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ARCHIVED REVIEWS September 2009 Previews by Mike Davies Tuesday September 1 The Dodos
Since the San Francisco duo played here last year they’ve expanded to become a trio. They’ve also polished up the production and toned down the noise and ferocity so that on sophomore album, Tie To Die (Wichita), they sound less like a psychedelic folk version of White Stripes and more like country tined alt folk pop. Not that this means the album’s any less splendid than their Visiter debut, the clearer production serving to highlight the summery vocals of guitarist Meric Long, floating breezily across numbers like Small Deaths, Fables and Acorn Factory, the latter also showing his finger picking chops to fine advantage’. The punky influences are still felt on the stomping Eastern tinged This Is A Business while both Longform and Two Medicines barely take time to draw breath as they hurriedly skitter along on a bedrock of stuttering drums and choppy acoustic guitar while the title track seeds undertones of jazz into the shuffling blues mix. It’s not, perhaps, as immediately striking as their debut, but for those who like Fleet Foxes but wish they could dance too, it should prove a highly attractive proposition. 8pm. £8.50. Glee Club Thursday September 3 Sleeping States
A one-man vehicle for Bristol based experimental multi-instrumentalist Markland Starkie, this should prove something of an erudite as well as a musical evening, blending shards of electronics and found sounds with classical influenced melodies behind his airy vocals. He’ll be showcasing debut album In the Gardens of the North (Bella Union), a lo fi collection of songs variously inspired by or referencing Kafka, Borges, Benjamin Britten, German academic W G Sebald and acoustic steel string guitar Robbie Basho. Don’t be put off by thinking it requires a library cramming session, however. Numbers such as The Next Village, On The Beach At Aldeburgh and A Spiral Not Repeated are as warm and intoxicatingly beautiful as they are cerebral, while The Cartographer and a 50s crooner influenced Gardens Of The South will make Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright fans go weak at the knees. Treating on themes of mortality and the passing of time, he weaves a gentle melancholy that sits perfectly with his shimmering, and only occasionally discordant, tunes. A night of wonder beckons. 8pm. £4. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath Friday September 4 Cherbourg
Citing influences that include Arcade Fire, Iron & Wine, Beirut, Belle & Sebastian and Elliot Smith, you have a fair idea of what to expect from the fiddle featuring London folk scene four piece. Having already released the Last Chapter of Dreaming and Into The Dark EPs this year, featuring forlorn darkling ballads Never Love Again (a touch Men They Couldn’t Hang) and Man (strong shades of Radiohead), they’ll be showcasing new single No More Flowers and looking to add a few more recruits to the swelling fan base. Well worth taking the ferry. 7.30pm. £6. Glee Club Friday September 4 The Lights
Not to be confused with Lights, the Toronto electro-pop kitten and recent V Fest visitor, this is the launch night for the Birmingham quintet’s new single. Their previous release, the handclappy pop of The Low Hundreds, got them on to several BBC playlists and secured national airplay. But if that still failed to find a deserved place in the charts, it’s unlikely that January Blues (Crash) will fare better. Not that it lacks a catchy tumbling melody (calling to mind the 70s pop of Pilot, and not just because of the title), but it just doesn’t have quite the same fizz and the vocals sound to be straining a little too hard. It’s also a few months too early to cash in on radio’s fondness for title tie ins. The band certainly have the ability and the songs to secure the break through, just not with this single. 8pm. £5. Flapper & Firkin Friday September 4-Sunday September 6 Moseley Folk Festival Another year and the fest just seems to grow and get better, this year welcoming a solid balance of veterans, current wave makers and rising stars, with the main events punctuated and complemented by acoustic performances from the Bohemian Jukebox stage. Friday
The headliner for the opening night is a rare appearance Saint Etienne, Sarah Cracknell and co presumably taking a folksy approach to their dance material and hopefully mingling those retro pop hits with promises of a fully fledged overdue album to join the two new numbers featured on the recent compilation.
Much earlier, second act of the day, Anglo/French duo The Fancy Toys are rather fun, mixing up jazz, reggae, blues, vaudeville, hula, pop, classical and folk influences in playful manner with instruments that include Bubble Gun, glockenspiel, ukulele, Stylophone, melodion and cajon. Forthcoming single For You & Me is a bouncy colourful cartoon fashion conscious love song that sounds like a hybrid of Sparks and the Waikiki islanders and there’s plenty more smile-tugging numbers where that came from. They’re followed by the folk tinged psychedelic electronic pop of Rose Elinor Dougall, who’ll be previewing material from upcoming album Without Why (Scarlett), including recent glacially shimmering single Start/Stop/Synchro. After her, the hometown flag’s being flown by Seeland, a retro futurist trio featuring ex Broadcast member Tim Felton and former Plone man Billy Bainbridge and inspired by Joe Meek, 60s Library Music and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Lifted from the Tomorrow, Today album, if new single, Goodbye, is indicative, expect electro pop where Krautrock meets the Beach Boys. They’re joined by a line up that includes Ben Calvert making his fourth consecutive appearance with songs from last year’s The Broken Family DaySaver and medieval psychedelic/prog folk outfit Circulus showcasing numbers from latest album Thought Becomes Reality. A collaboration between the Glasgow trio and an experimental Japanese synth-pop duo, penultimate act The Pastels & Tenniscoats should be a bit special too. Originally formed in the 80s, The Pastels never really translated their promise into chart success, splitting up at the end of the decade and regrouping with a new line up in the mid 90s to release Mobile Safari and Illumination. They’ve not released anything since the soundtrack to David Mackenzie’s The Last Great Wilderness some six years ago, but this month sees the first fruit from the current collaboration with the Two Sunsets (Geographic) album, a dreamy 12 track set that includes a rather fine cover of the Jesus & Mary Chain’s About You alongside such titles as So Many Stars, Vivid Youth, Boats and Start Slowly. Saturday
Having had a low profile over the past year, Beth Orton surfaces to provide previews of her as yet untitled upcoming follow up to Comfort Of Strangers, so a perfect opportunity to see if she’s maintaining its move towards stripped down alt-folk. The day also marks the return, after 35 years, of cult 70s prog folkers Comus, dipping back into the past for the cheery tales of murder, fear and mental illness that graced jazzily psychedelic debut album First Utterance.
