Birmingham Gig Guide - News and Reviews

From the same stable as Lostprophets, this Welsh outfit deliver an uncompromising assault of ear-bleeding dark metalcore noise, bolted down into their debut album Poison (Visible Noise) where guttural vocals and tortured, machine gunning guitars and skull pummelling drums suck you up and spit you out. Mind you, it’s not all flesh pulping brutal sonics, as is evident from tracks like Words and the keyboards dominated Tears Don’t Fall they have a thing for 70s prog influences, while Hit The Floor and Cries In Vain are steeped in old school British metal. More surprisingly, All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me) reveal a melodic pop sensibility that Green Day fans might not find wholly unlistenable. No wonder, they’re being touted as major muscle for the upcoming year.

Joining them are Ontario’s Protest The Hero, giving another go round for concept debut album Kezia (Vagrant) with its narrative about the execution of the titular character as seen from the perspectives of the priest, executioner and victim.

Translated into action that means savagely blistering guitar riffs and percussion, howled vocals and themes of morality, empowerment and attitudes towards women wheeled out through titles such as She ho Mars The Skin of Gods, No Stars Over Bethlehem, current single Heretics and Killers, and A Plateful of Our Dead. It’s ambitious, relentless stuff that never pauses for breath, demanding intense mosh pit thrash action leaving you raw, drained but, undoubtedly, exhilarated.

An early start to the New Year, this brings Hitchcock back to town with Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin for a tour on the back of Olé Tarantula (Proper), an album that

this finds him in classic rock n roll form, guitars ringing and drums pinning down a pop beat drawn from the psychedelic 60s.

As with most Hitchcock songs, it's pointless trying to make too much sense of the lyrics, though the slow swaying NY Doll was inspired by late bassist Arthur Kane, while the jangling sparkle of Underground Sun is a celebratory elegy for a late friend, and the harmonica blowing, brass coloured arachnid title track apparently stems from a time spent in Tucson.

Noting the influence of his American sojourns, the acoustic loping Belltown Ramble refers to a bar in Bellown as well as, er, a 14th century Uzbeckistani warlord while A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations Briggs tips the hat to San Francisco and Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry movies. Quite where the surreal Syd Barrett/Soft Boys/Lennon drone Authority Box comes from is anyone's guess - though apparently you can find the Bolan chugging boogie Museum Of Sex in Seaford - as he turns the word nose into am extended whoop.

As cheerfully barking as anything he's done, but as the early Bowie gone power pop Adventure Rock Ship indicates, considerably more toe tappingly accessible than most. You might even be able to dance along.

Thursday January 11

James Morrison

Having seen out 2006 in fine fettle with You Give Me Something and Wonderful World dominating the airwaves and lavish acclaim for No 1 debut album Undiscovered and its deeply felt autobiographical songs Morrison now makes an early start to keep the momentum rolling for 2007

His scuffed warm voice reminiscent of Al Green, Mick Hucknall, and Terence Trent Darby, he’s back on the road for this rescheduled date, tying in with current and third hit The Pieces Don’t Fit Anymore, a song guaranteed to strike chords with anyone brooding over their ex.

7.30pm. £9. Wulfrun Hall

Friday January 12

Killswitch Engage

Their first headline UK tour since the release of last year’s As Daylight Dies (Roadrunner) the New England metalcore outfit look to lay early claim to 2007 for their brand of pulverising riffs, screamed vocals and brutal melodies. With relatively new frontman Howard Jones having clearly settled into the role and guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz nudging metal superstar status, they’re pulling no punches here, reaching back to their formative death metal influences and piling on political concerns to match the powerhouse barrage while, as on Arms of Sorrow, still slipping in some deceptive romantic break up tenderness when the mood requires. Armed with numbers such as My Curse, Desperate Times, This Is Absolution and Still Beats Your Name, they’ll be generating a whirlwind of headbanging, positively making the girders bleed with their relentless thrashing of Unbroken.

7.30pm. £15. Carling Academy

Saturday January 13

Hundred Reasons

Having had to postpone their October tour because of singer Carl’s voice problems, with a resulting knock on effect for their download only anthemic single The Chance, the lads will be looking to recover the stalled impetus of their Kill Your Own comeback album. Despite strong reviews it failed to crack the Top 40 albums and they’ve not had chart singles success in over two years, so this could well prove make or break time, especially given last year’s departure of guitarist Paul Townsend.

