Album Review: Sandgrown by Jack Cooper (2017) (Trouble In Mind Records)

If you are from the UK and of any class below upper middle, the chances are that a very significant number of your married mates had their stag weekend in the 'Vegas of the North' that is the Lancashire coastal town of Blackpool. 

EP Review - Pale Spectres by Pales Spectres (2017) (Cloudberry Records)

If you do not know the Cloudberry Cake Proselytism V.3 blog that is run by Roque of Cloudberry Records then you are possibly missing out on the best blog out there for discovering / reminding you of obscure jangle/indie pop greats of yesteryear and the future. It is the blog I have been reading for the longest. It is 'the' blog that never disappoints.

Alum Review: Past and Present by The Spindles (2018) (Self Released)

I hereby officially declare, that from this date on, that I, the controlling member (also known as the only member) of the blog known as janglepophub, will never use the word quirky in any further reviews. Disappointed 'quirky' fans should know that this decision has not been taken lightly and is certainly not an indication of a dysfunctional attitude towards the word quirky (aka quirkism) as some of my best friends have used the word frequently and indeed could be considered as such themselves. 

Album Review - Proud Parents by Proud Parents (2018) (Dirtnap Records)

After their critically acclaimed cassette label debut (Karen is Sharon out of  band member Claire Nielson's prolific Rare Plant label) and their ever increasing gig support, Madison, Wisconsin four piece Proud Parents were picked up by the long standing Dirtnap Records label.

Fickle Finger Playlist #0003

Hello all and thanks for coming to have a listen to Fickle Finger #0003. 

There is no discernible themes this time around as the Fickle Finger appears to have been pointing at numerous random brilliance like some sort of demented grim reaper. 

Either way there is some fine stuff on here which we at janglepophub hope points you n the direction of some fine new music or helps you become re-acquainted with the classics and should have been classics of yesteryear.

Enjoy !!!

Album Review - Double Rainbow by The Babe Rainbow (2018) (Flightless Records)

Despite the obvious jangle-pop reference points, psychedelic pop and myself have never really had a totally comfortable union. I find that I simply do not have the imagination for an aesthetic whereby the majority of tracks start off with jangled riffs and worthy intent, before they seemingly become engaged by some mad haired wizard type production fella who takes the track off through numerous tangents that never quite escape the control of his mad narcotic clutches (or reading that back...perhaps I do have the imagination after all) !

Album Review - The Hannah Barberas Are Here At Last by The Hannah Barberas (2018) (Self Released)

I love Bandcamp. I love it in the same sort of manner as I love watching an FA Cup match between a Premiership team and lowly Smeghampton Academicals of the Smiths Fish and Chip shops 12th tier reserve league. I love it in the same sort of manner as I love to watch my slightly pubescent eldest child navigate faltering steps at 'chatting up' or 'sharking' the latest recipient of his clumsy affections. I love it in the same manner as you simply have to watch the plucky little neighbourhood nutter have a pop at the biggest granite chiseled oaf in the pub, just because he dared to look at his pint in a somewhat skew manner.

Album Review: Eleven Pop Songs by Happydeadmen (1990) (Ceilidh Productions)

The Happydeadmen were the pioneers of Swedish indie/jangle-pop and without doubt cleared a pathway across Scandinavia for the jangled sensibilities of the likes of the Acid House Kings, The Cardigans, Kings of Convenience and even in latter years the likes of Northern Portrait.

Album Review - Blood on the Tracks by Lawn (2018) (Forged Artifacts)

There is an alluring immediacy to this New Orleans two piece that is revealed in its totality within the opening two tracks. Opener 2000 Boy immediately reveals their obvious penchant for the sort of 60's pop that bands like The Troggs or The Kinks purveyed when they were at their least playful. 

However the occasionally smooth jangle specific melodies that are weaved within the vocals of Mac Folger are never really allowed to settle and within all the 'pop' tracks of this album a sense of agitation tends to dominate with the sort of raw chopped out spikiness that typifies an unlikely marriage between the likes of a Dunedin band such as early The Clean and the nervous energy of The Feelies at the most bombastic.

The above is what they do for half of the tracks on the album with the likes of Making Friends, Clank and the superlative Vinnie (see above) all displaying a muted melodic aggression that enables them to take command of the middle ground between the instant gratification of the prettiness Brooklyn jangle-pop scenesters such as Olden Yolk and the more eccentric perverse song structures and weirdness of Aussie 2nd wave Triple J bands such as Omni.

Track two, Rat, reveals the 2nd energy to the album comes from the tracks that are led by the inimitable and ridiculously (in the finest sense of the word) uncontrolled and hectic semi spoken word intonations of bassist Ruy De Magalhaes. Rat has a strong structure. In fact it has several all within the same track, as his crazed vocal energy gravitates towards stout and rotund bass lines that would steer the track towards post-punk Wire / The Dancing Did territory, if it was not held together by the constant The Clean / Dunedin jangled clank and occasional melodies that is constant throughout all the tracks.

Tracks such as the true stand out of the album, Blood on the Tracks (see below), My Boy, Restless and Tired all show the band at their most energetic and deranged and imbuing a sensibility of controlled aggression that a band like the Pixies did with consummate ease.

If you are expecting something different from their 2017 Big Sprout EP, then you might be disappointed. If you wanted more of the same you are not only astute in your musical taste, but ultimately gloriously rewarded.

Artist Links

Bandcamp  Band Blog





Label Links 

forgedartifacts.com, Twitter, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, instagram.com, YouTube

Readers Choice Playlist (June 2018)

June 2018 saw Janglepophub feature 106 tracks on our album reviews / #dailyjanglepop on our various social media sites. These covered a vast array of janglepop nuanced tracks from the 1960's - 2018.

The top 20 (see below) is decided purely by the 7 day engagement rates of the janglepophub readership on our Facebook, and Twitter sites and on the blog links clicks (highest to lowest).

Album Review: 16 Lovers Lane by The Go-Betweens (1988) (Mushroom Records)

After this album the main line up of The Go-Betweens split up. The band would reform 12 years later in the early 2000s but at this point the band was really just held together by the allure of the Forster / McLlennan song-craft as opposed to the inimitable cohesive and strangely intimate atmosphere that the original line-up exuded as a definitive band.

Album Review - In the Lover's Corner by The Love-Birds (2018) (Trouble in Mind Records)

The Love-Birds would be a veritable pastiche of all things 70/80/90’s jangle-pop if it was not for the fact that somehow, despite wearing some very obvious influences on some very  prominent sleeves, they still manage to adroitly refresh whatever type of jangle into something with enough originality to give it an altogether ‘The Love-Birds’ feel.

Album Review - Getaway by The Clean (2001) (Merge Records)

I emigrated to South Africa from the UK over a decade ago and manage to get 'home' to see family friends a couple of times of year. After giving my mum a cuddle, one of the first things I tend to do is to walk down to my local pub to re-acquaint myself with being a 'local'.

Album Review: Hardly Electronic by The Essex Green (2018) (Merge Records)

Twelve years ago I had no children. My wife and I use to do quaint things like spend money on ourselves and talk whole sentences without interruption. We also used to be able sit on the toilet for more that a tenth of a nano-second without the accompaniment of at least one of our offspring. We used to listen to music. A lot of music and had developed a mutual love for the initial The Essex Green output, especially Cannibal Sea, which we played to death.