new young pony club, good shoes, maximo park, broken family band and more - this weeks singles reviewed!

GOSSIP- LISTEN UP! (BACK YARD)
Jesus- Beth Ditto is turning into Aretha Franklin and her band are turning into Doctor Teeth and The Electric Mayhem. This rattles your rib cage with a kind of casual brilliancy, and reminds you that there’s more to Gossip than that bird who keeps getting her kit off. ‘Listen Up!’ may not quite take off, but it’s still as zingy as one of those lime flavoured Original Source Shower Gels. Not that we’re subliminally advertising lime flavoured Original Source Shower Gels or anything.

NEW YOUNG PONY CLUB – ICE CREAM (ISLAND)
The 1980s GMTV fitness workout revival continues, albeit disguised as a song about Ice Cream. Cunning bastards. “I can give you what you want” is the suggestive lyric of the day here – but what is it I want? Is she offering ice cream? Sex? Maybe advice on how to do safe bench presses? I demand an answer, damn you Pony Club!

SOUNDS LIKE VIOLENCE – HEARTLESS WRECK (BURNING HEART)
This doesn’t so much kick ass as it does wobble ass cheeks. The Swedish Quartet play with so much gusto that my table is vibrating, my floor is vibrating, and yes, my cheeks are vibrating too. That is, however, not quite an endorsement; “My intention was to kill you!” hollers singer Andreas Soderlund over some generic garage riffs. Maybe so, Andres – but you didn’t, you pussy.

MAXIMO PARK – BOOKS FROM BOXES (WARP)
Maximo Park are taking a break from terrorising villages, stomping on cripples and eating children – and to prove it they’ve come up with something that sounds a bit like The Smiths. This is a lovely tune that’s nostalgic without being lethargic or indulgent. It would make a decent soundtrack to any ‘End of the Era’ type moment – like leaving home for Uni, breaking up with your girlfriend, or realising that you’re just too old to watch Doctor Who.

GOOD SHOES – MORDEN (BRILLIE)
Morden. I’ve never been there and after hearing this song, I don’t want to go there. It’s no coincidence, it seems, that this London Suburb sounds suspiciously like ‘Mordor’– the place in Lord Of The Rings where thousands of Satanic Goblins live. Morden, according to Good Shoes, is a place of “skinheads”, “pound shops”, and worst of all, “public hangings”. I wonder what their tourist board is gonna make of all this? (Note: skip over to the Metronomy Remix for a more lazer guided- and fun – rendition of the A Side)

THE MULES – POLLY O (KARTEL)
I can imagine The Mules performing with tubes in their mouths, providing them with a steady stream of LSD-25. Logically, it’s the only way the bastards could have come up with this marvellous ditty, which is paternally insane. Like The Coral before them, The Mules take a certain pride in their utter derangement, and can be found on this track singing about mutual love between man and dog, whilst the music does some kind of B-52’s meets Pulp Fiction jig.

THE THERMALS – PILLAR OF SALT (SUB POP)
Any song that takes pot shots at George Bush’s Bible Belt is fine by me, but it just so happens that these guys play with an extra bit of oomph – like someone is aiming a shotgun up their arses and hollering “Play for your lives boys!” As fast and furious as a Death Match between the Buzzcocks and early Placebo, The Thermals are an utter gas. “We don’t want to apologise for our dirty bodies!” sings Hutch Harris as he flees from his Christian tormentors. No need to Hutch, just keep running.