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Album Review
Melpomeni – 8 Tragedies, 2 Love Songs & A Breakdown
Melpomeni
8 Tragedies, 2 Love Songs & A Breakdown
[Lighthouse]
6/10


Melpomeni’s debut album is something akin to a musical version of that ‘find the lady’ back alley card scam – just as you think you’ve spotted the breakdown in amongst the 8 tragedies and 2 love songs it turns out you were wrong, and now your safety might be at risk. Because this dramatic, blackened-eyed piano pop gushes with all the melodrama of a scorn banshee on the Jeremy Kyle Show. It means that, on occasions (usually when it’s just Melpomeni and her piano), the ghoulish theatrics can tip toe past faux cobwebs and Kate Bush voodoo dolls into the realms of clichéd spookiness found on the Vampire Bat Ride at Chesington World of Adventures. Backed by a band though, on tracks like the possessed honky tonk of ‘I Need A Man’, which prowls and wails quite magnificently, Melpomeni will seduce you with vampish flare and pomp.

By Sam Little


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.