Still, they’ve been using the enforced lay off to bring new boy Ben Doyle up to speed on radio friendly album cuts like Broken Hands and Breathe Again as well as the riffery required for Feed The Fire and Live Fast Die Ugly, they’ve also been working up new material for the next album, promising to include a few tasters in the set. Hopefully, they can pick up where they left off.

7pm. £10. Carling Academy 2

Tuesday January 16

Justin Currie

With Del Amitri still in suspended animation, frontman Currie’s been tinkering around with a few projects in the past four years, among them soul and jazz covers outfit Button Up, working with Eddi Reader, Colin McIntyre and Blazin' Fiddles as part of the With Strings Attached project and teaming with Kevin and Jim McDermott to record comedy rock album A Terrible Beauty, released anonymously as The Uncle Devil Show.

However, he’s now heading out on a series of low key gigs designed to preview his forthcoming debut solo album Rebound. Unfortunately, other than to note it contains 11 tracks, there’s no indication of what to expect or whether he’ll feel inclined to drop in any of old band hits like Always The Last To Know or Nothing Ever Happens. One for the faithful and curious.

8pm. £15. Glee Club

Wednesday January 17

Vashti Bunyan

It’s not unusual for some artists to take a while following up their debut album, but Bunyan’s set something of a record with a gap of 35 years. Discovered by Andrew Loog Oldham back in the 60s, the former art school student was signed to Decca and released the Jagger/Richards penned Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind. However, despite Bunyan being touted as both the new Marianne Faithful and the female Bob Dylan, the single failed to live up to the title and, with further follow ups relegated to the shelf, she lost faith with the industry and set off in a horse drawn caravan to join Donovan’s proposed creative colony on the Isle of Skye.

Arriving two years later to discover Donovan had already left, she channelled the experiences into her debut album, Just Another Diamond Day, recorded with folk guru producer Joe Boyd. However, slipping out without trace on a limited pressing, it prompted her to again pack her bags and take off to the Scottish Borders, where she lived with the Incredible String Band, and from there on to Ireland.

Here she remained in obscurity until the late 90s when, curiously surfing the net to find what had been written about her, she discovered she’d become something of a cult. So, the album was duly reissued on a small label and Bunyan found herself greeted by glowing acclaim and a crowd of contemporary musicians citing her as an influence.

Armed with anew guitar and edging her way back into recording on collaborations with the likes of Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective, the now Edinburgh-based Bunyan took the plunge and, two years back, finally came up with her sophomore release, Lookaftering (Fat Cat).

Her liquid, silvery ethereal voice seasoned by the years and motherhood but undimmed by time and with melodies that ripple like crystal streams, listening to the likes of Lately, the Joanna Newsom harp tinkling Wayward, the light hilltop breeze of Turning Backs or the cascading strings and winter morning ambience of Same But Different, the effect is rather like travelling back four decades and first discovering things like ley lines, Glastonbury and the belief in a world of peace, tranquillity and love. Fey perhaps, but we could probably do with a few more like her these days. Hopefully, she won’t be in her 70s before she gets round to album number three.

Joining the nu-folk package is labelmate Andy Cabic better known as Vetiver whose To Find Me Gone album is a wonderfully summery affair that weaves his soft, sinuous voice around a mix of Southern gothic folk rhythms and melodies and echoes of Village Green era Ray Davies with memorable lines like 'confession is just an honest way of lying'.

Opening with a 52 second drone that leads in to Been So Long with its evocations of the Incredible String Band, the album is rich with heady spaces over which and between float Cabic's vocals and the band's chilled folk arrangements, conjuring the aural equivalent of underwater tree roots hung with rotting moss.

By the time you're half way into the second track, the chugging You May Be Blue with its naggingly familiar guitar refrain, you'll be feeling you've known it all your half remembered lives. Come the wistful slow shuffling melancholic Grateful Dead countrified folk of I Know No Pardon, the early Simon & Garfunkel colours of Maureen and the glorious watery guitar, Everybody's Talking harmonica and vocal ripples of The Porter and you'll be wanting to know then for all your future ones too.

