Reviews - Week 24

SPEAKING IN CAPITALS

Demo CD

This band was reviewed purely based on their music, because I had never heard of Speaking in Capitals. I had no expectations or preconceived conceptions of them.

The first track – Plastic Brick – is my favourite of the three songs. I like the weird idea behind the song, of a man being attached to a plastic brink, I think because it would make life easier, but I’m not sure. It is a great happy song. It is a simple sound – guitar, drums and vocals. And once of twice the ting of the triangle. I appreciate a song that you can dance to!

Real Men Are Made of Tin sounds melancholy. I think it’s a break up song. It has nice guitar sounds and the strange but pretty line;
Would you love me more if I was made of mirrors, or flowers, or tin?

Disclaimer is another slow, sad track. Instead of dancing, I’m tempted to sway slowly, lazily along with it. I’m not sure what it was about, but I found it a little repetitive, which always annoys me because I think it’s lazy song writing.

I’d like to hear more by Speaking in Capitals. That’s mainly based on the first track. I found the slow, sad songs to be a bit formulaic, and I felt that the band suffered from a lack of confidence, and the songs could be better if they weren’t so afraid to try something new.

Grainne Lynch

The French

Local Information

Too Pure

Out on: 11 August 2003

From the opening bars of 'Porn Shoes' you get a feel for what is to come. The French inhabit a curious middle ground between twee indie and electropop. 'Local Information' is full of tales relating a kind of domestic dystopia to a Casio beat. Nothing is ever quite right, no perfect moment captured in song. A very simplistic approach to instrumentation combined with the frail vocal storytelling takes a little getting used to, but is ultimately satisfying. There is an other worldliness to the songs whilst simultaneously there is a mundane trait to the stories embodied by a poets attention to tiny details. It is as if someone had taken one of those real life TV video diaries where nothing really happens but there is drama nonetheless and given it to a young John Shuttleworth to perform. It is as if all that was crammed together and made to sound good, however unlikely that sounds...

Bob Gray

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