The strong roster also sees the return of Birmingham’s Anglo-Indian former Sneaker Pimps singer, Kelli Ali whose current album, Butterfly (Rocking Horse), builds on the Renaissance flavours of last year's Rocking Horse for a headily intoxicating collection that combines new material with acoustic reworks of tracks from both the previous album and her Tigermouth debut. With a simple acoustic instrumentation of guitar, cello, violin and flute behind Ali's breathy, sprite-like voice, it's a delicate, pastoral affair full of woody colours and the air of jasmine perfumed afternoons. If the sun’s out, this’ll be a perfect soundtrack to blissing out. Regular local visitors, Vetiver will be treating one and all to songs from Tight Knit (Bella Union). Arguably their best yet, it’s a warm, fuzzy collection of left and leaving songs delivered as slow rolling dusty folk that, with the addition of the occasional electronic brush stroke and the Eastern flavours found on the bluesy Strictly Rule, evokes images of campfire smoke and open sky nights out in the great yonder. Andy Cabic's voice and the simple rootsy mellowness frequently conjures comparisons to Paul Simon, be it on the prowling horns enhanced slow lope Another Reason To Go or the sunnily perky Everyday which could be a kissing cousin of Feelin' Groovy. From the melancholic simple blues farewell of Through The Front Door, the psychfolk of At Forest Edge, and the salt-tang gentle shanty Rolling Sea to the ethereal, spacy expansiveness of the largely instrumental Down From Above, it's a bittersweet balm to the soul. Kris Drever, John McCusker and Roddy Woomble will be featuring material from last year’s debut Before The Ruin. Idlewild frontman Woomble handles lead vocals with Drever and McCusker’s trad influences seeding the likes of All Along The Way, Stuck in Time, the fiddle dominant title track and, one of several songs drawing on imagery of water and the ocean’s pull, Rest On The Rock. Inevitably, perhaps, Drever’s only lead vocal contribution, The Poorest Company, is the most trad sounding of them all. More contemporary flavours enfold the harmony rich Silver And Gold and the radio friendly anthemic folk-pop leanings of Into The Blue, but from whichever end of the folk circuit you approach this should prove another highlight of the day. After delivering a standout set last year, having won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best newcomer, former Winterset member Jackie Oates returns for a repeat performance, this time focusing on her new album, Hyperboreans (One Little Indian). Produced by and featuring brother Jim Moray, it is, as you might imagine, a trad folk affair in terms of style and material, Oates turning her fresh cut barley vocals to arrangements of such stalwarts as The Miller and His Three Sons, The Pleasant Month Of May, Locks and Bolts and murder ballad The Butcher’s Boy. Elsewhere Past Caring is a virtually unaccompanied setting of a moving poem by Australian writer Henry Lawson, Oates contributes Morris dance friendly tune Mavis, while the plaintive, strings kissed May The Kindness comes from Exeter folkie Dave Wood and, based on Greek legends of the mythical tribe, the title track was written specifically for her by Scottish folkie Alasdair Roberts. The real surprise though, and sure to prove an audience favourite, is her buoyant cover of old Sugarcubes hit Birthday, finely stitched into the folk fabric and another reason to see this on many of the year’s Best Of lists. Sunday
To see the event out in style, the headliners are venerable flute flavoured prog folk blues rock godfathers, Jethro Tull. Meanwhile Jim Moray himself puts in an appearance on the final day, doubtless persuading sis to hang around for a duet, part of a line up that also welcomes fiddle-bouzouki duo Nancy Kerr & James Fagan, folk legends Carthy & Swarbrick, bluesman guitarist Wizz Jones and Cara Dillon.
It’s Dillon’s first appearance in these parts since the release of Hill Of Thieves earlier this year, an album that finds her firmly in traditional mood, from the self-penned title track through earthy arrangements of The Parting Glass, the jaunty Johnny, Lovely Johnny, six minute epic Celtic lament P Stands For Paddy and reinvigorated versions of evergreens Spencer The Rover and She Moved Through The Fair. She’ll be a hard act to follow.
It’ll be a family occasion too with appearances by both Ella Edmondson, plugging debut album Hold Your Horses, and dad Ade’s outfit The Bad Shepherds who, recasting punk classics like Teenage Kicks, God Save The Queen and Once In A Lifetime in a Celtic folk style with reels and jigs, promise to provide the most fun of the day. Fri 2pm-11pm, Sat/Sun Noon-11pm. Fri £20 (kids £10), Sat/Sun £35 (kids £15), weekend £65 (kids £30, family £140). U12s free. Moseley Park, Moseley Saturday September 5 Okkervil River
The last ever live gig at the 02 Academy before it moves to its new home at Horsefair, marks the end of a nine year era in fine style. Taking their name from a short story by Russian author Tatyana, the roots-rock flavoured Austin indie outfit return for another helping of current album The Stand Ins (Jagjaguwar) and its jabs at the shallow pop world served up in catchy, toe-tapping uplifting melodies, beaming guitars and, on Lost Coastlines, even a la la, la la la la chorus. From the country lollopping Singer Songwriter through the Jonathan Richman-like On Tour With Zykos and the Sonny & Cher recalling 60s pop of Calling And Not Calling My Ex to the closing Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed On the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979, a song about doomed 79s gay rocker Jobriath, this is some of the most glorious music that a loathing of pop music has ever produced. 6.30pm. £12.50. O2 Academy Monday September 7 Tori Amos
One of the criticisms levelled at Abnormally Attracted To Sin (Island) was that, with a running time of over 75 minutes, there's too much of it. Come on, how can you have too much Tori! Again, it finds her in heady theatrical mode as she explores notion of religious truths, the relationships between women, power, sex, society and sin and, as she puts it, how woman are controlled by "the threat of despair". You should know by now, you don't get lightweight froth from Amos. Opening on the slouching moody electronica of Give with Amos giving a prowling Eartha Kitt gone tribal vocal, it shifts into the familiar sensual swooping Tori-isms of Welcome To England before Strong Black Vine hits brooding stormclouds as it wrestles with images of oil and arms. Not exactly perky pop, but not forgettable either This rich diversity is reflected throughout; from the nervy tensions of Curtain Call's ageing neurosis, Not Dying Today's dance itch rhythms and the lovely strings adorned piano ballad show tune Maybe California to the endearingly folksy march 500 Miles and the swirlingly hypnotic title track to the cosmic floating Starling. Reaching a crescendo in Lady in Blue, it builds slowly from lullaby waltzing to an explosive finale of darkling synth clouds and piano rainstorms that should leave the venue shaken with awe. Quite how much of this she can squeeze into a set that fans will be expecting to also wheel out past live favourites remains to be seen, but you can guarantee there’ll be no fillers in sight. 7.30pm. £32.50/£30. Symphony Hall Wednesday September 9 The Low Anthem
