Monday’s here to hit you harder than Kanye hits Twitter, than storm Gertrude can blow a rabbit, than Tim Peake finds getting a good breakfast…
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtNGI-tFZxU align:center]Or not. With four brand new songs to power you through the week you’ll surely have the necessary inspiration to avoid that Twitter spat, to reclaim that bunny from the roof, and you know… cook eggs.
Beach Baby – Sleeperhead
Kicking us off is a piece of bouncy guitar-pop from Beach Baby, a new band originating from London via Dorset and Athens.
The band channel some of The Cure’s more breezy melodies with the bass guitar style of Andy Rourke from The Smiths to create a kind of modern take on eighties British guitar music.
‘Sleeperhead’ is a prime example of this. Without quite having the emotional depth of The Smiths (‘I wish I was a sleeperhead/I’d be well rested and I’d be well fed’), the guitars and rhythms bounce around to create a melodically rich yet sonically airy song.
Lovely stuff.
Massive Attack – Dead Editors
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZqA_NqWe6k align:center]From the lovely to the unnerving…
Massive Attack, the legendary trip-hop pioneers and makers of the theme song for House, have returned with their first batch of new music since 2011 – An EP entitled Ritual Spirit.
As with all of the band’s music, ‘Dead Editors’ is a properly cinematic experience; from the creeping bass line to the canine synth, each element of the track carries an ominous ambience that could quite easily make it the soundtrack to The Matrix or some other dystopian movie.
Combined with the lyrical flow of Roots Manuva, this is a strong return for Massive Attack – we can only hope there’s an album to follow it up.
Susanna – Burning Sea
Another cinematic offering, this time from Norwegian artist Susanna.
‘Burning Sea’ is the first track to be taken from her forthcoming eleventh (!!) album, Triangle.
Much like ‘Dead Editors’, this is a particularly atmospheric track; the reverb-soaked synth could conceivably be taken from a windswept cliff, over which Susanna croons in an eerie, vintage-inspired way.
The result is incredibly Kate Bush.
Sia – Unstoppable
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxjvTXo9WWM align:center]Finally, an excuse to mention how much I like Sia.
Despite its biggest hit, ‘Alive’, having been released months ago, Sia’s latest album, This Is Acting, has finally been released alongside another promotional single, ‘Unstoppable’.
In typical Sia fashion, this is a huge, almost power ballad-y, song full of defiant lyrics and positive messages. It’s this unabashed positive ethos, the one that means all her lyrics are about having thick skin and standing up to misery, that I think has made her a surprise star amongst the pop crowd.
The song isn’t actually that dissimilar to ‘Alive’, a song that Sia revealed was co-written by Adele and actually intended for her own album, 25. Not that I mind of course, two versions of something great isn’t exactly a bad thing – especially when they’re both by Sia.
What do you think of our picks this week? Let us know in the comments below!
