Oh, we do love a finely formed, unashamedly pop song. New Atlas is the brainchild of Owen McKenna, who is previously from Northern Ireland but is now based in Liverpool. Since the launch of this project in late 2016, he's picked up lots of love from Radio 1 and the music supervisors at Made in Chelsea, as well as seeing one of his recent singles, "Morphine", receiving north of 100k streams on Spotify.
It is his latest single, "Dizzi", where we now join the band, and as far as an introduction to their sound goes, you can't really can't do any better. The song is a dizzy, sugar rush of a song, combining tropical pop with a synth-rock edge, it is a tune that should go down well with fans of Grouplove & The 1975, and is a song that we very much expect to be soundtracking an advert for an iPhone or another hip fruit-based device by the end of 2018.
For a first single, "Do You Love Me" is one strong debut indeed. ÖZ is a producer based in Montreal whose influences cited include Jamie xx & London Grammar.
"Do You Love Me" was inspired by a bad breakup, with ÖZ trying to imagine it from the perspective of his ex-girlfriend. It's a strong pop song, with an electronic pop style that is very current sounding, the sort of song that one could imagine realistically being a top 40 hit if it had a massive record company or money behind it. That it is a 1st single bodes well for ÖZ's musical endeavors going forward.
Normally, when we write about new songs and bands that we like on The Metaphorical Boat, we very much hope to see the band do very well, very quickly, and that the band in question end up becoming a much bigger deal over the coming months. However, for our own selfish reasons, there is a reason why we don't want band responsible for the song we are writing about today to become massive, at least for the next few months or so.
We'll get on to that later, but for now it's time to introduce to you the Australian four-piece Confidence Man. They've already captured hearts Down Under, being named a One To Watch by Triple J off the back of their single "Boyfriend (Repeat)". However, it is their latest single "Bubblegum", which came to our attention through our friend at Breaking More Waves, which has got us really excited indeed.
Why? Because it the kind of bonkers, hyperactive, cut & paste pop that we absolutely love to pieces. As well as calling to mind artists mentioned elsewhere, like The Go! Team, and Deee-Lite (it's been called by some as a modern-day updating of "Groove Is In The Heart), it also reminds us very much of The Asteroids Galaxy Tour in how its constituent parts slip and slide out as the song progresses. We are also convinced that the song's chorus samples "Hello" by fellow Antipodeans The Cat Empire, another pop song that we really love, although this is mere speculation on our part. It's a joyously fun song, and one that stands a fairly strong chance at being our #1 song come the close of 2017. We very rarely listen to songs on repeat, but "Bubblegum" is a very welcome exception.
So in spite of our love of "Bubblegum", why do we not want to see Confidence Man to hit the stratosphere in the short term? Simple - they're playing The Great Escape this year, and given how incredibly infectious their sound is, we're worried that if they get too big too soon, then we won't be able to get in to see them in Brighton in May. A bit selfish, we know, but when you've got a sound as fun as this, you really want to see it at the earliest possibly opportunity. So Confidence Man, if you do intend to becoming the biggest band in the world, could you possibly wait until around June time, pretty please? If you continue to grace us with boppers like "Bubblegum", there's a great chance it could happen.
"Bubblegum" is out now on Heavenly Recordings (the home of St Etienne & Hooton Tennis Club, among others)
We come across the music that we write about on The Metaphorical Boat from a wide range of sources. Since we began, we have written about music that we've discovered through our emails, seeing a band live, being played on the radio, on social media, being recommended by a friend, through "accidentally" overhearing the mother of a member of a band bragging to a security guard in work about the awesome band her son is in playing their first ever gig and about how great they are*, a recommendation from other music blogs, scouring Bandcamp/Soundcloud, and coming up on our Spotify Discover Weekly playlist.
And to that list, we can now add one more source - my mother. After hearing a song on Ralph McLean's show on BBC Radio Ulster, my mother (whose favourite musical acts, for context, are Daniel O'Donnell & The Bay City Rollers) insisted that I track down the song and listen to it, as she thought that the song was really good, and something that I would enjoy.
Well, having tracked down the artist and song, she might have been on to something. The artist in question is Antrim based 17-year-old singer/songwriter Tiernán Heffron, who records music under his first name. He's been recording YouTube covers since he was 12, and has recently branched out into original compositions.
