New Releases - What Happened?

New Releases - What Happened?

03 June, 2009
by: Music Team

So it's been a year since we started doing our weekly singles round-up, and we thought that this would be a good time to break with tradition and, to quote Coldplay, 'Go Back to the Start' to see if our reviews have made any difference in the intervening 12 months since we published the very first one here.

Think of it like one of those 'clip-shows' with words.

Foals

What didn't happen to Foals since we reviewed them last year?  They played almost every stage going, Yannis Philippakis got arrested after a fight with John Lydon's entourage in Barcelona and then moved up to number 27 on the NME's 2008 Cool List and they got this handy Wikipedia page.

Currently they are preparing to support Blur on the 2nd of June before a pretty busy summer of European festival action. We're still waiting for that second album though.

Review Effectiveness:1/5 Like they even care what we think

Little Man Tate

Lowri was pretty peeved to have reviewed what in her words was a 'underwhelming, vaguely annoying song by a band from Sheffield named after a Jodie Foster movie', and I'm sure she'll be thrilled to know that they're still going, having released the album 'Nothing Worth Having Comes Easy' and single 'I Am Alive' this year.

Despite never really making it out of Yorkshire, they're playing two festivals in Germany this year – presumably they miss the Arctic Monkeys over there.

Review Effectiveness: 4/5 We didn't like it and nobody else did either.

Sonny J

Still mashing it up like crazy and still living off 2007's 'forgettable Jackson Five bootleg' 'Can't Stop Movin'' Sonny J can occasionally be seen DJing to rooms full of students when he's not in his submarine recording albums.

Joe's comment that it's easier to understand if you're on drugs, still rings true

Review Effectiveness: 4/5 Joe was spot on

Feeder

Losing their drummer Mike Richardson to a re-formed Skunk Anasie recently has only added insult to injury to twelve months that has been anything but plain sailing for Feeder.

About a week after we published our review to 'We Are The People', they released their sixth studio album 'Silent Cry' to mixed reviews. It got worse from there really: their follow-up single 'Tracing Lines' failed to make the charts, and despite sell out shows at Proud, and a headline set at Reading and Leeds Festival the year ended with their label restructuring itself out of existence and the bands crew bus catching fire on the M62 destroying all of the band's merchandise and equipment. Bummer.

Still a seventh studio album looms, so expect more power ballads in the future.

Review Effectiveness: 5/5 Their van blew up after we reviewed them!

Laura Marling

Still sounding a bit like a song bird, warbling singer-songwriter Laura Marling actually earned a Mercury Award nomination for 'Alas, I cannot Swim' from which we gave the singles 'Cross Your fingers/Crawled Out of the Sea' a pretty lukewarm review.

Getting ready to support Neil Young around France and the UK, it seems 2009 could be a break-out year for this one.

Review Effectiveness 0/5: Just goes to show what we actually know.

Scooter

So crap we accidentally reviewed it twice, it would seem that there are indeed a lot 'bleach-blond losers from the Netherlands who look like Spike from Buffy The Vampire Slayer in combat pants' out there as these guys just seem to keep going.

Adding insult to injury, 2009 has also seen the release of a Scooter tribute album in which bands like The Bloodhound Gang, Sido and Andreas Dorau covering and sampling some of their hits.  Guess what? The Status Quo collaboration is the first song. No doubt we'll be reviewing it again in the near future.

Review Effectiveness 0/5 We slammed these guys twice and people still bought it

We Are Scientists

From We Are Scientists' latest news piece on their website:-

'We had a big mention on a recent episode of EastEnders, the popular British television show that re-enacts military skirmishes using ducks and eels instead of men'. In our episode, Syd plays for Bradley, her imamorato, some We Are Scientists on a boom box. She plays him Impatience! She asks whether he's familiar with "these guys" (or something like that) and says "They're even better live…I saw them at Reading last summer"!'

'Sharp turn to bland-ville', was perhaps a mistake in retrospect.

Review Effectiveness 1/5 Even though these guys have not released a track since, they seem to get weirder and weirder

The Duke Spirit

Whilst never really making it in the UK, The Duke Spirit have gone down a storm in the USA performing on American TV 5 times - appearing on Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Last Call with Carson Daly and David Letterman.

Currently touring the US, we're still waiting for a follow up for 'My Sunken Treasure'

Review Effectiveness 2.5/5 Yeah, so they never made in the UK, but who cares when the US loves ya?

Gabriella Cilmi

The jury is still out on this one. Despite reaching number 6 in the charts with Sweet About Me, Gabriella Cilmi's follow up singles have not been massive successes and she continues to fizz away beneath the surface of main-stream pop.

But like all plucky antipodeans she hasn't let that stop her becoming the biggest thing down-under since Vegemite. This year alone, she has performed at the Australian Open and has made her US television debut on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. She even received a Brit nomination in this year's awards.

Time will tell, we guess.

Review Effectiveness 3/5 We were pretty positive, we're just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

Mirror! Mirror!

Now called Youves, these guys continue to tour like crazy and take their shirts off like a bunch of guitar playing Chippendales.

Having released an album called 'Cardiovascular' earlier this year, they are building a reputation as vocal proponents of the independent spirit; like Black Flag being produced by James Murphy, but without the steroids and militant dogma. Still not been on US TV though.

Their CD also has one of the most complex covers we've seen in years.

Review Effectiveness 0/5 So bad in fact, they changed their name

Can't believe we quoted Coldplay - New Releases returns to it's old format next week, we promise. In the meantime please join our Facebook Group.

Click here to see all London Pop
Click here to see all London Indie
Click here to see all London Hip Hop
Click here to see all London Live Music
Click here for Things To Do in London.

Music Team