The band name comes from an essential oil used to soothe stress related conditions, stimulate tired minds and bring a sense of grounded well being. Seems appropriate.

And then there’s Adem, the London acoustic songster touting his current Love and Other Planets album with its songs about the spaces around, between and within us. While he relatively rock outs on Something’s Going To Come and X Is For Kisses, for the most this stays within the hushed and fragile leafy folk moods of such numbers as Sea of Tranquillity, These Lights Are Meaningful and Human Beings Gather ‘round.

8pm. £16. Glee Club

Wednesday January 17

Homespun

A collaboration between The Beautiful South’s writer-guitarist Dave Rotheray and singer Sam Brown, this is their second tour and a further push for the self-titled debut album of acoustic country, folk and pop wrapped around Rotheray’s familiar melancholic observational lyrics about bruised and broken relationships and unfulfilled lives.

The general feel is of a rural British backporch country (perfectly captured on the excellent Days) with oak trees, dusty backroads and soon to be harvested fields. Support comes courtesy of Irish songstress Eleanor McEvoy repromoting her current Early Hours album of melancholic folk and jazz-blues as she sings of absent friends, recalls childhood days and pays tribute to those coping with loss and loneliness. Do insist she does her slowed down, bluesy boozey version of Chuck Berry’s Memphis Tennessee, reinterpreted into a wearily sad song by an estranged father denied access to his child.

7.30pm. £14. Wulfrun Hall

Saturday January 20

Jesse Malin

With a voice that sounds like a strangled Springsteen circa Born To Run filtered through Neil Young’s whine around Heart of Gold, Malin used to front D Generation before he gave up punk and hair extensions and reinvented himself as a New York singer-songwriter. These days he's a streetwise storyteller weaving Springsteenesque tales of the Big Apple's helpless romantics, losers, dreamers and survivors.

The Fine Art of Self Destruction proved an auspicious calling card a couple of years ago, and now he’s back with equally impressive follow-up, Glitter In The Gutter (One Little Indian) offering further widescreen guitars akimbo rock laced with hooks and big choruses. He even gets Bruce to duet on the Young-like Broken Radio while Ryan Adams’ guitar is all over the place.

He’s not dropping as many names as last time around (though mid tempo ballad Love Streams references Lenny Bruce), but his themes remain much the same with songs about hanging on to your sense of self, defiant youth, reflections on growing up, surviving the daily grind and changes, finding love and, as the title says, those diamonds in the gutter. Save for a Neil Young like reading of Paul Westerberg’s Bastards Of Young, it’s all self-penned material, hitting rousing guitar punk pop whirlwinds with In The Modern World, Little Star and Prisoners of Paradise, striking Springsteen poses with the anthemic Black Haired Girl and filtering in hints of Mink DeVille with Lucinda and NY Nights.

It’s arena sized music, full of swelling crowd-rousing moments that the NEC might find hard to contain, so you can imagine the potency he’ll be packing in to such a small venue as this. Not to be missed.

7.30pm. £8.50 Barfly

Monday January 22

Dartz

Support to Hot Club De Paris, the Teeside trio look to build on the momentum of last year’s St Petersburg with a quick jaunt round a handful of the nation’s clubs in the service of new live favourite single Once Twice Again (Xtramile), a bouncy slice of pop punk that sounds not unlike early Jam. Which isn’t something you can say about Lines, a new number that sees them showing off their dancier Franz Ferdinand shapes.

8pm. £7. Barfly

Tuesday January 23

The Boy Least Likely To

Can’t say much about the alt pop country duo headliners other than that their rural sound’s distinguished by the likes of , glockenspiels, recorders and fiddles, they’ve been likened to a mix of Altered Images, Aztec Camera, Dexys Midnight Runners, and Orange Juice and, following on from debut album The Best Party Ever and last year’s Be Gentle With Me single they’re marking their first assault on 2007 with a download only cover of George Michael’s Faith.

