++SINGLE++ review by Mat Beal

Those Dancing Days, Metronomy, Blood Red Shoes and more - Singles for the week beginning July 7!

Released 7th July 08 on

Cryogenically frozen for a thousand years, Mat Beal wakes up in the year 2008 to discover a musical world gone insane. Can he recapture the past to save the future? Only one man knows: him! Step this way for his review of this week's singles...

SINGLE OF THE WEEK: THOSE DANCING DAYS / RUN RUN (WICHITA)

Angered by Denmark’s encroaching onto their natural territory of cute indie pop in the form of Alphabeat, Sweden have retaliated with Stockholm girl group Those Dancing Days. We call on the EU to set some kind of national indie quota lest this whole situation escalates into extremely fey brinkmanship. Oh, and the single’s ace.

"any band whose influences include 'Watford town centre' is alright with me..."

METRONOMY / HOLIDAY (HOLIPHONIC)

At some point in the last year, someone evidently sent a memo around the music industry decreeing that henceforth all music for the under-25s must sound like it was composed on a 16-bit games console, and everything for the doddery over-25s must sound like ELO. Holiday is a fine example of the former category. It’s also a fine example of a bloody awful racket.

HADOUKEN! / CRANK IT UP (ATLANTIC)

In the unlikely event you’re not familiar with Hadouken!, they sound like a cross between Dizzee, the Prodigy and—but of course—an old video game. Crank It Up sounds much like all their previous singles and is, naturally, excellent; plus any band whose influences include “Watford town centre” is alright with me.

LAST SHADOW PUPPETS / STANDING NEXT TO ME (DOMINO)

“Side-project of Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner” isn’t generally the kind of proposition that would have me donning some kind of celebratory hat and spinning cartwheels, but Standing Next To Me was a pleasant surprise: it sounds a bit like Simon and Garfunkel, which is no bad thing.

BLOOD RED SHOES / THIS IS NOT FOR YOU (V2)

It certainly isn’t. Everyone seems to love Blood Red Shoes, but I found ‘This Is Not For You’ even more boring than their MySpace influences list (Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, no mention of Watford anywhere). They are, however, both quite pretty, so they’ll probably do well for themselves.

BORN RUFFIANS / HUMMINGBIRD (WARP)

Well, this is odd. The last time I reviewed the singles, back in March, I was given Hummingbird, and here it is again. Either they’ve re-released it after just a few months, or the Reviews Ed fancies one of them or something. I didn’t see fit to include it in the article last time round, but my notes read “Toronto. Jangly. Were on Skins. I HATE MYSPACE”, and I stand by those pithy observations.

++ Mat Beal ++

Artrocker rating: 5

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