Labels: cherryade
Review by: Andy Malcolm
“Mad Props” to the label that sent this for enclosing actual tasty sweets (a cherry type jelly thing) with their package. Anyways. What we have on the cd is a collection of Christmassy themed chunes. Now it seems to be a bit of an indie thing to do this now and again, the label My Pal God put out a couple of Christmas comps that I quite enjoyed (especially the one where Bob Nanna and Liz Elmore do ‘Fairytale of New York’). So, I am not too put off by the concept, so long as the songs are any good. Are they? Lets see, as I prop up the promo bumf with a now sadly empty bottle of San Miguel.
Misty’s Big Adventure – some kind of weird keyboard / pop type thing with Pinky & Perky doing backing vocals. Quite scary.
Steveless – a bloke monotones over someone playing the same chords on a guitar for a little while. Um. He seems to be talking about Christmas songs.
Tiger MCS – A nice, downbeat little acoustic number with warm vocals and whistling. Not bad at all!
The Hot Puppies – Fun girl fronted indie rock with keyboards and stuff. I have been listening to a little bit of Radio 6 for research since the last review that I mentioned Radio 6 in, and I conclude that Steve Lamacq would probably play this, if he could get away with it. If students still bothered listening to underground indie, they would listen to this. Instead, most students are too busy being wankers.
Sarah and the Johnsonauts – not to be confused with Antony and the Johnsons, fortunately. This is ultra lo-fi, like a family sitting around and recording a post Christmas lunch music session on Grandad’s reel to reel. I hear Aunty drunkenly clanking the tambourine.
Hello, How Are You – very annoying this one! Has sleigh bells. Quite short mercifully.
Grand Prix 86 – Norwich based indie pop, one of these guys posts on the Collective forum I reckon, so hopefully it will be any good. Ok, Yes, this is nice and breezey indie pop with Christmassy Wham style synth effects. Not bad, nope! Except it is dead repetetive and seemingly goes on for ages.
Das Wanderlust – Frisky little lo-fi indie stuff covering the Chrimbo staple, “Sleigh Ride” in their own fashion. Fun when its belting along, irritating when it gets all quiet for a moment.
Giant Robot & the City of Tokyo – these guys sent us a cd just recently, and it has a picture of a guy puking on the cover. Great. Anyway, I haven’t listened to it yet but on the basis of this song I am gonna listen to it really soon! This is crunchy indie rock, initially its all wobbly and almost like Joan of Arc, before it picks up a touch with nods in the direction of Superchunk. Lovely thick guitars and sound vocals. RIGHT GOOD UNS.
Container Drivers – Acoustic, yeah its ok. Has a bit of pace to it that really helps. But then my cd player went a bit whacky and fast forwarded to the next track on its own. There’s no accounting for taste.
David Craigie – This is a bit oddball. Noisey and screwy, like a Lullaby for the Working Class song that went wrong. Though maybe it was my cd-player that buggered it up. Finishes up acoustic.
Chihiro – Male and female singing and somebody playing a guitar and a bass and a violin and drums. I have run out of words for nice. Very Christmassy. Part of it is done to the tune of ‘Winter Wonderland’.
Steveless – oh hey, last song and the lo-fi bloke is back shouting again. Recorded onto dictaphone by the sounds of it, a guy yells and some blokes play some very hissy instruments.
So there you have it.
Bonus points – I noticed on the labels website that the person who put this cd out likes to listen to “Norwichcore”. WTF? Norwich has its own core now? That is awesome.