Of course it shouldn’t have worked, the “ha, look, we did an 80s album!!” nod to itself, a concept album about the life of international playboy John Delorean all made on analogue equipment; but pair together Boom Bip and Super Furry Animals front man Griff Rhys then it all makes sense.

‘Stainless Style’ proved you could look to the past and produce something contempory and make it look easy; the synth solo during the Pet Shop Boys influenced’ Belfast’, is pure 80s American cop show,the twinkling keyboard riffs on the pounding ‘Raquel’ are early Depeche Mode whilst the finest track ‘I told her on Alderran’ was a sublime combination of 80s new wave cheesy synth pop and the soaring melancholy of Rhys’ Furry friends.

With excursions into electro and left-field hip also thrown into the equation, ‘Stainless Style’ is a fantastic piece of work which despite being hideously retro, it simply oozes 2008!

2. David Holmes – The holy pictures
3. TV on the Radio – Dear Science
4. Does it offend you, yeah – You Have No Idea What you’re Getting Yourself Into
5. The Black Keys – Attack and Release
6. The Long Blondes – Couples
7. The Kills – Midnight Boom
8. Glasvegas – Glasvegas
9. Santogold - Santogold
10. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Also check - The Charlatans ‘You cross my path’ (yeah, they’ve stopped being rubbish for a bit!), Beck ‘Modern Guilt’, We are scientists - Brain Thrust Mastery, Bloc Party ‘Intimacy’, Primal Scream – Beautiful Future.

Every now and again a band like Ladytron come along firecly individual, who shun the trappings of commercialism in favour of creativity even if it costs them dearly and it’s fair to say it has. 2005’s Witching hour saw a new more aggressive Ladytron, the stark 80’s synth imagery that defined they’re icy persona swiftly morphed into a thundersome industrial machine, Destroy Everything You Touch launching this breathtaking transformation.

Spring 2008 saw the release of Velocifero. Ladytron’s 4th studio album and in my opinion, their best, they continued the industrial theme marrying traditional synth with full on conventional analogue noise to create beautiful hybrids such as Deep Blue and Burning Up.

Unfortunately this sat the band in an awkward position, neither pop or rock, electronica or indie the shallow media had no way of pigeon holing them and subsequently Velocifero slipped through the net filed away as a classic album that never really had the opportunity to prove it’s self, but for me and some of the bands more loyal fans this album was a precious gem. 13 tracks of astonishing beauty and staggering perfection.

A much needed antidote to 95% of the dross released this year!!

2. The Tindersticks - The Hungry Saw
3. The Kills - Midnight Boom
4. The Duke Spirit - Neptune
5. Sons & Daughters - This Gift
6. The Long Blondes - Couples
7. Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree
8. Girls Aloud - Out Of Control
9. British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
10. The Young Knives - Superabundance

Despite being regarded as an influential release, 2004’s debut ‘Hot Fuss’ only contained three classic songs amongst the dirge. The follow up, 2006’s ‘Sam’s Town’ fared better longevity-wise with its swift change from 80s influenced pop to widescreen 70s rock gaining as many new fans as they lost - so onto this, their third effort.

Ironic 80s pop has been on the indie agenda for a while from Neon Neon to Keane, taking in the glorious pop nugget of The Mystery Jet’s ‘Two doors down’ and an endless list of bands barely born in the 80s mimicking it.
Moving from the chest beating, stone washed denim Americana of Sam’s Town’ to camp euro pop and new wave is not much of a surprise, especially considering last years dreadful disco cover of Joy Division’s ‘Shadowplay’ or the best track on ‘Sam’s Town’, the white boy funk of ‘Where the white boys dance’ and then there are the mixes of their tracks by luminaries such as Thin White Duke and Pet Shop Boys.

Stuart Price, in his Thin White Duke guise produces both ‘Day and Age’ and Keane’s recent album ‘Perfect symmetry’ but, unlike his other production projects, his influence is understated apart from the oddly Eurovisionesque comeback single ‘Human’. Price has made some of the best dance music of this decade and on her ‘Confessions on a dance floor’ album, made Madonna relevant for at least three songs, ‘Human’ however doesn’t work; its cheese level will guarantee you have nightmares for weeks.

