I gave P.S. Eliot’s debut Bike Wreck Demo a fair few spins when it came out early last year- a fun, shambolic record that eventually fell apart into playful acapella nonsense. It was always gonna be interesting to see what a full-length sounded like- and with the band’s (relatively) recent Introverted Romance in Our Troubled Minds, my expectations of quirky quick-fire eloquence have been amply fulfilled.

Losing a lot of the appealingly chaotic lo-fi silliness towards a slightly more polished, accessible sound (think mid-career Pavement), the record is nonetheless a pretty awesome collection of songs. Don’t let the pop-punk label put you off- P.S. Eliot are perhaps most reminiscent of Lemuria, keeping the melodic memorability but with (to me) more lyrical strength. For a less referential summary, think intelligent fuzzy girl rock that works an understated, playful charm. A lot of the songs from the Demo EP crop up in more polished form here, including the fantastic Troubled Medium, an anthemically scuzzy slice of yelpy goodness that closes the album. Clocking in at just over half an hour, Introverted Romance… is a quick listen that rewards repeat listening.

Won’t keep y’all too long- just wanted to give a shout out for a band that need more love. Check out the band’s Myspace for some tunes, or their blog for sporadic horses-mouth type jazz.

Happy New Year 2010. In the words of the Steinways, “fuck, I feel old”.

- Mike

First release on Dead Broke Rekerds from a melodic punk band featuring Latterman alumni Phil Douglas and Brian Crozier. Shitty Rambo is definitely an improvement on their debut release, but follows its lead by having a great first track followed by some lesser-but-still-good songs. There’s great use of gang vocals on occassion, but the band are still lyrically awkward, and the EP rarely goes beyond ‘good’. Well worth checking out, though hardly essential- and firmly behind Shorebirds in terms of post-Latterman projects. You can blag their Demo EP from If You Make It. Word.

Grynch – Chemistry

Meet Grynch, a promising (if egotistical) Seattle hip-hop artist- an odd choice for this blog, but still well worth a look. His new EP, Chemistry, was touted by Berkeley Place, and it’s a good call; Grynch has some great beats and his flow is smooth (yeah, I know, I feel awkward saying stuff like that as well). Aside from the odd and hilarious ode to his Volvo- and some good guest vocals- one of the best things about this EP its being free to download. A suprisingly polished product, Chemistry is a solid release, even to a non-expert like myself- and Grynch is a name to look out for.

Transit – Stay Home

Credit to CYSTSFTS for this one. This EP ticks all the right boxes- gang vocals, competent lyrics, good influences. The band have earned comparisons to Polar Bear Club, but the similarity is mostly in terms of technically unconventional song structures. This is firmly a pop-punk record, and a good one at that- even if it has enough hardcore and emo tinges to ensure that the band’s audience could increase massively. Stay Home is consistent throughout, although “Nameless” is particularly excellent. This record is on regular rotation at chez Mike- check out a couple of tracks here.

Lawrence Arms – Buttsweat and Tears

Offering serious competition to the Menzingers for the title of “EP of the year”, the Larry Arms are back with five tracks of searingly melodic punk rock awesomeness. There’s some of the band’s best material on here- “Spit Shining Shit” and “The Slowest Drink…” being my two particular favourites. Vocals are swapped in a much clearer way than their (definitive) last album, Oh Calcutta!, and the result is a suprising amout of variety for a short EP. As usual, the lyrics are out-fucking-standing. Download the track “Demons” here, and read what Brendan himself has to say about it here.

- Mike

The record starts off with the infectious She Called Shotgun, which can only be described as 3 and half minutes of pure unadulterated pop punk. The thing that makes it slightly more interesting is the addition of some really well thought out horns. That brings us swiftly onto my favourite track on the CD. I’ve known the song “Tune In” since before Robin joined KCF as it started off as a poppy solo song that Robin wrote and played to me about 18 months ago. Comparing the full band version and the stripped down version I heard long ago proves to me that this band really know what they’re doing when it comes to making songs work however you play them. The Summer seems like a possible crowd pleaser in the making, the duel vocals really work. When I was told the EP would feature 2 bonus acoustic tracks I instantly thought “how the hell are you gonna make that work?” I was proved wrong. Writing Letters is one of the best songs from the bands back catalogue and surprisingly enough it sounds fantastic stripped down. All in all this record is very good.

The only thing I can fault about this record is the fact it seems, to me, to be lacking passion. Every note seems too planned and thought out, not a single mistake is made. It doesn’t sound like these guys are having fun while making this record, it sounds like they are producing a product for a target audience they already know. They aren’t taking any risks or doing anything particularly exciting so if things keep going the way they are my best friend with live out his childhood dream and these guys will be massive. See them live, they’ll blow your tits off.

-Paul

Due to my recently imposed status as a man of pleasure i’ve been able to catch up on what I was missing from Uni; hours vacuously staring at a monitor. Yesterdays choice was ‘Roger and Me’ Michael Moores first documentary (Available on google video if you look right, not that i would P-) ), about his home town Flint, MI. The films narrative is based around GM shutting down its factories in flint and moving them to Mexico for the cheap labour, It was an interesting examination of wether companies have any obligation to a population or geographical region. If you work somewhere you do develop a sense of ownership about a place, it obviously doesn’t have a legal standing but one wonders whether there is more to a companies responsibilities than just payment for labour. Commoning rights or an equivalent are never granted anymore, and perhaps that was a good solution especially with the distribution of wealth being so so so bizarre (you seen that rage against the machine video).

Always nice to be stimulated, Zap.

American Steel’s latest album, “Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts” drops this week, and it’s well worth a listen. For the uninitiated, the band have a couple of tracks from the album up on their Myspace profile. As does the aforementioned Mr. Turner.

Also, if you haven’t checked out the new Cobra Skulls and Dear Landlord album streams on Punknews, you should rectify that. The Cobra Skulls one doesn’t seem to be the full album, but it’s still well worth a listen.

Those truly at a loss for music-related timewasting can follow the progress on the Banner Pilot album on their Twitter page, or decipher Lawrence Arms news amidst the colourful rantings on Brendan Kelly’s blog.

Oh- and Passion Pit aren’t all that bad really. Can I still have my anti-hipster punk points though?

xx