One Last Batch of Singles Before the Year-End, Part # 1


Cyanide Pills – Suicide Bomber (Damaged Goods)

The second single from inexplicably ignored Leeds power-pop-punk upstarts Cyanide Pills is also the first of two a-sides on this batch of singles to take a queasily misguided shot at…. well I hesitate to say “contemporary relevance”, as that doesn’t seem quite what they had in mind for a song that begins with “my girlfriend she’s so fine / she lives in Palestine” and proceeds to a bridge of “that girl she’s dynamite!”. It’s just goofy, stupid fun of course – small beer next to the routine nastiness of KBD era punk. What’s a far greater sin is that it’s a slightly lesser tune that either of the songs on their excellent first single. B-side “Black Lightning” is better – it’s a great Chuck Berry derived car chase number about getting wasted and crashing your car into a train, if you can believe that! Utterly daft good fun on electric blue vinyl, and even at their worst these guys are still hitting way above par as regards making gleeful, catchy rampaging rock n’ roll. Make the other single a priority if for some ludicrous reason you’ve gotta choose between the two, but if you like this kinda thing (that being Adverts/Damned/Buzzcocks/Undertones amped up via The Exlpoding Hearts), do the decent thing and get both for chrissakes.

http://www.myspace.com/thecyanidepills
http://www.damagedgoods.co.uk/

Drink Up Buttercup – Mr. Pie Eyes (More Than)

I bought this one blind for the cool artwork, low price and promising title. Lord, I wish I hadn’t. Sounds as if some recent graduates heard The Move, decided LET’S DO THAT (it worked for Elephant 6) and proceeded to rampage way across the line into the no man’s land of total quirkiness, with subtlety and good taste rendered forgotten, ancient tongues as they drown in a slobbering mess of clod-hopping nursery rhyme melodies, faux-operatic shrieking, charmless, convoluted thudding and ghastly sub-muso wank. Yes, they wrote a song called ‘Mr. Pie Eyes’, the chorus to which goes “this is the story of Mr. Pie Eyes, Mr. Pie Eyes, Mr. Pie Eyes”. Then it goes “yah yah yah-ya-yah yah yah yah, yah yah yah yah-ya-yah yah yah yah”. I don’t think they ever get around to the story, but never mind, it was probably a shit one anyway. You know what was great about all those whimsical old ‘60s bands? The fact they matched their eccentricities with ideas and talent and didn’t come across like obnoxious dickheads shoving half-formed juvenilia in our faces, more often than not. I should have known: much as I love patronising their shop of a weekend, Rough Trade are canny counters of pounds, and if they put a 7” on for £1.99, there’s probably a reason.

http://www.myspace.com/drinkupbuttercupband
http://www.myspace.com/makemine

Fergus & Geronimo – Blind Muslim Girl b/w Powerful Lovin' (Tic Tac Totally)

Fergus & Geronimo’s huge-hearted, speaker-busting Sam Cooke-meets-Nobunny soul-punk is a beautiful thing that makes me very happy indeed, although I still know next to nothing about these guys, so seeing how they approach a tune entitled “Blind Muslim Girl” could prove a dealbreaker re: revealing their true intentions. As it turns out, it’s neither a bad taste goof nor some earnest politicising (god, how unthinkable would THAT be in this day n’ age?), just a straightforward, lightweight pop number in which F&G sing of their affection for a blind muslim girl. They want to take her hand and around the world, and they don’t care that she can’t see. If you can bring yourself to believe they’re playing it straight-faced, it’s all quite weird and sweet, with almost a Jad Fair sort of vibe. B-side “Powerful Lovin’” helps us believe they’re fighting the good fight by virtue of just being plain fucking fantastic – one of their best, most exultantly wrecked homages to ‘60s soul to date. And frankly, I could happily believe in flat earth theorists and guys who make a fuss about fluoride in the water if they were able to bust out tunes this mighty on their Vox organs and second hand drum kits of an evening. Fergus & Geronimo are ALRIGHT. What I wouldn’t give to be in Texas next month to see them play with Greg Ashley.

http://www.myspace.com/fergusgeronimo
http://www.myspace.com/tictactotally

Frankie Rose – Thee Only One (Slumberland)

Behold – the immaculately presented debut solo release from Ms Rose, former/current sticks-woman with Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls and Crystal Stilts (two out of three ain’t bad), and composer of one of the finest songs of recently years, ‘Where Do you Run To’. It’s funny how I still think Crystal Stilts are one of the most dreadful rock bands of the modern era, but here, backing up Frankie on her own songs, their personnel sound plain beautiful, shimmering like the ethereal Velvet Underground back alley sprites they wish they were. “Thee Only One” is a perfectly realised, reverb-heavy girl group stomper that probably sounds exactly the way you’d expect it to. That’s because it’s the way it SHOULD sound, and you’d be a fool to change the recipe at this stage. B-Side “Hollow Life” slows things down to a halt for an absolutely exquisite snapshot of a Bout de Souffle bedroom scene eternal now, vast faux-cathedral organ tones and distant guitar-drift making a bed for Frankie’s oh-so-delicate voice. Like “I’ll Be Your Mirror” medicated to the point of total bliss-out, it’s exactly the sound I want to hear last thing before I go to sleep, gently rising to a Cocteaus-y grandeur in, like, ninety seconds, then falling away to nothing. I see a tick next to “leave them wanting more” on a rose-scented to-do list. A flawless first record – I’m inclined to think that if Frankie Rose disappeared off the planet tomorrow, she’d have a healthy cult following twenty years from now, just on the basis of these three and a half minutes.

http://www.myspace.com/saintoftherose
http://www.slumberlandrecords.com

Labels: Cyanide Pills, Drink Up Buttercup, Fergus and Geronimo, Frankie Rose, singles reviews