Upcoming Babyshambles Album and Tour

Photo by Clara Lorentz

Babyshambles six-year hiatus has finally come to an end with the announcement of an upcoming album and extensive tour.

The highly anticipated album following 2007’s release of ‘Shotter’s Nation’ will be produced by Stephen Street; who’s previously worked with both Babyshambles and Peter Doherty along with The Smiths and Blur.

Drew McDonnell explained that the ongoing recording sessions in Paris were initially for Peter Doherty’s second solo album following ‘Grace/Wastelands’ but will now be released as Babyshambles’ third. The new album has however been left in the dark, there are no indications of what the album will sound like and when it can be expected for release.

In true Babyshambles fashion grainy live footage of new track ‘Dr No’ aired on YouTube from a show at the Le Fontania in Paris.  The footage depicts Babyshambles with their new drummer Adam Falkner as they embark on a jaunty ska trip that is subtly similar to Babyshambles’ track ‘I Wish’.

Therefore new track ‘Dr No’ hints that Babyshambles may retreat to the raw sounding debut ‘Down in Albion’ and ‘The Blinding’ EP rather than continuing on from the more gracefully polished ‘Shotter’s Nation’.

Babyshambles are equally as enthusiastic as fans about the release of the forthcoming album: Drew McConnell is the happiest he’s been in years “standing in the recording studio… seeing Peter and Mik and Stephen Street in the control room”.

The band kicks off the two-month tour this coming September/October in Glasgow’s Barrowlands before taking their final bow in Bournemouth’s Academy. Fans can expect new tracks to surface within the tour, Mik Whitall has said he’s as “excited to get back on the road again” with the band as he is to seeing the “fans reactions to the new material”.

2013 is going to be big for the boys in the band as they make their return. It is apparent both Babyshambles and fans are left high-spirited about the future as Drew jokingly says “we have to make this record so we can afford the Eurostar bill”. It’s nice to have the cheeky lads back.

These New Puritans – Fragment Two

These New Puritans have pulled out all the strings for their astonishingly spellbinding new single ‘Fragment Two’.

Beginning with an irregular melody of blocky piano chords Barnett mutters a tender dulcet “in between the ring notes where the stars are hiding… there’s something there”.

The tracks impressive post-punk statement unfolds as wafts of horns, organs and intoning rumbles layer over a cascading, the murmured tenor continues it’s cloudy narrative “in between the islands where we used to swim”.

All of These New Puritans familiar elements are here: the convoluted tension, the stark instrumentals, the military precision beats all underneath Jack Barnett’s harmonious drones.

But there’s something subtly different from 2010’s ‘Hidden’, perhaps the avant-garde ‘Fragment Two’ bemoans the maturation of These New Puritans.

‘Fragment Two’ is the first single from upcoming album ‘Field of Reeds’ set to release 10^th June.

Hear the new bands new single below.

Editors – A Ton Of Love

‘A Ton of Love’ signals the return of Editors heading back towards their roots of righteous riffs.

The track distinctively takes the Editors down yet another musical direction after ditching the synths off 2009’s album ‘In this Light and on this Evening’.

Beginning with intoning melodies over precision driven drumming, Smiths’ gritty vocals ooze soulfully from the baritone singer: “where is my self control?”

Despite the Birmingham quartet returning to simplistic catchy riffs, ‘A Ton of Love’ demonstrates their sound has thickened and grown to stadium filling proportions.

The track unfolds to Tom Smith’s punchy raw voice wailing “desire” in his soaring tenor vocals upon reverbed riffs.

‘A Ton of Love’ is the first single from the promising upcoming album ‘The Weight of the World’ which is released on 1^st July.

Black Lips – Cruising

Black Lips’ engine is still running and will take you on an alluring yet menacing ride with new track ‘Cruising’.

The tracks journey kicks off with a gritty garage riff before the joyous burst of skulking vocals from the Atlanta rockers: “out to the car, let’s hit the road”.

After a few sharp turns the puttering verses hectically breaks into jubilant frantic pedal-to-the-floor riffs and beats.

Black Lips deliver the looming garage guitar riffs you expect from the band, but the track isn’t quite as raw as the bands post ‘Good Bad Not Evil’ material.

The solid lo-fi garage track ‘Cruising’ is available for free digitally on a garage rock compilation by Adult Swim’s Williams Street Records.

You can hear the track below.

Peace – Lovesick

Peace’s new single ‘Lovesick’ is a perfect example of why the nation has gone positively head-over-heels with the Birmingham boys.

Beginning with a dirty drone to the sugary rush of jingling guitar hooks before even being graced with Harry’s puppy-love vocals – ‘Lovesick’ certainly stands out to be one of the soundtracks of your summer.

The youthful love song revels a catchy ’90s-esque light-hearted chorus as the band bellow “I wanna get lovesick, I wanna get lovesick with you”.

‘Lovesick’ is the fourth single from the band’s debut album ‘In Love’ and will be released on the 23^rd June with a karaoke rendition of the track.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Manchester Apollo (01/05/13)

Photo by Gary Wolstenholme

Beneath dimming lights of the Manchester Apollo an exuberant sold-out crowd await Yeah Yeah Yeahs first UK appearance since 2009.

