If my mother had been trite, she would have instilled in me the idiom that I should be the change I wanted to see in the world. I don't know if Calories are big Ghandi fans, but "You Could Be Honest" is the epitome of its chorus plead: good, solid post-hardcore with a sense of teenage rush sucked from pop-punk's teenage summers. The band's second album, Basic Nature, will arrive on September 13 through the heroes at Tough Love.
Kids from Liverpool will always carry the burden of having to be awesome, and they shouldn't complain about it. We won't either as long as they keep us dancing like this. Here, art-punk-trio (and purveyors of impossibly-named EPs) Hot Club De Paris gives a twisting taster before With Days Like This As Cheap As Chewing Gum, Why Would Anyone Want To Work? drops on Moshi Moshi next month. "Dance A Ragged Dance," has been refitted into a laser-beam banger: all uptempo and anthemic and fist-pumping. Not ragged at all, in fact.
L.A. popsters Light FM have got the West Coast cadence down-pat: cheeky name, sad lyrics rife with meaning, additive-laden sing-a-long hooks. They’re even synced on Gossip Girl and The Hills while the moodily beautiful slip in and out of their respective speakeasies and sandcastles. Featuring members from Sea Wolf, Veruca Salt and Spinerette, their deft musicality rockets them far above the usual Top-40-worthy joint in “Friends Aren’t Friend’s”—a slickly produced tune with perfect harmonies laced with a little Death Cab mange. Let There Be Light FM is out on iTunes now.
Plastiscines are graduates of the bobo collective Les Bébés Rockers, meaning they’re twee Parisians featured on NYLON’s summer playlist. Bubblegum mod-punk! Doe-eyed riot grrls! We’d never thought we’d see the day. This fresh-faced “disco-thrash-glam” band got a synthy CHEW LiPS rework and it’s more fun than roller skates. Check their album About Love, out on iTunes and in stores today.
If you want to get things done today and you haven't listened to any music yet, let this track from London's Male Bonding blow the crust from your eyes. Kicking with delirious pop-punk glee, "Pumpkin" is a rush: American Hallowe'en as seen through the eyes of film-watching English suburbanites. Lo-fi bands in checked shirts are springing up like happy weeds all across London and its dowdy edges at the moment, as love for LA Smell acts like No Age, Mika Miko and Abe Vigoda ripples out into the provinces, but Male Bonding were doing what they do way earlier than most and it shows, no lazy appropriation of noise to mask sloppy pop or affected mid-Atlantic phoney-vox. Instead, "Pumpkin"'s full of tight-knit joy blasts and intricate, cowbell-laden breakdowns: out along with tracks by Old Blood, Graffiti Island and Rapid Youth on MB's own Paradise Vendors Inc label this week. Do yourself a favour...
