I adore Furrowed Brow – a band named after the facial expression people have when hearing their music – they just don’t care about musical bandwagons or current fads, they just do their own very idiosyncratic thing in a very DIY fashion.Sound like good stuff, it is.

The first thing you’ll notice about ‘Jill’ is the sound. Here the band combine spacey retro synths, a raw frantic punkish garage R’n’B and Glam into something that sounds something like The B-52s influenced by the Fall and weirdly, 70s’ children’s TV music. I reserve the right to use this as, yes, I bloody lived through the strangeness that was some children’s TV in the 70s; anyone out there remember The Banana Splits and The Tomorrow People. It’s all swoopy keyboards, organ, declaimed mad lead vocals and loose female backing vocals. It’s a riot, a joyful musical riot that you’ll find difficult not to frug your arse off to.

But wait, there is more. ‘More?’ I hear you say. Yes, there is more. Furrow Brow’s songs can be about things that are equally as out there as their music. In this case the song is inspired by a Philip Larkin novel in which the shy young protagonist dreams up the perfect sister he never had – only to conflate her with a real person who happens to have the same name – it’s essentially a tragic song about loneliness, anxiety and infatuation. Making a song that’s lyrically fascinating as well as frug your arse off goodness.

‘Jill’ is a glorious thing, enough said.

But again there is more; the single comes with a B-side ‘Tik Tok Twat’, a cutting critique of the Tik Tok generation. Here the words are combined with music that takes what I can only describe as coming from a place of The Bonzo Dog Band, 70s’ ‘comedy songs’ by ageing comedians and Punk Pathetique. I know, difficult to imagine but damned easy to listen to.

Bloody hell, Furrowed Brow make wonderful music. ‘Jill’ and Tik Tok Twat’ are evidence of this. Absolutely fucking brilliant stuff. Get your ears around some Furrowed Brow.

The info

Furrowed Brow are:

Richey – VOX (he/him)
Marc – SYNTH / ORGAN / VOX (he/him)
Evie – BASS / VOX (they/them)
Meg – GUITAR (she/her)
Ruairi – DRUMS / VOX (he/him)

I have had nothing but praise for Zero Cost’s previous releases, and thankfully that continues with ‘Finem Ludum’. A finer slab of melodic punk you could not wish for. Hard guitars, backing vocals so loose they’re on the edge of falling apart, pounding drums and throbbing bass.

So the music is fantastic, what more is there? Well let’s start with the fact that Zero Cost tackle issues in their songs, and this continues that trend. ‘finem ludum’ means end game in Latin (yes, I said Lation) and the song addresses how close we are to a global catastrophic disaster. The line ‘100 seconds to midnight’ refers to the time set on the Doomsday Clock – the less time to midnight it is the closer the world is to a possible end. Although originally based on the chances of nuclear conflict, the setting of the Doomsday Clock now includes other factors such as global warning. So this is very much a song for our time both in words and music.

As is traditional with the band the single features an acoustic version of a previous release in case ‘One More Lie’ originally released on the ‘Exponential Decay’ EP. Not only does the song sound sweet as a nut acoustically but it’s going to allow you to really concentrate on the words.

Zero Cost are making great music. This is protest music, it’s music about our times. This people is fucking fantastic release.

One of the reasons I love what Allora do is that their music is hard to define. On one hand it skates in an area we could define as alternative rock but on the other this is not alternative rock in any conventional sense. On the ‘this is alternative rock’ slate we have quiet/swells of sound but then we have lush harmonies that sit in a Laurel Canyon kinda sound, glorious swirling sounds that you can fall into. You get the picture, this is not an easy thing to define. Having said that, it’s simple to say their music is always fantastic.

In ‘Unspoken/Unheard’ the track opens with something that is structured in a kind of math-rock/alt-rock way, then there’s a vocal harmony section that has me in mind of Fleetwood Mac or a form of art-rock or even 70s’ soft-rock ballad which swells into harmonies and huge guitars.

In a way it’s a musical story that reflects the song’s subject. A ‘situation ship’ that feels unbearable. You share an undeniable connection, that has always been unspoken, and your feelings continue to fall on unhearing ears’. Here the apparently OK connection is represented by the structured almost too jaunty start. And as the song progresses the music represents different sides of the situation. The build to the huge guitars has an uneasiness in sound that sonically is almost unbearably difficult to listen to.

What makes ‘Unspoken/Unheard’ (and the band’s music in general) so utterly wonderful is the way they meld and flow these different sounds into a coherent whole. The problem with trying to describe this song is that, yes it has these parts, but it doesn’t give you any idea of how the song feels when you listen to it.

In common with a lot of their music ‘Unspoken/Unheard’ leads you through a story both lyrically and musically. It starts in one place that you may feel comfortable with but then either suddenly or gradually you find yourself in an entirely different place; it’s magical. It’s mesmerising. Its musical complexity blows your mind, while you are swept away in the sheer beauty of the music.

This song is unbelievably good. It has both lyrical and musical depth. It has moments of pure beauty that leave you speechless, moments that are so emotionally loaded they leave you wrung out, and times when you have this voice in the back of your head that asks how in the hell did they manage to get here from there. This is completely fabulous.

