Rated or Hated? Single Reviews
There’s really only one contender for SOTW this week. Interpol are back, with “The Heinrich Maneuver”. Anybody who thought this band might be running out of creative steam after two albums has been proved emphatically wrong by this dark, brooding monster of a single. Shadowy lyricism? Check. Urgent, paranoid, edgy backdrop? Check. It’s a vicious, caustic three minutes, an anticipation-cranking taster for forthcoming album “Our Love To Admire”, which is set to be one of the records of the year. I can’t wait.
The pick of the rest of this week’s releases…
As you’ll no doubt know, the once legendary Smashing Pumpkins recently reformed. On “Tarantula”, Billy Corgan’s vocals are as whiney as ever, but the music over which he sings them has somehow transformed into a vicious, fiery, guitar-driven squall with solo’s aplenty. It sounds like Brian May and Robert Page dueling desperately in a “who can be the most self-indulgent axe hero” contest.
One comeback we were all hoping wouldn’t happen is that of Canadian angst-merchant Avril Lavigne. “When You’re Gone” opens with a couple of fairly promising bars of tinkling piano; it’s not long, though, before the plodding four-four beat kicks in and the song turns into the kind of mid-paced, soft rock effort you might have expected from somebody like Jennifer Rush half-way thorugh the Eighties. She may be trying to give herself more gravitas by shaking off the “Sk8r Boi” image, but this is merely exchanging extreme irritation for intense boredom.
New Young Pony Club, “Ice Cream”. Vague elements of punk-funk permeate this slow, lazily cool slice of sultriness. The bassline pulses like a heartbeat, the guitars stab gracefully somewhere low down in the mix, and some shimmering synths add atmosphere to the whole like chrome shimmering in the twilight. It’s alluring, pulse-quickening stuff.
Summer’s here, though it doesn’t really feel like it, and that means it’s time for a beautifully rendered indie-pop single from Swedish harmony purveyors The Concretes. Could “Oh Boy” be that single? I think so. It’s as sugary as the Magic Numbers, but it doesn’t make you feel sick; it’s as catchy as Kylie, and it makes you wanna dance.
Meanwhile, Fall Out Boy drop “The Take Over The Breaks Over“. It’s not the very worst thing the band have ever released; fizzy and energetic and not quite as overtly teen-angst as their previous stuff. It still falls a long way short of making you want to listen to it more than once though. Source.
Fall Out Boy, The Take Over The Breaks Over, teen-angst, rating, single, hated, released
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