New Releases - 4th October

New Releases - 4th October

29 September, 2010
by: Music Team

This week Loredana actually likes a song, Alex gets all current affairs on us, and Jamal likens his single to a lame horse...

Robbie Williams/Gary Barlow – Shame
EMI

Robbie and Gary have teamed up for a duet that even comes with a Brokeback Mountain-style video of them staring into each other's eyes, though unfortunately it's never taken far enough to actually see them shagging.

My favourite part of the song is when Gary croons, "...with your poster thirty foot high at the back of Toys 'R' Us" as Robbie's eyes say, "Oh Gary take me to Toys 'R' Us and we'll have a threesome with Geoffrey the Giraffe." 5/5
LD

Kings of Leon – Radioactive
Come Around Sundown

Kings of Leon are crowd pleasers. There aren’t many bands whose street-cred could withstand being used by Ed Miliband as exit music after his first speech as Labour leader. So kudos to them. Although I’m still wishing he’d used ‘Sex On Fire.’

If new single ‘Radioactive’ is anything to go by they’ll be at the top of the world’s playlists for a little longer. It’s high energy sing-along rock on the epic scale they do best, opening and ending with an instantly memorable riff you’ll be hearing all autumn. 4/5
AH

Tallulah Rendall – Ghost on the Water 
Transducer Records

Tallulah Rendall's new single represents a milestone in her development as an artist. She's always made delicate yet intense music, but in 'Ghost on the Water' the sound she has achieved is a happy balance between that ethereal style of old and something altogether more radio friendly.

This and the new album 'Alive' may well be what pushes her into the limelight. 4/5
TO

Gold Panda – Snow and Taxis 
NoTown Recordings

This song was made in the country while it was, you guessed it, snowing. It was not, however, made in any taxies; Gold Panda just likes the big yellow sign on top.

This is a real builder of a tune which culminates in the enchanting sound of electronic choir voices: like the pre-programmed choir setting that you used to play with on your older sibling's keyboards in the nineties. Lovely tune to warm your cockles in the coming winter months 3.5/5
LG

Badly Drawn Boy – Too Many Miracles
One Last Fruit

Kudos to a guy who only sings when he has something interesting to say. Having been tucked away out of the limelight, easy going beanie lover Damon Gough is back on his own label, One Last Fruit, with some more subtle melancholic treats. It's all just, well, rather lovely.

Music to drink tea to. 3/5
CW

Idiot Glee – All Packed Up
Moshi Moshi

Another product from the Moshi Moshi label, James Friley takes the prize for having one of the most ridiculous stage names in the industry. Remember this is an industry where a band have actually called themselves 'Stupidity'. No joke. Google it.

Enough of the rambling - let's get to the song. You know when people say “It's not where you end up, it's the journey that matters.”? Well this journey trots along aimlessly like a horse at 1mph and the only sights are of grass and hay and by the end you're back where you started again. 2/5
JG

First Aid Kit – Ghost Town
Wichita

More of the same from the Swedish folk sisters with an unhealthy obsession with Gary Numan. In a similar vein to Jenny Lewis’ solo work, Ghost Town has soaring voices, lost loves, lonesome bars…railroad tracks… blah blah blah.

The single comes complete with a video of the pair running their hands through wheat fields in floaty white dresses - reminiscent of an advert for cereal, or possibly Senakot. 2/5
SJ

Plan B – The Recluse
679

Yawn. Another song so boring that I'm having trouble recalling it just seconds after it ended. It started out as a blatant rip off of Eminem in his 8 Mile days, but then inexplicably transformed into what is basically a jazzier, faster version of Prayin'.

There are some pretty cool strings in the background and an inoffensive rap in the middle, but really those are the only things worth remembering. The rest of it all blends into a mush of notes with Plan B's voice warbling on relentlessly, pretending to be all soulful when really we know it's just slightly irritating and bland. 2/5
LBH