The info

The band recorded this single as part of a 5 track EP at The Nave, a three studio complex built into a 19th century Methodist church in Leeds, collaborating with resident producer Tom Orrell (Juno Dream, Alfie Blue, Big Softy, Pool Sharks, KOYO, L.D.Moses) to bring their vision into fruition. The Nave offered them an opportunity for experimentation with sound – The drums were tracked in the former church hall, wide, open and vast, the guitars in a smaller more compact space using a plethora of pedals, and the 3 lead vocals together in a circle formation, allowing them to intertwine as one voice.

Caty Labbett – Bass & Vocals
Jesse Wilson – Drums
Maisie Powell – Guitar & Vocals
Shira Colombick – Guitar & Vocals

If you didn’t know that Sunday is a jazz-based artist, the title of this release might give you more than a hint; ‘Deepest Blue’ kind of screams jazz at me.

Before I mis-genre Sunday any further I must emphasise that her music encompasses many influences and genres (as you might know if you’d seen my review of her previous release ‘With Ease’)..‘Deepest Blue’ continues that to a point where I am almost unable to define it in a useful to you pithy phrase.

Having said that, I’ll have a go. The track starts in a stuttering jazz rhythm with something of a bedroom-pop feel (similar to the sound of early Everything But The Girl), travels through 60s’ jazz based pop, and takes the odd tangent into something like the jazz-folk of Joni Mitchell. You see the issue here.

Because I’m having problems with defining the sound, I’m going to take a different path here. You see on one level this is a fantastic pop song with a retro feel, and on another a hugely complex musical track. The one thing that might lead you to take the second choice is the musical ability of the people making this music; through the whole of this genre-fluid song they don’t miss a beat. Through the musical journey layers of instrumentation are added building to a frankly gorgeous swell of rich lush sound.

And weaving its way through the song is Sunday’s voice; going from bedroom-pop whisper to big band jazz via a pop vocal. Her voice is positively mesmerising.

The song challenges old fashioned ideas of classic love songs whereby your partner is your entire world. It celebrates the fact that while a loved one doesn’t make up your entire universe, it wouldn’t be a beautiful universe without them. Sunday explains “It was really important to me to write a love song that wasn’t discussing how bound to and dependent you are on one person, I think that version of romance is slightly dated in today’s world. However I wanted to put into words just how important this person is to me, how cherished and precious they are. Deepest Blue is a letter to those who represent the everyday and extraordinary joys that make your world beautiful and how important they are”.

What Sunday is doing is inventive; mixing genres that perhaps we don’t see as mixable, making music where yes we can hear things we know but where the sound as a whole is positively new. And I say new even though there are definitely things in her music that we could describe as being of the past.

‘Deepest Blue’ is gloriously wonderful. It somehow manages to be an emotional pop song and a deeply complex lush musical journey at the same time; and that’s the thing that makes it so compelling, something you can hear again and again.

Yes, before you ask it is a cover of the song you think it is. Now I want to go off on a sort of sidebar before returning to the review.

I love a cover version, so much so that I’ve written columns for this site featuring some of my favourites, covers that are just a riot or just, to put it bluntly, fun. There are several ways of doing covers. There’s the tribute band approach which aims to reproduce the songs note for note. There’s the loving tribute which sounds much the same as the original BUT isn’t note for note. There’s the misjudged cover in which an artist sings the song obviously not exactly getting what the song’s about (Look I’m not naming notes here but I’m sure we all have something in mind for this category). And then there’s the cover which takes the words and/or at least part of the tune and changes the very meaning of the song.

Molly has taken the final approach, and frankly she’s taken the song’s meaning to another place. Look, there’s a sign of this right there on the cover art. And let’s be honest that isn’t what Guns N’ Roses meant when they wrote it.

The melody is there, albeit slowed down and taken in a style that Molly describes as folk pop. And I get the folk thing but to my ears there’s a heavy influence of acoustic blues both musically and vocally. And given the sparse backing – acoustic guitar, cello and upright bass – it is Molly’s vocals that take the spotlight. I’ve gushed about her vocals in a previous review and the vocal on this track is absolutely gorgeous. It’s heartfelt, full of raw emotion. The thing about her voice is that, while she’s undoubtedly capable of ‘vocal gymnastics’, she sticks to a simple emotional performance; and as I’ve said before, simple isn’t easy.

This is stunning. And while it’s musically just right, that isn’t what’s going to reach inside you and tear your soul in two. That’ll be the raw emotion in the song. And that’s going to make you play it again and again. And perhaps, like me, end up with tears in your eyes. This is beautiful.

The info

The track features Christine Avis on cello and backing vocals, and Sam Williams on upright
Bass.

Molly has also dropped a cover of Whitesnake’s ‘Here I Go Again’; one of my favourite Whitesnake songs.

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that despite knowing the music of, and reviewing in some cases, members of Living Body, and having 10s of recommendations from friends, that this is the first ever music from the band I have actually heard. Iknow, I have no excuse beyond ‘too much music, not enough time to listen’. This means that I have to judge this release in isolation; so I apologise if I stray too far away from the accepted opinion.

