Spokes

People Like People Like You

Newly signed to Counter Records, Spokes' first album, People Like People Like You, will shortly enjoy an April re-release courtesy of the Manc outfit's new label. Singularly impossible to categorise – and all the better for it – People Like… is at once the biggest and the most contained explosion of sound you might reasonably expect to hear in a lifetime. Drawing on the sprawling instrumental soundscapes of early Mogwai punctuated with the gentle strains of a million Jeff Buckleys, tracks such as 'Precursor' and album opener, 'We Like to Dance and Steal Things', are unwaveringly ambitious and yet quietly understated in their subtle wresting of your ears. Closing track, 'End Credits/Love Letter', continues the trend with a heartbreaking farewell to an album which commands only the highest superlatives. In fact, it's hard to dismiss descriptions such as 'majestic', 'haunting' and ethereal' where Spokes are concerned. With an average track length of around six minutes, don't expect this album to be a thing to dip in and out of. Like a fine wine or an equally fine Johnny Depp, People Like… is something to be savoured but with none of the pretentiousness that such an appraisal would commonly afford. As clichéd as such a statement sounds, People Like… is truly a thing of beauty. With a new album release set for this autumn, the wheel can't help but come full circle for Spokes.

Gemma Winks

Ultraxine

Taking Sweets From Strangers

The name may be a bit of a mouthful, sounding like some kind of clinically-proven mouthwash, but Leeds-based, female-fronted duo-with-support-from-random-drummer Ultraxine are not about being big or clever or getting your teeth whitened. This is dirty-mouthed poprockpunk with a huge dollop sweet stuff guaranteed to endanger your dentures, not save them.

First of all, you must accept that this is a rough draft. The mix is not brilliant, with guitars drowning all in their simplistic riffage, vocal balance between Kate and Taz showing complete inequity and guitar solos getting seriously out of hand. Accepted? Good, because all the other collisions and collusions on this album are good ones.

Riffs (though loud) are kept simple; nods towards rioting grrls and punking instigators are clear from 'Aldgate'. Lead vocals are erudite and succinct; “you're not a friend, you're not a mate, you're just a fake,” belts Taz in a voice that wobbles around the note passionately but industriously in 'Fake'. When it comes to harmonies though, go for it. Kate has one of those shy but athletic voices that can annoy as much as endear if played incorrectly. Here it works, on the whole – 'Tremulous', though tender, reveals too many flaws in its quietness. For the most part it is simply Kate and Taz having huge amounts of fun, cracking in jokes ('The Badger Song') revelling in rollicking choruses ('House of Straw's “I think I preferred it when my exes were all psychos”) and making a scrappy heartfelt noise.

Such a new band do an album worth of songs is hugely ambitious and there is a fair amount of fill here, but more evident is the sheer pleasure involved. It's the sort of thing I get when I listen to Eureka Machines – catchy tunes and happy times. Essentially, what they lack in ability they compensate for in spirit... and that's something you can't fake.

Rob Wright

Sergeant Buzfuz

High Slang

In September, eagle-eyed readers may remember my attempts to alert the world to the delights of Sergeant Buzfuz. His anthemic 'Here Come the Popes' has been playing in my house regularly ever since. Anticipation for this their fourth album then has therefore been high, and it does not disappoint. At the heart of Sergeant Buzfuz is Sheffield-born singer Joe Murphy, who often plays as Sergeant Buzfuz solo, particularly outside London, but here they are in their full incarnation as an alt-folk/anti-folk six-piece band.

Imagine XTC singing Celtic folk music, and you'll be half-way to appreciating the beautiful anarchy of the opening track. But then it really does get ever-more weird and strangely wonderful. If you want to know details of the lives, loves, deaths and utterly bizarre antics of the papal leaders from the 11th century, and let's be honest, who doesn't, it's all here. He/they have worked alongside Thomas Truax and John Otway, so that may give you an inkling of where they are 'coming from' and this is the world of Buzfuz where anything can and does happen. And those Popes just won't go away, with no less than three of the 14 songs on here letting us in on aspects of their debauched private lives.

Whilst I'm guessing a private booking at the Vatican is not imminent, I can only imagine the sheer joy and possible mayhem that their live gigs contain. My current fave track is 'In the Back of my Cab', which takes us on a ride with a host of celebs, including a truly hilarious encounter with a drunken Jimmy Saville. Sergeant Buzfuz have their roots in the world which gave us Robyn Hitchcock, Jarvis Cocker, XTC and Morrissey. And as you would expect, they don't sound like any of them.

Vivian Bonzo

Tim Hunter

An English Voice

Judging by this album, Tim Hunter is clearly a man with something to get off his chest. But, it's not entirely clear what it is. The subject matters on An English Voice range widely for example ('Downward Path') to the totally bizarre ('The Winter Kittens'). All the while, Hunter's lyrics are backed by basic, child like keyboard effects which sound incredibly outdated and would be best served as the backing music for shopping in B&Q.

His vocals also do him few favours. They are entirely tuneless and make Hunter's music sound like a terrible Billy Bragg tribute act. As the album stumbles through fifteen tracks of cliché ridden dross, it becomes so laughable that it begins to sound like a Flight of the Concords parody.

In his defence, Hunter is obviously a man who enjoys making music and has now completed half a dozen records. It's just that he would be better off keeping his work to himself. He sings of how 'It's nearly civil war' in his beloved England and it certainly would be if this sorry excuse for an album was made available to a wider audience.

Joe De Saules

March of Dimes

All Intents and Purposes

Recently formed in 2007, March of Dimes' allegiance is to be found squarely in the country/MOR bracket. As far as debut albums go, All Intents and Purposes is a pleasant enough effort and, despite the obvious and self-cited Fleetwood Mac influences – see opening track, 'Foxes and Convicts' – there are echoes to be found of a Thrills-esque mainstream/country crossover albeit without the rampant pop appeal of the latter. 'Lindbergh's Baby' sees the band take a morose and not entirely welcome detour although it does serve to highlight March of Dimes as a melodic and tight little unit. With 'The Great Illustrator', the band switch to reflective mode pondering the nature of mortality; not so heavy as one might think and movingly poignant in the context of the album as a whole. Arguably the most noticeable quality attributable to All Intents and Purposes however, is that it's not a record imbibed with any real kind of modern-day vigour. Rather, it sounds as if it belongs steadfastly to another age inhabited by jaded experience. Definitely not one for the indie kids then but a nifty little showcase of a band for whom country-tinged melancholy is no enemy.

Gemma Winks

The Bonkers

Sausage Galore

Never have I had the pleasure of reviewing such an aptly named band. This, the Sheffield duo's follow up to their 2005 debut 'Spilling Things And Falling Over', 'Sausage Galore' is a continuation of all things silly.

There's a charming naivety to the bizarre world of The Bonkers; from the teapot percussion featured in 'The Bear Song' to the Austrian robots that look after cheese in 'Kasemeister', you'll soon find yourself uncontrollably laughing along.

Elsewhere, whilst 'Invisible Bees' let's say… minimalist lyrics, imprint themselves in your brain for years to come, 'Scene Kid' wonderfully muses “You're so scene, but we don't know what it means”. Although some may dismiss such simplicity as nonsensical, The Bonkers' innocence has always been their appeal, especially in the all too true tale of 'Chasm of Doom'. However the one thing that resonates the most from Sausage Galore is that like all good parody, there is a sense that this has been made with genuine care and attention. Additionally there's certainly been no skimping on the production. Their humour aside, if all bands put as much in as this duo then we'd all have a lot more to be excited about.

Tom Bailey

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