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Joey Of The Fourth Form R*E*P*E*A*T's most prolific and controversial reviewer, Joey Eyebank Ramone, takes time out from reading comments about his work on the R*E*P*E*A*T message board, to review some more CDs
Army Of One : Black Rain www.armyofone.co.uk Probably everyone who reads my reviews thinks I'm a grumpy old teenager sitting in my room making up insults to humiliate bands; well, what I try to achieve is to show people that not many bands are good and exciting any more, and that what people call punk is a bunch of cissys with clean straight hair, singing about their girlfriends dumping them. I mean people call McFly a nard rock group, and how could an animated frog that sounds like a broken car horn become number one? The music business has gone crazy! This band are wimp-pop with a singer whose voice has yet to break, well probably his voice was in the middle of breaking when he recorded this track. The bass is playing something entirely different and the guitar sounds like a broken mandolin! Please bring back The Ramones!! -5 / 10 The Paddingtons : Sorry Maybe this is my cue to apologise? This is a band that I want to see fill up the record shops from here to Tokyo and sell more than all those nothingness bands that are left cluttering the shelves. Not only do they come from Hull(my birthplace, and home of yellow phone boxes) but from the song's intro to its close, they underline the stance We're Different! Perhaps they are mentioned in the same breath as The Libertines, but they use a far simpler, plainer tune. They start with a catchy, twangy riff, before speeding into some supersonic fast melodic punk, fronted by a Hull accent.
No, I'm not 'sorry now' for my past reviews, but here's my first ever full marks… 10 / 10 Seventy Three Team Spirit www.seventythree.net Is it dance? Is it funk? Is it retro? No, it's a tape recorder being re-wound while a fuzzy, so called funky bass repeatedly gets slapped and a guy sings in the background about working together. It just sounds like a PE lesson conducted to a tacky track that you have to exercise to, then you go off in groups as the teacher tells you to work as a team. This song could be used in one of those Motorola adverts, and its audience are the people who are actually convinced by it. 1 / 10 Aluminium Babe : Everything To Me (www.aluminumbabe.com) As I've said, I hate bands that use machines instead of instruments; that's not what music is about and it's not what musicians do : music moves us cos musicians play instruments in and out of time, and that's a skill that has to be learnt. Having said that, these eletro-punky pop funky tunes are quite catchy and fun, especially the mix on track 2 and the funky, punky start to track 3, so it's certainly not all annoying, out of time, fuzzy beats. But some of it is. 7 / 10 Circus Normal ep (www.circusnormal.com) This single starts with a funky whammied up guitar riff, then an acoustic guitar with a cockney Welsh accent singing on top of it. The songs are quite catchy with a twangy bass, but their sound is very common. It's quite acceptable, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just not really rock or really ground breaking, as they claim it is. It's more kind of pop with a catchy simple tune and the odd bluesy riff. 5 / 10 Crash The Machine - 4am (www.crashthemachine.com) Apart from the crappy start of this song, which sounds like a man doing maths while he's being crushed by a crane, this is a really original, entertaining song. The Egyptian backing tune and the fuzzy guitars just fit perfectly and hold the music together, all the tracks sound different and there's always a gut busting solo in there somewhere! 7 / 10 Warren Suicide : Fulford (www.warrensuicide.com) The first song has a good meaning but the music is like a broken alarm with a mumbly voice and coffee machines on top. It sounds like fuzz before turning into children chanting '2,4,6,8 who do we appreciate? Fulford!' This gets annoying after a while. 5 / 10
An interesting mix of Irish folk, a bad singer, a flute player, a tambourine abuser, Celtic bongo drums and cool album artwork. On the second song the singer sounds like Bob Dylan and John Lennon mixed together in a pint of Guinness. The audience for this band would be violin players, folk lovers and cardigan wearers everywhere. 6 / 10 The Conway Story : Photogenic (www.theconwaystory.com)
The Conway Story combine Muse, indie and pure metal, whisking them together to make a fantastic sound on lead track 'Photogenic' before launching on to acoustic guitar and violin for the slow ballad 'October'. This is exactly the sort of thing that teens should be listening to rather than pretty boy bands or over the top Slipknot imitators. 9 / 10 Stoner A mixture of funky soul with some reggae and a hint of pop / soulful music. However, the second song is quite rocky and riffy, and the third one completely changes to festival hang over pace, slow and souly with a hint of Black Gospel singers. 7 / 10 Early Year : Backlight (www.earlyyear.com) Quite an uninspiring mix of a U2 style guitar with a piano, a bored drummer and a plain voice. The genre of this music is what people who don't know anything about music would call 'indie', but I would call it 'space ship music' cos it's echoey and space like, atmospheric and creepy. Indie is different, more urgent and dynamic. 4 / 10 Korova (www.korovarock.com) When I hear this music I hear fuzzy guitars with a singer imitating a lion. This singer has a girl's playboy shirt on with a top hat and black trousers, while he prances around failing to imitate a guitarist. The tunes are boring and it must be aimed at people who just go to gigs to eat crisps and buy souvenirs. 3 / 10 Three Miles From : Division Demolition (www.threemilesfrom.com) If you locked an emo, a Goth and a skater together in a practice room and refused to let them out until they'd made music together, you'd get Three Miles From. And it's good.
