Round-up Tracks: Swim Deep, Florence + The Machine & More

B-Town boys Swim Deep’s debut album, ‘Where the Heaven Are We’, sounded like it managed to have a cheeky snog with the galaxy’s brightest star, all sun-kissed melodies and sweetly delivered vocals. It did seem a bit simplistic at times - the three-chord rhythms and basic hooks fell flat in the odd place - but it was the very definition of far-out. There was always a big room for improvement, though.

These swooning prayers to the skies above have been answered by the sacred deities of indie. Their sound has been injected with a boldness and size that’s pretty shocking, on first listen. It’s far closer to the 90s-nodding influence touched upon in their first album – it’s all Robbie Williams’ ‘Millennium’ and ‘Screamadelica’ in one package – and basks gloriously in an ocean of psychedelic guitars and synths more baggy than the trousers in a Weightwatchers Before-And-After advert. Quit waiting: grab some round-lensed goggles, shove on a pair of kaleidoscopic flippers, and dive right the hell in. (Kyle MacNeill)

Is there a voice more enormous than Florence Welch’s? It could fill a drained ocean and there’d still be breath to spare. As such, the ringing in our ears that’s been knocking about since 2011’s ‘Ceremonials’ faded out has left one hell of a hole in our musical consciousness. Saucy warblers may come and go, but no one’s quite filled that crooners’ gap that Florence + The Machine took to with such aplomb.

Short though it may be, the sheer size of the thing means it’s hard to imagine a return for Florence + The Machine more fitting than ‘How Big How Blue How Beautiful…’. So grand it’s almost unnerving, it sounds lifted straight from the Royal Albert Hall at Prom time, an almost unstoppable tidal wave of classical instrumentation and, of course, that ever-recognisable vocal. Enormously triumphant, as those horns towards the end sound the gleeful fanfare of Florence’s return, it’s pretty clear that the answers to that title are; fucking massive and overwhelmingly beautiful, but anything other than blue. (Tom Connick)

A Huarache is a leather-thonged sandal, originally worn by Mexican Indians. As the solemn robotic speech rolls out the welcome mat on Hot Chip’s return, though, it’s clear that this song is all about kicking off your heels. The opening track to ‘Why Make Sense?’ sees Hot Chip slowly flood the room with glitching electronica. What starts off as a one-two shuffle of summer vibrations quickly swells into dancefloor abandon.

Arms aloft, table mounted, this is a consuming powerhouse of rhythm and groove. Alexis Taylor’s soulful murmur of “replace us with the things, that do the job better,” is overtaken by the same devilish robot that starts the track as heart and digital display join hand in hand, in decadent funk. Chirpy, upbeat and cascading, ‘Huarache Lights’ is a reminder that while their absence has seen many young pretenders vie for their throne, Hot Chip are irreplaceable. (Ali Shutler)

Expectations for anything that was to follow an album like ‘good kid, m.A.A.d city’ were impossibly high for Kendrick Lamar, and it’s probably what led to the largely stunted reaction to his first taster of new material, ‘i’, which was released in September of last year. Since then, even Kendrick himself has said the single isn’t representative of his new album, and ‘The Blacker The Berry’ certainly shows off a different corner of his repertoire.

The track directly and forcefully addresses topics of race and inequality in America, spitting lines such as “you hate me, don’t you / you hate my people / your plan is to terminate my culture” over haunting production from Boi-1da. The song’s lyrics back up Lamar’s recent outrage over the troubles in Ferguson, and hints at the forthcoming LP tackling larger issues; while ‘good kid, m.A.A.d city’ chronicled Kendrick’s personal development. Lamar himself has said that no single track will fully represent what to expect from his new album, but a cut as mighty in its meaning as ‘The Blacker The Berry’ can only be seen as a statement of intent for what’s to come. “Fuck you / no, fuck y’all / that’s as blunt as it gets”. Indeed. (Will Richards)

Breaking the front door down and proceeding to run rampant all over the house is ‘Last Year’, the first single to be lifted from Joanna Gruesome’s new album ‘Peanut Butter’. Presumably as they trash the place, they’re excitedly searching for the spreadable delight of the same name - or at least this high-octane entrance suggests so. Speaking in a press release, guitarist Owen Williams said the band “attempted to pack as many hooks and screams in as quickly as possible in order to avoid short changing the consumer or wasting her/his time.”

Well, Owen, job’s a good’un - ‘Last Year’ has all of that and more, throwing its arms up in the air as it hurtles down the hill at full speed, yelling “COWABUNGA” at the top of its lungs. Compared to the cuts on their previous release ‘Weird Sister’, ‘Last Year’ sounds bigger, brasher and heavier, yet retains the jangly sense of euphoria and melody that makes Joanna Gruesome’s output so addictive in the first place. Is it a concept record about one band’s quest to find the perfect jar of peanut butter? Is it simply a tribute to one of the finest spreadables of all time? Or, is it the complete opposite - a musical middle finger to a paste some find most disconcerting? Whatever the case, ‘Last Year’ has us really ruddy excited. (Tom Walters)

Unfortunately there are still a lot of saddo sexists in this world who have an issue with powerful, opinionated women taking the lead. They’d much prefer to reduce them to “bossy” and be done with it. Speedy Ortiz’s return is a swipe fired squarely at every guy who’s called his ex-girlfriend “a crazy bitch,” every online comment section loiterer who wastes time haranguing successful, confident women. “I’m not bossy, I’m the boss,” corrects Sadie Dupuis on ‘Raising The Skate’, and damn straight, she’s in charge of an unstoppable driving force.

Hissing cymbals tick angrily along, giving a vital pulse to those fretboard-scaling riffs, and eventually a pummeling wall of fuzzy chaos takes over. There’s a saccharine sherbet dib-dab of a middle-eight too, with a cutting undertone. There’s a vital message in ‘Raising The Skate’, and at the same time, Speedy Ortiz are busy raising the bar ever-higher in the lead up to their second album ‘Foil Deer’. (El Hunt)

This surprise first glimpse at Nai Harvest’s upcoming second full-length ‘Hairball’ came kicking and screaming out of the black; with ‘Sick On My Heart’, Nai have burst out of their latest cocoon into a world of FIDLAR-aping punk snottiness. Seemingly recorded in a hundred-kilometre-an-hour wind tunnel, it’s a motion-sickness inducing rollercoaster of ferociously fuzzed-out guitars, which seems yet another million miles away from their last incarnation as introspective, flowery pop-fiends.

For anyone wondering, that now pitches them two million miles away from that first record, and they’ve never sounded better for leaving behind those unwilling to evolve. Surely one of the finest bands the UK’s bubbling scene has to offer, it’s Nai Harvest’s relentless enthusiasm for exploring the boundaries of their musical imaginations that will continue to push them skyward. Surf-tinged garage rock though ‘Sick On My Heart’ may be, this is no Sunday stroll along the beach – it’s a non-stop screech of barbed-wire guitars and smirking vocal snarls. The lyrical theme may be one of vomiting, but this is one you’re gonna want to catch in your mouth. Chew it up, swallow it down, and get ready to repeat. (Tom Connick)

Tags: Florence + The Machine, Swim Deep, Listen, Features