Round-up Tracks: Courtney Barnett, Drenge & More

Without a debut album, there was always clearly far more to come, and ‘Pedestrian At Best’, Courtney Barnett’s opening gambit, is quite an entrance. Witty combinations of syllables - packed together like commuters in a sardine tin - find a new snarling bite, paced over rampaging, reverby guitar riffs that teeter just on the brink of losing control; lurching outwards like tipsy fuzzy-felt people. “My internal monologue is saturated analogue/ scratched and drifting/ I think I’m attached to the idea it’s all a shifting/ dreaming bittersweet philosophy,” Courtney Barnett drawls over a stomping onslaught “I’ve got no idea how I even got here.”

Though it demands attention with a sit up and listen mentality, brash isn’t the right word for ‘Pedestrian At Best’. It still grabs and snags with every memorable little snippet, plucked direct from Courtney Barnett’s barnet-full of wry observations, and it’s every bit as irresistibly immediate, too. Well and truly hurling down the gauntlet ahead of her hotly-awaited debut album proper, ‘Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit’, Courtney Barnett doesn’t need a pedestal, and anyway, she’ll never disappoint us. (El Hunt)

In many ways, it’s the same old Drenge. ‘We Can Do What We Want’ is still the sound of two cool-ass brothers making ridiculously grimy riffs that snake every-which-way like a punk viper. There’s even the obligatory war cry for a dangerous/fun moshpit where most bands would slip in a middle-eight. But there’s something different this time round. This is ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE. Like, bigger than Zeus after taking a Super Mushroom; it’s all centred around a demonically addictive stomping groove. Scientists are still trying to find out how it came from only two people.

‘We Can Do What We Want’ all pivots on elephantine dirty hooks, and lyrics that tell the #haters to fuck right off, along with a newfound swagger that envelopes the whole track in lashings of confidence and boldness. It’s made the prospect of an upcoming new album ludicrously exciting, since Drenge seem to have found the perfect balance. Not only can they do whatever the hell they want, whatever that is, it’s bloody fantastic. (Kyle MacNeill)

‘I’m A Ruin,’ is the latest track to be taken from Marina and the Diamonds’ incoming album, ‘Froot’ and it’s an absolute peach. A haunting pop confession in three parts, ‘I’m A Ruin’ sees Marina Diamandis at her most aware. From the opening realisation that she “can’t have it all,” there’s a delicate acceptance to her plight, hidden behind dark glasses and a coy smile.

The sparse heartbeat that cuts beneath Marina’s glitz is a subtle, yet looming presence. This percussive foundation lets ‘I’m A Ruin’ swell into achingly powerful turmoil or sink into quiet moments of defeat. Marina uses this flip of a coin to exploit the lyrical struggle, and her impressive, affecting vocal range. Despite the darkness, Marina twists ‘I’m A Ruin’ into an ethereal display of light movement. There’s a glitter to the stifled tears and an unflinching confidence that sees her glaring at a bright Froot-ture. (Ali Shutler)

‘Black Sun’ is a melting pot of everything Death Cab For Cutie have put their name to, to date. The electronics that dwarfed last record ‘Codes and Keys’ have been pulled back, shimmering under the instantly recognisable plucked guitar-work that has become Walla’s signature, though in this case plays the part of his farewell. Gibbard, as ever, is the band’s chief conductor, weaving the undulating influences around his coy lyricism with ease. “How could something so fair be so cruel?” he asks, but it’s delivered with a smirk and guile that shows a band maturing in a way that most their age could never dream of. The barbed solo as the track enters its last third thrashes like the final throes of Death Cab’s exorcism.

‘Kintsugi’ is the record that could mark a triumphant new era for Death Cab; one that, with the help of new producer Rich Costey, sees them swell to the heights they’ve always hinted at. ‘Black Sun’ is its launch-pad. This isn’t about the devastation that came before - it’s the sound of a band bathing in the light of their shining future. (Tom Connick)

If anything, there’s an overriding sense of vulnerability in ‘Chinatown’, a yearning for togetherness that seems incongruous compared to the two’s early tracks. ‘Chinatown’ is driven by a First Aid Kit-esque texture in the vocals; “and if I told you I loved you would you take it the wrong way?” is sang in unison to striking effect. It makes sense, then, for Wichita to have taken Girlpool into their roster, but rather than the aforementioned Scandinavians’ folksy instrumentation, there’s a crisp Stratocaster hum, dripping with so much reverb that surely Christopher Owens would approve. Achingly minimal, the guitar and bass arrangements allow for the lyrics to take centre stage. “Do you feel restless when you realise you’re alive?”, is a bizarrely confident sounding vocal delivery, belying the enormous fragility of the lyricism.

This is disarming music matching a narrative that sounds fractured, almost pleading. Girlpool are a band with enormous potential, capable of determined raucousness as well as transparent displays of primal emotion. (Euan L. Davidson)

“I’m so sick about hearing your band” were the first words uttered by Diet Cig, a New York based duo who emerged earlier this month with their debut track ‘Scene Sick’. They formed to fill time on their Sundays, spending their hours recording in a bedroom away from New York scenesters’ definition of band coolness. Diet Cig make music to dance and laugh to. They’ve followed it with ‘Harvard’, a track that retains their brash adolescence, whilst shifting the crosshairs at Alex Luciano’s ex, who has found himself an Ivy League girlfriend at university.

Appropriately tagged as #punk on their Soundcloud page, the lyrics express no regret, with expletives firmly leveled at a painfully smug couple and their matchy-matchy college sweaters. As the butt of Diet Cig’s joke, it goes beyond the bitterness of a break up, turning initial pain into a humour through charming vocals and exuberance. The ramshackle simplicity of the music adds to this sense of purging the contents of a diary outwards and onto the wall, with drummer Noah Bowman providing the foundations for Luciano, the duo’s megaphone. In such a short space of time, Diet Cig have created two tracks, announcing that they will take aim at anyone that stands in front of their pursuit of fun. Bear that in mind; should you cross them, you’ll end up as the next track’s target. (Sean Stanley)

Whether it’s bizarrely mysterious back-stories or detailed depictions of the afterlife, it’s pretty much a staple of Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label that its artist’s music is not of this world. Lapalux is no exception. Straight from somewhere among the stars, ‘Closure’, the first single taken from his forthcoming second album ‘Lustmore’, is peacefully surreal. Spacey synth lines and futuristic, watery wobbles underpin Szjerdene’s floaty vocals. Where Lapalux is often haphazard, jarring and glitchy ‘Closure’ is Lapalux on a Sunday afternoon; serene, flowing and decisive.

Most notable for her previous work with Bonobo, Szjerdene is hot property in lo-fi electronic music; nobody rides a tranquil soundscape quite like her. With the addition of her vocals ‘Closure’ could in fact easily be mistaken for a ‘North Borders’ track, an album which ironically enough cites Lapalux as a heavy influence. Influence and unfounded claims that Lapalux is a spaceman aside, ‘Closure’ promises a follow up to 2013’s ‘Nostalchic’ that has lost none of the ingenuity, immaculate production and carefully structured beauty that is to be expected from him. (Henry Boon)

Tags: Courtney Barnett, Drenge, Listen, Features