Having played together in various ensembles since 2002, Ben Knox Miller and Jeff Prystowsky formed their latest project in 2006, releasing their self-titled debut that May. October 2007 brought the What The Crow Brings EP and the following month they expanded to a three piece with the addition of classical composer Jocie Adams. Which brings us up to date and new album Oh My God, Charlie Darwin (Bella Union). They’ve been likened to Fleet Foxes, though, listening to Charlie Darwin's folk-hymnal vision of a drowned, cold and formless world and the dusty hushed devotional (Don't) Tremble, Miller's sublime falsetto is more likely to draw comparisons with Bon Iver. Those who go weak at the knees when confronted with such whispered balladry had best have chairs to hand when listening to Ticket Taker's thick Cohenesque pledge of love in the face of the coming flood, To Ohio's elegy to a deceased lover, the clap and sway Appalachian spiritual sounding OMGCD and the pump organ drones of Cage The Songbird and To The Ghosts Who Write History Books. However, this is just half of the picture. When not croaking bourbon fumes, Miller can be found gargling the same nicotine and gravel as Tom Waits and the throatier Dylan, the latter rising through the rocking guitar fire and blowing harmonica of Champion Angel with the former clanking away on Home I'll Never Be, which, you don't need me to remind you, is actually Waits' own setting of Jack Kerouac's lyrics. Best of all though is the foot stomping belter The Horizon Is A Beltway which, with wailing harmonica, forcefully strummed guitar, singalong 'the skyline is on fire' chorus and a hollerin' vocal like Springsteen with laryngitis, sounds like something Pete Seeger might have whipped out to inspire the revolution as it marched on city hall. At once stirring, evocative, melancholic, solemn and jubilant, it's such a terrific collection of songs and melodies, it could even have Creationists sneaking copies home in brown paper wrappers.7.30pm. £7.50. Glee Club Thursday September 10 The Editors
The 02 Academy’s new home couldn’t have asked for a better opening night christening as the adopted Brummies surface from a lengthy period closeted away in the studio recording the follow up to An End Has A Start. Titled In This Light And On This Evening, it’s not released until next month but given the occasion you can pretty much guarantee they’ll be providing advance previews of tracks that include such titles as Bricks And Mortar, The Big Exit, Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool and Walk The Fleet Road. They’ll certainly be featuring the album’s first single, Papillon, a track that reassures devotees that they’ve not abandoned their swelling majestic dark cocktail of Joy Division, Echo & The Bunnymen, and Scott Walker. 7.30pm. £22.50. O2 Academy, Horsefair Thursday September 10 The Blow Monkeys
Poster boys for 80s blue eyed soul and funk dance grooves, they hit big with 1986's Digging Your Scene but, save for It Doesn't Have To Be This Way the following year, never really persuaded the British public to take them to their heart. They called it a day in 1990 with Robert Howard, aka Dr Robert, going on to carve a low key solo career. However, the original members reunited last year for comeback album Devil's Tavern (Blow Monkey Music). Naturally, there’s that old jazzy soul, best exemplified by the sax swaggering I Don't Mind, Save Me (very Style Council) and the staccato swamp funky Only Joking, but what makes it worth exploring for none Monkeys devotees are the tracks that steer away from their old template. The opening The World Can Wait, for example, which, splicing West Coast vibe and spooked folk, sounds much more like a vintage Zombies number. Or there's the folk-country inflections to the shuffling Travellin' Soul, a gentle Scottish-Occidental lilted When Love's In Bloom, the 60s psychedelic pop of I Dream Of You and the urgent rhythmic drive of The Bullet Train, a number that along with Frontline, suggest our Bob may have been listening to a few Alabama 3 albums. Unlikely to see any major of fortunes, but certainly worth bending the ear. 8pm. £10. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath Thursday September 10 Ray Lamontagne
The husky voiced songster takes another go round with current album Gossip On The Grain (14th Floor) with its strong Stax and Memphis r&b flavours, sounding like a meld of Otos Redding and Van Morrison on numbers such as You Are the Best Thing, the country soul waltzing Let It Be Me and the brooding loneliness of I Still Care For You. He may take things up a tempo or two with Henry Nearly Killed Me (It's a Shame), but it’s the balladeering melancholy that will hold the crowd captive.
Support comes from Josh Ritter, playing his first tour here in two years when he was busy promoting The Historical Conquests. There’s no follow up in the offing, but, playing an acoustic set tonight, there’s a chance he’ll slip in one or two new numbers among the fan favourites. 7.30pm. £25/£19.50. W’hampton Civic Hall Friday September 11 The Twang
The second in the new venue’s opening weekend celebrations continues its hometown focus with a hefty line up that includes Scarlet Harlots, The Traps, Templeton Pek, Misty’s Big Adventure, Subkicks, Octane OK, Mexicolas, Strangle Kojak and Sick City C. Taking the headline spot, the Quinton quintet will be showcasing sophomore album Jewellery Quarter (b-Unique). The failure of summery bubble kick off single Barney Rubble to make the Top 40 must have come as a bit of shock, but not as much as the album stalling at No 20 and swiftly vanishing from sight. They’ll be working hard to whip up a second wave of interest with the likes of the soppily romantic Twit Twoo, soulful piano pop May I Suggest, and the breezily loping Encouraging Sign, all of which suggest they’ve progressed beyond the getting drunk and getting laid of Love It When I Feel Like This and entered an era of meaningful relationships and emotions that last longer than a can of lager. They’ve grown up musically since the first album too, and although you’ll still hear Happy Mondays/Flowered Up baggy funk influences on Took The Fun and Put It On The Dancefloor they both have more bubbling within the grooves than just party vibes while Got No Interest serves a soulful wistfulness, Back Where We Started nods to the jangly jauntiness of The Las and Williamsburg even harks to the cool summer breeze of West Coast soul. It’s a pity the fan base doesn’t seem to have matured with them. 6.30pm. £10. O2 Academy Saturday September 12 The Streets
Hometown gig number three of the opening weekend welcomes Mike Skinner’s rapping musical alter-ego with choice favourites from his four albums to date, inevitably to include the likes of Dry Your Eyes and Fit But You Know It. He’s been busy recording what he says will be the final Streets album, Computers and Blues, and having already posted several numbers online, among them I Love My Phone, David Hassles, Lovelight of My Life, The Robots Are Taking Over and, er, He’s Behind You, He’s Got Swine Flu, it’ll be interesting to see if he’ll be trying them out live. 6.30pm. £16.50. O2 Academy Saturday September 12 Charlotte Hatherley
