THE GENTLEMEN CALLERS
Don't Say What It Is (Wee Rock; CD)
     Pretty cool mid-'60s garage/R&B that comes across not unlike Shutdown 66. The snot is truly in place, but never falls into the trash arena, and the guitars sound just great. This beats all the blues sludge and craperola that the young hipsters seem to prefer playing these days. Proper garage punk tailor made for the SD reader. Advised.
www.weerockrecords.com
Jon 'Mojo' Mills

HARD FI
Stars of CCTV (Necessary/Atlantic; CD)
     Out of Feltham in Middlesex, England come Hard Fi. Sounding like an English version of Green Day or The Ruts meet The Jam in 1978/9. All strong guitar chords, with (Ruts-like) nods to reggae (especially on 'Better Do Better'), melodic tunes and streetwise slice of life lyrics. Opener 'Cash Machine' is totemic of the whole. A guy working for minimum wage first finds himself overdrawn when he visits an ATM despite only having been paid a week earlier as the outgoings outstrip his wages. His girlfriend then tells him she's pregnant 'oh no, this can't be..' he wails. He's a law abiding citizen trying to do the right thing but barely able to cope. Local loyalty is espoused in 'Feltham Is Singing Out' (think of those Kentish Medway bands like the Solar Flares who ploughed a similar furrow) which has a certain Nirvana-ish 'Come As You Are' structure to it on the verses. 'Move On Now' is a moody piano ballad that offers some shade from the big guitar sound. As a whole this is an intelligent and enjoyable album which all fans of modern guitar based pop bands and open-minded modernists will want to hear.
www.hard-fi.com
Paul Martin

PETER LACEY
Songs From A Loft (Pink Hedgehog; CD)
     Following Brian Wilson's creative rebirth at the hands of the Wondermints and their Frankenstein-like pals, Beach Boys comparisons are now rife in the music press - overused and bandied about to the point where they now fit anything containing the merest sniff of a massed vocal harmony or a stabbed organ/bass combo. In short, like 'Beatlesque' and 'psychedelic' before them, they've become rather meaningless and possibly even something to be avoided by those seeking true baroque 'n' roll thrills. So it's probably not wise for me to liken Songs From A Loft to some of the more pastoral and electronic moments of early '70s Beach Boys albums Surf's Up and Holland really is it?
     Recorded in the charming sounding environs of the loft, World's End, West Sussex (Does that county still exist? And what the hell happened to Avon anyway?) and seemingly almost entirely the work of Mr Lacey, this is an album of gentle multi-layered keyboards, plodding minor seventh chords and, er, massed vocal harmonies. What it lacks in dynamics it more than makes up for in sheer texture of musicality. On "Wally Thomas" Lacey could be Andy Partridge tackling an early Randy Newman out-take while "Sunrise" smacks of mid-'70s McCartney as rendered by a less contrived latter day Tears For Fears.
     Well worth investigating for those who like their pop with a whole heap of chords and instrumentation but not too much volume.
http://www.pinkhedgehog.com
Andy Morten

THE QUARTER AFTER
The Quarter After (Bird Song Recordings; CD)
     In the great tradition of Los Angeles guitar pop comes the debut long-player by The Quarter After. Right from the opening bars of "So Far To Fall" the whole deal is laid out right there for the listener: the "I Feel Fine" riff joined by the stinging 12-string Rickenbacker flourishes, the frantic garage band pacing, the breathy three-part "aaahs" and finally the (presumably) mop-topped Gene Clark soundalike singing of "the love that she holds in the palm of her hand" in a knowingly hallucinatory drawl. The Byrds wrote the book, The Flamin' Groovies and The Rain Parade added a couple of chapters and The Quarter After have each had a copy by their bedsides since they were 15.
     For the most part, this album is enjoyable without being memorable and authentic without being convincing. It's only on "A Parting" when the Gene Clark (it's him again!) stylings leave the realms of the tribute band and take on some real depth and soul do we start to glimpse what The Quarter After are really capable of. The performances are understated, driven by some tasteful lead guitar work and powerful melodies and the track stands out a mile as a result.
     The amount of extended improvisation and studio fairy dust on "Know Me When I'm Gone", "Taken" and the 15 minute "Too Much To Think About It" suggest acid rock aspirations. Does that mean we could be looking at The QA's own Anthem Of The Sun next year?
www.thequarterafter.com
Andy Morten

STEREOSCOPE JERK EXPLOSION
"Sitarmania" / "L'Homme Grenouille"
"La Panthera Pop" / "La Promenade Des British" (both Les Disques Cosmic Groove; 7")
     Oh, oui oui monsieur… these French lads (featuring members of The Strawberry Smell and garage band The Cryptones) really cook up a late '60s groove reminiscent of Alan Hawkshaw's pounding library beat or the freak jazz of Ananda Shankar. Four superb tunes, full of Hammond, wah-wah, sitar, moog, drum breaks. What with the shifts in textures and mood it's far more preferable to what the other bands of this ilk have been turning out over the past few years! Classy and cool.
www.cosmicgroove.fr
Jon 'Mojo' Mills

SHORT CUTS
     Semi-mystical figure Damon revisits his 60s sound with ten songs inGypsy Eyes (Daily Bread Productions; CD).And it's not a bad set either. All mid paced, songs like 'Hold On', 'Seems Like I Travelled' and 'In The Quiet of the Evening' are fair comparisons to his cult '60s recordings. These employ similar instrumentation (tablas, 'singing guitar' as the blurb has it, courtesy of Charlie Carey) that gave his earlier work such appeal. If you dug his original stuff, this is a pretty good modern companion piece. Los Natos offer a double CD of heavy psych free-jamming in Munchen Sessions (Elektrohasch; CD). Twelve tracks over the two long-play discs, ebb and flow through guitar shapes and tones that change mood and pace accordingly and sometimes crushingly! Hypnos 69 also offer something similar, though more structured in places in their Intrigue of Perception album(Elektrohasch; CD). Sometimes metallic, sometimes Hawkwind homage (and sometimes both in one song such as 'Twisting The Knife'), whilst also offering jazzier more fluid styles (as in 'Castle In the Sky') this is a pretty good set for modern psychsters. Charly have reissued Curtis Mayfield's Curtis. Classics like '(Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below, We're All Going To Go', 'Move On Up' and 'Wild And Free' are all here in digipak format this time. A beautiful and perennially relevant album full of social commentary and heartfelt delivery which should never be off catalogue.
Paul Martin