What We've Been Listening To...Life, TV Priest, Traams, Perspex, Moreish Idols, English Teacher, Melts, Courting, Sorry, The Palpitations, Automatic, Gag Salon, Horsegirl

By Jon Milton

2022 is shaping up to be a great year for albums. So far Crows and Yard Act have led the way, and other big hitters on the horizon include the new LPs from Life, TV Priest and Traams. Some may turn about to be disappointing, as has already been the case with Warmduscher and Wet Leg but let’s be optimistic for now.

‘Almost Home’ is the third single to be taken from Life’s forthcoming album ‘North East Coastal Town’, and like its predecessors ‘Friends Without Names’ and ‘Big Moon Lake’ its quality. There’s a real confidence and swagger about their music these days and long may it continue. 

Also, onto their third single and with their album out in June are TV Priest. On this occasion however, I can confirm that the album is an absolute doozy as I got sent a copy through this week. Even better than ‘Uppers’ too, if I may be so bold to say. Read about the new single ‘Limehouse Cut’ here. 

July sees Traams release their long awaited third album ‘Personal Best’, and latest single ‘The Light at Night’ sees them joined by that Joe Casey from Protomartyr, who they’ve been on tour with. As with TV Priest they seem to be experimenting with their music a bit more, with ‘The Light…’ beginning with strings and building up as it develops. The teaser campaigns for both this and the lo-fi ‘Sleeper’ single featured a load of electronica, so I guess they have more up their sleeves too. 

For some reason I'd completely given up on Perspex after hearing their Soft/Double Recovery single a couple of years. Then out of the blue their eponymous debut album has emerged and it sounds really good. The album kicks off with the barnstorming 'Chainsaws' and the twists and turns with a bunch of indie charmers like Ceefax and 'Heart in a Bag'. The standouts though are the longer tracks 'Sex and Cars' and 'The Lyricist'. The former canters along in a space between the Smith's 'The Queen is Dead' and The Velvet Underground's 'Foggy Notion', and the latter recalls less frenetic Velvet's moments like 'Stephanie' Says mixed in with the Byrds. 

Last month saw Eades release their debut, an album with a lot of promise but lacking in production values. This month sees their sister band English Teacher release their debut EP 'Polyawkward' but with the production in the hands of Theo Verney, and his excellent production certainly does justice to the band's excellent tunes. Three of the tracks have been out for a while, with 'Good Grief' released late last year, followed by 'A55' and 'Mental Maths' earlier this and these are joined by title track 'Polyawkward' and 'Yorkshire Tapas'. What I love about this EP is its unpredictability. One minute you're listening to something seemingly quite conventional and next the song darts off in a some mad direction. The bass-lines are genius. Lily Fontaine's vocals like nectar and its all works brilliantly.   

Latest in the long line of Speedy Wunderground proteges are ​Moreish Idols, who have just released 'Speedboat'. There's a little bit of psychedelia going on here and a hint of jazz amongst the indie thrash in what is an impressive debut. According to their spotify bio they are 'The best band in the sea'.    

Other good stuff out this month: the Melts track 'Signal' from their debut album 'Maelstrom' out next month (that has a lot of potential to be another superb album); the new single from Sorry 'There's so many people that want to be loved', 'Denial' by The Palpitations, 'Tennis' by Courting (what a tune that is!), 'My Gun' by Gag Salon, 'World of Pots and Pans' by Horsegirl and 'Venus Hour' by Automatic. You can hear it all on the monthly playlist during May here. And just to remind you, the monthly is unsurprisingly updated monthly so worth giving a follow to!