What We've Been Listening To This Week...Shame, White Flowers, Laundromat, Firefriend, Phoebe Green, Viagra Boys

By Jon Milton

Its getting to that time of year when new music output slows right down and makes way for the festive onslaught. There is the serious business of course of some pretty exciting new albums out in early 2021, so we expect one or two decent tracks to emerge in the remaining weeks of 2020 as tasters for those. One of those albums is Drunk Tank Pink, the second album by Shame, which is shaping up very nicely so far. This week they released ‘Snow Day’, the third song to be taken from the album and another cracker. The band have a bit of swagger about them and on the evidence of this new song, ‘Water in the Well’ and ‘Alphabet’ you can certainly see why. 

Viagra Boys also have a second album on the way, releasing another taster from it this week ‘Creatures’. It’s OK, although you do wonder whether the band are running out of steam. Ain’t Nice was a good tune, although nothing ground breaking so it will be interesting to see what else they have in their armoury. 

A more consistent producer of good tunes is Brighton’s Laundromat. We loved his ‘Blue’ EP earlier this year, and he’s followed it up with another quality EP ‘Green’. The lead track ‘Bureau De Fatigue’ came out at the start of November and the full EP was released a week or so ago adding new tracks ‘Nein’ and ‘Bug Eyed’. I guess you’d describe it as indie but with some shuffling hip hop beats. Very cool. Another artist releasing songs in quick succession is White Flowers. They’ve bought out ‘You Caught Me’ this week, another good tune very much wearing their Cocteau Twins influences on their sleeves, this one I’d place around the Head Over Heels era. 

I’d not heard much by Phoebe Green before, and was only aware of her through her connection with Document. She’s released an excellent single this week though ‘Grit’ so a delve through her previous output sounds like its in order. The tune has a slightly doomy feel about it, reminiscent of Madness in some respects, and its wonderfully written and she’s got a great voice.

Finally, this week we reviewed the latest album by Brazilian band Firefriend ‘Fantasma’, which you can read about here. Its an excellent album, very much in the psych rock vein but highly accessible and a really enjoyable listen. The vinyl comes out next year via Cardinal Fuzz, but you can hear it digitally now.