Features Tracks: Spectrals, Postal Service And More

GOOD FRIDAY.

It is a good Friday, right? If you’ve been doing this right, you’ll have spent today oversleeping, before getting ‘match fit’ for Sunday by hoovering down all the chocolate in the house/corner shop. Which doesn’t leave you with a massive amount of time to go searching out the best new music now, does it?

Well fear ye not. In order to get you ready for the looooooong weekend, our beloved writers have drawn pens at dawn and picked out their top tracks of the week. So without any further ado (not even to shovel a bit more cocoa into our gobs), may we present, a very Easter Tracks.

Spectrals - Milky Way

Classic pop songwriter Louis Jones is back with the first taster of his sophomore record ‘Sob Story’. Although ‘Milky Way’ is not a drastic change from the love songs that served Spectrals well on his debut album there is a definite progression to be heard. After supporting Girls back in 2011, Chet JR White has taken over production duties and teamed up with Louis. The gentle croon, shoulder jigging riffs and repetitive lyrical refrain “She couldn’t be you if she tried” perfectly compliment the warped layers of noise that the former Girls man has brought to the table. This added depth is a refreshing twist and development to Spectrals’ accomplished sound. Just like the opening drum beat hints at, we are left chanting da da de da Spectrals da da de da Spectrals. He shoots and he scores on this tantalising appetizer for ‘Sob Story’. (Samuel Cornforth)

Friday Club - Fall Down Kids

It’s got the swagger and the sneer of your favourite guitar band but with a heightened sense of urgency. Despite ‘Fall Down Kids’ being a live demo, it’s clear to hear that these Birmingham boys bypass the boring and come straight in with the hooks. It’s a very rough’n’ready first offering but just imagine this getting the live, on stage, in your face treatment and it sounds twice as awesome as it does now. Join the club. (Jack Parker)

Postal Service – Turn Around

Should the Earth to plunge into a previously unfathomed fourth dimension; where the world once known and understood morphs into an arcade game landscape of 16-bit colour and sound, then we needn’t fear, for it would give us the opportunity to soundtrack our lives perfectly with The Postal Service on repeat. Their music feels like an electronic, synth-pop, hug. With just one play being enough to render the listener calm and in a reassured state, knowing that everything will be absolutely fine – including the aforementioned 4th dimension disaster. ‘Turn Around’ is one of two new tracks to be added to a disc of rarities released with the 10th anniversary edition of ‘Give Up’, out on 9th April. It’ll almost certainly fit neatly amongst the rest of the album, don’t you think? (Joe Dickinson - @DickinsonSound)

Dems - Desire

In the same way you get goosebumps listening to Deptford Goth for the first time, Dems are beautifully atmospheric and vocally brilliant. If this summer time ever arrives, evenings in the park will be being filled with this as their soundtrack. And as a Londoner, bit proud that they come from round my way obvs.

If this sounds good in your ears check out the track ‘Christabel’ that’s also doing the rounds at the moment and the best thing is - this song is available for free! Check out their website: https://d-e-m-s.com/ for more details. (Elise Cobain)

Phoenix - Entertainment (Blood Orange Remix)

We’re living in a world where a guy from a band whose name was, basically, ‘balls’, is remixing a French rock band with help of a reformed girl group. Taking snippets of Thomas Mars’ vocals and the twinkly synthesised strings of the original, Hynes remodels ‘Entertainment’ from a propulsive foot-stomp of a record into a torch song that could sit happily on the ‘Lost In Translation’ soundtrack. That is, until the re-purposed guitar solo tears a hole in the slight silk fabric of his late-night production style, reverb and distortion shaking another close group harmony out of Mutya, Keisha and Siobhan. Hynes has one eye on transplanting Phoenix’s cool into MKS, and another on highlighting how sad and lonely a song ‘Entertainment’ is when you take it away from its glam rock pomposity. An excellent, bitter sweet gem of a track. (Tom Baker)