Currently to be found fingering the frets with Bat For Lashes, the former Ash guitarist takes time out to nurture her own career and next month’s solo album number three, New Worlds (Little Sister). It is, she says, about trying to find herself again after the sudden fame thrust upon her in Ash and the confusion and going “a bit mental” after she left. If she’s searching for identity, then musically she seems to be considering several options. The opening single, White, finds her in dreamy synth tinged pop territory with one eye on the dance floor while Alexander is cloud kissed folk pop, Firebird is skewed jazzy lounge loping cabaret with vibraphone trills, the title track and Little Sahara jerky Devo meets The Go Gos flurries of art pop, the fractured angular Straight Lines is anything but and Cinnabar (the album’s original title) swims upon dissonant Bush-like waves. It doesn’t, it must be said, sound like an album by someone who has clearly identified where she fits into the contemporary music spectrum, but it does sound a lot like someone who’s having a fun time testing the various waters. 9.30pm. £5. Kasbah, Coventry Sunday September 13 Ocean Colour Scene
The final hometown heroes gig to mark the opening of the Academy’s new venue takes things full circle as OCS were the first band to play the Dale End site nine years ago in November 2000. The set list will be a little different this time around, though doubtless there’ll be at least a few nods to nostalgia and, with some 25 new songs written for next year’s new studio album, hopefully a couple of previews of the future. 6.30pm. £22. O2 Academy Sunday September 13 Jeff & Vida
Bluegrass fans get a special treat tonight with this appearance by acclaimed New Orleans (now Nashville based) duo Jeff Burke and Vida Wakeman. They’re in the UK promoting new album Selma Chalk (Rosebank), a collection of self-penned old school Appalachian bluegrass and country with Wakeman providing the rootsy vocal twang and rhythm guitar and Burke the scorching rock n roll mandolin and harmonies, as well as taking lead on the fiddle fiery Little Sara. Assuming they’re here with the band too, then Jake Schepps and Justin Hoffenberg will be ripping it up on banjo and fiddle too. Sugarcane Blues sees them mining Cajun country territory, Alabama Sky conjures front porch Dixie balladeering, Boxcar Blues is a vintage yeehaw leg kicking bluegrass dance tune, while Time Will Heal Your Wounds harks back to the vintage honky tonk days of Hank Williams and Fire In The Water does that swing thing while providing the requisite lyrical Southern references to Tennessee, picking cotton and digging coal. Toes will be tapped and thighs will be slapped in joyful abandon. 7pm. £12. Kitchen Garden Cafe, Kings Heath Sunday September 13 Steel Panther
A sort of 80s glam metal parody in the Spinal Tap vein featuring pseudonymous named frontman Michael Starr, drummer Stix Zadinia on drums, guitarist Satchel and bassist Lexxi Foxxx, the LA outfit may send up their sources but they play with serious intent too. Live they mix up on stage comedy arguments and jokes with huge riffs and tongue in cheek songs about sex, drugs and, indeed, rock n roll. They’re here serving current album Feel The Steel (Island), featuring such wry nuggets as Fat Girl, Stripper Girl, Death To All But Metal and the send up stadium ballad Community Property where Starr sings about being emotionally faithful but cheating at every opportunity because “my dong is community property.” Quite how many of the audience are in on the joke is open to discussion, but, togged out in outlandish costumes, they sound quite irresistible. 6.30pm. £11. O2 Academy 2 Monday September 14 Brigada Mercy
Risen from the ashes of singer Don Wilson’s punk outfit The Yorkshire Rats, the trio now mingle gypsy folk, Latin American, Eastern European jazz with their Joe Strummerish punk. It’s shown to good effect on recent lurching single Roto Chico’s song about a bloke blaming the world for his misfortunes and stomp along mazurka follow up Recovering Catholic where strong shades of The Pogues also rear their head. Not in the same class as our homegrown Destroyers, but well worth a punt. 8pm. £4. Scruffy Murphy’s, Queensway Monday September 14 Jet
The law of diminishing returns continues to apply to the Aussie rockers who, after their break through hit, Are You Gonna Be My Girl?, have singularly failed to generate the same excitement. Their second album was a lesser version of the debut and now the third, Shaka Rock (Real Horrorshow), arrives sounding like a run of the mill pub rock band with pretensions to sounding like their betters. Beat On Repeat is a poor man’s Rock The Casbah, Black Hearts (On Fire) and Goodbye Hollywood ape Stones swagger, while She’s A Genius looks to place a Spencer Davis riff in an AC/DC sweatbox. There’s moment of relief, Seventeen adds some piano and sounds quite poppy and Let Me Out makes a decent fist of US college guitar rock, but then Start The Show drags it all down to blues rock sludge basics, complete with cowbell. If you’re lucky they’ll play the hit early on and then everyone can go home. 7.30pm. £16. Wulfrun Hall Monday September 14 Efterklang
A Danish five piece from Copenhagen who play otherwordly cinematic pop not entirely unlike Sigur Ros (but with a little less of the anthemic bombast), the recent Parades (Leaf) featured three separate choirs, string and brass quintets and church organ. So, tonight’s show is a suitably appropriate setting. And if you might be wondering how, say, the innate sculptural elegance and sun-kissed icicle nature of numbers like Mirador (very Polyphonic Spree), the gurgling Horseback Tenors, Polygyne’s Caligari cabaret oompah of Polygyne, or the jazz textures to Blowing Lungs Like Bubbles work live, then the band have conveniently obliged by releasing Performing Parades, a live version (complete with bonus DVD concert film) recorded in Copenhagen with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra. Naturally, they won’t have them along for this show, but rest assured, on this evidence then psychedelic freak out Frida Found A Friend and the majestic slow build sledge ride Cutting Ice To Snow will sound quite stunning. 8pm. £10. St John’s Church, Spon St Coventry Tuesday September 15 The Lemonheads
Having found biggest success with Mrs Robinson and being partial to cover versions over his career, it's not too surprising that Evan Dando finally got round to a whole album's worth. Recruiting John Perry from The Only Ones to provide guitar and back ups, Varshons (Cooking Vinyl) follow up to the band's comeback album (which should get a hefty outing tonight) is an eclectic collection of Dando's personal listening tastes, opening with Gram Parsons' I Just Can't Take it Anymore and closing with a moodily acoustic reading of Christina Aguilera's Linda Perry penned No 1, Beautiful. Wire's Fragile gets a unexpectedly successful transformation into strummed folk-country, GG Allin's murder ballad Layin' Up With Linda is delivered in perfect pastiche Lou Reed, Waiting Around To Die stays true to the Townes template while among the more obscure choices there's the 70s psychedelic funky wah wah of July's Dandelion Seeds and Yesterlove, a terrific sparse darkling folk reading of a song by 60s British psychedelic outfit Sam Gopal. While Liv Tyler doesn't actually ruin the hushed, near spectral Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye chances are you will want to reach for the skip button when a tuneless Kate Moss takes the vocals on a reboot of club hit Dirty Robot (surely Dando must have better chat up routines than 'do you want to sing on my record?'), but otherwise this is exactly the sort of mixtape you'd put together for a mate to listen in the car. And, hopefully persuade them to come along to the gig, too. 8pm. £15. Irish Club, Digbeth Wednesday September 16 Alela Diane
