LOUDANDQUITE.COM follow us on twitter find us on facebook LOUD AND QUIET
Album Review
APPLICANTS – ESCAPE FROM KRAKEN CASTLE
Applicants
Escape From Kraken Castle
[Tiger Trap]
7/10


Purveyors of scuzzy synth drenched indie, Applicants dredge influences from colourful surrealist noise rockers Melt-Banana to GameBoy noises and moustachioed African dictators. ‘School Kids In Japan’ explodes in a fluorescent hail of keyboards and erratic bursts of guitars. Like stumbling across your hidden stash of Bis records, ‘Tesco Metro Disco’ is a full-on shot of 90s nostalgia that lives up to its ‘riotous’ tagline while ‘Crash Mat’ smashes into the room like a brawl in a Super Mario game and pitches the band further on a musical collision course. Like Ash when they were still wiry-haired and angry, Applicants know their way around a hook, in their tuneful ditty about the exploits of African Hitler-in-waiting Robert Mugabe particularly. Always tongue in cheek it manages to steer clear of the navel-gazing that blights most indie records, this is scrappy, chaotic and oddly loveable.

By Kate Parkin


ZOMBY – NOTHING
Nothing
[4AD]
6/10

Your worst fears about ‘Nothing’ are probably right. The late-year, post-album extended-play sounds like the runoff of a few constructions that didn’t make the cut for ‘Dedication’.

MILAGRES – GLOWING MOUTH
Glowing Mouth
[Memphis Industries]
3/10

Milagres are a Brooklyn-based quintet fronted by a certain Kyle Wilson, whose soaring vocal style sits somewhere between Thom Yorke and Chris Keating of Yeasayer.

FOE – BAD DREAM HOTLINE
Bad Dream Hotline
[Vertigo]
6/10

On first encounter, ‘Bad Dream Hotline’ is your standard emo-goth release – black on black cover art, tracks called things like ‘A Handsome Stranger Called Death’ and ‘Dance & Weep’.

STANDAR FARE – OUTS OF SIGHT, OUT OF TOWN
Out of Sight, Out of Town
[Melodic]
3/10

‘Out of Sight, Out of Town’ is an album that concerns itself, in the main, with casual sex.

LA VAMPIRES – SO UNREAL
So Unreal
[Not Not Fun]
8/10

When LA Vampires first released ‘So Unreal’ on a limited vinyl run in 2010 it sold out in a flash, perhaps because of its superbly kitsch artwork by Spencer Longo.

DAN MANGAN – OH FORTUNE
Oh Fortune
[Merge]
8/10

Dan Mangan is a husky-voiced, melancholic Canadian singer-songwriter who does all the things you expect husky-voiced, melancholic Canadian singer-songwriters to do.

FAVOURITE SONS – THE GREAT DEAL OF LOVE
The Great Deal of Love
[Low Rent]
7/10

Favourite Sons is the most recent project of Ken Griffin, formerly of nineties outfits Rollerskate Skinny and Kid Silver.

FRANK ALPINE – FRANK ALPINE
Frank Alpine
[Weird]
7/10

Synth enthusiasts must have been veritably jumping with joy of late (would a synth enthusiast do that sort of thing?).

MARK SULTAN – WHATEVER I WANT, WHENEVER I WANT
Whatever I Want, Whenever I Want
[In The Red]
6/10

A long lasting member of the American garage rock scene since the late Eighties, Mark Sultan has cooked up a hotpot of a new album.

THE SOUND OF ARROWS – VOYAGE
Voyage
[Low Rent]
5/10

Some very big noises are being made in the mainstream press over this Swedish duo, and their calculated pop sensibilities go a long way to explaining that.