Kicking off this week’s single round up I was faced with the prospect of the latest release from Shinedown entitled ‘Second Chance’ as my opener. Everything about the press blurb suggested ‘dated rock nonsense’…but…
,,,while it’s not my traditional cup of tea, this is what could be construed as something of a guilty pleasure even if it goes a bit Nickelback in places. Big pompous guitars, bigger pompous strings, one of those tortured scrunchy screwed up faced vocals, a giant flurry of super loud percussion somewhere in the middle that in all honesty sounds like the drummer stood up to go for a leak and fell over his kit but hey he got away with it. In it’s favour, I didn’t take it out of the player and throw it in the bin. I’ll do that later…which means it’s at least tolerable.
Shinedown have an album ‘The Sound Of Madness’ out on the 29th.
Next up is Shena’s track ‘My Fantasy’, stepping cleanly out of a time warp from 1978 with its disco sensibilities albeit with a cleaner digital sound. Nothing life changing here mind you but the production carries off dense brass and percussion styling with a nimble bass line and a rich vocal…oh hang on, it’s almost ruined by a key change which makes it sound like something you might hear sung by an ex Eurovision song contest singer on a fucking cruise liner. It loses all important points for that. Throwaway fluff and nonsense.
The single is out on the 22nd June.
The next single for my perusal is courtesy of Lenka,. There’s a tendency for some female singer songwriters of late to opt for childlike, almost whimsical vocals. You know the ones I mean, they come from the “listen to me, aren’t I fragile” school of singing (yes, Polly Scattergood step forward because I do mean you!). Lenka wanders perilously close to this territory but manages to escape it by the skin of her teeth. As singles go this one desperately desperately wants to be cute. However it sounds like something Dennis Waterman might have written. I have to say, it leaves no lasting impression. Yet strangely…Dennis did?
Her self titled debut is out on June 29th.
Billy Talent is the name of the next act that came up on my list for review. If they are looking for awards for crap band names, well its in the bag. As for their single ‘Rusting In The Rain’ its the musical equivalent of constipation. Its like someone gave studio time to a Guns and Roses tribute band. The vocalist whines but without conviction, the guitars lack any gumption and songwriting like this will simply never do rock’s cause any good. In fact if you like this, you do not like music.
The single is out on June 29th.
