Song reviews

Whilst many might regard “17” as just another example of the urban soul genre, it is nonetheless abundantly obvious that Sydney Raynee has the voice of a soul songstress and her song consequently proves spiritually uplifting. She has class and that’s a fact.

Although the intro to “Brother Jonathan” would suggest that discord is on the menu, Glenn Meling instead provides evidence that he is a downbeat crooner at heart. One for your Auntie Joan, perhaps?

I’m pretty sure that “Weetabix & Wine” is meant to be ironic yet Harri Larkin perform it with all the niceness of well brought up boys and girls. That may well be the true irony as making things seem what they are not is the sign of true talent.

Still knocking out songs that are more a soundtrack to unarmed combat than anything else, Kim Gordon lets “Murdered Out” cruise the dystopian urban environment in search of something shiny (like a knife?). She’s still got it and got it good.

Sweden’s Avakhan know what makes an effective pop song with “Just Let Go” having just the right mix of joie de vivre and retro influences to take it through your ears and straight into your heart.

“The Blue” is pervaded with kind of oblique rhythms that once were the trademark of the Paisley Park pop machine and this three minutes of potential fame uses, with inherent irony, the power of sequenced insistence to get inside your head. That’s enough to make me think Cocoa Futures have a future. Oh dear, I have punned myself into a corner again.

Maria Kelly keeps things neat and tidy all the way through “Stitches” thus counterpointing the emotional storm brewing within the words of her song. She is, without doubt, the mistress of organised angst.

“Hollow Glow” is, in stylistic terms, an old fashioned song but Hannah Telle’s voice provides more than enough proof that those old ways are sometimes the best. Wistful, my friends, is the new black.

Manic pop from The Magnettes with “Hollywood” being easily comparable with the best songs of the sequenced pop princesses of the past like the Pipettes. This is one song that deserves to be released on vinyl.

Ever endearing, Allie & Ivy stays in the sunshine with her song “Best Friends” and the positive vibes radiate from every sequenced note of this fresh little pop song.

There is no shortage of lo-fi electronica about these days yet Computer Magic manages to add enough wistful urban charm to her looped up song “Gone for the Weekend” to distinguish it from the crowd. I liked this more than I thought I would.

“Wolves” is the kind of downbeat electro-pop song that surrounds you with an atmosphere of oblique melancholy deployed eloquently by the hypnotic voice of Jenny Gabrielsson Mare. Perhaps not a hit but certainly an enticement into the shadows.