2010 April Archive - The Recommender

THE RECOMMENDER – NUMBER 91 – NULLIFIER

We bring a genuine element of surprise to today’s recommendation. We recently went to see Bear In Heaven play at a gig last week and, to our surprise, Nullifier were supporting. We had heard whispers about this band late last year among the music circles, but we never investigated them and certainly hadn’t seen them live. It was equally surprising and rather satisfying to find out they were from Brighton. However, the biggest surprise of all was found in their live set. Not only is the music punchy, energetic and forcibly packed with melody and hooks, but it’s played with an octopus of a band onstage, consisting of eight, (yes eight!), members. Among this giant band we noticed (a totally unnecessary) two bassists, two drummers, two keyboard players and even the vocals were shared around, but admittedly it all created a playful, frenetic atmosphere. We got in contact with the main singer, Jim Morrison, (!), and he explained that there’s only really two of them writing and developing the songs, bringing together the various arms when playing live, including members from Lonely Ghosts, Help She Can’t Swim, My Device and Pope Joan. Jim described their sound as “a kind of surf-psych-synth-pop with globules of harmonic energy“, which is all very true, but if we compared them to the likes of The Infadels, that might helpfully put you in the right ball park, although there’s perhaps signs of a little more depth found here. It’s noisy, but in a good way, energetic, wild and free, like all good time bands. Just like their live sets, it’s all totally irresistable, seducing you straight from the outset. They recently completed work on their mini album, Most Evil, which will be out on One Inch Badge Records at some point later in 2010. In all honesty, sometimes we have to trek long and hard through the musical landscape in order to uncover bands that we consider good enough to make it onto The Recommender, so it was a joy on this occasion to simply walk into the room and have this awesome group bowl us over. Surprises really don’t get much sweeter. (MB)

Find them here: Myspace

Hear them here: NULLIFIER – THE SCHEME OF THINGS

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Published: April 30th, 2010
Author: The Recommender
Category: The Recommender
Tags: Bear In Heaven, brighton, Help She Can't Swim, Lonely Ghosts, My Device, Nullifier, Number 91, One Inch Badge Records, Pope Joan, The Infadels, The Scheme Of Things

THE RECOMMENDER – NUMBER 90 – KIDS OF 88

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When they state the line, “I can tell you ain’t seen shit like this before“, it sadly upsets us, as we’ve seen shit precisely like this before, it’s just that Kids Of 88 do it remarkably well. So let’s swallow the tougher pills first then…this music indulges in pop clichés, traipses through over-used, muddy soundscapes and packs in the generic and rather plain lyrics. There. We. Said. It. Why? To get those thoughts out of your system so you can now listen to them in the right frame of mind. That is, mainly without a care in the world. You see, this is music that’s not for the intellectual, snobbish fan, with their Trilby attitudes on. This is the sort of music they miss out on because their inner hipster tells them not to enter that club, even though everyone’s blatantly well and truly having it inside, amongst the pretty snogging girls and funny coloured teenage shots. This duo from Trenchtown, New Zealand, jam out proper pop hooks of the simplest form. It’s all big fuzzy synth chords and four beats that always, always have a clap on the snare. Massive choruses, with lyrics that talk of the opposite sex, that although being rather obvious, fit the tone of these dancing pop songs perfectly. You know exactly what is coming for each set of sixteen bars, but it still grabs you in the right places, mostly by your testicles to be honest. OK, so this is music heading for the charts, rather than the underground, but parts of it will remind you of the kind of music The Beloved mastered back in the 80s (see Ribbons Of Light), albeit with lyrics pinched from Girls Aloud. We asked for their 2010 single, Just A Little Bit, but haven’t received it yet, so we instead list their earlier track, My House. It lacks sophistication but we can’t have every artist pushing the boundaries, right? There’s got to be room in the musical landscape for that word music critics despise, but in this case find accurate, FUN. You will see their videos nearly always show off scantily-clad, beautiful babes, but they’re made with a certain watchable quality too. Like their videos this is music that teeters on the edge of being crass and tacky, but thankfully falls down the side of credible, but only just. Welcome back to your inner teenager. (MB)