It’s kind of hard to describe the sound of this in a pithy phrase. The band use indie/math/pop rock but this is nowhere near enough. The music weaves and dances around you in a polyrhythmic grove, blissful vocal harmonies wash over you in waves, and it builds to a frankly glorious shoegaze-like climax. And it does this while having a tune that is addictive. But is this enough? Not really. For there are so many hints of other genres that the whole is probably indescribable; except for me to gush uncontrollably about the lush rich sounds, and the way you can dive down into the layers of sounds and discover new and wondrous things at every listen.

The problem is, for fans of the FFO element of a review, I can’t think of any band except a Leeds’ band I loved called Pepe Sylvia who are no longer around, and who are similar only in some ways. Not an entirely useful comparison I know but that’s the best I’ve got.

So the sound is a totally blissful journey into musical gorgeousness. But there’s more, for this is a song about something. It’s about the information we consume, how we consume it and how it consumes us. Examining corporate soft power and the manipulative effects of the algorithm on the human species. Songwriter Jeff T. Smith notes regarding the closing line “desire is fully digitised”, “We’re sort of to the point with technology where algorithms and AI have the ability to understand, anticipate and predict human behaviours, desires, choices and crucially, how we spend our money, with greater accuracy than other human beings actually can. We are social creatures at the end of the day. Somehow, our need for genuine human connection has become depressingly mediated by corporations who have managed to use their algorithmically generated knowledge about our own desires to keep us locked into a niche where they can try to sell us things”.

This is a truly beautiful and meaningful track that is mesmerising and compelling. You need this in your life.

The info

This is Leeds collective Living Body’s first new music in over two years. Touring as a 5 piece with two drummers, the band are ramping up the intensity on their genre-bending contortions of synthpop shoegaze vocal harmony/melody-driven groove-based bliss-laden indie/math/pop rock with ample new material.

Lead by immigrant songwriter Jeff T. Smith (f.k.a. Juffage) the current live band includes Alice Rowan (Mayshe-Mayshe), Sarah Statham (Crake, Fig By Four), Matt Simpson and Jack Burgess-Hunt. Other contributors have included Katie Harkin (Harkin, Sleater-Kinney, Courtney Barnett) and Tom Evans (Vessels). The single ‘CONSUMER’ includes violas by Jenna Isherwood guitars from Jack Burgess-Hunt and vocals by Alice Rowan, with all other instrumentation, mixing and production by Jeff T. Smith at his studio in Leeds, AKA ‘the Bungalow.

The band are soon embarking on their first tour since 2019, with dates as follows:

February 23: Manchester -The Peer Hat
February 24: Edinburgh – Sneaky Pete’s
February 25: Newcastle – Summerhill Bowling Club
March 2: Wakefield – Establishment Music Hall
March 6: Leeds – Brudenell Social Club
March 9: Derby – Dubrek Studios
March 10: Sheffield – Hatch
March 11: Bolton – The Factory
March 20: Portsmouth – Edge of the Wedge
March 21: Bristol – Crofters Rights
March 22: Newport – Le Pub
March 23: Oxford – Port Mahon
March 24: London – The Cavendish Arms
March 25: Leicester – Duffy’s Bar

Living Body have toured extensively throughout the USA, UK and Europe, including shows at SXSW, Canadian Music Week, Tramlines, Deer Shed, Long Division, Sŵn, Sounds From The Other City and ArcTanGent festivals including UK dates with Joan of Arc and live sessions for Breakthru Radio and Daytrotter. They have received radio play on BBC 6 Music, Radio 3, Amazing Radio and others, and released the full length album ‘Body Is Working” as well as singles to critical acclaim.

Su. I think is one of those artists where you just know that a release is going to be great, and ‘Leave’ is no exception. What we have here is a somewhat 80s dreamy electro-pop track that checks off all the right boxes.

The first of these is that it has the most earwormy tune. It’s the sort of tune where you could swear you’ve heard the song before. What I’m not saying here is that it reminds me of a song I’ve heard before, but the tune has what I describe as being in my head already. This happens to me sometimes, it’s a lovely thing when it does. I guess you could say it’s about being instantly easy to listen to. The second is that it’s put together so perfectly. It’s sounds that are just right for the track. And then there’s the vocal which is like sinking into your favourite pillow.

So what we already have is the three things that are crucial for a fabulous pop track. The added sprinkles (so to speak) are that it has words that are really well written and tell a story; a story that we can all relate to. Su explains “‘Leave’ is a track written about being in a relationship that you know isn’t working. After trying to communicate; you still can’t make it work. It’s knowing you love this person truly whilst also knowing they are having a negative effect on your life. It’s about accepting the fact that they cannot offer what your soul needs”.

Their songs often explore the complexities of relationships but never from the same place, the same angle. Whether this song is based on actual events isn’t the important thing, the important thing is that it sounds real, and this is.

It’s not often that I use this word but this is just fabulously perfect. Every element – words, vocals, music and production – is just gorgeous. If you’re a fan of perfect pop then this is very definitely for you.