Round-up Tracks: Tame Impala, Mumford & Sons, & More

Kevin Parker’s Tame Impala have never shied away from the direct route. Behind outlandish, psych-leaning attempt is a simple message, often one coated in sadness. But in last month’s ‘Let It Happen’ and new album ‘Currents’’ lead single, ‘’Cause I’m A Man’, Parker’s discovered an extra gear, an ability to express with zero distractions.

And for one of the first times, the frontman is embracing his inner complications. “My weakness is the source of all my pride,” he sings, above slick clicks and a steamed up, Michael Jackson-nodding R&B groove. If Tame Impala were already champions of direct, unorthodox pop, they’ve just established a new elite league. Way more than an everyday smooth jam, it’s a sharp and - whisper it, sexy - new side to a band breaking new ground for fun. (Jamie Milton)

The unofficial tagline of Mumford & Son’s third album ‘Wilder Mind’ is fast becoming “bye bye, banjos”. Over the last few years the humble string instrument has become something of a signifier for the band, and despite their massive fanbase they’ve courted a lot of flack for it along the way from a vocal lobbying group. Now Mumford & Sons say that they’re leaving those banjos behind, locking them up, and setting off for new musical horizons.

If ‘Believe’ showed hints and glimpses of banjo-ditching ambition, follow-up ‘The Wolf’ confirms it in rampaging and stadium-ready style, bee-lining with unflappable pace towards yet another stratospheric chorus.“You were all I ever longed for,” cries Marcus Mumford, before - of all things to expect - a guitar solo comes hurtling into view. Folklore and fables are still at the centre, lyrically, but there’s a new hunger baying at their heels. ‘The Wolf’ probably won’t sway the core group of Mumford-haters; but really, nothing short of an international ban would achieve that feat. All those inbetweeners and fence-sitters, though? They might just get carried up in the slipstream of ‘The Wolf’ and blown right over into camp Mumford. (El Hunt)

Right when Florence Welch announced her ‘How Big How Blue How Beautiful’ album, she told Zane Lowe that she had something of a “nervous breakdown”, without going into too many details. Constant touring and a one-album-after the-next cycle had clearly taken effect, but ‘Ship to Wreck’ is the first of her new songs to directly address the in-limbo stage that struck LP3. “Did I drink too much? Am I losing touch?” she sings, before - as is custom with anything Welch does - bursting into a gigantic chorus.

Whatever happened in between records, whichever creative blocks she ran into headfirst - they’re gone now. Already, Welch has showcased some of her most curious and direct songwriting to date. ‘Ship to Wreck’ is an obvious single choice - it raises the dial when required, bellows when it’s time - but it’s also one of Florence’s best examples of matching brutal honesty with euphoric pop. (Jamie Milton)

They say that you should stick to your strengths. So it’s not with complacency, but with determined, sheer rigour that Metz are back with an ear-splitting, brilliant piece of scuzzy noise-pop. ‘Spit You Out’ is an intense piece of music, if you ignore for a second the Beatles-esque unified singing in the song’s chorus, buried underneath shards of drum stick and guitar string. With a lo-fi studio sound that’s indebted somewhat to Times New Viking, there’s a rasping, dirty hook, punctuated with animalistic drumming and a guttural, primal bass-line. Supposedly inspired by ‘modern culture’, capitalism and disenfranchisement, this is a roaring, snarling behemoth of an effort by the Toronto trio, complete with – bien sûr – an obligatory gnarly guitar solo.

Matching the sheer velocity of the live Metz experience is a gargantuan task, yet ‘Spit You Out’ does just that – you can almost taste the stale beer odour, feel the sweat and see plaid-covered bodies fly around with teenage abandon. To sum it up in the most articulate and grandiose way possible: fuck yeah, this rules. (Euan L. Davidson)

If you’ve been watching HBO’s Girls, you’ll know that adolescent-minded twenty-something Hannah Horvath has finally shown signs of growing up: boundaries, nuance, empathy. Appropriately, soundtracking her transformative moment was St Vincent’s ‘Teenage Talk’, a demo that was apparently just ‘laying around’ a few months ago. On first listen it’s a bittersweet trip down memory lane: universal and at times pretty funny, too - “Oh, we laughed so hard, threw up in your mother’s azaleas.” Set to a soothing synth riff, these tales appear to be nostalgic memories of less complicated days, of drinking too much and knowing too little, “before we had made any terrible mistakes.”

But Annie Clark recognises that life can’t be like that. “How do you see me now?” she asks. These days she has a spectral albatross “smouldering” on her shoulder, but is the simplicity of the past really preferable, “just ‘cause it’s cased in glass”? ‘Teenage Talk’ embodies that conundrum: it’s a self-contradictory elegy for nostalgia. With its sparing melody and wistful subject matter, it’s understandable that it wasn’t included on Annie Clark’s latest tour de force, ‘St Vincent’, or its deluxe edition. Alongside the blaring horns of ‘Digital Witness’ or shredded guitar lines of ‘Regret’ it might have drowned: instead, it stands on its own two feet, the musical equivalent of a self-contained short story. (Larry Bartleet)

Tea stained and hiding a history far beyond the defeated cry of, ”take all you can from me,’ cares to admit, the latest offering from Black Honey may be frayed around the edges, but that weathered smile knows how to survive the oncoming storm. Deliberate and cinematic, the opening minute of ‘Spinning Wheel’ weaves an intricate, decadent tapestry that whisks you away from the distractions of today.

The sudden burst of gun-toting guitar hits like a house falling from the heavens, while the cries - half-buried by that assured strut - confirm that you’re not in Kansas anymore. The circling spaghetti-western twang that polices the track is intimidating and claustrophobic, despite the horizon being on full view. The vocals, echoing the opening lament, are now fiery and determined. The melancholy that bleeds from the lyrics sits at odds with the charged potential of that instrumental landscape, but it’s a balanced marriage that brings out the best and sees both laughing at their situations

With a clear divide between the two halves of ‘Spinning Wheel’, the real majesty of Black Honey is their ability to craft a consistently lush atmosphere, yet conjure spine-tingling beauty that surprises and haunts with every rotation. (Ali Shutler)

If the world’s crying out for one more no-bullshit punk band to outmuscle ‘chill’-types and everyday apathy, Bully are the answer. Alicia Bognanno isn’t just an archetype honesty-first frontwoman. On ‘Trying’, she captures anxiety like the @sosadtoday Twitter account self-combusting. She sings about “praying for my period all week” and how she questions her “focus, figure and sexuality” like she’s penning a diary entry that’s nobody else’s business. But with Bully, she’s fronting 2015’s most upfront new band, a group with every intention of getting their message across to the biggest audience possible.

‘Trying’ is a lesson in actually giving a shit, realising that seemingly tiny fears genuinely matter. As she screams the chorus one final time, Bognanno proves that ultimate effort tends to pay dividends. (Jamie Milton)

Tags: Mumford & Sons, Tame Impala, Listen, Features