Support’s provided by LA’s The Little Ones, making their UK touring debut in tandem with debut mini-album Sing Song (Heavenly). Produced by ex pat Wolverhampton lad Dave Newton of Mighty Lemon Drops fame, it’s seven tracks worth of ringing, catchy California guitar pop with anglo colours, Let Them Ring The Bells, Cha Cha Cha and Oh MJ among those surely owning a debt to The Kinks.

Lyrically less bubbly than the handclap friendly music perhaps, but as they kick into the likes of the chime and chug Lovers Undercover or the Beatles shaded face The Facts, it’s hard to avoid breaking out into broad grins of sheer pop pleasure.

8pm. £8. Barfly

After a two year recording silence and a relatively low gigging profile after a period when they seemed to be constantly out on the road, the Glasgow outfit are roaring back into action with this Kerrang headliner. Having parted ways with Beggars Banquet, they’re now signed to indie label 14th Floor through whom they’ll be releasing their much anticipated fourth album, Puzzle, sometime this Spring.

Recorded in Vancouver, word says it distils their trademark crunching riffs and yowling vocal aggression into their strongest work yet, continuing Infinity Land’s balance of the brutal with the unexpectedly tender. Whether the same folksy and Eastern flavours are also present remains to be seen, but their Christmas Day download single Semi-mental’s wedge of chorus friendly stuttering meld of glam and metal (that bizarrely sounds like a cross between The Hollies Stop Stop Stop and The Mission) bodes well for new adventures in sound while this early preview should afford the chance to discover whether the likes of so far unrecorded live numbers such as Now I'm Everyone, Who's Got A Match, Scared of Lots of Anything, Puzzled Communication, Love Has A Diameter and Drop It Dickhead have made it to the final album line up.

Support comes from LA punk boys The Bronx following up the release of last year’s History’s Stranglers album with its most immediate track, White Guilt (Wichita), as the new single. Recorded live, it’s a swaggering slice of classic LA strut rock (complete with Gilby Clarke from Guns n Roses) designed for punching the air and stomping round the room that should, by rights, give them their first UK hit.

The son of James Taylor and Carly Simon, he’s back promoting Another Run Around The Sun (Independiente), a mellow singer-songwriter affair peppered with melodic folk rock songs of love and loss, delivered with a laid back warm voice and a familiar Taylor guitar sound.

While influences of McCartney, Cat Stevens and Paul Simon might be detected, he’s decidedly his father’s son, doing a nice line in acoustic shuffle for I’ll Be Fine while Lady Magic and You Must’ve Fallen are easy on the ear examples of the jazz flavours that have also gone into the music.

The sunny slow swaying opener Nothing I Can Do is a perfect example of Taylor’s stock in trade while the gently upbeat One Man Day, break up song Digest and the beautifully understated arrangements of the wistful Think A Man Would Know just make you want to kick off your shoes and watch the world drift by.

Most recently heard teamed with Grand Drive’s Danny George Wilson on his solo debut, the New York based folk-rock singer-songwriter’s over here to promote her own latest release, City Garden (Rykodisc). But if she played Emmylou to Wilson’s Gram, her sixth, self-exploring album sees her in far bluesier, gutsier mind, evident from the get go with opening track Blood, Sweat, Tears, an impassioned acoustic, almost gospel number that gives way to the mellowed and wearied reggae soul flavour of Make Love before she explodes into the full band power of the title track.
Her rock punch is potently felt too on the military beat protest number Real Live Love, the Buffalo Springfield meets Merseybeat feel of Middle Road and the urgent tumbling pop of The World Could End where old ears might hear traces of Richie Valens in the melodies.

But she doesn’t need to turn up the wattage to deliver the power and, with themes that embrace the spiritual, the tremulous Holy Land, the solo acoustic All I Ever Had where she becomes the middle ground between Melanie and Joan Baez (an influence also heard on the wonderfully romantic Swimming Pool), and the hurting waltz Alone provide the album’s arguably strongest moments while the scuffed beats of Shell & Shore are undeniably its most sensual. She may be small in stature, but mark my words Klein is a towering talent.

Sharing the night and plugging his Wail & Ride (Hyena) album is Grayson Capps, an Alabama born singer-songwriter who spent 20 years soaking up the Big Easy vibes of New Orleans and who clearly imbibed deep of bayou juice if the growly timbre of his voice and music is any indication.

