Based in London but with Birmingham roots, KEO are a post-grunge four-piece anchored around Anglo-Irish brothers Finn, on vocals and rhythm guitar and bassist Conor Keogh, the sons of Dave Keogh (Kehoe) well-known to 80s BrumBeat readers as the frontman of the much undervalued Surf Drums (check out These Seven Years at www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-Y7EaLPCGw) and now author of Accidental Gangster , a series of books on his late legendary club owner (Barbarellas, Rebeccas, The Cedar Club, Eddie’s) father-in-law Eddie Fewtrell. Though not following in his jangly guitar footsteps, with its circling guitar line, quivering, husky vocals and slow and steady drumbeat new single Crow, an emotive number written by Finn when a family member was suffering from cancer and about his fear of losing them (“I’d rather watch you and bleed / I’d rather cry over me”). (www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7-Wr5giWag)
MARC LEMON continues to mine a successful seam of lo fi 60s psychedelia pop on Crystal Falls And Shatters with its echoes of Syd Barrett, the Velvets and The Soft Boys, the track, recorded in one take, a response to the current xenophobic state of the western world as he sings “I pity you in your servitude/And now that I myself am free/I'll never hate you as much as you hate me”. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf_KZ6yU7rM)
WILLIAM WILLIAM ROGERS has found something else to sing other than the Yellow Pages, Hot House being his jangly Morrissey meets 70s folk new single and a taster for upcoming album Pond Life. Featuring bass, drums and organ, it’s a perspective and age shifting wry reverie of a schoolboy summer when “Semen spilled in the goosegrass” and Wolverhampton was “sizzling like Hanging Rock” and, while getting “an F in hard knocks” a dream that “one of these days/You're gonna smash all the clocks” and “one of these days/I'm gonna burn all the maps”.
LITTLE JUKE are a new West Mids four piece comprising Alex Ohm on guitar and vocals, bassist Hannah Maiden, guitarist Stephen Ashford and Tom Crowson on drums, their debut release being ‘Down The Rabbit Hole’, a dreamy, cinematic mingling of folktronic and indie that opens with nervy piano and airy psych vocals before pattering drums and guitar arrive, the track building in power and intensity as it reaches its strings-enrobed finale. Impressive stuff, if they’ve more like this, 2025 could see them making substantial strides.