"Overthinkin'" is the song that my mother loved from him, and is a jaunty little acoustic-pop song with jazzy overtones about spending too much time pondering, which seems to have been influenced by Ed Sheeran & Bruce Hornsby among others. It's a nice little song, and although we still think Tiernán's got a bit more work to do before he's fully formed, there's enough here to get us excited at what he does in the future. Thanks mum!
Just over a year ago we found ourselves charmed to pieces by "Let Go" by Mississippi based group The DLX, with the song ending up firmly within our favourite songs of 2015, so it's nice to hear some new music coming from them.
"Wake Me Up" isn't as folky as their previous single (although there are some slight "Ho Hey" vibes to it), but it's as still as accessibly pop as before, with a chorus that is very likely to get under your skin and stuck in your head.
"Wake Me Up" is taken from the E.P "Hello", which is released on 16th September.
Of all the new acts that we've come across in 2016, perhaps our favourite of the bunch has been the London four-piece Anteros. They first grabbed our attention back in April with their fabulously catchy single "Breakfast", and our love for them was solidified when we got the chance to see them at The Great Escape in Brighton. After seeing them in the flesh, we predicted that one song in particular in their set was so good, that it would end up being their breakthrough single when they got around to recording it.
Well, the time has now come to see whether our prediction will come true or not, for Anteros have just released the song in question, "The Beat", and it's just as good as when we first saw it live. The song is an infectious little pop tune with a chorus so infectious that it'll be stuck inside your head for so long that even the world's most powerful cotton bud will be unable to scrub it from your brain. The song, and the band in general, will inevitably be compared to Blondie, although for our money the song is more in line with the sound of The Noisettes during the period when they were immovable from the upper echelons of the chart.
So will "The Beat" be Anteros' breakthrough single? The answer to that question is out of our hands, but if we had a say in it, it would be a resounding 'yes'.
"The Beat" will be released as part of the "Breakfast" E.P, which is out on September 19th.
Having held out on it for several years, just after Christmas I finally bit the bullet and subscribed to Spotify premium. For ages I'd barely even used Spotify, even at the cost of 0 per month, preferring iTunes/Apple for listening to music on the go and in the house, and YouTube as my go-to for tracks that I didn't own.
However, after several computer issues that left my iTunes virtually unable to be updated, I took the plunge and subscribed to the system, and I've barely looked back since. Being able to download playlists to listen to offline is brilliant (especially when on long walks far away from any access to the internet), and the playlists on offer to download are wonderfully diverse (although admittedly our first port of call is usually the 6music Playlist - it's barely let me down yet). As a consequence of moving over to Spotify, the amount of music that I've downloaded from iTunes has decreased exponentially, although that's a discussion for another time.
Perhaps my favourite feature of Spotify since I've started using it more often has been the Discover Weekly playlist. It looks at the music that you've listening to on Spotify and picks a playlist of 30 new tracks that it thinks you will like, in theory becoming more attuned to your musical taste the more you listen to. From personal experience, it's definitely got much more intuitive over time (in the first week I used it, 29 of the 30 tracks consisted of gospel music, which is a little bit too much for my liking), and I have discovered some genuinely fantastic songs that I would not have come across otherwise.
Which leads me, after three paragraphs of long and winding foreplay, into "Money", the latest single from London based artist Rukhsana Merrise. She isn't an artist who I would have heard about had her music not ended up on my Discover... playlist (her music appears to be very popular in Holland, if her Spotify stats are anything to go by), and I'm not entirely sure what songs I listened to that gained it admission to my list, but I'm very glad that it did. "Money" is a song that mixes elements, of pop, soul, trip-hop and Indian music into one brilliant, cosmopolitan package.
The wonderfully monikered Half Japanese Half Muscle is a UK-based producer of Japanese origin who makes music that promises tocall 'us to nirvana through the medium of a 110 bpm pop song'. He has just released his first single, and if "Loose Fitting Girls" is anything to go by, then he's setting the bar rather high indeed. "Loose Fitting Girls" is an earworm-y synth-pop tune of the sort that made us go all gooey over The Naked & Famous and Passion Pit all those years ago. Filled to the brim with pop hooks and infectious hooks, it's a song that is guaranteed to get under your skin in a good way indeed. The song has a video out, featuring a lonely salaryman attempting karaoke to the song, which is very much worth checking out -
Here at The Metaphorical Boat we have always had a wee soft spot for a slice of well constructed "sax-house", i.e dance songs which feature the prominent use of a saxophone in their production. We've very much enjoyed songs like "Changes", "Vandaag", "Jubel", and yes, even that Moldovan Eurovision Song Contest entry from 2010 which seems to have unconsciously spurred off the whole sub-genre in the first place.
