Singles Club

At long last, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…Beard reviews the week’s new singles. Or at least the ones we were sent. All these are available to buy now! The comments option has now been enabled, so feel free to add your tuppence worth folks. Hopefully we’ll be able to bring you our web exclusive singles roundup most weeks, along with the odd album review. That’s if I’m not lynched outside the 13th Note by an angry mob of Dead Fly Buchowski fans…

Dead Fly Buchowski - Russian Doll (Beggars Banquet)
Apologies to Griel Marcus, but what is this shit? According to the NME Glasgow’s Dead Fly Buchowski are a psychedelic blues rock band. Psychedelic? Er, how? There is nothing mind expanding or synapse frazzling about DFB’s lumbering 70s rawk. Russian Doll is a dreary, watered down Kyuss, lacking both the sand-blasted power and stoner groove of Josh Homme’s old desert unit. Granted, Roddy Campbell has a powerful voice, but when you sound like the mush-mouthed bloke from Kings Of Leon impersonating Robert Plant, that’s maybe not such a good thing.
At least it’s more fun than Overcast, a would-be epic blues number that sees rock god Campbell surveying the open plains and singing “Down in the valley…” Otis Redding it ain’t.
But wait until you hear the foot-gnawingly earnest ballad One Of These Days. Or shall I save you the trouble? Over strummed guitars filched from Led Zep’s vastly superior Tangerine, Campbell puffs out his chest and does his best impression of Tenacious D’s Jack Black. This is the sort of song some old cock rockers in leather waistcoats and tight jeans would do perched on stools as part of their acoustic spot. It’s that clichéd and naff. Yet they’re the NME’s new favourite Glasgow band and have been signed to Beggars. The world’s gone mad!


YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO – 17 (Fiction)
Pretty decent post-At The Drive In rock, its discordant twists streamlined into an anthemic whole by producers Flood and Rich Costey. Mercifully free of emo whininess or shrill Muse bombast, this is pile-drivingly efficient stuff, cramming riffs both spiky and sludgy into its three minutes. On record it’s not quite raw or savage enough, but live, I’m sure this song would kick my ass.

*Single of the Week*
Field Music – Shorter Shorter (Memphis Industries)
Ah, this is more like it. From the label that brought you the candy-coloured fun riot that is the Go! Team, Field Music are brothers David and Peter Brewis and Andrew Moore. Shorter Shorter is some sweet, sweet chamber pop, recalling the lighter moments of Bowie’s Hunky Dory. Jaunty strings frollick, bright guitars hop and leap, and Andrew Moore trills in a high, slightly fruity voice reminiscent of Spark’s Russel Mael and the Raspberries’ Eric Carmen. Butterflies flutter, birds sing and for a few minutes all is right with the world. The b-sides are a pair of elegantly crafted miniatures. With its pitter-patter of brushed drums and ripples of acoustic guitar Trying To Sit Out recalls the Shins, while the charming Breakfast Song skips along on dampened bass strings that bounce with Macca like good cheer. The runaway winner of Beard’s first ever single of the week. More please!