"I feel like I ran all day"

Howdy!

Good bank holiday weekend? I've been drunk most of the time, so it's been a bit of a blur to be honest. Good fun though, but I'm paying for it a little today.

I'm just going to cover a few of the singles today as it's a bit of an infuriating mixed bag. Here are the singles released today that I think are worth highlighting...

SINGLE OF THE WEEK

LIAM FROST & THE SLOWDOWN FAMILY - THE CITY IS AT STANDSTILL (Lavolta)



This week's SOTW comes from a local lad that, quite frankly, I've bigged up more than enough on these pages already. So let's do it some more. 'The City Is At Standstill' is the opener from the forthcoming album, Show Me How The Spectres Dance and while it may be a little more uptempo than most other stuff on the debut, it also acts as a perfect introduction to Frost and his family. A flavour of what it sounds like? Well, Frost shares compatriot Badly Drawn Boy's love of Springsteen as The Boss' influence is all over this, in the hurried vocal delivery and the harmonic layering. It's a bit early to say that this is his 'Thunder Road', but at this stage in his career, it's as close as he's going to get. Highly recommended, with bonus points for the inclusion of live favourite, 'At First It Felt Like Darkness' on the flip.

Basement Jaxx - Hush Boy (XL)

The first single from the forthcoming Crazy Itch Radio isn't the best track that they could have picked, but this nonetheless hints at a return to form for Simon 'n' Felix, after the shite 'Oh My Gosh'. Worth hearing if only for the muppet shriek of "If you want me for your girlfrieeend" in the chorus, but they really should have plumped for 'Take Me Back To Your House'.

Eagles Of Death Metal - I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News) (Downtown)

EODM are never going to win plaudits for their finesse, but there's oodles of charm in the scattershot garage rock of '...(Boy's Bad News)'. Check out the crazy funny video with Jack Black and Dave Grohl hamming it up in frightwigs here.

I'm From Barcelona - We're From Barcelona (Interpop)

Twee-as-fuck but with pretensions towards life-affirmation, I'm From Barcelona are currently one of the in names to drop. I'm sitting on the fence for now, but the choral, ramshackle grace of this single is pretty impressive indeed.

Stephen Malkmus - Kindling For The Master (Domino)

Odd release from the ex-Pavement mainman, but one which makes perfect sense to my ears. The ragged punk-funk of the original is given all kinds of disco makeovers over two 12"s from Hot Chip (again!), The Emperor Machine, Polmo Polpo and Prins Thomas in his Major Swellings get-up. The last one is my favourite as evidenced by its appearance on last week's mixtape, as it gives the bad beat poetry cadence of Malkmus' vocal a kosmische musical counterpoint, which manages to make it both dirty and spectral-sounding. Fabbo!

Justin Timberlake - SexyBack (Jive)

A massive red herring from Timberlake as this is the worst track on the otherwise excellent FutureSex/LoveSound but please, don't be put off by this bag o' turds. Check out 'My Love' and forget this ever existed.

That's it until tomorrow, kids,

JMx