Leaning into the fall

Managed by the guru behind the rise of Suede, and with a safe pair of hands on the mixing desk in the form of Muse and Foo Fighters producer, Rich Costey, the self-recorded and self-produced, self-titled debut album from Nashville’s Mona finally hits the streets this week.

Having been tipped as ones to watch since last autumn, the Tennessee tyros first platter arrives with eleven tracks that drip with attitude and expectation.

The immense weight that comes from the NME, MTV and BBC voting you as ones to watch in 2011 hangs in the background, but you sense that there is something in the mix that might just see Mona rise above the hype and deliver something more than many of the hotly-tipped acts of recent years have been able to.

The album does not hang about in making its point – clocking in at a brisk 35 minutes – that this is a band packed with an infectious energy and the tunes to drive it home.

Lead tracks like Listen To Your Love and Trouble On The Way show their straightforward rock leanings, but Lines In The Sand demonstrate that Mona already know their way around an anthem.

As with all good debuts, the question is, where do they go from here? They have a fine formula that does not need  tinkering, their power pop/alt rock shapes will have an immediate audience, and their support slot at Slane next weekend will give them a shot at a wider base than their recent gig at Whelan’s allowed.

Comparisons will endure with Kings of Leon – the Followills also being from Mona’s home state of Tennesee. There is a certain similarity, but they have more in common with Rocket From The Crypt – propulsive rock delivered with a snarl and hearts-on-sleeves, and looking like they are the coolest gang in town.

Given the space and time to develop their obvious strengths, and there’s every chance that they will achieve their intention of being the purveyors of romantic rock’n’roll for city folk for years to come.

Oh, and here they are/were at Slane…

He said Captain, I said Whatmans

I don’t often venture out to gigs as much as I would have done back in the day, so it takes something special to get me over the door and out into the country.

Having heard rather a lot over recent months about a Battle of the Bands competition in a local town, with the prize at stake being a stage slot at the Glastonbury festival, I thought it would be prime opportunity to catch up on a lot of the best local and regional talent around, the creme de la creme, if you will, of the upcoming new wave of talent, especially in light of the paddywhackery of a recent Guardian article, and the great user comments that proceeded it about the current state of Irish music.

So I tripped along to sunny Shercock in Cavan and the Ship Inn, the venue for the contest, and saw some truly fine acts fight it out for the prestigious place at Pilton Farm in the summer.

The Myth, The Making, Turbulent Eddy, Serial Twin, Humbuzzer and Shouting At Planes all rocked well and gave hugely impressive accounts of themselves. The eventual outcome was a bit of a hometown decision, but the one true winner on the night, though, was the Navan-based Whatmans, whose set, supported by a fine turnout of fans and new converts on the night alike, was one of those goosebump moments that comes along very seldom in this pop life.

Opening their short set with the slow-burning and epic Soldier, and closing with upcoming single, Devil Shoes, they showed themselves to be possibly the best unsigned act in the country.

Soldier was an unlikely opener, but it came across as U2’s Moment Of Surrender without the pretension, filled with equal bombast and driving energy.

Tracks like Follow Me, Guns of Dublin and This One’s For The Music have an immediate and solid connection with their audience, and if their debut album, slated for November release, can capture their powerful live act, they are destined for a major label deal and all that comes thereafter.

The Whatmans’ uncanny knack with the anthemic twist, echoes of the Verve at their best and a canny pop sensibility, they showed potential beyond their environment and I would not be concerned at their loss on the night. They will one day grace Glastonbury, and at a headier slot than this win might have brought them.

They are one to watch, and if they continue to gig and develop their already confident and accomplished presence, the sky is the limit.

Watch them take off…

The greatest gift of all…

As the temperatures dropped and the winter woolies became a necessity for those travelling to the North Wall Quay, Paul McCartney brought his Good Evening Europe tour to the o2 to toast the season and cheer his legions of supporters in Dublin.