Even if she has gained a reasonable buzz as a singer-songwriter, this seems a rather ambitious venue for someone whose major label debut album slipped out under the radar and was pretty much ignored by the record buying public. Released at the start of this year, the follow up (her fourth as it turns out), To Be Still (Names) hasn’t exactly troubled chart compilers either, but it has added to a growing pile of glowing reviews that should at least help fill a few extra rows. Hailing from California and tagged as part of the psych folk movement, she’s possessed of a fine set of pipes, her homespun alto soaring to pure (sometimes semi-yodelling) heights or lazing by creek-side Appalachian meadows on a songs that, fleshed out musically with pedal steel, banjo, fiddle and cello, reveal influences that embrace blues and Irish folk as well as country. Pastoral imagery looms large in her work, notably on the darkling White As Diamond, the trad folk feel of The Alder Trees, the bucolic waltzing My Brambles, a keening Dry Grass & Shadows and, again sounding traditional, Age Old Blue with its tale of hired hands working the fields. The title track displays the countrier side of her music but it’s the folk flavours that shine brightest and strongest, especially so on the everglades mood of Tatty Lace and the closing Lady Divine where a simple arrangement of guitar and upright bass display her voice in glorious relief. It promises to be rather special concert, it’s just to be hoped it’s not a sparsely attended one. 7.30pm. £11. B’ham Town Hall Wednesday September 16 Mando Diao
You’ve likely never heard of the Swedish garage rock outfit, but they’ve released five albums to date and are apparently big in Germany and Japan as well as back home. They’re now making a concerted effort to crack the UK market following the release of Give Me Fire (Island) earlier this year, which, given their pin-up looks wouldn’t prove too much of a problem were it not for the fact that, judging by Gloria and High Heels, they have an unfortunate affection for camply dramatic cheesy 70s Europop, a worrying disadvantage reinforced by posturing new single Dance With Somebody sounding like somebody handed reject Duran demos over to Giorgio Moroder. Never a good thing. Mercifully things are brighter elsewhere on the album with Blue Lining, White Trenchoat a driving slice of snarly rock. Mean Street a jump in the air fairground glam stomper, Maybe Just Sad a Billy Idol meets Roy Orbison swaggerer, Come On Come On taking a moody handclap pop drive through noir city streets and the title track all slamglam flamenco anthemics. Guess they could storm it after all. 7.30pm. £8. O2 Academy 2 Friday September 18 Dot Allison
Formerly of One Dove, the Scottish songstress has been flying solo since 1997, writing for films, singing live with Massive Attack and releasing three albums. For her fourth, Room 7 ½ (Arthoused), she’s shifted away from her previous electronic approach for something more hushed, fragile and folksily organic to her songs of love’s trials and triumphs, recruiting assorted members of Bad Seeds as her band and featuring duets with Pete Doherty on the slow/frenetic witchy folk blues I Wanna Break Your Heart and Paul Weller for the brushed delicacy of Love’s Got Me Crazy. The country shades of the rolling Paved With A Little Pain provide a notable highlight and sees her voice displaying a little more blood and muscle than its usual breathy wisp while the clangy percussive folk blues Jonny Villian is positively screamo be her standards But that’s not to knock softer, wispier and more narcotic numbers like Cry, the jazzy Buzzing Around The Honey Pots or the lullabying While She Sleeps, all of which lure you into her world of sonic muslin and cobwebs, while it’s good to find her beguiling cover of Scott Walker’s Montague Terrace In Blue revisited from tribute album 30th Century Man. If you can strain the ears to hear her whispers when she performs, this should be a pleasantly chilled affair. 8pm. £9. The Rainbow, Digbeth Saturday September 19 Blackhole
As you might guess from the sound of the name, this London quartet are on the seriously heavy side, debut album Dead Hearts (Search And Destroy) big on riffs, weltering drums and singer Richard Carter’s rasping yowl. There’s nothing remotely resembling a ballad and while only hardcore experts will be able to discern much difference between the hammering assault of Forever and the hardcore assault of Can’t Breathe A Word, within their own frames of reference there’s actually almost subtlety at work on something like Witches and If Only. Basically, though, it’s ear bleeding mosh pit slamming material.
Support comes from equally ramming Leeds outfit The Plight whose Winds of Osiris (Visile Noise) full length debut rains down lashing of furiously pummelling riffs and yet more throaty growl vocals in a rage of punk and hardcore that frequently makes them sound like Motorhead’s rowdier younger cousins. They do, however, have a contrasting side. After the full on assaults of Lovesick Maniac, Into The Night and Sick Of The Dreaming it comes as a bit of shock to hear acoustic guitar kick in for the swaying Lifted To The Sun, though, presumably to avoid singer Allistair Mancrief any embarrassment over his limitations, it’s an instrumental. After that, it’s back to business as usual, so there’s not much point bothering to pack a shirt. 6.30pm. £7. O2 Academy 3 Saturday September 19 The Phenomenal Handclap Band
Support to Tommy Sparks perhaps , but this New York eight piece should comfortably steal the night away with their smooth fusion of funk, soul, hip hop, 70s disco, electro, 60s psychedelia and prog rock. They’ll be bringing with them their self-titled debut, an album that bubbles with the influences of such names as Sly and the Family Stone, Curtis Mayfield, Rare Earth, Donna Summer and Beck on the likes of the slinking trippy Testimony, Tom Tom Club styled rap 15 To 20, All Of The Above’s electro funk, the spacey grooved You’ll Disappear and a very T Rex Dim The Lights. They might even give cowbells a good name again. 6pm. £7.50. O2 Academy Sunday September 20 Florence & The Machine
She missed out adding the Mercury Music Prize to her Brits Critics Choice award, but having onen of the year’s best selling albums is probably some compensation for art school drop out Florence Mary Leontine Welsh. She can probably even afford to shop for clothes somewhere other than charity shops now. Debut album Lungs (Island) is an undeniably impressive affair with its meld of soul, r&b and pop seeping into the dreamy Bjorkish Rabbit Heart, the bubbling clatter and handclaps of the musically schizophrenic Dog Days Are Over, Kiss With A Fist’s punchy punk guitar slasher and the Kate Bush acrobatics of the tribal surging Cosmic Love. The cabaret lounging Between Two Lungs, acoustic brooding blues Girl With One Eye and the unsettling flamenco jazzed My Boy Builds Coffins show a pleasing leaning to the dark side to offset the playfulness elsewhere. However, she clearly doesn’t subscribe to the notion of vocal light and shade and, like the full blooded approach to Candi Staton’s You’ve Got The Love, everything’s pitched on full throttle. Which does tend to underscore the fact that , exposed to the harsh realities of live performance with whichever anonymous musicians happen to be her Machine for the occasion, she does tend to have a rather hit and miss relationship with the right notes. Which may go some way to explaining her tendency to visually distract you by pulling something like her Glastonbury scaffolding climb. At some stage, however, she might want to consider checking the small print on those vocal lessons she had to see if there’s a follow up on modulation. 7pm. £13. O2 Academy Sunday September 20 The Duke & The King
