 018-033" follows debut album "From 001-017." You can see where they're going with the song titles can't you. If all they had going for them were quirky approaches to the naming of songs, things would be all the more mundane, but The Good The Bad offer plenty more than that. An intriguing, heady mix of raucous, riotous rock and roll, their classic takes on vintage tones and rhythms are given added potency by the fact the the songs are instrumental, a neat trick, which draws attention to their songwriting prowess all the more clearly. "From 018-033" is a different album that is very much worth your time.

Check out the video for "023" here:


'023' by The Good The Bad from The Good The Bad on Vimeo.


Buy the album here: The Good The Bad Online Store

Ed Vallance "Crystalline"

Ed Vallance has a brilliant new album, Volcano, out this week. You should check it out here. The video for his new single, Crystalline, is newly out too. Check it out here. Great stuff indeed. We like a bit of quirky round here and this certainly fits the bill, as well as setting the scene for the rest of what is a really enjoyable album. The New York Times have already said that 


"This London-born singer-songwriter delivers contemporary pop with a classic elegance and an expansive suavity"


Who am I to disagree?! Check this out now if you know what's good for you.

Catch Me Up!

I've been really lax since the start of this year at keeping this up to date. Life always seems to get the better of me, annoyingly. So here it is, my attempt to catch up!

I thought what I'd do would be a brief rundown of my favourite records of the year so far, in no particular order, to clear the decks, as it were, and try and get myself back to zero. So here goes....

Unsurprisingly, one of my favourite records is mentioned in the post just down the page a bit. Neil Cowley Trio's vital and vibrant "The Face of Mount Molehill" is an instant classic, and sure to be up there on my end of year-list when it arrives at, erm, the end of the year. Look for a live review of their forthcoming Birmingham show to come at the end of April.

Another favourite is Phantom Limb's brilliant indie-pop masterpiece, "The Pines" This really is an indescribably good record. I pretty much missed the boat on getting out a full review prior to the album coming out, but the single "Gravy Train" is out today. Check out the video below.

Another brilliant record, but one from an entirely different genre, is Wild Blood from Lovedrug, one of the most underrated bands in the indie/alternative scene. Since the heady heights of 2007's Everything Starts Where it Ends, the Ohio band took something of a mis-step in my view, but now they're back and better than ever with their finest work to date. You owe it to yourself to check this one out forthwith.

Fourth in this list is one of my favourite discoveries of 2012 so far, Sons. Their new album, Keep Quiet is a fantastically emotional and energetic rock record, one of the best you'll hear in this or any other year for sure. Definitely a new band to keep an eye on in the months to come.

Every new Portico Quartet album that passes sees this talented jazz band expanding and exploring their sonic palette still further. Newly-retooled with a more electronically focused sound, without losing any of the "otherness" that made their past efforts stand out, and led to their much-fabled Mercury Prize dalliance, their self-titled 2012 album is another sterling effort;. Here's the brilliant video for Ruins.

And still there's more. Agora Fidelio must be the most exciting band to come out of France for ages. Their new EP, Baghdad, the follow up to last year's Barcelone, and the second in a series of three, entitled Les Illusions D'une Route (the last is the forthcoming Belfast) is another beautiful slab of controlled dynamic shifts and noise rock. If you can cope with not having much of a clue what the songs are about (they're in French, I am a neanderthal) and are instead happy to be enthralled by the wonder and space within these songs, you won't be disappointed.

David's Lyre gets the early award for best pay what you like/free album of the year with the sublime "Picture of Our Youth", a perfect collection of finely-honed pop songs. You owe it to yourself to check it out now. If I were you, I'd pay for it too.

Ryan Baker-Barnes has a fantastic, 80's infused worship record The Deepest Part, produced by Julian Kindred, out on Joining the Dots. That record is fantastic. I am looking forward very much to touring with Ryan later on this year, so I may be a little biased, but if there's been a better worship record released by a UK artist in the last 5 years, I've not heard it. Brilliant.

There are other great releases from last year to which I am only just cottoning on, particularly those from Sosaveme and Least of These. Check those out too!

All told it's been a great year for music so far! Here's hoping for plenty more great records in the months to come