Song reviews

No one can deny that the art is strong in “Woolf” by Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys with winding words of literate reflection well to the front of the stage before those bleak synthesisers swoop in from the shadows. Twisted and yet direct, as they say.

Howling Bells pull that old guitar led indie sound out from the bottom drawer and freshen it up with a combined cupful of wistfulness and melancholy. Sweet female vocals add a further reason to listen as the song fades into the sunset.

Looped with a notable degree of affection for the rhythmic patterns of popular music of days gone by, Chaton Laveur swathe all their words in enough reverb to make you think that this song could live its days out in a basement club.

Scottish indie darlings The Just Joans get all bouncy and lively with “Limpet” and, with a few quid now in the bank, they amplify their inbuilt charm and irony fuelled wordsmithery to such a degree that the song might truly be described as uplifting.

“Heavy” is well named and just about sums up this song by Luca Wilding. He emotes his heartfelt words with a near merciless intensity so you know that this is a serious song. And serious it indeed is.

“Never Let You Go” is about as smooth as you can get with those laidback soulful vocals by Oli-J fitting nicely on top of what would have been called a city pop groove back in the day. Shane Sato must indeed be one of the cool kids.

Wisely sticking to her chosen style selection of urban r&b, Anya Vincent updates the sound of the bling times to now with some rather sharper words on the true intent and value of “Money”. She’s on the right track.

Almost minimalist in approach, Mathis Akengin hits the style road with his song “Mer D-Hiver” for company and heads for the sunset. The song swirls in circles but does so in a manner that could easily be described as cinematic. That’s cool.

There are strong echoes of the heyday of synth pop to be found in “Cutting Losses” and Sin Cos Tan duly decorate their loops with their own, very reverential, mix of theatricality and dawn of a new day melancholy.

You don’t really expect a British band to have soul these days but Mamas Gun certainly have soul with their song “Food For The Flames” hitting all the right old school soul notes just as if they were born back in the seventies.

Kummipojat demonstrate a very respectable amount of energy in the execution of “Kalervo Palsa” with vocals that throw caution to the wind and enough in the way of post punk influences to add a distinct edge to the song.

Pleasantly sung, “Secret Medicine” is just the kind of song that would fit right into the end credits of a commercial television series. Silva Emilia plays it safe with this song but makes it work anyway.