PART TWO (L - Z);

Lucky Luke

Pinned in every press reference they’ve received as “Fairport meets Velvets”, I’m hearing a lot more of the former than the latter going on here – which is cool. Lucky Luke’s debut album ‘Patrick the Survivor’, recorded with a rag-tag eight piece line-up, is an impressive piece of work, mixing heart-warming ‘all together now!’ folk rock stormers with longer, darker atmospheric pieces that kinda recall the windswept melancholy vibe of the Dirty Three. Since then they seem to have shed a few members and tightened up into a more straightforwardly rocking unit, which is, if anything, even better. I watched Lucky Luke play in Glasgow recently with a tear of joy in my eye at the sight of young folk making such a lovely, ragged, rousing, soulful sound untainted by the whims of fashion or the depressive blight of modern life – “dancing and kissing / the best things are free!” – hell yeah. I think they’re one of those bands that are going to stay with me for the duration. Love is in the air then they hit my ears. http://www.luckyluke.co.uk/

Mugstar

Liverpool’s Mugstar more or less equal a punk rock Hawkwind. Lemmy era, naturally. They know which sounds are good, and make them a lot, erecting no nonsense space-rock monuments out of motorik rhythm damage, juggernaut DUR-DUR-DUR riffage, whiteout noise crescendos and vintage space echo. Flying to the centre of the universe in a rust-bucket freighter running on red diesel, just like in the old days – fucking awesome. Nuff said I think ; Mugstar don’t waste time, so I won’t waste words. Get yer head nodding: http://www.mugstar.com/home

Not in This Town

Up-and-coming Nottingham band who were nice enough to send me their demo. (You don’t see many “demos” anymore do you? I guess what with cheaper and easier recording and all this bloody internet malarky people tend to go straight to releasing supposedly ‘proper’ records on tiny ‘ok-it’s-basically-just-us-in-disguise’ style labels? Good thing or bad thing? – discuss.) Well anyway, this is a pretty fine demo if I do say so myself – it has spirited, somewhat Rodan-ish metallic, unnerving riffs and rough, yelped male and female vocals conveying odd, unexpected melodies and some distinctly weird lyrics. Something makes me think of the Melvins circa ‘Houdini’, but I’m not sure what. Promising for sure, and I think they’d be good live. [[can't find a website, and it's not exactly an easy name to do a google search for... maybe there was one w/ the demo.. er, I'll get back to you]]

Park Attack

Another spike in Scotland’s ever-impressive musical bat, Glasgow’s Park Attack gleefully heave the guidelines out the window and prove like the greats before them that avant garde rule-breaking and pop & rhythm & dancing needn’t be mutually exclusive. Centred around the dissonant chuggin’ of a free-tuned, three string guitar (think Sterling Morrison sliced in two or Mark Sandman’s one string bass moves in Morphine) and some perverse, almost Silver Apples-esque drum kit conceptions, with additional members adding a whole raft of weird noise on bass, fx, keys and goodness knows what else, Park Attack have charged through some of the enticing doors left open by the more exciting bands of the original NY No Wave scene – Mars in particular. But rather than propagating that scene’s well played-out agenda of urban alienation and post-industrial disgust, Park Attack have harnessed their ear-pricking sonic wreckage to the forces of good, placing the emphasis on body-rocking rhythmic work-outs so transparently joyful an open-minded toddler could get on down to them – like vintage Sonic Youth, they casually straddle the divide between form and chaos and make a scrappy, infectious junkyard noise breaking at the seams with life. http://www.parkattack.co.uk/