New Song On Sunday

 

When a band crawls out of their holes again after 24 years, the first thing you think is that they can probably use the money to rest on their laurels. That's what I thought when I heard that Pulp were releasing a new album. 

Spike Island is the name of Pulp's new sign of life. The song is named after an Irish island in the Bay of Cork. However, the song is not about a historical event. In 1990, The Stone Roses played a gig there that would go down in British music history. Back then, 27,000 people gathered to experience the quartet from Manchester on little Spike Island. Jarvis Cocker was not among this huge crowd, but he can still imagine the spectacle.

Jarvis Cocker has never been the great singer and still isn't, but the sound he still manages to produce is a seamless continuation of his last releases. In its best moments, the song is even reminiscent of David Bowie, which is meant in a positive way. In a comment on the video, it was written that 'it's like hugging someone you haven't seen for a long time and it still smells the same and good'. There's nothing more to add to that.

Deeper Than Holy

Another new band from Manchester came to my ears the recent days. Pastel is a five piece guitar band by cousins Jack and James Yates and influenced by bands like The Stone Roses, The Charlatans and The Verve. Of course it is nothing new or the next big hype but they are able to make songs in the tradition of shoegaze that makes me happy when I listen to them.

 

Arabian Heights

The Afghan Whigs were always a band that was named in different hypes but never did really belonged to them. They were termed with grunge and alternative rock but they were always different. They wore suits instead of lumberjack shirts, had influences of soul, funk and jazz in their sound and so they didn't made it to the highest level. Their records were fantastic, sometimes interesting and even boring and I have to agree that I didn't listen to them often during the last years. After several discords and re-starts they will release their next album soon. This song shows them in their old sad and disrupted phase with howling and crying guitars. However: So danceable as in Arabian Heights" this band has never been. The track is carried by the rhythm by the night: a grooving, born from Krautrock motor activity and psychedelic shaken thoroughly Manchester Rave Stone Roses.

Beautiful Thing

It is not necessary to introduce Manchester's Stone Roses. They the time until the release of their new album with another song. I always liked them for their hypnotic indie-trance sound. Beautiful Thing has a lot of what I expect from them: a funky guitar part, an irresistible breakbeat and a hypnotic combination of resonance and smoke.