Which brings us nicely to the latest single by Swedish producer Chris Tall. He had a minor UK dance hit this year with the catchy, albeit mildly irritating "Duckface". The follow-up is "Time Of Your Life", a well constructed piece of pure dance pop, topped lovingly with a highly infectious saxophone riff. It's been stuck in our heads for the last few days since we first heard it, so if you're looking for the closest thing to a real, live earworm in 2015, you'd be hard pressed to find something better than this.
Now here's an act we haven't featured for quite a while. Limavady lad Ruairí Connolly, who records under the name Ruairí and The Owls caught our attention back in 2012 and 2013 with a brace of rather decent folk-pop tunes. An album, "Midnight Oil", slipped out last year, which was largely in the same musical mould as what had come before.
Which brings us to their latest song, Lying Eyes", which has torn up the rulebook of what you would come to expect from a song from Ruairí et al. Featuring guest vocals from hotly-tipped Derry singer Jessica Doherty, it escews the folk sounds that the act have been known for sleek, yet dark and paranoid electronic-pop. It's an unexpected change of pace, but it works fantastically.
Over the course of this week, I have done two very crazy things. The first crazy thing I did was book a flight to Japan just three days before it's due to leave, having never been there before and knowing no more than a few words of the language. Well, there's nothing wrong with being a little spontaneous every now and again.
As for the second crazy thing? I spent the day in Akihabara, which is a shopping district in Tokyo which is seen as the hub of Japan's 'otaku' culture. After spending the day soaking up the local culture, spending too much money on figurines that I'm probably never going to display in polite company, and visiting a maid cafe (don't ask), I chanced upon a theater, Akiba Cultures Theater, in the basement of a high-rise store, which plays host to idol concerts on a regular basis.
Now I was vaguely familiar with the concept of idol groups, which largely consist of troupes of girls singing high-energy J-pop whilst wearing kawaii outfits and engaging in complex dance routines, before I arrived in Japan. I had seen the wonderful yet disturbing film Perfect Blue, which delves into the mindset of fans of these idols. I was aware of AKB 48, an idol act who perform daily concerts in Akihabara, and whilst in the district, you were overwhelmed with billboards, products and soundtracks promoting μ's (pronounced "muse"), the cartoon idol group popularized through the anime series Love Live!
So keeping this in mind, I decided to take a chance and see the idol group in residence that day, which happened to be Yumemiru Adolescence, a five-piece group (although only four performed), who recently signed to Sony Music in Japan. The experience of the concert was interesting, to say the least. Although it would not be appropriate to judge the entire Japanese idol culture from one single concert (I'm not the Daily Mail), here are some observations about how these gigs operate:
The demographic swings strongly one way
Back home, the demographics for pop concerts seem to be quite evenly split between the sexes, with some skewing slightly more one way than others. What amazed me about the fan base of YA however, was how heavily the audience was skewed towards males, with approximately 90% of the 300-strong crowd being made up this way. Whether YA happen to be an exception within idols in terms of their demographics or whether a predominately male fan base is the norm within Japan, but my knowledge of the genre would suggest that it is the latter. The fans are racuous, yet polite
When the idols are performing, the crowd really, really get into the action, singing along to every word, and bringing in chants to each of the songs, similar to our own charming "Oi, oi, oi f****** oi" chants which grace concerts back home, but a lot less threatening. It's just as well the concert was largely all-seated, as I imagine there would be a lot of the concert would have been as wild as a Pendulum gig in Belfast. The actual concert is quite short, with very little music.
For someone used to a concert lasting all evening, the relative brevity of the performance was quite surprising. For a start, there was no support act, which is something that I tend to see as standard at gigs I would go to back home (with a few exceptions). Secondly, the actual performance clocked in at just under an hour, which is a bit shorter than one might expect.
