Album Reviews

If there’s one thing that can definitely be said about the Soho Dolls, it’s that they have a ridiculously good way with words, something that is evident from the off with the fantastic album title ‘Ribbed Music for the Numb Generation’; the best album title of 2007, bar absolutely none. Dip into their ribbed tunes, and you find that this playful, dirty attitude with words carries on throughout the album, delivering some of the kookiest, sexiest and downright rude lyrics I’ve heard. From the stomping opening ‘Stripper’, with its flirty taunt “Hey…stripper!”, to the ‘Tainted Love’-esque ‘I’m Not Cool’, right through to final track ‘1724’ and its rather confessional ‘love to hate you, hate to fight’ the Dolls treat us to 12 tasty little treats of dirty guitar, blippy synth and, of course, cheeky vocals.

From the outset, The Good Life make no promises or outlandish claims. Their simple, DIY artwork and earnest band photo and bio suggest nice, honest, uncomplicated music, and upon pressing play that’s exactly what you get. With their brand of guitar folk pop, I’d bet they get likened to Bright Eyes a lot, and they’re probably sick of that by now, ‘Help Wanted Nights’ being their fourth album. Personally, I’d liken them to Belle and Sebastian and Deathcab for Cutie before ever trying to box them in with Oberst. After being slightly underwhelmed by opening tracks ‘On the Picket Fence’ and ‘A Little Bit More’, I’m so glad I carried on listening, to discover such gems as ‘So Let Go’ and ‘You Don’t Feel Like Home To Me’.

Going under the moniker of Lightspeed Champion, Dev has unplugged his electric guitar, sold it on ebay and bought a nice new shiny acoustic guitar with the money. Those facts may well be false. What I’m trying to say is that this new album is as far removed from Test Icicles as a dead baby is from the fresh fish section at Morrisons.

On production duties for this record was Mike Mogis, who also plays guitar with Bright Eyes. The album very much has a Bright Eyes feel to it, with an almost identical sound to his 2005 album ‘I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning.’ Dev does however, have an infinitely less annoying voice than Conor Oberst.

The album opens with, 'Go With The Flow' and an unfortunately irritating over the top London accent. This seems to be a trend at the moment, but Remi is just arriving that little bit too late; it just feels tired now, where are all the females who are going to be offering something new? A bigger frustration though is that when it's the 'LDN' style of singing it's near impossible to tell if the artist actually has a good voice. A lot of the songs on 'My Conscience And I' seem to follow the same formula; none of them are offensive, or particularly bad, but very few song on the album are special enough in music or lyric, to stand out from everything else that's around at the moment.

Delivering Fabric’s first all dubstep release Caspa & Rusko had the heady task of showcasing its menacing beats and throbbing bass to a wider audience. This mix brings together many of the notable names from the scene to create a varied and interesting mix which showcases the numerous faces of the genre. Starting with energetic and almost breaks ‘Born To Do It’ the first quarter of this mix shows some of dubstep's finest dance floor moments filling the sound out with beautifully delayed brass and strings. From here on things get a whole lot darker with the duo taking the listener on a journey to demonstrate just how deep bass can get. Things pick up again for the final quarter with the almost carnival feel of Cockney Thug.