Taking their names from characters in Huckleberry Finn, the Duke is Simon Felice formerly drummer with the Felice Brothers, the King is instrumentalist Robert Burke, and they make dust coated Americana that filters glimmers of hope through the songs of lost innocence and a yearning for simpler times that comprise debut album Nothing Gold Can Stay (Ramseur), itself titled from a Robert Frost poem. They set the melancholic tone with the folksy opener If You Ever Get Famous where hints of the young James Taylor or Cat Stevens tinge the wistful air of ruminative regret and keep the standard high, shuffling through scuffed beats shanty The Morning I Get To Hell, conjuring the sunny harmonies pop of CS&N with Still Remember Love, lazing through the slide blues and trumpet haze with Suzanne and plunging into psychedelic swirls with Lose My Self. The moving story of a veteran reduced to pushing a shopping cart around the streets, One More American Song closes up shop in terrific form, its drone melody echoing the emotional tone of the narrative, and while some may wish they would turn the tempo up a notch in the manner of Felice’s old band, it promises well for a suitably reflective evening. 7.30pm. £8. Glee Club Sunday September 20 LoveLikeFire
Having been forbidden to listen to contemporary music as a youngster growing up in Vegas, although she trained as a classical violinist when frustration eventually led Ann Yu to leave she ended up sharing an apartment and rehearsal space with members of The Killers. Inspired to go for her dream, she upped sticks to San Francisco, put together a band and set about channelling her angst into Tear Ourselves Away (Heist Or Hit), the debut album they’ll be showcasing tonight. The stadium anthemics influence of her old flatmates is fairly evident, as is the multi-layered melodies of Arcade Fire, on the likes of From A Tower, William and Far From Home while Crow’s Feet sounds somewhere between Texas and The Pretenders and Everything Must settle is a bit Siouxie and the Banshees without the goth. Swinging between anger, heartbreak and regret, she crafts a massive dynamic noise only pausing to take things down a level or two with the strings laced My Left Eye and the jangling plangent pop of I’ve Pissed Off My Friends and it’s a safe bet that this is the last time you’ll be able to get ascloseasthis to feel the sweat. 7.30pm. £5. Flapper & Firkin Monday September 21 Twin Atlantic
Another Glasgow four piece with no intentions of disguising the thick accents, the menu for the night promises to be big rompalong guitars, spitting hooks and sweeping melodies if new single, You’re Turning Into John Wayne’s swipe at the pervasiveness of American culture, is any indication. It’s lifted from debut mini-album Vivarium (Red Bull), but preview copies weren’t around to see quite how representative it is. 8pm. £6. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath Tuesday September 22 Massive Attack
Although they toured in 2007 on the back of the best of package, it’s now been six years since the Bristolian hip hop pioneers released 100th Window. Since then the follow up has been constantly put back and now it seems that LP5 (if that ends up actually being the title) won’t be released until February next year. However, there’s an EP preview next month with Splitting the Atom (Virgin), the slow march hypnotic title track featuring Horace Andy on vocals and an equally moody, desert parched,soulful tribal chant sounding Pray For Rain guesting TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe. It’s a tantalising taster, even if it’s unclear whether these or other numbers they decide to include in the live show will resemble the studio versions. What is firm is that alongside Andy and Adebimpe, the album’s vocalists will include Marina Topley Bird, Damon Albarn, Hope Sandoval and Guy Garvey and that Bird will also be performing with them live as well as doing her own support slot. As to what the set list will actually feature the only way to find out is to turn up. 7.30pm. £28.50. O2 Academy Tuesday September 22 The Used
Having ventured into more commercial - and on With Me Tonight even poppy - territory for Lies For The Liars, the Utah boys have retrenched and gone back to their harder, tougher more screamo noise for Artwork (Reprise). From the opening Blood On My Hands there’s a barrage of raw riffery, propulsive percussion and throat ripping vocals as they fire off the likes of Empty With You’s emotional intensity, hard and heavy blues rock ballad Born To Quit and the churning, grinding urgency of On The Cross. Not that they’ve sacrificed melody. There’s swelling hooks and choruses throughout, firing on stadium anthem guns with The Best Of Me, keeping pop options open with Meant To Die and ripping into the flesh of big ballad rousers on the Queen-like piano ballad Kissing You Goodbye. There’s a soaring ballad here called Watered Down. The band and album are anything but, and the show is likely prove the point. 7.30pm. £16. O2 Academy 2 Friday September 25 The Rumble Strips
Hailed as the new Dexys on the release of their exuberant debut album, Girls And Weather, the Devonioan blue eyed soulsters failed to capture the mass market’s interest. On then to a second stab, roping in Mark Ronson to oversee follow up Welcome To The Walk Alone (Island) and ensure copious quantities of brass while Arcade Fire collaborator Owen Pallett layers on the orchestral arrangements. But of the first one didn’t sell, it’s hard to imagine this faring any better since it is, essentially, the same but without the songs to back it up. Which, unfortunately, ends up exposing the limitations of Charlie Waller’s vocals that often sound like he’s straining too hard to conjure a young Scott Walker. Not to say there aren’t bright moments amid its brassy retro pop; London gallops along nicely, Not The Only Person spins a playful tale of a mugger who got more than he bargain on, Dem Girls is a romping ode to letting our libido have a day out, and Douglas does a nice line in Bacharach and David pop balladeering. It’s just that there’s nothing here that’ll set the charts alight and without that, as far as major label futures are concerned, the title may well prove prophetic. 7pm. £9. O2 Academy 2 Saturday September 26 Corinne West