Thirdly, the amount of that time actually dedicated to music was actually quite small. In all, Yumemiru Adolescence only performed about 6 songs during the performance, with the rest of that time dedicated to other activities. After the first song, the band engaged in a 5 minute skit which seemed to highlight the various personalities of the members (disclaimer: I went into this gig only knowing a handful of Japanese phrases, so my knowledge of what the skits actually consisted of were sketchy, although I did meet someone at the concert who spoke English who was able to talk me through the elements I didn't understand). The "encore" involved the band coming back on stage and engaging in a large game of rock-paper-scissors with the entire crowd, with the winner winning a bottle of orange juice, hand delivered to him from the group itself.
From this gig, it appears that the idol experience extends beyond just the music, with being able to make a personal connection with the performers being just as important as the songs themselves. Of course, this isn't too uncommon in pop outside of Japan, but the way the two are integrated together during the concert is something that isn't as common. There is a very strict etiquette to follow
Absolutely no photography is allowed to be taken while the band are performing, and when the opportunity arose to shake hands with the band after the performance, there were a group of security men on duty to move the fans along the line to ensure that no-one spend too much time with any one idol. It's possible that the reason for this is to protect the idols from reputational damage (in case a less-than-good performance is captured) or from overbearing fans. Of course, there might be another reason... Commercialism is rampant
Now of course I am aware that artists tend to lend their name to products, appear in adverts, and have their gigs sponsored by companies in the West, but in Japan, the level of corporate tie-ins and commercialisation is enough to make Kiss blush. For one thing, how many pop gigs have you been to where half way through, the group actually take part in a 10 minute advert for a product? This idol group appear to have been sponsored by KFC, as they spend a great deal of time extolling the benefits of a certain milkshake this company sells, and even invites a humanoid version of said milkshake onto the stage to interact with the group. As commercially minded as they might be, I couldn't imagine even One Direction engaging in something like that.
And it's not just selling other products that they excel at. When it comes to selling their own wares, they've got things down to a tee. That aforementioned handshake with the band? If it was your first time seeing them in concert, you only had to display your ticket, but if you'd been before you had to spend 1000 yen (approx £5) to have that privilege. There was also the opportunity after the concert to have a photograph taken with one of the members of Yumemiru Adolescence, although in order to earn that privilege you had to spend 3000 yen in their shop. And amazingly, a lot of people were willing to pay that price. The guy I was talking to had saved up enough vouchers to have a photo taken with all the members of the group, and there was a big queue of people waiting to get their photo taken with the idol of their choice.
In unrelated news, I am now the proud owner of three of Yumemiru Adolescence's CDs.
This one photo with Karin (left) cost me 3000 yen. Yay capitalism.
As for the music itself, I think the best thing to say that it is not generally my cup of tea, although it's perky enough, and their choreography was great, and the whole experience of going to an idol concert was fantastic, like going through a portal into another world entirely. It is the sort of concept that doesn't seem like it would work outside of a few countries in Asia, although you can see how some elements have filtered through into popular music elsewhere.
Even if you're not overly fond of J-pop music, I would heartily recommend going to an idol concert if you are in Japan, just for the experience. There are loads of opportunities to see idol groups perform in Akihabara, and each group seem to play in the same venue twice a month -Yumemiru Adolescence are playing the same venue on the 20th, for example. If you do decide to go, I would however recommend that a) you bring along enough money with you (about 3000 yen for the performance, and a few thousand more if you want to meet the band), and b) have a greater working knowledge of Japanese than I have.
Addendum - the manager of Yumemiru Adolescence seemed to be rather thrilled that I was wearing a Teenage Fanclub t-shirt. Whether it's because he's also a fan of the Belshill Beach Boys, or because he took it to be a reference to his own group, I am not sure.
There were a few songs that we came across over the past few months that we loved, but didn't get around to posting due to our own semi hiatus-y state, so it's time to get around to doing just that now that we're ramping things up again.
Hailing from Mississippi, The DŁX are a trio who describe themselves as making 'off-the-wall pop' music. They released their debut single "Let Go" a few months, and if it they ever find the mathematical equation for fitting as many good vibes into a 4-minute pop song, "Let Go" will probably be used as its benchmark. Its group vocals and somewhat sunny disposition call to mind a scaled down version of The Polyphonic Spree. It might come off as a bit saccharine for some tastes, but we've never been ones to shy away from the twee, and who in their right mind could say no to a song that uses the ukulele as its base?
We've been waiting for this moment for a long time.
