What We've Been Listening To This Week...Lazarus Kane, Yammerer, Autosuggestion, Dribbler, Feet, Treeboy and Arc, The Goa Express, Pip Blom, Cowgirl, Beige Banquet

By Jon Milton

New music seems to be coming on a feast and famine basis at the moment. One week the odd tune or two sneaks through and then there’s a whole bundle to feast on.

Highlights from the first couple of weeks of July / end of June have been new tunes from Lazarus Kane, Yammerer, Autosuggestion and Dribbler, and that’s pretty much it. This week alone though there’s been some crackers from Feet, Treeboy and Arc, The Goa Express, Pip Blom, Cowgirl and Beige Banquet.   

Releasing your first single on the fashionable Speedy Wunderground was always going to invite attention, but I have to say I’d not been particularly impressed with Lazarus Kane prior to their latest single coming out. 'Milk at My Door' is a great tune however, with a real 80s (in a good way) danceable vibe about it and in similar territory to the last couple of singles from Home Counties.  

Autosuggestion released their debut EP last year, raw and rough round the edges but with a lot of promise, and this month they’ve released their first studio based single ‘Deadpan’. Sitting somewhere between eighties Goth and Post Punk it’s a mighty impressive track that reminds me of the Death Cult/Cult and Siouxsie. 

Dribbler also released their hugely enjoyable debut EP last year, and the little-known band from Jersey (Channel Islands) have a debut album on the way, with the first fruit from it new single ‘Biglife!’. Biglife! is another piece of energetic garage rock / surf punk and very good it is too. 

Defying all conventions as usual, Yammerer’s new single ‘Tell Me What The Ancient Astronaut Theorists Believe’ starts like it should be at the end of a song rather than the beginning, with vocal straight in a after a second and the manic squalling guitars relentlessly pummelling the senses. Gloriously unhinged of course, and we wouldn’t want it any other way. 

On to this week. It’s been far too long since Treeboy and Arc last had music out, just after 2 years ago in fact when Speedy Wunderground (them again) released their ‘Concept’. Since then, members of the band have helped Yard Act become a thing, but they’re back now with new single ‘Role Models’ and an EP ‘Life Preserver' due to follow in early August. TFFT I say. Role Models is another excellent tune, quality post punk with a more than a hint of refinement. 

Also, from the class of 2019 and back with a bang are Feet and Pip Blom. I really had no idea which way Feet would go after their debut album came out. Would their addictive brand of indie pop turn into more commercially minded indie pap, or would they go back to their roots and concentrate on writing more no-nonsense bangers like ‘Petty Thieving’? Fortunately, it seems they’ve opted for the latter, from the sounds of new single 'Busy Waiting' and its predecessors 'Peace and Quiet' and 'Library'.

​Busy Waiting starts with a rumbling bass and a vocal that initially sounds like Robert Palmer’s ‘Bad Case of Loving You’ or something that I can't quite put my finger on. Feet have this habit of writing great tunes that sound like something else but without getting too derivative, and this is certainly the case on this tune. And I bet it rocks when they play it live. 

Pip Blom returned last month with the wonderful ‘Keep it Together’ and they’ve followed it up this week with another single, ‘It Should Have Been Fun’. It Should Have Been Fun is more laid back, albeit with one of those big choruses that we’ve come to expect from them. Their second album is out in October, and from the sounds of these two tracks should be a great follow up to Boat. 

Other highlights this week are the Goa Express’s fast and furious new single ‘Overpass’, Cowgirl’s Lemonheads-esque ‘Figure it out’ and Beige Banquets’ manic ‘Awake’. Check them out below.