Forgotten Voice

Forgotten Voice

Forgotten Voice live

Spanish Rock band “Forgotten Voice” promise high energy and emotionally charged songs, and it's a promise that the band deliver on.


One of the nicest things about the band is that they are overwhelmingly positive, describing themselves as "a hard working and musically confident four-piece band that shots through with optimism everyday. Their songs capture the abandoned purpose and pure feelings of this crazy society."

The band

Most of the bands songs deal with subjects like making the world a better place, hope and happiness. It’s refreshing to see a band being so positive and trying to improve the world though music.


Taking a look at the songs, you can see what I mean.


Believe


"It is possible to believe in something better, to create a better world, it is possible to believe in miracles" 


'Believe' is a very strong melodic song with some pretty interesting sounds, particularly the news audio in the intro. The band has obviously worked very hard to give the song texture, it’s filled with small interludes, changes in temp and melody, making the song very interesting to listen to.

XYY
 
The band claims that this song is about a “shot of optimism for those who live the oppression in their day by day lives, those who cannot be their own just because they're too shy, those who made a wrong turn and cannot escape their past. This song's for those who need the strength to get a new chance and believe they're absolutely perfect.”


XYY is a song about picking up the pieces and moving on. While it isn’t as melodically strong as the other songs, it still works really well. The song also boasts an interesting guitar solo around the 2.15 mark, before going in to an ‘Evanescence’ style break. 


A very nice tune indeed.



Paralyzed
 
Although Paralyzed has an intro like 80’s glam rock, the rest of the song a pretty great track. The song is about building and getting better, or as the band puts it “This one pretends to be a song of hope and encouragement, we're not paralyzed, we can change what it's wrong around us, we can be better every day, this world if full of opportunities.”


It’s the guitars that really work for this song. They seem to be driving the song with a constant thrashing.   




Forgotten Voice found there way on the UnlabeledUK by sending an email to unlabeleduk@gmail.com, feel free to do the same.


Let me know what you think of the band using the comment section below.

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The Lovely Eggs

The Lovely Eggs

The Lovely Eggs enjoying watermelon.

The Lovely Eggs are a conundrum. By all rights I shouldn’t like The Lovely Eggs, the songs are strange and esoteric, the vocals are far from traditional and they all over have a punky garage band feel to them, but there in lies the mystery, because I fucking love The Lovely Eggs. If you don’t like the lovely eggs, then I hate to tell you, your inner child is dead.


The Lovely Eggs started making their captivatingly strange music in 2006, and released their first album “If You Were Fruit” in 2009 along with 4 singles that received lots of air time and great reviews from revered radio DJs Huw Stephens, Steve Lamacq, Rob Da Bank and John Kennedy.

One of the reasons that The Lovely Eggs became so popular so quickly is that they seem to have engineered their own, very, very distinctive sound. And it’s a wonderfully strange, deeply charismatic sound. 

The big appeal of the band is that they manage to sound child-like without sounding childish. The songs don’t come off with a pretensions look-at-us-we-are-so-quirky, they just sound fun and genuinely interesting. If the songs weren’t so well written, catchy and fun, then it would be easy to write The Lovely Eggs off as a joke band, but when you find yourself really enjoying their songs that becomes much harder to do.


Let's take a look at the songs from the first album...


I Like Birds But I Like Other Animals Too


"I Like Birds" is the most traditional of The Lovely Eggs songs, it's structured like a regular song and it has a satisfying grunge tinge to it. Behind the glaze of perfectly ordinary song writing, however, just under the skin is a something very charming and curious.


It's not that The Lovely Eggs are weird, it just shows how unoriginal and banal most bands are today.

Have You Ever Heard A Digital Accordion



Have You Ever Heard An Digital Accordion is what bands sound like when they are having fun. The fun that the band must have been having while writing this song is almost palpable.


It’s the lyrics that make this song so good, and although that seems quite simple to say, it's not obvious why. The reason the lyrics are so good is because they are silly and odd but they are not stupid. They seem random, but they have obviously been designed to fit both rhythmically and in character. 


It’s a surprisingly well written song, listen to it enough and you will find yourself humming it and asking strangers if they “have ever fought a deadly scorpion”.



Fuck It

Fuck It is proof that The Lovely Eggs are no one trick pony. Although the bizarre lyrics remain, the band have shed the grunge sound.


Fuck It is one of the few Lovely Eggs songs with real pathos. There is a sadness which rivals most ballads, because most of the lines are unconnected it holds on to a feeling of “I don’t really know what to do with myself”, people can relate to in a way they can't with traditional "sad" songs. 

If you liked The Lovely Eggs be sure to check out Pomplamoose.
Let me know what you think of the band using the comment section below.

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The Galleons

The Galleons

The Galleons looking cold.

