More Music Reviews by Biboz!

Horrorpops – Bring It On (2005)

I’ve read everything about this album!

Here are two reviews, for example:

1) “I like it better than the first album. It’s more confident. Almost every song is catchy! Patricia & Nekroman are a great songwriting team! It’s super fun!” 

2) “It doesn’t hold a candle to the first record, but it’s still good psychobilly.”

Personally, I’m not really objective, because I’m a total fan of this band. Much more so than other bands in the genre, such as “Creepshow” to name but one. 

They remain the best Psychobilly band to my ears.

Two important facts:

1) On 23 December 2010, Patricia Day filed a lawsuit in federal court in Indianapolis against Hard Rock Casino, accusing it of image infringement and false endorsement. In her lawsuit, the HorrorPops singer claimed that Hard Rock and Mattel had sold a Barbie doll bearing her image without her permission.

2) On 14 March 2022, it had been announced on the band’s Facebook page that Day was battling cancer and that a GoFundMe page had been set up for people to donate money to help Day pay her medical bills. “If we decide to do a comeback tour after a 9-year hiatus, a pandemic will stop all shows and remove all sources of income. And of course, as the pandemic subsides and touring starts to become possible, cancer decides to pay me a visit. Well, F Murphy and his fucking law and F cancer. I’m planning US shows for late summer and autumn and European tours for ’23 and ’24… and I can’t wait!” said Day.

I can only hope they’re coming to a concert near me…  

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Velocity Girl – Sorry Again (1994)

EP 

I’ve never seen this EP in physical form. I’m lucky enough to be able to listen to it on streaming platforms. The four tracks are : Sorry Again, Marzipan, Diamond Jubilee and Labrador. Tracks 2 and 3 do not appear on the ‘Simpatico’ album.   Sorry Again is the opening track on this magnificent record and Labrador is track number eight.

This band has never hit a wrong note or a wrong track for me. I just don’t understand why they disappeared so quickly. Fans are always dreaming of a comeback, whatever that may be.  

Well…

We’ve been waiting almost thirty years. 

But hope springs eternal. 

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Yelle – Safari Disco Club (2011)

To think that at the time I was ashamed to listen to and appreciate Yelle!

But, today, when I see the success of Aya Nakamura, my shame has totally dissipated!

I could just stop this review here… but… 

Safari Disco Club is the second album by French electro-pop group Yelle. It was released on 14 March 2011 in France, 21 March 2011 in the UK, and 29 March 2011 in Canada and the USA. 

The three singles from the album are Safari Disco Club, “Que veux tu” and “Comme un enfant”. 

And that’s not all: Yelle played 14 concerts in the UK as support act for Katy Perry’s California Dreams Tour, starting on 17 March 2011. And that’s no mean feat!

Yelle also toured North America to promote Safari Disco Club. 

Just goes to show… English speakers love her as much as I do. 

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Demi Lovato – Revamped (2023)

Cinema has Demi Moore, 

music has Demi Lovato.

I only say that because I don’t know much about Demi.

And I like them both. 

Yes, I’ve always liked Lovato. I seem to have both her albums “Don’t Forget” & “Here We Go Again”. Her collaboration with Bikini Bandit went really well too. 

Let’s check out what Wikipedia has to say about this latest album:

“Revamped is the first remix album by American singer Demi Lovato. It was released on 15 September 2023 by Island Records. Produced entirely by Warren “Oak” Felder, Alex Niceforo and Keith Sorrells, the album features ten re-recorded rock versions of songs from her previous albums.

In January 2022, Lovato held a ‘funeral’ for her pop music ahead of the release of her eighth studio album Holy Fvck in August that year. The album, which embraced a heavier rock sound that moved away from the pop sound of Lovato’s previous albums, was supported by the Holy Fvck Tour. The setlist included several rock versions of her old pop songs, including ‘Heart Attack’, ‘Cool for the Summer’ and ‘Sorry Not Sorry’. With her band, Lovato reimagined her pop songs as “rock bangers” with new arrangements created for the live rock show she had prepared: “The fans loved it,” the singer said in an interview with Rolling Stone. When I got back from tour, I thought, ‘Why not record these versions and release them? In creating the album, Lovato says she made sure the songs didn’t lose their “essence and familiarity”. She went on to add, “I changed the melody a bit in some places, then tried to hit higher notes than the originals.” 

Extraordinarily enough, American musicians Slash and Nita Strauss feature on ‘Sorry Not Sorry’ and ‘La La Land’ respectively. It’s not clear that Guns’n’Roses fans have any respect for the great Slash, although there’s no denying that he’s an extraordinary guitarist.

The fact is, you can’t please everyone.

There are those who will gain respect for Demi Lovato by telling themselves that if Slash works with her, she can’t be that bad. But there are those who will continue to persist in their closed-mindedness and tell themselves that if Slash works with a pop artist, it’s the end of his career. 

As far as I’m concerned, having listened to this album several times now, I have very mixed feelings. 

There’s the fact that I don’t find this album exceptional, nor very original. On the other hand, as soon as someone turns to Rock, they start to interest me. But I was interested in Lovato before. It’s just that I don’t find this album much better than her others. It didn’t get me high, or transcend me, and I don’t know if it’s because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I just can’t see it. That’s one of the big problems with listening to too much music: you become too demanding. On the other hand, I’ve no doubt that in concert it must be a killer! 