There are, however, plenty of tracks which bode well for the The Killers; opener ‘Losing Touch’ has a barrage of sax and synthetic 80s sounds and comes on like an off cut from David Bowie’s 1980 album ‘Scary Monsters’. ‘Spaceman’ is unashamedly poppy and a definite highlight with Flowers at his most bombastic yelping “And the public don’t dwell on my transmission, cos it wasn’t televised” over enthusiastic 80s drum breakdowns and a genius refrain of several “oh oh ohs”.
‘Joy-Ride’ (yep, the lyrics stick to cars, girls and the ocean as usual) is the most bizarre thing they’ve made, fusing calypso, funk and a nod to dodgy 80s one hit wonder Belouis Some with yet another splattering of the saxophone, its oddness is what makes it work.

It’s when The Killers go into autopilot ‘Day and Age’ fails, as their previous two albums did. Odd Gregorian chant like backing vocal effects and rolling drum beats are the only thing of interest in the obligatory nod to U2, as all bands of The Killers standing love doing on the anonymous ‘This is your life’.
It is this track which highlights the failings of The Killers, for every high, there are more lows.
Every middle sized band goes down the U2 route and normally fail, only U2 can succeed in being U2 so annoyingly and for each average album The Killers release, their ambition to be as big as them is becoming increasingly unattainable.
6/10 Chris Todd

Based entirely on samples, ‘Feed the animals’ is awash with splices of hits thrown together with beats from other tracks, similar to very early 2 Many DJ’s in style but making the whole thing more songbased.
And unexpected ….you get hip hop beats being splattered by samples as preposterous as Sinead O’Conner and the Spencer Davies Group battling for attention against Kanye West. Sometimes it’s pure inspiration; such as Radiohead’s ‘15 Step’ battling for prominence against Blackstreet’s classic ‘No Diggity’ with steals of Nirvana and Busta Ryhmes thrown in for good measure.

It’s creative and inventive but after a while being attacked by snippets of songs it becomes too full on, this kind of thing is best placed in nightclubs by djs showing off, not for sitting down and relaxing to a CD.

This is musical larceny on a major scale , this is the sound you’d make if you’d broken into your local HMV pissed up helping yourself to as many CDs before the cops arrive.
Chris Todd

Directed by omnipresent Clash collaborator Don Letts, it shows a fascinating transformation from beer and gob drenched performances such as of ‘What’s my name’ in 1977 to Mick Jones’ last gig with them in 1983.

Showcasing pivotal tracks in chronological order, highlights include a thrilling take on ‘London’s’ burning’ and an electrifying ‘Clampdown’ live in Lewisham where they look nothing short of iconic, or the unintentionally hilarious ‘Radio Clash performance from American TV replete with fake Brooklyn style backdrop with live graffiti which now looks like someone scrawling genitalia in a phone box with a black marker.

From disaffected punk rockers to a genuine stadium bothering concern adorned in some truly dreadful clothes mainly worn by Paul Simenon, this is a good release but definitely for fans only.

Chris Todd

This Brooklyn five piece has slowly built up a reputation for being one of the best bands on the planet, this is their third proper album (let’s not include the bizarre electronica noodlings of ‘OK Calculator’) is the album which takes them out of the underground into a genuine chart bothering concern. The rough edges which made them so charmingly original on 2004’s debut ‘Desperate youth and blood thirsty babes’ and 2006’s ‘Return to Cookie mountain’ (the best album of this decade bar none) have been ironed out and where there was once grime, there now is a pop sheen, in parts, it’s astounding, others, confusing, some, pointless but still infinitely more vital than 99% of bands out there.

‘Halfway Home’ is classic TVOTR and a fantastic way to start. Throbbing basslines collide with layers and layers of percussion from handclaps to extra techno influenced beats with lashings of guitar and synths clashing intensely and smothered with a perfectly angsty vocal from lead vocalist Tunde Adyimpe .

‘Stork and Owl’ is a fragile Bowie-esque ballad which uses vocal samples as percussion over sorrowful strings which fizzes with the imagination synonymous with the band whilst the luscious ‘Family Tree’ is a string led showstopper filled with so much warmth you could be mistaken for sitting in front of a log fire drinking hot chocolate…in Doncaster.

