Friday 25 March 2011

Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs - No Help Coming



You can always rely on Holly Golightly to give you something familiar. And 'No Help Coming' is not going to be the album to buck any trends. The songs cover much the same ground as any of her earlier ones. The characters and situations as well worn as any in the country music canon. That's not a criticism by the way. Sometimes familiarity doesn't breed contempt. Sometimes is as welcoming as a hug from a lover or as warming as duvet in winter.

Even when the subjects she's singing about are bitter and/or broken 'The Rest of Your Life', 'Here Lies My Love' – hell any of these tunes would meet that criteria under close scrutiny.

Aided again by long time collaborator Lawyer Dave (essentially a cipher for the Brokeoffs!), who supplies guitar, backing vocals and lead voice on 'Under Arrest' the album is a stripped down back-to-basics homage to old country and rootsy sounds. With newly written originals and resurrected oldie covers sitting side by side as happy bedfellows in what is simple, beautifully clear attempt to allow Holly's knack for storytelling shine through and succeeding wonderfully.

Thursday 24 March 2011

Colourmusic - My ___ is Pink



If I was to only recommend you hear one thing by Colourmusic, assuming that this one thing couldn’t be the entirety of 'My ____ is Pink' for some self-imposed and utterly imagined reason, then I'd have to settle on 'The Little Death (In Five Parts)' an extended mix of psych-drones and hooks at the heart of this album and an epic sounding ten minute arrangement either in celebration or warning of human weakness and lust! Not that you'll know that necessarily. You'll feel it though. Yes, you'll definitely feel it.

Oh, sure there are other songs on the album. Lots of them and they all twist and change and can't be pinned down and genre-fied with an easy descriptive moniker or pithy soundbite phrase either. They have a life of their own. A personality and a drive that gives them their own inherent charm.

But I would say this - any band who'd create, record and release this music demands your full attention. It's heavy, brutal, harmonious, sing-along, discordant and weird at various times (sometimes at the same time!) And I love it. All of it. Well, except for 'The Beast with Two Backs' which serves little purpose.

The album finishes with the rampant, positively charged frenzy of 'Yes', replete with its sublime choral vocals which perfectly sums up 'My ____ is Pink'. This album will in years to come be viewed fondly as a work of genius, vision and (perhaps) misunderstood beauty. I say 'perhaps' as I've not read any other reviews of the music contained herin, I don't know if others are able to divine the beauty of this music, or if it's being passed over for more obvious sounding fare.

I think either way that if you were to listen and recognise this fact - that Colourmusic's 'My ____ is Pink' is a startling force of musical nature - today then you can be smug in the knowledge that you're already well ahead of the curve when it comes to knowing your musical onions!