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New music is always good. Good new music is better though. Two diametrically opposed bands to talk about here.

Clare and the Reasons – The Movie

I first saw Clare and the Reasons supporting Duke Special. They play a blend of beautifully orchestrated strings, mixed with some tightly layered harmonies, and other miscellany you normally don’t hear in songs, including a saw.

The songs are very beautiful, and really do show off the technical competence of both the chief song writer Clare Muldaur, and the rest of the group (which incidentally, includes her husband). That’s not to say the songs are all show and no substance. Quite the opposite in fact. A song like Alphabet City is still sufficiently hooky to have you humming it.

For such a seemingly young band, they play live like they have been playing for ever, and on stage seemed to be having far too much fun. Their live rendition of Pluton (sung in French) was completely in the dark, save for each band member wearing a flashing head-light. The inspiration for the song Rodi was explained; Clare had a neighbour who she had though was called Rodi, and Clare imagined a whole story to go along with her. As it turned out, her neighbour wasn’t called Rodi, but the song stands as a tribute to her anyway.

An entertaining band, for people who appreciate music with real depth, and slightly more complexity than a simple three chord trick. These songs are worthy of being listened to carefully. Like a fine wine, you’ve got to savour it, and appreciate more than just what you might casually hear.
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Reverend and the Makers – The State of Things

Hard-Fi are from Staines, near London. They sing about being stuck with a life you might not like, and all the problems it has. Reverend and the Makers are from Sheffield. They sing about being stuck with a life you might not like, and all the problems it has.

Don’t get me wrong, they AREN’T the same band, and they aren’t singing about identical things, but I can personally draw a lot of parallels. And in a good way too. Thematically they’re singing about similar things, and the musical styles are similar, although Hard-Fi might lean more towards guitars in their songs, Reverend and the Makers have a slightly more electronic edge.

Lots of good, earthy songs. Bandits stands out to me, as it seems to show a conversation between a gambling obsessed man and somebody else egging him on. The bridge is genius as it throws another person into the equation; the protagonist’s wife trying to find where he is, and hoping he’s not spending all their money.

Also we find a lot of guest vocalists and writers on the album, which adds a nice bit of spice to the vocals. Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys (a good friend of the band’s front man) guests on a few songs, and indeed wrote song The Machine. A song which fits perfectly on this album, but doesn’t fit in with typical Arctic Monkeys songs.

There’s quite a few short, fast-paced songs on this album, all sufficiently upbeat to offset their slightly downbeat themes. What The Milkman Saw is a wonderful piece of how suburbia and gossip works. Rumour and idle chatter ruling the suburbs.

One slight downer I noticed is that there’s a very similar rhythm throughout all the songs, and there’s a chance that they could end up just repeating themselves over and over. Hopefully not though. Good car music when driving – best listened to loud!
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