C

Caliber - Someday Now EP

So our local rock monsters. They aren't doing anything ground breaking (except being females in a band in Oxford) but they do what they do well. Sounding a bit like Kittie and Sugacoma, they've turned their bass up to 11, and growl their way through their songs. They got one up on most rock bands around, the fact that they do have melodies in their songs, but the growling guitars makes all the songs sound pretty samey, and distract from the vocals. It ends up quite refreshing to hear South Sea Company Prospectus's eerie mix of Intoxication at the end of the CD, just because the growly bass is not the most obvious thing on the track.

Clor - Welcome Music Lovers
First impressions can be deceptive. The first 20 seconds of the first track on this CD starts off with a guitar solo that Slash would have been proud of. And then the drum machine kicks in. From then on it sounds a bit like Bis (the good bits that is - from the Eurodisco phase). This is a band, it seems, who are not afraid of how pop they sound. This first track, Good Stuff then continues aimlessly for a couple of minutes, before you find yourself listening to Feel Good Time by Pink. Well not really,but it does have the same running bass and guitar lines and staccato guitar parts.

The rest of the EP then wanders down different pop avenues. Magic Touch tries out the not-so-discoy-parts of the Scissor Sisters sound, before feeling a bit too uncomfortable, and so leaving some big guitar sounds in there. Just in case. Those guitars sound so out of place that it's almost like the beginning of the next track, but it is, in fact, just a minor interruption before returning to the orginal bits of the song.

Now that the drum machine has warmed up, it takes prominance in recreating the The Postal Service sound for Making You All Mine. And then it all calms down for a little ballad at the end.

This is promising from a new band, but maybe they just need a side project to get rid of all their rawk urges.

Graham Coxon - Freakin' Out
Ah lovely Graham. This three minute of perfect pop really proves who the talented one was in Blur. While his old band continue to work on world music projects, and electronic noises for other worlds, Graham returns to the roots for the type of music that would have fitted into the Blur album (the one that he seemed to have had most influence over). Now that he doesn't have to use his side project to vent his experimental side, this is the most accessible, and best, work of his solo career so far.

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