To spend almost three hours in the presence of one of the 20th century’s finest musicians, someone responsible for songs that have become the soundtracks to people’s lives all around the world for the last nearly 50 years, was a real early Christmas present for all those lucky enough to bag a ticket.

Backed by the same band as he has toured with since 2001, McCartney hit the stage running with Magical Mystery Tour, and acted as tour guide to his back catalogue, going back as far as And I Love Her from 1964, up to this year’s Come Home. In between were 32 other classic songs (and the inevitable but cheesy Wonderful Christmastime) that disappointed no-one and saw the former Beatle heralded with standing ovation after standing ovation throughout the night.

What’s phenomenal is to think about what he didn’t play from a canon of material that would have rocked and rolled the 15,000 and still left everyone with the same beaming smiles and tear-streaked faces after the concert was over.

It was as much a Christmas party as it was an evening of tributes: To Linda, as well as original Wings guitarist Henry McCullough who was in the audience, before My Love; to John Lennon on Here Today; and, to the biggest cheers of the night, to George Harrison, which was followed by Paul singing Something on ukulele, which morphed into a full band version that swept everyone up in the emotion of the song and the images of the young George on the video screen behind the stage.

The mesmerising and dizzying production added to the experience, with explosions and a final shower of silver glitter at the end of the night that had the standing section looking like they had been caught in a snowstorm. However, there was no-one left out in the cold, and the warmth generated by McCartney and his band and an adoring audience could have melted the ice for miles around the docklands.

It’s only evolution

One of the constants of the last 20 years, in my life at least, has been the presence of Pearl Jam as a musical companion. Their ongoing single-minded writing of their own history, often against the constraints and constructs of the music industry, has been an inspiration and now another chapter appears in the shape of their self-released (in the US at least) new record, Backspacer.

It really does not hang about, clocking in at 36 minutes plus change, and the great thing about it is that it doesn’t need to be any longer. Something that has irked for years, particularly as the single declined as a format, was the way that a lot of acts (so many names…) loaded their records with as much filler as great tracks. B-sides with nowhere to go clogged the arteries of otherwise perfectly healthy albums and brought them to their knees with the unnecessary flab they added.

It’s genuinely a thrill to listen to a record that is as long as it needs to be to make its statement, no more, and no less. How often can it really be said these days that a record left you wanting more?

Long-time fans will identify the similarities with other classic albums, especially No Code. That was my reference point for this record on first listen, it’s diversity, strength and downright classic song-writing and musicianship are front and centre here, but with a brighter shade than on previous records.

The Avacado album was weighted down with the hangover of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, as was Riot Act, and this record, recorded in the early hopeful glow of Obama, brings Eddie and the boys out of the shadows, rocking into the light with a tangible joy that has been pretty much under wraps since No Code.

It’s as though the sentiment of Gone, from the last album, with its Springsteenesque small-town great escape narrative, has come to pass – this band have gotten out of the shackles they were bound by, and this is the sound of what that freedom has released.

Backspacer is a complete record. It knows where it’s going, where it’s been, and what it feels. Take it out beyond the lights at the edge of town, let me know where you get to. I’m sure it will be a good place.

Here’s Cameron Crowe’s mesmerising video for the lead track, The Fixer…

Resistance is useless! (Well, not really…)

Not many rock gods hail from seaside resorts in Southern England, but Muse, from sunny Teignmouth, have returned with their fifth album proper, The Resistance.

Following on a fairly stellar trajectory from the magnificent launch-pad of Showbiz, they reached the outer limits on their last release, Blackholes and Revelations. The question was, where would they go from here?

Unsurprisingly, they have headed into hyperspace with this new release, a confident musical journey and, while the lyrics delve into more earthly concerns – geo-political consciousness, conspiracy theories, raging against the machine – that on paper look like a flimsy David Icke manifesto and don’t bear too much consideration, the right thing to do is just follow Matt Bellamy’s lead and leap into the void with your eyes wide open.

