Sunday, 6 June 2021

MIKE DAVIES JUNE 2021



 A bit of a lull this month, but Wolverhampton’s FITZROY HOLT  makes his debut with Kelly, a  strummed Dylanish slow summery waltz  drawn from his experiences of working with the Wolverhampton-based women’s homeless charity, Haven, and an ode to all the forgotten, misjudged and neglected homeless Kellys in his hometown. The blurb likens him to Damon Albarn, Leonard Cohen, Scott Walker and Richard Hawley, the latter at least being an influence you might hear.



Shifting from Wolverhampton to Dudley, I Met A Girl is the first taster from the upcoming album by Kate’s Hillbillies, a duo comprising Christopher Nott and Dave Low, the album being a collection of songs in celebration of their hometown. The bouncy, melodic single recalls the old night club in Dudley Zoo (the Zoo Bar, as I recall) in a musical mood that mingles Northern Soul with the 80s pop of bands like The Bluebells and Lightning Seeds.



Another Black Country name, GIANT AND THE GEORGES (George brothers Ben and Sam, the tall one Luke Best and drummer Kristian John) are an outfit with an inclination towards Oasis-like swaggery  indie as evidenced on new single Mexico, which also throws bells and whistles (well brass anyway)  for a suitably upbeat summery sound. 



THE SILVER LINES revive late 60s British garage rock a la the early Stones with new single Alive featuring a throbbing bass solo while Quentin Francis are, it says here,  a Midlands-based supergroup, featuring  Matty George of The Sunset Beach Hut, with Luke McCrohon (TSBH) on bass, Ross Carley of Echo Beach! on lead guitar and James Morris of La Dharma on drums. Debut single Molly is another injection of summer bounce into proceedings, again trailing retro clouds (well as retro as The Strokes), about a  girl who, having gone through a  break up, heads off to Paris  to be an actress , written from a  friend’s perspective.




Mentored by Dan Whitehouse as part of his lecturing job with BIMM, ELASTIC release Scatterbrain, written by Adam Murphy, featuring Joshua Reece on vocals and Dan providing the inspiration for the string outro. A lush, dreamy pop ballad with touches of vintage McCartney, as well as Whitehouse himself, it marks the pair as names to keep an eye out for (https://soundcloud.com/admurf/elastic-scatterbrain-official).

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