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Holidays On Ice, Pillage Before Plunder

Column: CD Reviews | Date Published: Tuesday, 4 August 09 | Author: Chiara Grassia | | 2 years, 6 months ago

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[Cloudy But Fine]

Let Pillage Before Plunder be your soundtrack for spending the day in bed, covers wrapped around you, daydreaming. Holidays On ice have created an intelligent album that rewards on repeated listens, and is best left in your CD player at all times. With Angie Hart (Frente) and occasionally Dean Manning (Leonardo’s Bride) on vocals, Pillage Before Plunder drifts through dreamy pop songs. The lyrics are wry and poignant, the music melodically and emotionally rich. Holidays prove they can do late-night love songs like the best of them. Out Of Mud should be as big as Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You, as well as racy and infectious Ribbon Round A Bomb. Brilliance.

	Tinted Windows, Tinted Windows: [EMI] Tinted Windows are the supergroup nobody even requested. Tinted Windows is the album that proves no end of indie cred (James Iha) and power pop participation (Adam Schlesinger & Bun E. Carlos) can save Taylor Hanson from toiling away in well-coiffured obscurity. Songs crackle past in bright, shinny, “wooh-ooh-ooh” fashion. Choruses rise and fall like cheap soufflés. Not exactly bad or offensive this unholy marriage of WTF to major chords is clearly designed to be consumed as disposable, unadulterated sugar rock pop. That being the case I shall gladly oblige and forget about it by next Thursday.
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	Out Loud, We’ll Rock You to Hell and Back: [Riot/Frontiers] Basically, the premise is this; form a Euro-metal super group, throw together some mid-eighties Bon Jovi/Europe soundalikes and then sit back whilst your accountants count the cash. Are Out Loud a success? Not entirely. They may well be a ‘supergroup’ in their own eyes (and there are Helloween, Kingdom Come and Firewind connections here), but a true supergroup needs super material, and too much of WRYTHAB is second division, songwriting wise. When they do hit the target, as they do on the deliriously OTT Tonight or the aching ballad This Broken Heart, there’s enough going on to suggest this might be a project persevering with, but for now you can do without Out Loud in your life.
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	Veto, Crushing Digits: [The Music Connection/Inertia] Long known for their metal bands, Scandinavia has now diversified into electro-pop. Danish five piece Veto’s album is aptly named as the band employs extensive use of digital effects and synthesisers. Lead track Blackout begins like an ‘80s electro fantasy, growling and menacing. Shake is great with its cascading beats. Whilst tracks one and two were European single releases, for my money You Say Yes, I Say Yes is the CD highlight with its awesome rhythms. But there’s also value in the softer tracks down the back. Spit It Out employs a simple beat combo with an almost conversational vocal delivery. The Quieter ‘Duck, Hush and Be Still is another gem, with its eerie ‘fingernails on a blackboard’ synth treatment. RORY MCCARTNEY
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	Jen Cloher, Hidden Hands: [Sandcastle] Though the subject matter is melancholy, the sound is far from morbid or self-indulgent. In fact, I found myself on a Sunday afternoon, wishing I were on a sunny veranda, tapping my boot away to the very catchy, alt-country harmonies on Hidden Hands. The faultless blend of tunes and voice, a result of real trust and familiarity, serves to highlight the real reason to buy this album: Jen Cloher’s gorgeous voice. There are no bells and whistles (but there ARE banjos!) here, just a firm confidence in the power of talented musos and a strong expressive voice to produce an album that deserves many listens. The disarmingly intimate lyrics will have you believing Jen is your new BFF. There is a roots-and-bluesy element without the grittiness of say, Mia Dyson. It is in the fine traditions of acoustic, folk-rock acts such as Clare Bowditch, The Waifs, and co-producer of Hidden Hands, Laura Jean. Ideally, enjoy the superbly produced Hidden Hands while doing that good ol’ country music thing (no, not a hoe-down) of taking a long drive with the volume up and the windows down. In Cloher’s own words, “We can only go where we’re meant to go. Hidden hands will help us along.”
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