Still taking style points from the classicism of Queen and the vision of Rush, but with an overwhelming pop sensibility, The Resistance leads off with Uprising, a rousing, rolling juggernought, before the title track arrives, featuring The Edge’s piano making a guest appearance. Undisclosed Desires is Depeche Mode imbibed with a classical thread, and then things just start getting silly, albeit in the best possible way.

United States of Eurasia. Terrible title, too general a sentiment, great song. Starting as a piano lament, it kicks its We Are The Champions heels just over a minute in, and just runs with that. It’s not going to topple governments or make sheep explode at 20 paces, it just rocks daftly and melodically thoughout, towards it’s Chopin-inspired outro (I kid you not).

From there to the closer, the three-part symphonic opus, Exogenesis, there’s great progish pop, a slightly misguided Supergrass moment on I Belong To You that could have been better placed on a B-side, and some hurtlingly huge riffs that will be magnificent in arenas across the globe when they go out on tour.

Exogenesis’ massive orchestration and sci-fi soundtrack overtones blend perfectly with Matt’s falsetto delivery. I’ve no idea what it’s about, but it’s a modern day Pink Floyd masterpiece, and that’s no bad thing in my book.

Set to road-test the new material on that other spaced invasion, U2’s 360 tour, Muse have delivered another set that will develop a second life on stage, and solidify the new songs within their already packed catalogue of solar-system-bestriding anthems.

What a ride.

We believe in each other, we need one another…

And so, it ends.

An unkind word, a flippant, witty reply, a smashed guitar, and it’s all over.

Well, there’s a whole lot more to it than that, but that’s the compressed version of 16 years of a career in music.

You have to stop flogging a dead horse eventually, and although it has prompted some hagiographic nonsense among some critics, the common sense view is, and should be, a collective sigh of relief that Oasis are, finally, no more.

I remember coming back from backpacking in the Far East, and the one thing I did between getting off the plane and collapsing into bed for the next 48 hours was hit a record shop to buy Definitely Maybe. They meant that much. In 1994.

At that time, they lifted you up from the mundane; it was an antidote to 14 years of Tory rule in the UK, hedonistic escapism for people who didn’t fancy clubbing, driving, tuneful, guitar music that was just so right for the time that it sparked something inside a nation.

Then came Morning Glory. A hype orgy preceded it’s release, it sold in its millions, it was a validation of the initial rush. And the songs were pretty good, too.

Here they are at the height of their powers. Oddly, everything after these two gigs in London’s Earls Court arena, which I was privileged to be at, was downhill.

The ongoing obsession and blind faith that many had with Oasis came from that initial blaze of glory. But you knew deep down, after Be Here Now appeared, a bloated, cocaine-fuelled, tossed-off mess of a record, there was never going to be another Columbia, another Don’t Look Back In Anger, another Acquiesce. There as a stagger, not a swagger.

The loyalty remained, and as long as they slipped a good single onto an otherwise terrible album, there was hope they might rise again, that Noel might regain his muse, and that Oasis might send you on the rocket-trip euphoria of the intro to Cigarettes And Alcohol once again. They didn’t.

Hauling their emperor’s new grooves around the world each year has made them hugely rich, certainly, and given another generation the opportunity to experience an Oasis show. But having been at Slane earlier this year, and having left after an hour, I had the impression that they really could not go on doing this any more, to themselves, their recorded legacy (the first two records), or their fans.

The V Festival no-show was the beginning of the end, Rock En Seine the final straw. Hope remains that Noel will come back stronger, with better tunes, and the determination that he left at the door when the initial rush of success bought everything he ever wanted. Having nothing left to prove led to a decade of plodding. Having nothing to hold him back might just give him the space to grow as a songwriter and performer.

Oasis might not have been the Beatles, but Noel may yet grow into something more than a Paul McCartney wannabe.