Reminiscent of early Waylon Jennings with hints of Delbert McLinton, Kristofferson, Tony Joe White and (on the honky tonking Jukebox especially) Johnny Cash, now based in Tennessee Capps draws on a life seasoned and stained by the personal and political for his storytelling.

The title track swamp stomper is inspired by the birth of son Waylon, Daddy’s Eyes a bittersweet nod to a failed marriage while Waterhole Branch refers to a shoe burning Thanksgiving ritual his dad hosts back home and New Orleans Waltz offers his response to Hurricane Katrina and the political mud it stirred up.

There’s plenty of local colour on the album, New Orleans mythology pouring the verses of the bon temps swaggerer Poison that name checks Marie Levaux and Broomy a bluesy snapshot of a local homeless street sweeper while it’s hard to imagine something like the drunkard’s death lament cum celebration blues Ed Lee or the devil haunted Mermaid being spawned anywhere but among the bones of Southern gothic.

Raw, gritty, sharply observed and deeply felt, Capps deserves to be far better and wider known than he is. This might be the start.

Friends of Damien Hirst (who’s designed their sleeve covers), indie duo Antony Genn and Martin Slattery gear up for the imminent release of debut album Narcissus Road with new single Back When you Were Good (A&M). As you might expect from backgrounds that include Elastica, Pulp, Joe Strummer's Mescaleros and Black Grape, the pair make pop music with a spiked edge, the single a suitably nagging jerky swayer that switches from acoustic coyness to full band flourish. Time may well be on their side.

Formed two years ago in Buffalo, the four piece arrive here for a second stab at pushing The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch, the debut album that, thanks to the band’s online presence, became the Fuelled By Ramen label’s fastest selling release in its 10 year history.

Hard to understand why since, while undeniably melodic catchy modern emo power pop packed with songs about girls and having a good time, it’s not really offering anything different to the likes of New Found Glory, Fall Out Boy or indeed such earlier influences as Blink, Green Day and Good Charlotte. Singer Shaant even comes with the prerequisite adenoidal whine.

There’s not exactly anything wrong about songs like Risque, Sweat The Battle Before The Battle Sweats You, The Fourth Drink Instinct, There’s A Class For This, The Curse of Curves or Sweet Talk 101 with their energetic radio friendly singalong tunes and choruses, but you’ve heard them all before in different variations and, after a while, everything becomes a bit of an indistinguishable blur. Definitely the same old blood rush, but you might look in vein for that new touch.

The London four piece made their debut last year with limited edition single It’s Magnetic, a fizzy flurry of indie guitar pop that positively tumbled over itself while singer Gavin Dwight engaged in vocal acrobatics. Now they look to repeat the formula with similarly limited edition follow-up Leigh-on-Sea (Label Fandango), suggesting that while they may sound a bit of a one-trick pony, they do at least sit well in the saddle.

Last year proved quite a turning point for the reclusive heavily bearded, soft-voiced New Hampshire singer-songwriter. After languishing in UK stores for over a year, with a re-release via a new label suddenly his debut album Trouble became one of the essential acquisitions of 2006, turning him a belated overnight sensation.

Unfortunately, while not wishing to look gift horses in the mouth, it did mean that the release of its follow-up, Till The Sun Turns Black (14th Floor), already out in America, had to be delayed. However, with the Brits nominated Lamontagne hitting the concert trail it’s finally surfaced here and should comfortably prove that he’s here for the long run. It’s not, though, Trouble Mark II. A somewhat lyrically darker affair, there’s also a emphasis heavier on the bluesier, more Memphis end of his R&B influences to both Three More Days and the jazzy You Can Bring Me Flowers. Then again the string arrangements, husky mood and warm muted brass that variously colour the hushed Empty, Can I Stay, Gone Away From Me with its plinketty ukulele and the title track conjure nothing less than the foggy sunshine and coaldust hung streets of the colliery towns of Northern England.

At times, it’s almost as if Martin Stephenson was inhabiting the spirit of Ted Hawkins with Mark Knopfler’s guitar (the instrumental Truly, Madly, Deeply reminiscent of his work on Local Hero), but with Lamontagne’s formerly grizzled voice now a soft, almost silken buttery wonder brushing over the heartaching lyrics.

