BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT ***
Cinematography (Self Raising)
Rod Thomas has chosen his favourite film score tracks for his latest EP, and an unusual bunch they are. Cathy Dennis’s Touch Me sits alongside All Saints’ Pure Shores and Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time but compared to the Light’s usual pop-synth material these songs, though easy on the ear, don’t quite take off. LN
FALLS **
Cream EP (Naughty Strawberry)
By poking fun at other bands (this is meant to be a light-hearted piss-take of heavy metal, right guys?), the Cream EP is a little disjointed and the songs don’t flow no matter which order you play them in. Then again, I may have gotten the wrong end of the stick. BG
MADDIE JONES BAND ****
Burnt To The Ground (self-released)
Latest single from this gutsy girl from the Valleys is a r’n’b, country-pop mix. She’s got a terrific voice that’s a welcome change from some of the mass-produced blah that passes for extraordinary talent on TV such as The X Factor. Her forthcoming EP should be a good one. RLR
PALACE ****
It’s Over (Fiction)
The album from which this track is taken carries a message of “love, loss and the shifting of tides of human emotion”. For It’s Over, frontman Leo Wyndham writes, “I’m running out of time. Eventually they will both be just fine. But father’s wept, and my mother’s crying”. A surprisingly catchy tune for such a sombre lyric. OS
PETER BRODERICK ***
Grunewald EP (Erased Tapes)
Sometime Efterklang and Nils Frahm collaborator Broderick compiles five previously released solo violin and piano instrumentals, recorded in a small Berlin church. The pieces feel off the cuff, as if in response to the acoustics of the space – on It’s A Storm When I Sleep, rapid, thumping arpeggios are smeared into overlapping chords by the long reverb tails. APR
ROGUE JONES ***
Human Heart (Blinc)
Pleasant enough little end-of-the-summer ditty from the seven-strong alt-folkers, taken from the promising, upcoming VU album. Treat yourself to the full single and you’ll get a Welsh-language version and er… a slightly longer version of the English one. Whatever happened to B-sides? BG