Although only forming in 2010, Brighton band The Galleons have been enjoying much success with their laid-back, traditional, British folk, getting plenty of radio play and being booked at many festivals.

The Galleons hail from all over the place: Bedford, London, Lincoln, The Isle of Wight and Latvia, giving them plenty of influences that permeate into their music. 

The way the band describe their own music “traditional British folk music, sounds of the 60’s folk revival, modern merchants of gloom such as Low and Radiohead and the occasional Latvian farming song” gives but a taste of the vivid flavours that come through in the songs.

If we take a look at The Galleons’ single “What Is Fear” it is easy to see what they are talking about...

The song boasts the structure and style of a more traditional folk song but manages to introduce some interesting features such as the use of an omnichord and weird choices of rhythm towards the end.


This style of music might not suit everybody’s tastes, but it is very clean and precise and what the Galleons do they do very, very well. 

live at The Rose Hill

The Galleons don’t have a huge scope, possibly because they fit all they can into each song, but they do have some wiggle room. Their latest song “The Moon & The Gate” isn’t so similar to their “What Is Fear” that you wouldn’t realised the track had ticked over, but remains fairly close.

Versatility isn't a strong point for The Galleons, but versatility isn’t the best tactic for every band. What The Galleons do have is a very clear, concise musical direction. Because they are so good at what they do they don’t need to deviate too far from the formula they know works, meaning they can create a very clear image and sound for themselves. 

If we take a look at their first single “I Know” (which is available for free download on the music player) you can see that they have remained quite similar though out their musical career…
 
…but that’s alright because each of the songs are quality, they are all re-listenable and many of them get better with repeat hearings.


The Galleons found their way on to UnlabledUK when they sent an email to  unlabeleduk@gmail.com. If you liked the Galleons be sure to check out The Limes, and as always let me know what you think in the comment box below.
By Charlie Craven

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ContaineR

ContaineR

ContainR

I'm not very good at knowing what to say about electronic music or remixes, but what I do know is that I have taken quite a liking to Italian musicians ContainR.

ContaineR officially started in 2007, but the journey taken for the two members, Alessio Magneta and Luca Sammartin, started seven years earlier in 2000. The pair started producing tunes separately, burning the tracks to CDs and giving them to each other for birthday gifts. 

It wasn’t until many years later that the two of them finally worked together and produced the track "Nargo Sprout Goes Nuked". The 7 years that the two of them put in practicing before they got together paid off big time, because their first song sounded a little bit like this….

This is a brilliant example of tension and release. The great phaser noise at the beginning builds and adds an atmospheric tension before break around the one minute mark where we are pushed in to a much darker industrial sounding track.

ContaineR live

One of the things I like about ContaineR is they manage to push a degree of humour into their songs that you would not normally expect. They whimsically described their latest work as ‘a sound that is wobbly banghead and massively dreamy at the same time, and [will] push this attitude in and out of Italy ’.

Although I’m not sure what wobbly banghead and massively dreamy is supposed to sound like, it's probably referring to ContaineR’s latest tracks “A_r”...

And the hilariously titled "Turning Pineapples in to Ape Nipples".

What I like about ContaineR is that they manage to keep rooted to the codes and conventions of traditional electronica, with out being so esoteric that they would alienate people who aren't so much in to the genre. It's laid back and generally unoffensive to all musical tastes. 


They are all good tracks and well produced but on the other hand can come across quite remedial and repetitive, which I think will lead to people not fully appreciating how complex the songs really are.


You can find all of ContainR's tracks at http://soundcloud.com/container# and look out for an album coming out later this year.


Let me know what you think of the band in the comment section below.


by Charlie Craven

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Iwan Rheon

Iwan Rheon

This is probably how you picture him.

Iwan Rheon, better known as the shy, invisible one from Channel 4’s Misfits, has released an E.P., and if you are thinking that he is just another actor trying to sing, then you are dead wrong.

Although the E.P., called Tongue Tied,  is only 4 tracks long it shows incredible talent and versatility, with each song holding on to a slightly different feeling. Some songs have a funky, fun edge while others take on a darkly romantic slant. Tongue Tied shows more originality in 4 tracks than most bands can muster up on an album.

Iwan being much more handsome.

Tongue Tied really displays Iwan’s vocal talent, brimming with power and range. All the tracks are neatly put together, as they should be because apparently the E.P. was produced by Oasis's Paul Arthurs.

It is only an E.P so that means we have space to talk about all the songs.

Tongue Tied

Tongue Tied is the title track and is a really great song. It is the fastest and most rock and roll of the four songs. It’s one of the best examples of Folk/Pop that has come out in a long while. 

It falls a little bit flat at some points and isn’t quite rocky enough to be perfect, but it is a fantastic first single.

