Musical diversity is a great thing until you realise you write a music review column and your seamless segues between acts now resemble 90-degree turns. Oh well, our pain is your gain; please consider each section (after the initial flurry of guitar bands) a standalone endorsement as opposed to a flowing prose of praise. Welcome to SNACK BITS for November 2024…
‘Inaction’ is not a term you’d associate with Declan Welsh and The Decadent West, but it is the title of their incendiary new single. The throbbing bass fires you into action immediately, but it’s only a precursor for the passion and drive that’s to come. Still, as first impressions go, you get a good feel for what’s to come as Declan unleashes through your speakers, lyrics slapping you around the face. The song calls out a lack of movement given what’s unfolded in the world in recent times, but the music will definitely invoke a response amongst audiences.
If this tickles your fancy, ‘Renegade’ from The Rooks should excite you with a little bit of menace. The vocals are reminiscent of your man from the Stereophonics, so make your personal judgement call on that information, but it’s a lively and exciting song that has a punchy chorus. You can see why they’re making waves live, including supporting Blossoms at the Glasgow Academy in October.
And giving us hope that guitar bands are grabbing the limelight again, Copper Lungs step into November with ‘Pieces of Me’. The Dundee band have a few sprightly numbers up their sleeve, and this is another track with singalong sections and cool fills that deserve to find a welcoming crowd jumping along.
The Muldoons formed in the late 1990s, and here we are in the 2020s listening to them sound like catchy Scottish bands from the 1980s. Which maybe says decades matter less than good tunes, and ‘Why Do You Care?’ will delight those who squealed with glee on hearing The Bluebells are heading to the Barrowlands. Jingle-jangle music never really went away, but it’s sure back in style these days.
We know there’s an EP on its way from Majesty Palm, but recent release ‘All Dressed Up’ will have to tide us over until next year. Thankfully, it’s what we’ve come to expect from them: ice-cool attitude and deep synths to sink into. This song features a sassier attitude, but it fits neatly into their growing catalogue of light-bangers.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from them, but it feels like a new sound from Edinburgh’s Fright Years, and it gets the thumbs up from us. ‘Stars’ buzzes from the start, whisking you off your feet, the music battling for your adoration alongside the consistently strong vocals from Jules Kelly. There’s an infectious energy from this one, and it’s bound for repeat plays.
If you bill yourself as a music and illustration project, with a debut single called ‘Feels Good’, it’s not lazy journalism from us to drop a Gorillaz reference. Thankfully, Messy Eater, featuring Pete Bott and BITS-approved Arkley, get away with it, because it is a bright and breezy banger. There’s something comfortable about weary vocals interplaying with sounds you’d expect to hear blaring in an arcade, and it’s brought some colour to the autumn air.
Something new to us that is exactly the sort of thing we listen to in our down time is ‘Swarm’ by Dream Bleeding. It kicks off in gnarling fashion, slips into peak shoegaze mode, and then shifts back into something lighter and angelic before the aggression returns. All in under four minutes, so if you don’t have time to mess about, rejoice: there’s a band on your wavelength. B-side ‘Rabid Bits of Time’ chucks in a bit of early-ish Mercury Rev alongside the fuzz, and we’re officially adding them to our list of bands we message folk about excitedly.
Motopia have been catching the eye, and ears, at various festivals since the summer of 23, but with ‘Don’t Look Away’ there’s a chance for everyone to catch up with the frenetic action. Van Halenesque guitar solos, psych drum fills, prowling bass and a pleasingly chaotic vocal style leave you with no option but to flip the song back to the start and listen again. It’s energetic, catchy, and fun, so if your spirits need lifted, dive in.
Thundermoon continue their fine form, rounding out their We Can Do Better Than This EP with two new tracks. The band launch the EP on Saturday 16th November at Leith FAB Cricket Club, and ‘Truth or Dare’ is glacially cool with a feisty spirit. ‘Game On’ also feels perfectly at home on dark nights and dimly-lit dance floors.
Neverfine are also turning darker, with intensity to match. ‘LUCID’ sees the duo turn up the heat, and it’s the sort of thing we think Dead Pony fans will appreciate.
We’re nearing the end, so how’s about a quick dash through songs we can’t bear to overlook? We love racecar and while ‘Wolf’ is more measured than previous singles, the quality still shines through. Also, the pulsing backing track will get you moving. ‘Grace Jones’ by Goodnight Louisa is slower and darker, but filled with suspicious synth and big drum fills.
The moroseness continues with Dutch Wine and ‘If I Fall Through the Ceiling’, but there’s an uplifting chorus to see you through. Katherine Aly leads the way into her new EP, 222, with ‘Edinburgh [for the narcissist]’ and pop chaos. It’ll knock you offkilter for starters but by the end, you realise you quite like that sort of thing.
Also, we really wish we’d let you know about ‘Red Door’ by Dora Lachaise in time for Halloween, but sometimes deadlines don’t play well with spooky offerings. It’s just as well it’s a good enough song to stand up all year round, because you can never completely overlook something that leaves you unsettled yet compelled to play it repeatedly. Dora’s vocals tap into a sense of darkness, the same paranoid twitch that draws people to murder-mysteries and true-crime podcasts. The track meanders like a menacing trip-hop number and as said, it would have been ideal last month – but if you’re ever in the mood to tingle your spine, this’ll do it and a whole lot more.
In true Columbo style, one last thing: you’ll like a lot of Curlew’s Evolution EP, set for release in mid- November. She’s literally in her element.
And with that, we move from tingled spines and nature puns to tinselled halls and jingle balls. See you in December, where hopefully there’s some new music jostling alongside the baubles of Bublé, the carols of Carey, and that quite decent one by Kelly Clarkson that too many of you won’t admit to liking because you think it makes you cool. It doesn’t, lighten up, it’s later than you think.
