Which isn't the sort of thing I'd usually bother telling you, but no one else seems to have picked up on it, so I thought I might as well. Seriously, it's ridiculous how conflicted I feel about this. Album reviews? Release news? That's not what I had planned. Anyway, just know how much it pains me to put this picture of the cover up:
As you may be able to see (if you're not distracted by all the pretty colours at the top), it's called The And, a reference to the fact that all but two of the tracks (and even those feature allusions to the overall theme within their respective titles) are duets, mainly with French women. The most noticeable exception is 'Unbroken Hearts', featuring Emma Pollock, a.k.a. the only guest on the album I'd actually heard of.
At first, this disappointed me slightly. While frontman Mickaël Mottet, or 'Angil', hardly has the best voice in the world, it was nonetheless a key element in defining the aesthetic of the band's previous album, Ouliposaliva, and part of the reason I loved that record so much. So with the opening track focusing more than would be desired on the vocal of somebody called Brigitte Vautrin, the first listen through made for an initially unsatisfying experience.
Fortunately, as the album progresses, Mottet manages to gradually impose himself upon it, as well as improving the quality of his song-writing. In fact, the collaborative nature of the record may well prove to be a point in its favour, diluting as it does what, on Ouliposaliva, could at times be an overwhelming sound. Otherwise, it's more of the same blend of pop, jazz and folk, with perhaps a greater musical singularity than before to draw together the many disparate voices.
MySpace:www.myspace.com/angilandthehiddentracks (where lots of tracks from the new album are currently up, so I'm not even going to bother trying to get away with an mp3 upload)
Three bands in particular inspired me to start this blog. Hence, from now onwards, they shall be known as our patrons; the Holy Trinity. Whenever our faith in music begins to wane, we shall turn to them for guidance and reassurance of how great a band can be. They are, in the order which for no apparent reason has seemed most natural to me:
Cobras Cobras Cobras
I find it best to think of Cobras Cobras Cobras in terms of potholes and the avoidance thereof. They incorporate nearly everything I love in a band without ever really sounding like any of the other bands I love; they frequently embrace pop melodies without ever sounding like they have designs on the top 40; they have a strong identity, yet their songs never blur into one, indistinguishable mass. Which doesn't really tell you much about how they sound, but that doesn't matter because they're a brilliant, brilliant band who should be listened to by everyone either way. You can find out what they sound like once you've done that.
If you like what you hear there (which you will), you can then download their third (I think) EP for FREE!!!!!!!! It's completely legal because it's out of print, and was indeed made available to download by the band themselves, so don't worry your pretty little self about that. It's called Today! Tomorrow! and here is the link: www.mediafire.com/?aez13dhc5gj
Angil and the Hiddentracks
Angil and the Hiddentracks are great largely because they manage to combine pop, folk, jazz and hip-hop elements, as well as being French, without being shit. They're also great because they're great. Their debut album, Ouliposaliva (I think it's their debut album... it probably isn't), was released towards the tail end of last year, but it somehow managed to compleeeeeeeeetely pass me by until just last week. Which might make you think I'm a little hasty to be putting them in this most illustrious of triumvirates, but if it weren't for them, I would never have started the blog, so you would be wrong.
Like Cobras Cobras Cobras, Tiger Bear Wolf's name consists of three animal references. Unless you conclude from that that bands who make awesome music tend to favour names which exclusively mention animals three times, I think we're going to have to put it down to coincidence, for that, my friends, is just about all they have in common. Tiger Bear Wolf sound pretty much what I imagine all bands would sound like if rock and roll had never gone away; if instead of trying to create new genres and sounds, bands had just tried to refine the one which already existed. Which is kind of impressive considering that rock and roll did go away (yes it did, shut up) and they therefore had about 40 years' worth of groundwork to put in.
MySpace: See, the thing is, there's only one track up on Tiger Bear Wolf's MySpace, and in my opinion, it's one of the weakest on the album. So first have a stream of the record's opener, 'Something Worth Saving', then there's a MySpace link after the jump. And bear in mind that, if you go on to buy 'Something Worth Saving' from iTunes, it, along with most of the other tracks on the album, is labelled completely wrongly (in case you think I've linked you to the wrong track).
