TRACK OF THE WEEK
Formation
Powerful People
Imagine if Friendly Fires weren’t less fun to listen to than a dog vomming up a plimsole. Now combine that concept with Wild Beasts, if instead of lethargic bonking they sang about the elite’s dominion over the ’umble proletariat. That, more or less, is where this is: dense beats, rasping vocals, soaring chorus. Sexy and catchy, like the clap.
Connie Constance
Clouds
London-based Constance throws so many colours into the pot – jazz, R&B, poetry, pop – she runs the risk of ending up with the pooiest of browns. Yet this is sublime: rap morphs into multilayered harmony while amorphous clicks and stabs of languid piano are wreathed in acres of reverb. If a song could ever be described a “swooshalong” – which it never, ever, should be – then it’s this.
Frank Turner
Get Better
Frank Turner’s very posh. We know this. But just because you can easily picture him in equestrian breeches calling a stableboy a ninny doesn’t mean he doesn’t have Feelings. We know he does. He shouts about them. Case in point: this, which sounds like every other Frank Turner song in which he shouts about Having Feelings. What’s that, Frank? You’re down right now but you’ll bounce back again? Point made. Again. Now go away.
Emeli Sandé
Breathing Underwater
Imagine a dog, tied to a concrete bollard, in the rain. Now imagine a man in corduroy called Keith frowning at it. Imagine a monochrome Polaroid of Keith frowning at the dog. Now imagine Keith’s mum looking at the photo, and saying: “Keith, I’m dying, and that dog is dead.” This song is three, maybe even four, times drearier than that entire scenario.
Catfish And The Bottlemen
Outside
Behold: a Dummies guide to brutally banal faux-k’n’roll: plaintive verse? Check. Chugging, buildy-uppy bridge of uninspired guitar whiffery? Check. Triumphant major-key chorus where the lights come on, everyone goes “Ooooh” and all the teenage girls in the crowd ask their dads (who are, reluctantly, there) for a tenner so they can stampede to the merch desk to buy a poster that, years later, they’ll mention in an anecdote about how profusely shit their taste in music used to be? Check.