If you've not heard the Californian's two previous albums, it apparently makes no difference since The Promise (Make) marks a change of style from country-bluegrass to a more acoustic jazz-folk, West Coast soul feel while Pollen even partakes of a cocktail of trad folk and fiery Spanish flamenco. Recorded at a lake shore in Canada, the landscape feeds into the album's relaxed atmosphere and sense of space through which her smoked honey voice - a grained crossweave of Margo Timmins and Natalie Merchant with notes of Tracy Chapman and just a tinge of early Joni - flows with fluid purity. As the rippling Lily Ann shows, her Appalachian bluegrass affections haven't been entirely snubbed but it's the folkier end of the Americana spectrum that holds sway, splendidly so on numbers such as the title track's song of endurance, the upright bass accompanied slow waltzing travelling soul's lament The Stranger and the many walked roads and turning of the year meditation on life that is Turn The Wheel. Whether dealing direct as on Whisky Poet or trading in the imagery and symbolism of the sultry folk blues Lady Luck and the 60s baroque folk pop ballad The River's Fool where she she writes insightfully about matters of the heart, soul and existence. And, as a languid, bone-weary cover of Everybody's Talkin' that conjures smoke curling rainy dawns and slow lapping streams, shows, she has an inspired ear when it comes to interpreting others experiences of the world too. Her appearance marks an interesting departure from the club’s usual diet of folk, so let’s hope there’s the audience support to encourage more. 8pm. £11. Red Lion, Kings Heath Saturday September 26 Hockey
Oh joy, on first look the quartet appear to be yet another synth pop dance outfit joining an already overcrowded and underwhelming market. However, this lot are American and vein debut album Mind Chaos (Virgin) with old school hip hop (3Am Spanish) and Michael Jackson funk (Too Fake) as well as nods to the choppy garage guitar rock of Tom Petty and The Cars (on Song Away), a Latin spiced Talking Heads (Work) and even Dylan on the pastiche Four Holy Photos. As such they turns out to be a much brighter proposition than many of their middling UK counterparts, and while they’re guilty of a few forgettable fillers (that’ll include rap dirge Curse The City and cod soul strut Wanna Be Black) they also have an infectiously sunny vibe and, as Put The Game Down illustrates, write witty, literate songs that put a smile on more than your legs. You’ll find the jolly Hockey sticks. 7pm. £8.50. O2 Academy 2 Sunday September 27 The Boxer Rebellion
The Anglo-American-Australian Pretty four piece was pretty much written off after losing their record deal just two weeks after the release of debut album Exits. So, it’s good to see them making a Lazarus-like resurrection with self-released second album Union (Embargo). Originally only available on download (in which form it still made #82 on the Billboard album charts), while remaining unsigned they’ve done a deal with HMV to stock physical copies (which come with bonus track Broken Glass) and provide promotional support. Opening track Red Light Means Go sees them in rude health with its pounding drums, surging guitars and Nathan Nicholson’s vocals prompting thoughts of the dark swirling sounds of Interpol and Editors. There’s a bit of Bono too about Move On, and it’s fair to say the band have a thing for a slow build to soaring majesty approach to their songs with Evacuate spraying riffs and a Joy Division dance vibe, Soviets sliding from folksy intro to swelling almost Radiohead peaks, Spitting Fire riding a ringing guitar line up the mountain side. As the six minute cosmic feel of Misplaced and the milky way sway to The Gospel of Goro Adachi demonstrate, they do delicate too, but it’s the big music dramatics of things like These Walls Are Thin and Forces that deliver the most spine-tingling excitement. 8pm. £9. Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath Monday September 28 Joan as Police Woman
After two well received albums of self-penned material, Joan Wasser throws something of a curve with her latest release. Featuring a picture if female hands clutching bare button and only available at the shows, Cover is, as you might surmise, a collection of cover versions. As befits her experimentalist reputation, these aren’t attempts to simply copy the original nor, for the most part, are they exactly well known songs. The most familiar will be Hendrix’s Fire and Britney’s Overprotected, the former reconstructed as a slow burn 3am desolate blues delivered with a hollow drum beat and mournful piano with the latter emerging as fractured, scrunched and electronically treated r&b. Elsewhere she gets sparse and bluesy on T Pain’s Ringleader Man, nails rusty spikes into a discordant clattering and swagger through Iggy’s Baby, snakes a trip hop and cocktail jazz lounge trail across Public Enemy’s She Watch Channel Zero, reimagines Sonic Youth’s Sacred Trickster as a mutant gris gris doo wop with gospel handclaps, and turns Adam & The Ants’ Lady into an avant-art paranoia freak out of electric wooshes, feedback and industrial beats. Arguably the best number, a sparse bass throbs across Bowie’s Sweet Thing while Wasser sounds like a deranged backwoods voodoo queen Tori Amos coating honey with arsenic. Working with Timo Ellis for what’s dubbed the Interpretation Domination tour of intimate duo performances, it’s fair to say that these interpretations are going to be challenging even for her most ardent admirers, so they’ll be pleased to hear that the set will also feature JAPW’s own material, though I daresay strikingly reconceived for the occasion. 7.30pm. £12.50. Glee Club Monday September 28 The Temper Trap
Though much touted, the London based Australian four piece’s first two singles, Science of Fear and Sweet Disposition haven’t really justified the hype, though, admittedly, the latter was a far stronger offering than the former. They now mount an attempt to build an audience on the back of the Conditions (Infectious) album, a collection of synth pop they like to refer to as a soul jazz exploration. Opening with the burbling lounge groove of Love Lost, there’s times (as on Rest) when they suggest the earlier days of a-Ha with a more falsetto approach but there’s others, the sweet rocking swagger of Fader and the folk undercurrents of Down River, that hint at U2 while Resurrection suggests a blending of Bee Gees and INXS. A rippling, bluesy Soldier On shows their quieter side and offers an argument for the Jeff Buckley comparisons that have been tossed at singer Dougy Mandagi, but even here they feel the need to go for the big finish, underlining their ambitions to the epic. It does feel a little manicured and polished in its soundscapes, more eager to establish a mood than a personality, but at least for now - and assuming they continue to pull it off live - they get the benefit of the doubt. 8pm. £7.50. Hare & Hounds Tuesday September 29 Curtis Stigers
Arriving on the scene back in 91, his first two albums saw the beefy Idaho performer firmly being marketed as a sax playing rock n soul artist, notching up Top 10 singles with I Wonder Why and You’re All That Matters To Me. His true musical love, however, has always been old school jazz, a genre he’s been mining for the past few years to considerable commercial - if not always critical - acclaim. New album Lost In Dreams (Concord) might be the one to knock down the sniffy purist barriers, Stigers’ rough hewn but heartfelt, finger-snapping delivery applying itself to an eclectic set that, in addition to his original material, includes late night jazz lounge readings of My Funny Valentine, In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning and even hoary old chestnut Bye Bye Blackbird alongside jazz blues makeovers of Lennon’s Jealous Guy Roxx Sexsmith’s Reason For Our Love and Annie Lennox’s Cold. It also turns out to fortuitously chime with the current chart return of the Forces Sweetheart, containing as it does a swing version of We’ll Meet Again prefaced by a snatch of Pink Floyd’s Vera that features the line “does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?” Don’t forget to all join in. 8pm. £24. Birmingham Town Hall Tuesday September 29 Bombay Bicycle Club