The more introspective moments are the ones which shine the brightest; the sorrowful ‘Love Dog’ has all the ingredients you expect from them, jittering beats, gorgeous Brian Wilson infused vocals and endless unexpected noises from Siteks’ bag of tricks. The finest on offer here is ‘Shout Me Out’ which uses their favoured trick of throwing every sound, every genre they could possibly delve into, throw them all against a wall and see what sticks. Guitar work you’d expect on the soundtrack to ‘Pulp Fiction’ and swaggering electronic beats quickly subside into a furious melange of drum n bass played live and dirty finger nailed slashes of guitars, it is genuinely jawdropping.

For the first time you can hear filler on their albums and there’s too much of it, despite this filler being better than the output of the majority of bands out there, you still don’t expect there to be gaps in between the opportunities to marvel at their ease with brilliance. Lead single ‘Golden Age’ has them parodying themselves badly with it’s uplifting choruses and liberal brass usage, it couldn’t even be described as a throwaway b-side as their b-sides tend to be just as good as the a’s while the funky nothings of ‘Red Dress’ are so anonymous that even a hundred listens would fail for it to sink in. Worst up is ‘Crying’ which is straight out R ‘n’ B flavoured Pop which fuses Prince with Andre 3000 but fails to come anywhere near either (so that’s Lenny Kravitz, right?) while ‘Dancing Choose’ is a bizarre hybrid of electro and rock with a vocal from Adeyimpe which updates Michael Stipe on ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it’, it comes close to working , but not close enough. Still, with TV on The Radio around, there really is no need to persist with the majority of gubbins this country is currently producing is there?

Chris Todd

That’s why Glasvegas have instantly become a special thing to cherish, Glasvegas are giving people a voice, the lyrics will resonate with every disaffected teenager or older folk dissatisfied with the lot they’ve received, the places they will just about exist in,

the towns where the grey only fades to black, something the crap kids of crap 80s pop stars last relevant in October 1983 and middle class toffs in ironic rave bands could never do.

With Alan Mcgee onboard, a man with a knack of bringing working class music to the masses, from the Mary chain and Primal Scream to Oasis (94 - 96 only), they must be doing something right. The North embraces their own bands with all their heart from The Beatles and Smiths through to Arctic Monkeys but not Pigeon Detectives. This, Glasvegas’ debut propels them into that very higher echelon of bands with ease and immediate effect with it being crammed with great tunes.
“It’s my own cheating heart that makes me cry” is the stand out, a sorrowful whiskey sodden Christmassy epic in the vein of ‘Fairytale of New York’ which lies just on the right side of Snow Patrol whilst the soaring guitar work on ‘Lonesome swan’ is as invigorating as it is heart-breaking and unashamedly anthemic.

Obviously well informed in musics rich past, they filter in cheeky little cribs with great flair such as Phil Spector girl band sounds throughout the album, Velvet underground and Mary Chain feedback fuzz or even The Cars AOR classic ‘My best friends’girl’ on rip roaring opener ‘Flowers and football tops’ which culminates in the sweetest shoegaze noise and a hazy rendition of ‘You are my sunshine’ to sneaky pieces of ‘twinkle, twinkle little star’ or mentions of ‘Morning Glory’.

The subject matter goes from songs about social workers; the glorious ‘Geraldine’ to run-away dads; ‘Daddy’s gone’ to teenage murders in their Native Glasgow; ‘Flowers and football tops’. The most startling of their tales is the genuinely disturbing ‘Stabbed’, a spoken word piece
backed by Beethovens ‘Moonlight sonata’ with lyrics such as “I’m gonna get stabbed, you don’t want to stab me cos you dont know my family or our capabilities”, it’s genuinely troubling on each listen.

They are of course being hyped to high heaven but for once, the hype is to be believed. With enough true realist grit the Scottish are so good at, ‘Glasvegas’ already be ranked up there with all the other great debuts, this could be the great shake British music has needed for over a decade.

The Big Pink are apparently two lifelong friends who have been pottering away in the home studios for years culminating inthis single which reeks of hedonistic pycheadelic vibes. Based on an early Underworld style breakbeat, ‘Too Young to love’ is a relentless monotone groove with My Bloody Valentine or early Boo Radleys fuckked up guitar hystrionics.

Fans of Kasabian could do well to check this out to finally highlight exactly what they’re doing wrong when they stupidly release a new track. Top stuff.

Chris Todd

Manchesstahh is back in the area, then!

Chris Todd

This is three and a half minutes of your life you will resent not getting back forever.

Chris Todd