A Month in Records: June 2005

Wives - Erect the Youth Problem
"It's as addictive as the dirtiest of pop records being listened to in an entirely inebriated state. It's as brilliantly complete as a punk-rock record can be without spontaneously combusting within your CD player. It's uncommercial, totally uncompromising, and absolutely essential."
Read Michael Diver's full article

Les Georges Leningrad- Sur Le Traces De Black Eskimo
"By the end of it all you'll either love it or hate it in equal measures, but one thing's for sure - deja vu has never sounded so fresh, invigorating and utterly perplexing at the same time."
Read Dom Gourlay's full article

Malcolm Middleton - Into the Woods
""I wasn't meant to feel this way," he says, his voice stumbling into silence. The truth: we wouldn't want him feeling any other way if such ill feelings produce such stunning music. So forget your made-for-television angst and your soulless songtresses weaving woeful tales of ones that got away - this is the real, raw, warts-and-all deal."
Read Michael Diver's full article

Capdown - Live in M.K.
"This CD marks the end of part one in the Capdown story, and if they can evade the clutches of the puritanically PC Household Name records, then the future could be every bit as bright as skacore classics ‘Kained but Able’ and ‘Ska Wars’, which help make this retrospective live recording both a great introduction to any Johnny-come-lately’s and a great au revoir to those that have been there from the start."
Read Kev Kharas' full article

Joy Zipper - The Heartlight Set
"For a band so established on these shores (this is the third album to have been received with critical acclaim), they enjoy relatively little success in their native USA. But with an album this good, hows about we keep them a secret for a bit longer, eh?"
Read Jonathan Fisher's full article

Kraftwerk - Minimum-Maximum
"So 'Minimum-Maximum' manages to be both an exciting glimpse of the live experience and a clipped, processed and fundamentally Kraftwerk record, in a manner that the band doubtless calculated and put into play with a robotic and surgical precision. Well, I sincerely hope that’s how it happened. After all, this is Kraftwerk we’re talking about: I’d expect nothing less."
Read Holl(i)y Davies' full article

Alkaline Trio - Crimson
"It’s punk pop pulled towards an adult world, given a macabre make over that manages to avoid the singular silliness of the likes of AFI and dunked in a vat of sugary sweet pop brilliance. Fortunately for us, there is no end in sight, as Skiba promises on ‘I Was A Prayer’, “I spit out words 'til you see my lungs on the dancefloor”. Thank heaven for that."
Read Gareth Dobson's full article

The Cribs - The New Fellas
Short, sharp and definitely leaving you wanting more, The New Fellas could easily be the best "scene" album of the year. That is, unless the band start hating themselves for it.
Read Alex Wisgard's full article

The Ponys - Celebration Castle
"The echoes of inspirations past can be heard across Celebration Castle, but never do they detract significantly from the urgent punk tearing from the hearts of impassioned vocalist Jered Gummere and his cohorts..."
Read Michael Diver's full article

Laura Cantrell - Humming by the Flowered Vine
"Only at the third album stage, Laura Cantrell is oozing the kind of transcendent quality she could only possibly have achieved as the fruit of an utter immersion in the whole expanse of her homeland genre."
Read Neil Jones' full article