New Music 2011 - Mirror, mirror - l want it all.

There is much to write, and most of it concerns (forthcoming) festivals too, but I'm going to start with this instead. After a fortnight away from writing I have decided that, with the numbered run of 'New Music 2011' having reached #14 by the end of March they will, at least for the foreseeable future, become unnumbered.  There is just too much that I'm excited about...
  
First off the fourth studio album from Domino Records stalwarts and Glaswegian institution Sons and Daughters. The  2008 album 'This Gift' was good but, produced by Bernard Butler, a rather unsurprisingly polished affair. It seems as though their fourth LP - to be called 'Mirror Mirror' marks a return in many ways to their glorious 2005 album 'The Repulsion Box' and if you need to listen to one S&D album before the new one appears, in early summer I believe, this is it.

Deciphering the lyrics will, almost certainly, prove a challenge but you will probably forget to try because the insistent drumming and the venom of the songs is quite remarkable. That the album actually runs for less than thirty minutes is something that you will also not even notice at first.
Always a good album for getting rid of party guests that have overstayed their welcome and to make a statement when played way too loud in the car with the windows wound down!
  
Still as scarily good as it was when it was released; for me it is now a 'classic' LP.

Those 2005 albums... (part 1)

Well I said I'd get back about this subject sooner or later...

I have finally got around to thinking about the 2005 albums that I still listen to on a regular basis. This is no order of merit - it is just what comes to mind here and now - but 'Sons and Daughters' 2005 album The Repulsion Box remains right up at the top of the listening list.
Why this band has not been more successful beats me; their 2004 EP Love The Cup was almost as good too. They are signed to Domino Records and both the EP and LP mentioned above are readily available on CD and also, with a little bit of searching, on quality vinyl. So are the singles - the pick of which is probably Dance Me In c/w Drunk Medicine - but without a moment of doubt 'Sons and Daughters' is truly an "album band".

They fuse elements of punk and folk with dark and often quite surprisingly brutal lyrics and all accompanied by some seriously martial percussion. The vocals are never less than fantastic - Scott Paterson has a great Glaswegian growl - and when Adele Bethel is angry, as she often seems to be, there is no mistaking it!
If you want to try the slightly less intense, lyrically somewhat more ambiguous, side of 'Sons and Daughters' then I recommend starting with the Love The Cup EP and it is never better demonstrated than on the closing track Awkward Duet.