What We've Been Listening To This Week...Mush, Shame, Farfisa, Dois Padres, Epilogues, Public Body, Do Nothing, Premium Leisure

By Jon Milton

2021 is already looking like its going to be a good one for albums. So far Black Country, New Road, TV Priest and Lice have announced their debut album are coming out, and this week there’s been news of second Mush and Shame albums.

By way of introduction to their forthcoming album ‘Lines Redacted’, Mush have released Blunt Instruments, which follows the same snappy path they trod with Dead Beat and Fear Index from their excellent Great Artisanal Formats EP earlier this year. Its very recognisably Mush, but with a noisy chorus interwoven with their trademark intricacy.  Shame released ‘Water in the Well’ and gave us news of their album ‘Drunk Tank Pink’ also this week with both theirs and Mush’s albums slated for a February release. I came a little late to the party on Shame and have to say that I wasn’t massively impressed with their debut album apart from the odd track or two, but this new single and its predecessor Alphabet are fantastic. Both songs sound so fresh, and confident too. 

Manchester’s Farfisa have followed up on previous singles Onwards to Albion, Out of My Mind and Bravado with a new six-minute psychedelic jam ‘Sunrise’. There’s a definite nod toward Led Zeppelin on this, particularly in the direction of ‘In the Light’ when it gets to its guitar wig out moment half way through the song. Lovely stuff. Also giving the Zep some respect this week are Dois Padres with their new single ‘The Hustle’, which has a bit of a ‘Moby Dick’ feel about. There’s bit of Little Barrie in there too, always a good thing.

Also, out this week was Ready for Forever by Premium Leisure, which reprises that glam T-Rex sound that they kicked off with previous single ‘Remedies’ and on a far more chilled front, ‘Me’ the new EP from Epilogues which you can listen to here. Similar to Felix M-B’s wonderful album ‘Chunk’ Epilogues EP has that hushed, understated vocal over a very simple but effective acoustic accompaniment. 

Lastly this week a couple of honorary mentions for tracks released the previous week as we didn’t run a feature last Sunday.  These are for Glueland, the latest from Do Nothing and Table Manners by Public Body. Both tunes are excellent, and if you haven’t heard them already, make sure you give 'em a listen.