No Frills Reviews

CMAT – Crazymad, For Me

Putting it simply; this is the best pop album of the year. No need to justify that with any talk of how innovative or culturally significant it is, this is just classic, excellently executed pop songwriting. Great vocals, great storytelling, great choruses.

CMAT has one of those voices that combines sweetness and power with a healthy dash of weirdness; somewhere between Stevie Nicks and Cyndi Lauper (with an Irish accent). She may be deep in her heartbreak almost throughout, but it’s always undercut with humour (and plenty of sass), making it a break-up album that’s more celebration than sorrow. As a mid-30’s straight male, there’s a lot of references here (Britney, Sex and the City, etc.) that just don’t resonate or go straight over my head. But even beyond that, the album feels like a treasure trove of references that the indie boy (or man) in your life can enjoy, mixed with quietly devastating one-liners – “You made me brilliant, fucked me up”.

And I’m not sure whether a chat show appearance has the power to really blow-up an artist in the same way in 2023, but this Graham Norton clip is absolutely one of those star-making performances.

Best Tunes: California, Vincent Company, Rent, Whatever’s Inconvenient, Stay for Something, Have Fun!

Pacing – Real Poetry…

This solo project from Californian, Katie McTigue, takes cues from quirky alt-folk acts like The Moldy Peaches. It took me a couple of listens to overcome the album’s almost overwhelming twee-ness. Part of the reason I kept coming back is that, despite it having very few outright choruses, it packs plenty of ideas and catchy melodies in under 30 minutes. The atypical song structures play out like streams of internal dialogue, it’s almost jazz-like (while sounding nothing really like jazz); instead of the music being led by the vibes, it’s led by trailing thoughts – potential bridges or choruses are quickly swept away as the music takes tangents alongside the wandering mind. The songs can feel like unfinished sketches at times, with placeholder lines and errant laughs left in.

These sound like they should be criticisms, but they’re part of the charm. The whole album is like an exploration of contrasts and parallels. Beginning with it’s whopping 28 word long title (I couldn’t bring myself to type out the full thing as the heading because it would have killed my formatting; you can read it from the album cover), it’s an almost constant flow of expectation meeting reality and self-confidence meeting self-consciousness. Every great idea is quickly shot down by self-doubt and every action is quickly followed by a contradictory reaction. This can manifest into moments of humour, where a “fuck you” is quickly followed by a “sorry for saying fuck you”. Or moments of existential dread, as a line about sitting in silence is followed by a harsh build-up of static noise as if to illustrate the weight of these constant anxieties…

But it’s mostly fun.

Best Tunes: Bite Me, Live/Laugh/Love, Orangeville, unReal / forReal, Annoying Email

Waves of Dread – A Bad Dream in a Raging Sea

On their debut, the Newcastle newcomers tread both ends of the ethereal scale, combining dream-pop ambience with shoegaze’s noisy blend of psychedelia. I’m not gonna go deep on the imagery this evokes as it’s plain to see in the artwork and titles. Their sound is best encapsulated on the epic 9-minute opener, and the rest of the album is like a microcosm of that blueprint. The music swells and dips as if soundtracking either beautiful beginnings or bittersweet conclusions. Music that’ll make your most mundane thoughts feel like epiphanies.

Best Tunes: Moon Shows/Sun Shows, Forevermore, Motion, Oyster

The Streets – The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light

It feels cheap using albums from 20 years ago as the basis for a review, but let’s face it, we’d not be listening to this without the magic of those early classics. And unfortunately that magic is largely gone.

It’s not all bad, there’s the occasional undeniable hook and plenty of interesting production choices, albeit some of the stylistic shifts can be a bit jarring. The biggest issue is that it all just feels a bit lifeless. Mike Skinner’s speak-raps have leaned more towards speak-sings over the years…and he’s a crap singer. He’s still capable of raising a smile with his deadpan humour, but when he talks of the mandem or doing it all again come the weekend, it’s not cut with that same light-hearted mischievousness of the early days, it just feels a bit out of place.

Skinner used to paint his pictures perfectly; you could see the exact characters, the settings, the scenarios. His pictures now are a bit of blur. He’s still vaguely telling stories about those same scenes, but now contrasted with vague philosophising and elder statesman wisdom, ending up with a half-arsed attempt at both and often leaving you unsure what he’s going on about. It sounds like a mid-40s bloke, 20 years on from his creative peak, struggling to work out where he fits. But without the insights and details that would actually make that interesting.

Best Tunes: Walk of Shame, The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light, Each Day Gives