The Maccabees, Tribes music purchases and the new Dodgy album 'Stand Upright In A Cool Place'

Woah, D-Day or more accurately R-Day, the day that our new Dodgy album 'Stand Upright In A Cool Place' is released, is screaming towards us at a rate of knots - COME ON 20th Feb and we're just hoping that word is getting around and people are getting prepared to part with their hard-earned readies to buy it.
As mentioned in the last post, if we are expecting people to fork out hard cash on a whole album of our songs, then the least we can do is make sure that we do the same and don't rely totally on listening to stuff on Poncify. The two new CDs that I ordered from Amazon have arrived, I do admit the choice was slightly random but both bands had been talked about in terms of 'saviours of UK guitar music' whatever that may be.
Discovered a great quote recently from Gruff from Super Furry Animals about the chance of another SFA record and he said that they had such a strong back catalogue that he'd let the public catch up and get into that first. You sometimes feel that about the whole of art and culture - all musicians, artists, film makers, authors etc JUST STOP. You know, for a couple of years at least, let everyone catch up. Well, let US catch up.

Anyway, back to those CDs,

Baby - TRIBES (Island Records) £7.99 - Amazon.co.uk

Well there's a good start, calling your first newborn debut album 'Baby' - that enables a bit of career building because if this one's a success we can have at least 'toddler' and 'teenager' to follow, though looking at the boys languishing about their bench on their cover, you wouldn't feel comfortable about leaving any baby in close vicinity. They certainly look the part, like The Strokes might after living in the Holloway Road for a year. In 2003. One member sporting a good beard can't be bad and they've even got a member called Miguel - there was a Miguel in Curiosity Killed The Cat as well.
Giving it a good listen, Tribes certainly know their way around an indie rock song, though the structures, sounds, lyrics and plots don't hold any surprises, for my taste it lacks a bit of invention. However, if you like to jump around to spunky, indie rock and you're a fan of Razorlight then I'd imagine that you'll love em. 'Corner of an English field' is a worthy attempt at an indie an anthem and 'Himalaya' is where they most cross paths with Razorlight - not sure which version of Razorlight though - pre or post dressing up box.

Given To The Wild - THE MACCABEES (Fiction) £6.99 - Amazon.co.uk

Of the two albums bought, The Maccabees is the favourite and where you'll find the most positives and that's not just because it was a pound cheaper. I met Orlando from The Maccabees once, backstage at a festival in Europe and he was suitably enhanced, shall we say, for that situation and having a merry old time. This is a few years ago now but please don't expect me or him to divulge the main thrust of that conversation.
The sound of the album is rooted in the left field but as this is their third album there's an eye firmly on the main stage. They've obviously learnt from the masters and like all great third albums (ex: Dodgy - 'Free Peace Sweet') it opens with a moody shorter 'intro' track and then one moment you'll hear flashes of White Denim type experimentalism next to Coldplay like epic-ness and old Orlando has got a unique, goose-like vocal style, which stands out. But then again, I quite like geese (both wandering and on a platter)

OK, so the result is, definitely keeping The Maccabees CD to delve deeper into it's potential treasures and to keep the music cycle moving we'll make sure that The Tribes CD is put back into circulation, either by putting it on Ebay or if anyone wants it just drop us a line and we'll pass it on. We've paid for it - I mean that wouldn't be harming the band or illegal, would it?

The next blog posts coming hot on the heels of this one will be focusing on the new Dodgy album 'Stand Upright In A Cool Place' and feature track by track interviews from producer Kris Thompson with us speaking about the album and how it came to be. Release date 20th February 2012