NeilBaston is a contributor at Shout4Music. When not writing reviews he enjoys a nice hot bath with the music blearing loudly. Tags: Hold Me Down, Take Off Your Colours, Virgin Records, You Me At Six
You Me At Six look set to cement their rise from underground heroes to mainstream success with the January 11th release of their second album ‘Hold Me Down’ on Virgin Records. ‘Hold Me Down’ is the follow up to their 2008 debut ‘Take Off Your Colours.’
‘Hold Me Down’ finds the Surrey quintet fulfilling their potential with a collection of soaring hooks and irresistible melodies. It captures You Me At Six’s live exuberance with ‘Playing The Blame Game’ breaching the gap between pop-punk energy and the snappy immediacy of new wave, while ‘Safer To Hate Her’ alternates between a tender, melancholic riff and a fiercely defiant chorus. But ‘Hold Me Down’ demonstrates that the band aren’t reliant on pure energy as closing track ‘Fireworks’ escalates from its initial reflective tone into a soaring conclusion. The album also highlights a guest appearance from Kids In Glass Houses vocalist Aled Phillips on ‘Trophy Eyes.’
An air raid siren heralds the hi-octane thrills of album opener ‘The Consequence’ which will preview the album when it’s released as a free download from the official You Me At Six website on November 25th plus it features guest vocals courtesy of The Blackout’s Sean Smith. The first full single to be taken from ‘Hold Me Down’ will be the crunchy power-pop attack of ‘Underdog’ due for release on 7th February 2010.
The album was produced by John Mitchell (Funeral For A Friend, Enter Shikari, Architects) and Matt O’Grady (The Blackout, Hexes), and mastered by Bob Ludwig (Radiohead, Coldplay, Pearl Jam).
You Me At Six soon became one of the most vital emerging talents around when they released their debut set ‘Take Off Your Colours.’ The album’s continuing popularity was proven when it was recently released as a 2CD Deluxe Edition that featured their first Top 40 hit ‘Finders Keepers’.
However, it’s been You Me At Six’s famously adrenalized live shows that have cemented their growing reputation as one of the UK’s most exciting ascending bands. The band will conclude 2009 with an arena tour as guests to Paramore, before returning for a full UK headline tour in March 2010 that concludes with a show at Brixton Academy.
www.youmeatsix.co.uk www.myspace.com/youmeatsix
PLACEBO WIN BEST ALTERNATIVE ACT AT MTV EMAs
Atlanta’s Manchester Orchestra have announced two headline shows to run alongside their confirmed dates as special guests across the UK to Biffy Clyro this Autumn. The band will play their biggest UK show to date at London’s Heaven venue on 17th November. These shows follow on from their recent triumphant headline tour & slots at Reading/Leeds & Latitude. As ever with Manchester Orchestra, expect to be blown away in the wake of their immense live show, recently dubbed by Kerrang! Magazine as “one of the best live shows you will see all year.” Their second album Mean Everything To Nothing was released fully on Columbia Records earlier this month having received significant critical acclaim.
Moments like this don’t come around very often. With the release of this song, we could be witnessing the birth of a huge future act. Mirrors are three guys from Brighton who received an unprecedented amount of interest before they had been signed, released a song or had even played a gig. Couldn’t it just be another PR stunt I hear you ask? No, this one’s for real boys and girls. Now, I wouldn’t go as far to say that this is a ‘Justice remixing Simian Mobile Disco’ moment (as things like that only happen once in a blue moon), but it undoubtedly shows off HUGE potential. ‘Look At Me’ would best be described as Joy Division meets early New Order with a little sprinkling of MGMT-style anthemia. Everything fits perfectly into place – relaxed beats bob alongside a cheerful bass line and gentle synths, leading into a chorus that moves and uplifts. Adding to this, a warming lead riff complements the vocal melodies resulting in a fine piece of electronic music. These guys are going to be big. Ladies and gentlemen, give a warm welcome to – Mirrors.
So I’m running late for the gig and I aint in the best of moods, works shit but its work I suppose, the Glastonbury ticket never arrived (couldn’t afford it) and the prospect of facing the fast approaching future in debt and despair is frankly not what I signed up for.
Not exactly a song of role models, eh? Anyway…Kid Harpoon started out as the stage name for Tom Hull, a singer-songwriter from Chatham. After a move to London, 2 EPs and finding a backing band, Kid Harpoon are now on the verge of releasing their debut album. Single ’Stealing Cars’ is catchy but forgettable indie rock. Ideal for the long summer season that‘s about to commence, it is effortlessly put together, in a dreamy, sit-by-the-pool-in-sunglasses- sort of a way. With snippets of The Kooks (who Kid Harpoon supported on tour in 2008), Arctic Monkeys and Paolo Nuntini, there is definitely an audience for this sort of fodder. Although whether there is any room for Kid Harpoon, whether they can carve their own niche into an already oversaturated market, is another question. ‘Stealing Cars’ may not be the best way to spend your summer, but if you stumble across this tune you will enjoy the impromptu ride.
http://dev.shout4music.com/?attachment_id=1801As gothic as it may be, this entrancing single from new album ‘The Bachelor’ has proven to be quite intriguing than its brothering songs, resonating with a burlesque/phantom of he opera feel to it. The words seem to magically appear with the most complex notes. The song is based on the demise of the world’s current economic climate, hence why Wolf- himself feeling the pinch, sold shares of this album to get it to print- knows oh, too much of these ‘Hard Times’. The first thing that comes to mind as the intro kicks in is the gothic soundscapes and the David Bowie vocal essense that shines through. There’s a collective energy, sung with passion and has an apathetic feel which he seems to forcefully impose upon his listeners. All through the song we hear a paralyzing and hypnotic combination of classical strings and mellowed electrics. He is totally out of this world, but Patrick Wolf wasn’t put on this world to fall into the ‘norm’ now was he…
It seems like everyone knows how to make good pop music these days. Wave Machines are part of the latest brood of artists armed with nothing but Casio smiles. Hang on, it sounds as though somebody is making popcorn in the background -a little crackle here a discrete pop there- while the rest of the band rock out with fat keyboard riffs. The song itself seems to have been delivered from that same serene land from which David Byrne used to derive inspiration, and it aesthetically resembles a Gorrilaz remix of some Talking Heads b-side. Though hardly a surpassingly great work “I Go Go Go” is an agreeable three minutes, its chuckling arrangement making it fly by in a multicoloured blur which is sure to assail the charts.
Defend Moscow, ambiguous of name and multinational of line-up, don’t really make the kind of mysterious music their brief suggests. It’s perfectly enjoyable indie-pop. It comes bearing some, frankly, superfluous synthesiser decoration. In terms of aural décor, it’s rather like covering a big pair of French doors in prissy and cumbersome net curtains. Looking at music from the perspective of decor might seem unfair, so it should be said that it fits as easily into the pigeonhole of “punk/funk” as it does “indie-pop”, but something of that funkiness is smothered by synths and never recovered, much to the songs’ detriment. Two minutes into the song and it’s difficult to remember where you are or how you got there; you’re musically adrift. As can sometimes happen, the b and a sides appear to have been muddled somewhere along the production line. ‘Sign Of Life’ is the better song and is the polar opposite of ‘Die Tonight’ in more ways than just the import of its title.
