Twin Wild - Another Stranger

Here's a band that seem to have been doing well for themselves recently. London based pop-rock dreamboats* Twin Wild have picked up fans in AlunaGeorge and You Me At Six recently, as well as being invited to support Young Guns on tour. Their last single, "Fears", has so far picked up over 280,000 streams on Soundcloud, which in scientific terms, is described as a 'ruddy boat-load'. The band are gearing up for the release of a new single next month, which is going to be released just in time for the band to be contenders for the Christmas #1 slot.

Although realistically they've got no hope of competing with the likes of Band Aid redux, Tom Odell or whatever mannequin wins this year's X Factor for the coveted slot (or even charting at all), it's definitely worth giving yours a little piece of "Another Stranger". It's not hard to see why they count Young Guns and YM@6 among their admirers, as they share a similar rock-but-not-rock blueprint that make those those bands so beloved among the teen crowd. It's also got a little bit of a Klaxons vibe to it, albeit with less rave-y vibe overall.

Twin Wild definitely have the potential to build a decent sized fanbase over the next few months, and "Another Stranger" should put them in good stead for their future development.

"Another Stranger" will be released on December 14th.



*I mean seriously, look at that press picture. They sure are a photogenic lot. 

Emmy The Great - Swimming Pool

Now here's something we've been looking forward to for some time. We first fell for Emma-Lee Moss, aka Emmy The Great many moons ago after guesting on the fantastic BPA single "Seattle" (which really should have been a massive hit, or at the very least, a hit). Our love of her music was later solidified following the release of her 2nd album "Virtue", an intelligent, beautiful, poetic album that was among our favourite albums of 2011. She's been relatively quiet musically since, but the good news is that having signed to Bella Union (home of Fleet Foxes, Cashier No.9 etc.), she will be releasing a new album and E.P next year, and today the first song from that E.P has been release.

If you're familiar with Emmy The Great's music of yore, the sound of "Swimming Pool" might come as a bit of a surprise. Featuring guest vocals from Tom Fleming (aka the low-voiced one from Wild Beasts), the song seems take a more straightforward approach to lyrics compared to the more poetic style of her earlier music whilst still retaining that essence that made her love her in the first place. The sound has changed as well, instead of the folk sound that we had come to expect, "Swimming Pool" is a more sultry, siren-y song, and given that Emmy appears to sing in a lower register than in the past, it does have some obvious Lana Del Rey vibes to it.

It's absolutely fabulous to have new music from Emmy The Great. "Swimming Pool" might not have been what we'd expected from her return, but it's a pretty great song regardless.

"Swimming Pool" is taken from her E.P "S", which will be released on 26th January.

Owen McGarry ft Conor Scott - Soon

Time for a local artist who seems to have spent a longer time than is fair occupying our musical blind-spot. Belfast singer-songwriter Owen McGarry has been on the go for several years now, releasing music under his own name since 2012. However, it is only in the past few months that he's popped up on our radar. He's won us over with his live performances, which are a cut above your average acoustic guitar botherer - one of the highlights of his sets is his surprisingly melodic mash-up of "99 Problems" and "Lose Yourself," which needs to be heard to be believed.

He's slowly but surely building up a decent local following, so there's no better time for him to give us some new recorded music. Last month, he released an E.P of songs featuring collaborations with lots of different artists on the local scene, including Kris Platt from More Than Conquerors and Shauna Tohill of Silhouette/Rams' Pocket Radio. The song that is getting us the most excited however is "Soon", which is a collaboration with The Voice UK Series 2 participant and all-around good egg Conor Scott. Despite both artists being more acoustic-based live, the track in question rations its use of guitar, letting electronics, keyboards and fantastically compressed drums dominate proceedings. Plus, if all that isn't enough, they've also managed to include one of the best saxophone solos this side of "Midnight City" at the 2:30 minute mark, which is always to be commended.

So Owen McGarry has now moved firmly into our field of vision. If he can continue to give us songs as good as "Soon", he's going to stay there for some time to come.

"Soon" is taken from Owen McGarry's collaborative E.P "STRAY", which is out now.