Think Funeral for a Friend mixed with INME and Muse. The second song maybe a bit dull, but title track 'Division Demolition' more than makes up for this. What's more, it could well be about destroying one area of maths, which as you may remember, is not my favourite subject. 8 / 10 Jackieo : Between the Worlds of Whores and Gods (www.jackieo.org) A fuzzy version of the Stereophonics, in fact it sounds like the Stereophonics are actually jamming live and badly with The White Stripes on this CD! The lyrics sound like one of those inane speeches by George Bush; "the cities burnin' all around and there's people on the streets runnin', Now I must say I apologise, I didn't see that comin'" I can almost hear Dubya saying that. 3 / 10 The Morenas : Dance for Your Dictator ep (www.themorenas.co.uk) With lyrics like "I just wanna be someone, look pretty good but I'm dead inside", this band combine the best of the early Manic Street Preachers, indie as in The Killers and a hint of The Clash's first album, to create something seriously brilliant. Top stuff.
And for the first time in ages I think we've found a band whose lyrics are intelligent and political. 10 / 10 Susan Acid : Miss Anthropy (www.susanacid.com) This depressing, boring, dull as ditch water are exactly what I don't want to hear first thing in the morning! All they have to accompany their lame pun of a song title are distorted guitars, pained and painful vocals and serial cymbal smashing. None of the songs have a tune that you can actually pick out, seeing as they're just continual smashing, scratching, echoing, fuzz and distortion. 1 / 10 Steveless : Popular Music in Theory (www.steveless.co.uk) You can't hear the tune that the guitars are playing, it just sounds like loads of fuzz and beeps, badly recorded. The guitar solo in track 3 sounds like a broken alarm that's been recorded from the U bend of a toilet, and you can't even hear the notes that are being played, it just sounds like F all the time! However Steveless was apparently the "last great love of John Peel". 1 / 10 Gledhill : Remain (www.gledhillmusic.com) Thank goodness there's a tune in this after searching in vain for one in Steveless. I've still got a headache cos that was just excessive fuzz. This, on the other hand, is a catchy, slow tune with a boring Coldplay piano, echoey guitars, you can't hear the bass and the voice is all indie. Still, at least it's got a tune! 5 / 10 John Vanderslice : 5 Years (www.johnvanderslice.com) This album started off with an annoying techno beat followed by a plastic drumkit with a mumbling singer to top it off. The second song sounded like Blink 182 doing a slow boring song with pointless lyrics. The artwork has random pictures of John Vanderslice eating Chinese crackers and taking pictures of his reflection. Bit like the music then… 3 / 10
This is a 19 tracks collection featuring what are called "some of the BEST BANDS in the South" Included are The Sways, Birdpen, Fleeing New York, Sine Star Project, Dead!Dead!Dead!, Plastik and R*E*P*E*A*T regulars Scarlet Soho. Genres covered include classic Rolling Stones style rock, emo and a bit of punk, but it starts with some explosive, electric type tracks. Despite a bit too much emo for my liking, the contributors are mostly quite original sounding and this is a well mixed introduction to the music of Southern England.
Wherever that is. 7 / 10 Joey Eyebank Ramone
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