What We've Been Listening To This Week...The C33s, Lord Loud, Home Counties, The Novus, Bloodhound, The Transpersonals.

By Jon Milton

This week got off to a flying start with the release of the new c33s single on Monday. The band released a string of great tunes last year and this is another belter. Harpurhey Hostility sees drummer Judy Jones take on lead vocal duties, initially giving the song a kind of B52s 52 Girls type feel to their trademark garage punk / surf rock sound before the bands other influences - Oh Sees, The Cramps, Dick Dale start coming through. You can read more about it and give it a listen here.  
 
Staying in Oh Sees territory I happened upon a post in one of their fan pages yesterday by a band called Lord Loud talking about their new single Labyrinth, and what a fine tune it is too. John Dwyer’s influence hangs heavy in this riff heavy number from the two piece, but is that a bad thing? Of course not. Labyrinth is taken from their forthcoming album Timid Beast which is out on September 4th. You can listen to Labyrinth and some other cuts from the album via the bands Bandcamp page.

Just as we were going into lockdown in March, we were mightily impressed by the debut single by  Bristol’s Home Counties ‘Redevelopment’, and they returned this week with a new single about a subject close to our heart, ‘Dadbod’. According to songwriter and vocalist Will Harrison "Dad Bod explores modern middle-class masculinity, with a particular focus upon the ‘progressive’ metropolitan man. The song initially takes a light-hearted standpoint listing the aesthetic traits and status symbols of modern men before moving on to address a darker side which is hidden behind the comfortability and respectfulness of a ‘Dad Bod’." It’s another good tune from them and its taken from their debut EP which releases in September on Alcopop Records. Listen here.
 
Last but not least of the new singles out this week, is the new single by the Novus ‘Man on the Bridge’. The band are from Stourbridge and the song is about a chap they saw dancing around in his underpants in Camden once.  Its produced by Gavin Monaghan at his Magic Garden Studio who also produced the c33s single, and you can find out more here.  

On the album’s front we managed to catch up with a couple of releases from earlier this year that had managed to somehow pass us by, firstly ‘Fragile Skeleton’ by Bloodhound and secondly ‘This is the Sound of a Ship on the River Avon’ by the Transpersonals.

Fragile Skeleton is Bloodhound’s debut album and its a bit of a noisy beast, albeit interspersed with some atmospheric tracks that serve to add depth to the album as a whole. The first three tracks ‘Everyone is My Friend’, 'Again' and 'Praise' are very enjoyably grungy but sensibly next tracks 'Short', 'Cold', and 'Try' change tact before we get heavy again with 'Am I Okay'. 'Worn Down' is again more considered, and then the noise returns with 'FRSTRTD', on which they’re joined by Brooders. The album closes with the wistful 'If This is The Way It Is'. Very good indeed. You can listen to the whole album here.  
 
The AI gods on our chosen streaming platform played a blinder this week, coming up with a peach of an album in 'This is the Sound of a Ship on the River Avon'. It’s the three extended trippy psychedelic workouts that make this the joy that it is - opener 'Timothy Leary’s Not Dead' which features samples of everyone’s favourite psychoactive advocate, the instrumental title track and closer 'San Francisco' with its wonderful fade out. If you like A Storm in Heaven, the Verve’s first album you should dive straight in. In between each of these masterpieces are the 'The Sun and Moon Are Closing In' which is slightly menacing and sounds a bit like Bauhaus, and the breezy sixties psychedelia of 'It Feels So Good'. Perfect weekend listening, stick it on via this link.