Port Isla - In The Long Run

After being blown away by Norwich 4-piece Port Isla at The Great Escape, we predicted that it wouldn't be long before they would get snapped up by a major label. And true enough, not long after they got off stage the band inked a deal with Parlophone Records, the home of Coldplay, Two Door Cinema Club and, um, Tiny Dancers (well, we liked them, unlike the rest of the world).

Having come off a tour with George Ezra, the band are due to release their first E.P with their new overlords  label, which by a major coincidence happens to occur just when blogs and the industry are starting to compile their "Tips for 2015" lists. The lead tune from the E.P "In The Long Run", a song that sees the band jettisoning the folksy elements that had permeated their music since their earliest demos and replaces it with a more anthemic, stadium rock sound which had been hinted it with "Steamroller" back in April. Once again, Bruce Springsteen and 3rd album Noah & The Whale are the main touchstones, as well as a little bit of Coldplay thrown in as well (which, as we are always at pains to stress, we don't mean as an insult).

They've got the songs behind them. They've got major label backing. Now all Port Isla need is that elusive hit. Could "In The Long Run" be it? Quite possibly.

"In The Long Run" is taken from the E.P of the same name, which is out on October 23rd.

Caught Live: Band Of Skulls/DZ Deathrays

Date: 30th October 2014

Location: The Limelight 2, Belfast

It seems like quite a bit of synchronicity that a band called Band of Skulls are due to play in Belfast on the eve of Halloween, as the Limelight 2 plays host to a near sell-out crowd (guitarist Russell Marsden later remarks that it is one of the most intimate gigs of their tour).

But before we get to Band of Skulls we are treated to the opening act, Australian duo DZ Deathrays, an act whose name I was familiar with beforehand, whilst not being really familiar with their music. Thankfully, the band did a good job to impress right from the start, taking a lot of people by surprise by their intense, noise-rock sound and a good amount of depth and variety of sounds despite the limitations of the guitar/drums combination (quite how they managed to make their guitar sound like a robotic dentist drill at one point is somewhat beyond me, but one imagines some sort of extreme sorcery is involved).  There were a few drawbacks from their set – Shane Parson’s microphone seemed to stop working a few times during the set, and the addition of an additional rhythm guitarist for the 2^nd half of the set seems a little bit superfluous, but overall it’s a great set that did enough to make people sit up and take notice of them.

And now for the main attraction. Band of Skulls guitarist/vocalist Russell promises that they will try and fit as many songs into the set before the curfew, and that is exactly what the trio do over the next 90 minutes, in a rich and highly enjoyable set. Kicking off with “Light of The Morning”, the band launch into a set full of great blues inflected rock tracks. They are near faultless on the night, treating the crowd to a stellar set of tunes culled from the band’s three albums. Some of the highlights of the set included “Patterns”, one of the few songs featuring bassist Emma Richardson on lead vocals, which has the crowd ‘ooh oohing’ along to the song’s main riff, and “Sweet Sour”, which sees both Russell and Emma standing eye-to-eye to each other whilst playing, unsure as to whether they are going to embrace or knock each other out (or neither, as it eventually turns out). Quite a few of their newer songs go down well on the evening, with the most notable being “Asleep at The Wheel”, a song filled to the brim with an insatiable Muse-y bombast.

The band close their set with three-song salvo of their best-loved songs in quick succession, “Death By Diamonds And Pearls”, “The Devil Takes Care of His Own” and arguably their signature song, “I Know What I Am”*, which best demonstrates the band interplay between Russell and Emma, before leaving to the rapturous reception from the crowd. Their encore doesn’t capture the same energy, but it doesn’t really matter, as the band have managed to demonstrate what makes Band of Skulls such an irresistible live band – tight musicianship, great inter-band interaction, and above all, a barrel-full of catchy-as-heck rock songs.

*It also turns out that I’ve been getting the lyrics to that song wrong all these years. The lyrics are “I know what I am, they know what they are, so let me be.” Not, as I have thought since 2010, “I know what I am, there ain’t no other arsehole. Let me be.” Makes a lot more sense in hindsight.