He’s called the album a song cycle about the nature of human relationships and communication, opening with Be Here Now’s lengthy six minute gently rolling, at times almost musically ambient meditation on how easily we become distracted and fail to engage with others. The final track, the slow swaying, brass hued (and not a little Lennon-like) Within You, is, he offers, a lament for the lack of myth and wonder in contemporary American society. Elsewhere Empty considers elected emotional alienation while the wearied Lou Reed flecked lullaby Barfly finds the singer drowning in pointlessness and a desperate need for human contact.

Now if all that sounds a bit heavy and pretentious, be reassured that the songs and melodies are anything but. Rather they are lovely, burnished affairs, the spare acoustic Lesson Learned with its Spanish guitar and dark veined moods evocative of the great Don McLean or Harry Chapin while the fragile aching strings enfolded Can I Stay where he sings ‘I’ve fallen sad inside and I need a place to hide’ could be a close relative of Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars.

It’ll be interesting to see if the new, mellower delivery rubs off on the tracks from Trouble, but either way this has to be one of the most unmissable shows of the new year, you’ll hurt and you’ll swoon.

Following on from jaunty tale of rape and murder Happy As Annie, the gypsy ska-rock bluegrass chirpy chappies return with equally poppy new single Well, Love Does Furnish A Life (Transgressive) lifted from their The Freedom Spark. Frequently coming across like a cross between Celtic era Dexys and The Specials, they’re not all about bouncing around the floor as the wonderful Guillemots aching ballad remix of the single ably demonstrates. More like that pleas, Ed.

Hailing from Wolverhampton but with his spiritual roots in the muddy deltas, Matthews is a Black Country amalgam of Beck, Jeff Buckley and Ben Harper with heady traces of Robert Plant for good measure. Following an independent release, his debut album, Passing Strangers, was picked up by Island, with the bluesy Dream Song featuring tabla, violin and cello released as a single towards the end of last year. There’s no follow up immediately planned, but if you’ve been late tuning in to the buzz this is a good chance to discover his muscular folk, delta blues, rock and world music stew and such song standouts as The Fool’s Fooling Himself, the slide guitar driven Blue In The Face Again and the leafy folk of Eyes Wider Than Before.

Support comes from Vogue-tipped Hong Kong born alternative folk singer-songwriter singer-songwriter Emmy the Great who arrives with the full endorsement Guillemots front-man Fyfe Dangerfield who’ll be producing her upcoming single.

White boy East London estate rap with an acoustic guitar, Ben Drew’s been garnering fulsome praise for the hard hitting angry tales of contemporary urban life that make up debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words (679).

An autobiographical trawl through tales of absent fathers, mum’s junkie lover, underage sex, drugs, rape, murder and generally trying to live in the hard knocks world, epitomised in tracks such as Mama (Loves A Crackhead) and the radio unfriendly expletive peppered brutality of Kidz and Sick 2 Def.

Though evocative more of 50 Cent, Mobb Deep and Eminem than The Streets, the album, much of which sweetens the sound with strings and piano, throws up an eclectic set of references that range from The Prodigy and a Hall and Oates sample to Nick Cave and Johnny Cash. With the recent Live At The Pet Cemetery's version of No More Eatin’ and venomous new tracks Broke and My Life confirming his reputation for a dynamic live set, he could well prove one of the breakthrough names of 2007.

Rescheduled from last November, this brings the London born half-French/half Indian singer-songwriter back to promote current album Fires (Idaho), where songs such as Mr King (a touch Kate Bush), Heart Attack ( a grown up Avril), Damascus and the soaringly defiant current single Learning To Breathe all deal with being walked over and getting back on your feet. It’s politicised too, opening up with the fairly self-explanatory swaggering burst of powerpop Everybody’s Gone To War.

Conjuring thoughts of Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, Paul Simon, Carole King, and Steely Dan, it’s a polished, sophisticated affair, bursting with pop bounce on All Good People, sly dancing on the classy piano ballad prickly love song Geek Love and showing off her vocal dynamics on the moody atmospherics of the six minute Nickindia. If you’ve not heard of her before it’ll be worth making the discovery.