Recently seen supporting The Editors at the opening night of the rather fabulous new O2 Academy (the sort of city centre live venue Birmingham’s long deserved), it has to be said that frontman Jack Steadman is one of the most irritating performers I’ve seen. Unless he has a diagnosed medical condition, the only way to explain away his persistent jerky, epileptic stage mannerisms is an over-exposure to David Byrne and Stop Making Sense. It’s unfortunate, because these attention demanding mannerisms only detract from the fact that their debut album, I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose (Island), goes a considerable way to making sense of the surrounding fuss as it reveals its Strokes (Early/Morning), Placebo (Magnet), Pavement (Cancel On Me) and Editors (Dust on The Ground) influences while The Giantess restates the leafy folk colours of Vetiver heard on the twitchy Always Like This single Admittedly, the scratched and jittery guitar lines can be a bit overused, especially with The Hill and What If coming on top of each other, but with songs of bruised regrets and the electro, blues and jazz tinged Autumn slipping in a demonstration of how they can shuffle around moods and textures, if Steadman can tone down the convulsions and twitches, then they could be pedalling their goods for a while yet. 7.30pm. £8.50. O2 Academy 3 Tuesday September 29 Mumford & Sons
A London contemporary folk quartet from the same scene that spawned the likes of Laura Marling and Noah and the Whale (singer Marcus Mumford and keyboardist Ben Lovatt were at college with Whale bassist Matt Owens), following three well received self-released EPs and last year’s Glastonbury triumph they’ve been taken up by Island for debut album, Sigh No More. Recorded under the auspices of Arcade Fire producer Markus Dravs, it’s a sterling showcase of their four part harmonies, darkly veined lyrics and arrangements that embrace banjo and double bass as well as the standard guitar, drums and keyboards. Love, heartbreak, hopes and regrets stamp their mark on the songs, opening with the Shakespeare referencing title track’s declaration that love will set you free, building from a simple vocal opening to a clattering hoedown flurry. Hints of both Appalachian and Celtic influences surface on The Cave, and the rollicking Roll Away Your Stone and it wouldn’t take much to persuade you that the resonantly titled rumbling Thistle & Weeds, the brooding White Blank Page and the stark shiveringly compelling harmonies of Timshel weren’t ripped from the hell blasted soul of the Kentucky coalfields. Framed by the shanty flavoured Awake My Soul and After The Storm’s closing warbled folk blues lament of a man caught between fears of the past and future, with its worksong rhythms and stormcloud sonics, Dust Bowl Dance gives Nick Cave’s murder ballads a run for their blood money while the arms-linked folk pub closing time swayer Winter Winds blows in on gales of banjo and brass. Topped off by the jerky bluegrass stomping, regret-stained life wreckage single Little Lion Man, it’s an impressive heady, atmospheric and loamy affair and a persuasive argument to be included in your year’s best of lists. 7.30pm. £7. Glee Club Tuesday September 29 Paolo Nutini
Three years on from debut album, These Streets, the Italian-Glaswegian’s back on the road giving a belated live push to follow up Sunny Side Up (Atlantic), and this time he’s wearing his influences on a very laid back sleeve. If the debut had hints of Hucknall, then it’s Otis Redding who holds sway over No Other Way. But as well as old school soul he also delved deeply into burred Celtic folk, New Orleans jazz and reggae, ditching the awkward rockier outings of his predecessor and sounding several decades older, considerably more stoned and decidedly more seasoned in the process. He’s in carnival ska mood on the opening 10/10 though, where Jimmy Cliff and Toots inform before Coming Up Easy’s tale of battling a dope addiction heads into the warm brass shades of vintage Stax and Atlantic soul, Growing Up Beside You slurrs around a cabin fire on the Scottish islands and Candy nods to the world wearied acoustic soul of Springsteen. Elsewhere, Pencil Full Of Lead dances along to a Cab Calloway ragtime jive, High Hopes sounds like it was filched from some 30s Hawaiian r&b archive, Tricks Of The Trade strums through Stan Rogers styled sea salt tanged folk, Simple Things rides the Johnny Cash harmonica chugging train tracks, and Keep Rolling evokes twilight time in some crofter’s chapel. There’s even Irish tin whistles on Chamber Music. And., just so you don’t miss the album’s old soul point, he throws in Worried Man, a song about being old before your time that interpolates the trad folk gospel classic. Heaven knows what mainstream housewives who swooned over his hunky good looks as they swayed along to Last Request make of all this, but those who like their music organic and rootsy should be well pleased with the result. 7.30pm. £22.50. O2 Academy Wednesday September 30 Boyce Avenue
A massively unknown quantity here (and likely to remain that way given total lack of any publicity), brothers Alejandro, Fabian, and Daniel Manzano formed their still unsigned Florida trio a couple of years back, and, specialising in melodic, harmony driven rock, released no less than four volumes of acoustic recordings last year. Featuring well wrought versions of such songs as Chasing Cars, Umbrella, Disturbia, Drops of Jupiter, Yellow and Wonderwall, you’d be forgiven for dismissing them as just some covers act, albeit a very good one. However, last year also saw the own label release of All You’re Meant To Be, a full electric album of original material that, on stadium aiming verse chorus power ballads like All The While, Tonight, Hear Me Now and Dare To Believe that reveals them to be much more akin to rock cred bands such as Train than the Jonas Brothers. I’d be amazed if more than a handful of punters turn up, but I’d also be surprised if, in a couple of years time, they weren’t packing the place out. 7.30pm. £15. O2 Academy 2 Wednesday September 30 The Dukes Jetty
In recent years Rugby has given the world both Spiritualized and James Morrison. It’s unlikely, however that this four piece will be following in their foosteps. Influenced by the Beatles and other 60s outfits like The Searchers, Merseybeats and homegrown heroes Pinkerton’s Assorted Colours, their debut album, Fine And Dandy (Anhrefn), is enjoyable enough and they have decent harmonies and some catchy, summery foot tapping tunes, most notably Nothing To Do With You, One More Day and the very Lennon & McCartneyish You’ve Lost Your Head. However, while they sound undoubtedly good fun live it’s hard to imagine its faithfully recreated retro pop progressing much further than the pub and nostalgia circuit. 7pm. £5. O2 Academy 3
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