After expressing our desire that it would happen for some time, Wonder Villains have finally decided to release the fantastic, exuberant, stupendous, gloryriffic, bloody brilliant "Golden Five" as a single. Or a focus track. Or whatever you call a post-album, non physical release of a tune in the dark, post-CD dominated world that we now live in. But regardless, now everything Wonder Villain-y is now centred around this glorious, Metronomy-meets-"Boys Don't Cry" pop song for the time being, and we for one could not be happier.
And even better, the band have just released a new music video to accompany its release, and it should come as no surprise that it's well worth watching. The 'plot' of the video seems to follow Eimear and Cheylene as they try to find their band mates Ryan and Kieran, but in reality it's just an excuse to watch the gang get up to silly things for 3 1/2 minutes. When they finally get around to giving Wonder Villains their own Miami 7-esque TV show, they might have just found their opening credits.
"Golden Five" is taken from their debut album "Rocky", which we implore you to purchase right now.
Remember back in November 2012 when we confidently predicted that Derry native Rainy Boy Sleepwould be one of the artists to watch in 2013? (Of course you do. If not, here's the evidence). In the end, we got that one wrong, but from the looks of things, we were just one year out (in the words of the immortal Ken Bruce).
At the start of 2014, Stevie announced that he had signed a record deal with Universal Music Ireland, and so far this year he's played Glastonbury and been lucky enough to support the now cool again band The Waterboys on a string of dates. His first major label single to be released is "Ambulance", a song that seems to be aimed straight for the mainstream. It's a breezy yet dark acoustic-pop number which is made even better by the inclusion of a kid's choir providing backing vocals on the chorus.
I'm guessing that Universal's intention with this song is to give it a major push in Ireland, then once it catches on and becomes a hit (which is quite likely), use it as a springboard to allow Rainy Boy Sleep invade the airwaves of United Kingdom, then the rest of the world. And as far as we're concerned, "Ambulance" is the ideal track to get that particular ball rolling.
"Ambulance" is taken from Rainy Boy Sleep's upcoming album "Waiting Games".
I first heard of Wonder Villains all the way back in 2009, after the band won a competition to support Oppenheimer at their final ever gig in the Limelight. When I heard the song that helped them to win the competition, "Oh Peter", I became instantly smitten. This was an uncynical, highly enjoyable pop song at its finest, and the fact that the song referenced one of my favourite TV shows at the time, Heroes, didn't hurt either. From that moment on, I knew that there was something special about these guys, and the singles they released and the dozens of times I saw them live in the intervening period only hammered home that point.
Now nearly five years after first falling for them, Wonder Villains have finally released their debut album "Rocky" (which takes its name from Rocky O'Reilly, who was involved in the production of the album). Having spent the last few years telling all and sundry about how awesome I believe the band to be (and believe me, I have done that a lot on this blog), there's always the worry that when the album is released, I will have set my expectations too high and as a result I will be underwhelmed by it. So, having heard "Rocky", how would I describe the album?
The answer - bloody marvellous.
The album starts as it means to go on with the day-glo pop sound of "TV". This is then followed by the more measured sound of "Blonde" before plunging head first into "Zola", which is one of the highlights of the album. Why its chorus of 'the keeper said to Zola, you're dead when this is over, and you're out until October' hasn't been adopted as a nationwide terrace chant yet is a mystery, but given its recent re-release, there's still hope for it. The band's traditional live opening song "33" comes up next (quite surprising that it's track 4 rather than the opening song), before we get to what is quite possibly my favourite 'new' track recorded for the album.
"Golden Five" is one of the more complex songs on the album with it's many key and tempo changes, but at its heart is a fantastic pop song, one that sits somewhere in between "The Look" by Metronomy and "Boys Don't Cry", complete with irresistible "ba ba ba" hooks that have left it permanently lazered in my brain since I first heard them play it live last year. I've been lobbying for it to be released as a single since then, so even if it doesn't make the jump, it's still great to finally have a studio recording of the track.
The band's penchant for pop-culture referencing remains ever-present on the album. Aside from the aforementioned "Oh Peter", which has been re-recorded to make it more 'band' sounding, there's the Blondie-referencing "Debbie", a tribute to Jason Segal's character in How I Met Your Mother in the form of the hyper-fun "Marshall", "Baby Don't Look So Sad", a song that takes the form of an open letter to Bruce Springsteen, and "Ferrari", a song that contains the band's most memorable lyric - I swapped my brother for a Pokémon card, a shiny Charizard."
