News - Her Name Is Calla UK & European Tour

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Her Name Is Calla have a UK and European tour starting this month:

AUGUST
15th - Summer Sundae (12pm Indoor Stage), Leicester UK
15th - Packhorse, Leeds UK
16th - Cumberland Arms, Newcastle UK
17th - Basment, York UK
18th - Firebug, Leicester UK
19th - Buffalo Bar, London UK
21st - JW Wommel VZW Fort 2, Antwerp, Belgium
22nd - Coffee Corner, Essen, Germany
23rd - AK44, Giessen, Germany
24th - Eureka Festival, Zwolle, Netherlands
25th - Cafe Glocksee- Hannover, Germany
26th - Ostpol- Dresden, Germany
27th - Schokoladen, Berlin, Germany
28th - KAW, Leverkusen, Germany
29th - Norderzon Festival, Groningen, Netherlands

The band are currently working on their debut full-length "The Quiet Lamb" which is due out in early 2010.

News - Sylosis October UK Tour

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Sylosis have announced a UK headline tour throughout October:

11/10/09 Derby Vic Inn
13/10/09 Hull The Lamp
15/10/09 Swansea Sin City
16/10/09 Peterborough Met Lounge
17/10/09 Stoke Underground
18/10/09 Milton Keynes The Pitz
19/10/09 York Duchess
21/10/09 Bristol The Croft
22/10/09 Colchester The Twist
23/10/09 High Wycombe White Horse
24/10/09 Wolverhampton Civic (Downstairs)
25/10/09 Liverpool Barfly
27/10/09 Winchester Railway
29/10/09 Middlesbrough The Crown
31/10/09 Hitchin Club 85

Their album "Conclusion Of An Age" is out now through Nuclear Blast Records.

Review - Spinnerette - Spinnerette

Spinnerette - Spinnerette

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8 out of 10

It's difficult to describe Spinnerette as anything other than rock 'n' roll. Not in the skiffly '50s sense but in typifying that awesome 'fuck you, turn it up' attitude, 'Rock 'n' Roll' used as a descriptive term.

Former Distiller Brody Dalle's new outfit exemplify all that's great about kick-ass music and their self-titled debut album oozes rock 'n' rock cool from every pore, presenting itself to you chewing gum, wearing mirrored shades, swigging whisky and smoking a Lucky Strike red.

It's a celebratory orgy of pounding drums, low-slung burring bass and layer on layer of likeably fuzztoned retro guitar gnashings but is powered principally by Dalle's cracking voice, best demonstrated on the storming opener, 'Ghetto Love' and 'Cupid' in particular. The way she shifts her voice from the seductive purring in the verses to the chorus' vein-bulging high-register holler is a pure joy.

She sounds just as fabulously impassioned on 'All Babes Are Wolves' and 'Geeking', a stand-out tune with a winning vocal hook that has her coolly crooning like she owns your soul, wilfully aware you can't resist her cocksure come-ons. It also boasts a cute toy xylophone chime colouring the riff which, along with the photo of Dalle in heart-shaped shades serves as a reminder that there's a feminine heart beating beneath all this 'balls-out' rock thunder.

This is further evidenced throughout by the slightly more poppy approach she's adopted with Spinnerette. Nothing else is quite as sugary as the recent single 'Baptized By Fire' but every track hits the target dead on first time, irresistible hooks turning many tracks, 'Sex Bomb' especially, into fist-banging glam-rock stompers.

Brody Dalle has got the pop/rock balance perfectly nailed with this thrilling new band, skilfully harnessing what's great about each. Spinnerette aren't gonna bend any minds or push any envelopes but then, they aren't the slightest bit interested in trivialities like that. They just wanna rock and rule and, in delivering one of the most gratifying albums I've heard all year, Brody and the boys achieve both with effortless assurance.

Listen: www.myspace.com/spinnerettemusic

Tracklist:
1. Ghetto Love
2. All Babes Are Wolves
3. Cupid
4. Geeking
5. Baptized By Fire
6. A Spectral Suspension
7. Distorting A Code
8. Sex Bomb
9. Driving Song
10. Rebellious Palpitations
11. The Walking Dead
12. Impaler
13. A Prescription For Mankind

Review - Dan Black - ((Un))

Dan Black - ((Un))

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5 out of 10

Dan Black's debut album is very 21st-century; hastily fashioned in stylish Paris following a sizeable online buzz, each track is digitally buffed-up with an overlaying sheen of artificial gloss and it comes replete with an ever-so impactful booklet featuring images of our hero on a ludicrously pretentious photo shoot in some Hoxton art installation space.

It opens with the stand-out 'Symphonies', a re-write of the Notorious B.I.G-thieving 'Hypntz' that heralded his breakthrough, melding sampled strings with the break from Rihanna's 'Umbrella'. Other tracks bear a similar 'heard it somewhere before' feel but, conversely, memorable tunes are at a premium. A third of the album is sullied by torpid dreamy electro-ballads that have you reaching for the >> button, 'U+Me' starts up with a Timbaland-style break but ends up sounding like Gary Numan half-heartedly eloping with Erasure and of the rest, there's little to get excited about (except perhaps the riff from Cliff Richard's 'Devil Woman' being used in 'Pump My Pumps') and while 'Alone' and 'Yours' may well have you pumping your pumps into the floor, as with most tracks, they're forgotten about the moment they end.

Many of Black's multi-layered vocal melodies are pleasingly catchy, as on 'Symphonies' and 'Ecstasy' but his voice- sounding like an off-key 3-part harmony between Thom Yorke, Ian Broudie and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab/Postal Service- rarely hits the spot with any real fervour.

Dan Black tries to present himself as a kind of Beck/Prince hybrid but ultimately, his album's all a little too clean, crisp and, Black's whimpering voice aside, is meticulously bereft of human error and, as such, strangely robotic and unmoving. It's also quite telling that the credits state; 'All songs made by Dan Black'; not written, arranged or performed but made, as if each track has been lazily pieced together from composite sound clips with some particularly splendid labour-saving Mac software. Which is, of course, very 'now'.

Listen: www.myspace.com/danblacksound

Tracklist:
1. Symphonies
2. U + Me =
3. Ecstasy
4. Alone
5. Cocoon
6. Yours
7. Pump My Pumps
8. Wonder
9. Cigarette Pack
10. Life Slash Dreams
11. I Love Life
12. Let Go

Review - Daniel Merriweather - Impossible (Single)

Daniel Merriweather - Impossible (Single)

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7 out of 10

Following on from two great singles Change and Red, Impossible just isn't as good, but still has its own merits. It is a slower burner than the previous two but has something more old school about it, like it could have come from Motown and it could have been sung by Stevie Wonder without a doubt there is a lot of influence right there in it. As always the production is top notch and the lyrics definitely have that 'singalongability'. Also on the single are two dance remixes which are not to my personal taste so difficult for me to be objective about them. However the Joey Negro remix is to me dull and sounds like he just wanted to put his tunes over Daniel's vocals, where as the Sticky remix is more in line with the original song and as such holds my interest a lot more despite it being overly long.

Listen: www.myspace.com/danielmerriweather

Tracklist:
1. Impossible (Radio Edit)
2. Impossible (Joey Negro Remix Edit)
3. Impossible (Sticky Remix)

News - Black Lips / The Horrors

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Black Lips has announced a split single with Faris Rotter from The Horrors that will be released on the 24th of August. The single is "Drugs" and a cover of "I'll Be With You".

News - Rise Records Signs Those Who Lie Beneath

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Those Who Lie Beneath have signed to Rise Records. Their debut album "An Awakening" is due out on the 13th of October.