The New York trio saunter centre stage with flamboyant front woman Karen O clad in a neon yellow short suit as they embark on a whistle-stop tour of their four albums.

Ardent fans are greeted with the newly released vocal volcano ‘Sacrilege’ before bouncing their way through the “oldie” art-punk, riff shredding, ‘Black Tongue’.

The masses continued to vigorously bounce and shuffle throughout the rare and unexpected appearance of ‘Art Star’ off the bands self-titled debut EP, as mesmerising Karen O continued to jump, strut and patrol around stage screaming into her microphone.

The seventy five minute set captured mainly the highlights of the trio’s career as masses of cheers erupted as Karen O strolled off stage and returned with her leather on for hits; synthesised ‘Zero’, ‘Gold Lion’ and the emotional ‘Y Control’.

Although one too many ballads, including the new bravely played ‘Subway’ caused occasional lags throughout the spectacle as the crowds astounding unmissable admiration for the band deteriorated at times.

The band bounced back into action with the rendition of the main set closer, ‘Heads Will Roll’ where containers of ‘Y’ confetti burst into the crowd to combine with the ear-piercing screams from the thousands bowing before the band.

After the thunderous encore erupts, Nick Zinner and Brian Chase began the unmistakable moving grace of ‘Maps’ from debut “Fever to Tell”.

Karen O thanks all those in attendance by expressing that “this is for all you guys here… tonight!” before expressing her genuine and regretful emotion when she sings “They don’t love you I love you”, before exclaiming a heartfelt “I do!” to the crowd.

The band closed with the usual thunderous licks of ‘Date with the Night’ as the room bounced and echoed Karen’s voice around the venue as she prowled on the stage while inserting the microphone in her mouth.

As the last chord strikes she sticks the microphone down her shorts, undoes her zipper and swings it about to the beat of Brian’s drum before ceremonially destroying it and exits to a roaring applause.

The performance is slick and polished from start to end. With the long-awaited return of the band and with their newly released album ‘Mosquito’, it is left known to all attendees that the devolution, the raw and primal edge of the band from ten years ago lives on. Yeah Yeah Yeahs are back and with a bite.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs bite back with Mosquito

Yeah Yeah Yeahs have bit back this 2013 with announcing the release of the much-anticipated new album ‘Mosquito’.

New Years are full of temptation and teasing and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have joined in by releasing a 59 second ‘teaser’ of what is to be expected of the new album ‘Mosquito’. Fans have had a gruelling wait for the new album as the proceeding ‘It’s Blitz!’ album was released in 2009, four years ago. However, the elongated wait for new material sounds like it could well be worth it.

From what is heard on the much-to-short teaser, Yeah Yeah Yeahs have yet again continued the tradition of changing the style of music from the previous album. Within interviews Karen O has expressed that ‘Mosquito’ is slightly more influenced by roots reggae and that the album has developed through adding delays and rawer sounds than the last album contained. She further added that it is the most tongue-in-cheek stuff they have done in a while.

With all this in mind it sounds like Yeah Yeah Yeahs have had 4 years to reinvent themselves. The teaser and live performances of songs that have been recorded by fans from recent shows hint that the album has a real and unique tone, character and style to it, along with Karen O claiming the album to be their “most light-hearted work yet”.

‘Mosquito’ is set to be an “uplifting and cheerful album”, but it has to be noted that this does not mean it will be easily listening. Karen O has expressed that the album takes the Yeah Yeah Yeahs back to their lo-fi roots that left the band able to escape from dark times through creating the music that is featured on the new album.

However front woman O explained that that this doesn’t mean ‘Mosquito’ will be an easy listening album. She revealed that we can expect it to be “kind of raw, kind of chaotic, kind of dreamy… very us”. Therefore ‘Mosquito’ sounds to have taken a step backwards to the roots of their 2003 art-punk debut album “Fever to Tell”.

More recently Yeah Yeah Yeahs have played shows in America where they have treated fans by playing a few tracks from the new album ‘Mosquito’. Through these shared videos from fans online it is clear that the new album will indefinitely carry through the carnal spirit of their debut – but to what extent? It has to be noted that the songs still contain the synth of the previous album ‘It’s Blitz!’ and therefore fans can expect a sound that would mix and combination from both the debut ‘Fever to Tell’ album and preceding ‘It’s Blitz!’. This would result ‘Mosquito’ to have a bit more transcendent and tripped out sound to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs other records, which is arguably what the teaser illustrates and leaves it known that YYYs will never just rehash their music.

With news of a new album fans immediately begin to question whether a tour will also be in the near future. Yeah Yeah Yeahs have toured the UK with the last two albums, once in 2006 after the ‘Show Your Bones’ release and again in 2009 shortly after the release of ‘It’s Blitz!’ – this leaves it entirely possible that the band will return to the UK within this and next year and may even have a few festival appearances in the mix.

The eagerly anticipated album ‘Mosquito’ is set to release in the UK on 15 April with a tour possibly on the horizon. It is left known to the fans of Yeah Yeah Yeahs that 2013 will be a good New Year, the band have bit back, and are about to take us by swarm.