Aside from a few minor quibbles (I do feel that "Linklater" sounds better when performed live rather than on record), "Rocky" by Wonder Villains is a fantastic debut album of fun filled, huperactive pop songs of the highest calibre. It is evertyhing I wanted in an album by Wonder Villains, and much, much more. Show me a better pop album released in 2014, and I will show you a liar.
I very much enjoyed The Night VI's performance at The Great Escape last month (as did the other wonderful music bloggers I bumped into during their performance in Brighton), so any new music coming from their general direction is going to be very welcome indeed in these quarters. Even more so in this case, as their new single sees the band approaching things in a different direction.
In comparison to the elegant pop that one might come to expect from The Night VI on the basis of their previous releases, "Wonderlust" sees the band veer head first into synth-pop territory. Although this aspect of the band has been hinted at before (c.f their wonderful cover of "Music Sounds Better With You"), it's nice to hear their own original take on it. It reminds me a little bit of when Goldfrapp went a bit synth-pop on "Rocket" (no bad thing indeed), and it's always lovely to see a band that embraces the lost art of the ruddy nice guitar solo.
Epic pop - that's the best way I can describe "Avalanche", the brand new single from Frankfurt-born Jana Josephina. So epic in fact that I'm a little bit surprised that there hasn't yet been an, ahem, avalanche of praise heaped upon it by excited music writers.
Nothing to worry about though, because the praise is sure to be on its way. Because who could resist its charm and beauty, a song that combines the vocal stylings of Lana Del Rey and Charli XCX with a production style that seems to sit somewhere between that of Foxes and Moby*. The end result is something that's immediately uplifting, charming, and above all, monumentally epic, like being hit in the back of the head my a sledgehammer of musical awesomeness. Keep an eye on this one, there's something a bit special about it.
"Avalanche" will be released on June 30th. A rather epic music video for the song is also available.
Originally from California but currently based in Colorado (via the UK), Lewis Hurrell has just released his new single "Ordinary Life". The track calls to mind the anthemic alternative pop of Imagine Dragons ("Radioactive" was something of an influence on the making of the song), with its soaring choruses and expansive sounding production, in spite of the fact that it was recorded in his bedroom.
I came across a plethora of great bands at The Great Escape this year, including this next bunch, who weren't even playing at the festival. On the Saturday of the festival, I went to Concorde 2 to see Sheppard, who were playing as part of the Australian Showcase being held in the venue (and as I said before, if the band get a good push on this side of the world, they are going to be massive). After their set, whilst queueing up for an Australian taco (which as I learned, is a sausage wrapped in a piece of bread), I got talking to two people about music and the festival. After numerous philosophical discussions took, place, including the revelation that sweet chilli sauce is indeed the new ketchup, I learned that the two of them were Microwave Jenny, a husband/wife duo who were playing a few gigs in England alongside Sheppard.
I promised to check out their music when I returned home, and it's safe to say that I was not disappointed. Take "Shine Like New" for example, one of the newest songs to be uploaded to their Soundcloud page. The song is a breezy slice of soulful pop gorgeousness, like something pulled straight from 2006, when Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse were riding the charts with a similar sound. The duo will be based in the UK for the next few months, so you should start to see their name crop up all over the place in the near future.
We're less than six weeks away from the long-anticipated début album from Derry's finest pop group, Wonder Villains. To whet our appetite before its release, the band have made a song that didn't make the cut available as a free download. But don't think that this is an off-cut, oh no. This is a very special song indeed.
If you've been a fan of Wonder Villains for as long as I have, then "Space Jam" is a song that you should be very familiar with. It has been part of their live set from as far back as 2010, and to the best of my knowledge, it was their only single that received a CD release (I'm a proud owner of one of them, complete with its hand-made cover). More importantly, it was the song that made be fall in love with the band in the first place. Ostensibly about the cult Michael Jordan meets Bugs Bunny film, "Space Jam" was a manic, invigorating tune full of youthful verve, one which made me realise that these guys had something very special indeed.
I was disappointed when I saw the track listing for their album that "Space Jam" didn't make the cut, but I'm delighted that the band have re-recorded the song. In comparison to the original, this version, which has been produced by Rocky O'Reilly, is slightly more sparkly and guitar-centric. However, it's still as wonderfully poptastic and fun as it's ever been. My appetite has now been well and truly whetted. Their album cannot come soon enough.
"Rocky" will be released on June 23rd. They play several dates at The Great Escape in Brighton.