So, to conclude, I’m really pleased with the change of direction. But I hope she’ll surprise even more and create some incredible tracks, and not just remix her old songs in a new sauce. 

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Two Door Cinema Club – False Alarm (2019)

Hello !

I’m going to start by saying that I was going to start my review completely wrong. 

Here’s what I wanted to say: “I have a problem with Two Door Cinema Club and the seconds. 

Let me explain!

I loved the first album Tourist History and was blown away the first time I saw them live. On the other hand, I didn’t like the second album as much and I didn’t enjoy seeing them the second time round. But I can’t explain that to myself at the moment.” 

That’s it!

What’s wrong with that is that I’m already tackling the third album, in fact… and I haven’t listened to ‘Beacon’ yet. So this isn’t their second album, but the second one I’ve listened to. 

So I don’t know if the second one is as exceptional as the first or as good as this one. 

One thing I’m sure of is that False Alarm lacks the magic of the first. It’s happened to a few bands, like Bloc Party, whose first album was a gem and every album that followed wasn’t as good as the first. 

I’m not generally impressed and I’m not one of those people who marvel at so-called ‘more mature’ albums. When I read that a band have lost their naivety, it probably means they’ve lost their innocence. If they’ve reached maturity, it’s because they’ve been caught up in a system that’s managed to do what it wants with them and got rid of their independence.

Having said that, I think it’s an album that you can appreciate a little more with each listen, realising the subtleties. Their sound is still good, but their evolution has taken them from indie rock to indie pop, and, unfortunately, the next step is to become a simple pop band. Guitars are going to dominate even less, as synthesizers are now clearly in the foreground, giving an extra 80’s touch. Yes, of course, it’s great for those who just want catchy songs, perfect electro-pop music to dance the summer away with. 

Note that ‘Nice to see you’ includes some rap. 

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Dorsal Fins – Star of the Show (2022)

The Bandcamp page for this band from Melbourne, Australia, doesn’t give much information. It just says “It’s a strong and motley crew of best mates…who together make sun-kissed, genre-shifting alt-pop goodness.” Triple J 

It’s hard to know who these musicians are. 

On their Soundcloud page, their name is spelt D O R S A L F I N S, so it’s not really clear if that’s how they spell it. What’s more, they don’t have a Wikipedia page. 

And only their album Digital Zodiac is available in physical format. For the rest, it’s all on the music platforms. 

There are a lot of mysteries about this band. It seems to me that they were brand new at one time. However, we mostly see three of the members on Soundcloud or Spotify. So right now I don’t know who’s left, who’s a musician for the recording sessions or who’s there for the tours. 

The things I do know about this band are:

1. Robert had a brief period as an actor in Neighbours. His acting career was cut short after he was sacked for having an altercation with Harold at the Christmas party.

2. Ross has an irrational fear of balloons.

3. Favourite types of dog are:

Ella: Yorkshire Terrier

Richard: Staffy x Ridgeback

Jarrad: Greyhound

Olaf: Kitten

Lachlan: King Charles

Rob : Beagle

Liam : Cocker Spaniel

Ross : Border Collie

Sam : Chocolate Brown Labrador

4. They recorded a tribute to Wings called Fins At The Speed Of Sound…

5. Lachlan and Ross play in a band dedicated to covering songs from all their favourite TV shows, films, adverts and video games. It’s called The Theme Team. 

6. Dorsal Fins actually have five bass players in the band.

7. The name Dorsal Fins was coined by friend/solo artist/legend Jim Lawrie.

8. The band actually appeared on episode 7469 of Neighbours. Mind Renovation, the album, was given as a present to Piper for her birthday, and there’s a slow dance to Monday Tuesday at the end of the episode. Apparently we also played Erinsborough High School Formal …

9. Dorsal Fins makes its first ever trip west, playing Babushka in Leederville on Saturday April 1 and Mojo’s in Fremantle Sun on April 2. 

That’s it for anyone interested in Australian culture.

What did I think?

What did I think of this third album?

I haven’t listened to the first two yet. I like to go back in time, rather than listen to albums in chronological order. 

It’s a good alt-pop album, with a lot of creativity. Led by the singer, but you can hear other voices. There are a couple of tracks that I like a little less, but I really enjoy two thirds of them. There are soaring moments and surprising moments. The opening track is special. It’s gripping, but it’s not necessarily easy to understand. The second is quite funky. There’s one song that has a 50-second intro… and you think it’s an interlude. Very pop songs that end in reveries that take us into another world. 

In short! 

It’s not one of my favourite albums, but it’s worth a listen sometime. 

As far as Alt-pop is concerned, it’s a genre we didn’t really think was possible in the 90s, because when Alternative Rock arrived, it was really to differentiate ourselves from Pop and from what was easily played on the radio. We weren’t thinking of a possible marriage between the two, basically.

So the stylistic origins are punk rock, post-punk, new wave, but also hardcore punk. As for the cultural origins, we’re talking about the late 1970s and early 1980s, in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

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