Simple Song

I know that Simple Song is supposed to be a romantic song, but for some reason it makes me feel quite sad. Something in Iwan’s voice feels so melancholic.

It’s a great song for demonstrating Iwan’s versatility when played after a rockier song like Tongue Tied.

Follow Me

Follow Me is my favourite of the four tracks. I can’t help but think that if Iwan didn't have such a nice voice this would be an incredibly boring song, but because of his textured vocals the song works really well.

It’s impossible not to draw a comparison to Mumford and Sons when writing about a song like this, and although it does sound like a Mumford and Sons song, it’s a lot better. Mumford and Sons wish they wrote this song.

Happy Again

The real draw for me in this song is the guitar, it just seems playful and fun, if a bit simple. There’s not a lot to say about Happy again, its still a good song, but not quite as good as the other songs from the E.P

There has been no word as to an album, but Iwan apparently will begin touring shortly, so that's a good sign. 

Let me know what you think about the E.P. in the box below.

By Charlie Craven

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PENGU!NS

PENGU!NS 

The awesomely named PENGU!NS is the new band of the ex-drummer for The Who and Oasis, and son of Ringo Star, Zak Starkey. 


Although the star appeal is in Zak, who provides the eccentric and dynamic instrumentals, the talent is in his girlfriend, Sharna Liguz aka “Sshh”. Sshh’s Punky vocals bring the tracks to life and she dominates the stage at live events.


Tracks from the band are few and far-between as of yet, but here are the two I have managed to find.

WARM UP

With undertones of Blondy and all woman punk band L7, Warm Up brings early the 90’s back with a punk/grunge feel. Sshh's angry sound is complemented by the manic backing track.


Zak brings together an expansive soundscape, defined by pulsating rhythms that grip like an industrial vice and gives the song incredible texture. Although the song could have done with being about 3 minuets shorter. 

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Hate Mail

Hate Mail is about someone asking Sshh to turn down her MP3 player on a flight from London to America, as you might be able to tell the perfectly reasonable request wasn’t taken too lightly.


Hate Mail is an alright song but it strays to cheesy, gimmicky country for my liking. For most bands cheesy/gimmicky would be alright, especially for a first single, but this is Zak Starkey, he was in Oasis, he has drummed for The Who and his dad was a Beetle (only Ringo… but that stilll counts). For him the song kind of feels a bit like selling out to make his girlfriend a rock star.
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So far these are the only two songs I can find, there have been no mention of any others and they are gigging only vary sparsely, so it might be a while before we hear anything new, but they are defiantly a one to watch. Because when they hit, they will hit hard.


Let me know what you think just below.


By Charlie Craven.

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Slow Club - Paradise

Slow Club - Paradise

slow club - paradise

After the release of Slow Club’s first Album, ‘Yeah, So?’ the band were being hailed as the next White Stripes, and as it boasted the catchy 'It Doesn't Have To Be Beautiful’ as its first single and held tracks like the beautiful ‘When I Go’ it’s not hard to see the comparison.

Regrettably the second album, ‘Paradise’, does not live up to the hype. The first album worked because at the time not many people had been doing the same Rockabilly/Americana style that the band did so well. But recently with band like She and Him and Peggy Sue and The Pirates working the same angle the music seems a bit saturated.


What was fresh in 2009 has been done to death by 2011 and unfortunately Paradise is just too similar an album to ‘Yeah So?’ to make any real waves.

Charles Watson (vocals, guitar) and Rebecca Taylor (vocals, guitar, percussion). 

One of the things that the band does have going for it is that they use a variety of musical instruments in their live shows and recordings, including things like bottles half full of water, chairs and typewriters, giving the band some fresh and interesting sounds. 

It’s a shame that that originality doesn’t translate though to the rest of the album, many songs sound like a poor man version of songs we have heard before. It’s a bit like a chocolate mousse in that it’s sweet and nice, there’s just not very much to it.

It's not that it’s a bad album, the problem is mainly that it has been two years since their first album ‘Yeah, So?’ hit the alternative music scene and the band seems to have made no progress. They are still just a little bit Rockabilly, just a little bit Folk, just a little bit middle of the road.

That being said the album does have some redeeming features, as we will discuss as we go though some of the songs....

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Two Cousins

Two Cousins will be a huge single and it will be played everywhere for about three weeks. It is by no means a terrible song, it's listenable and relatively satisfying but it's very similar to many songs being played today.

The appeal of the song lies in its building sound, increasing its soul vocals while the backing music steadily gets more intense. It’s a great song for that and will be played on the radio all the time because of it, and because it’s played on the radio people will think it’s a great song. It’s not. It’s banal and the same as every other song recorded in the last two years. It’s not bad, it’s just boring.

Kick-ass video though.

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Never Look Back

This is by far my favourite song on the album, mostly because of Rebecca Taylor’s beautiful voice. The song doesn’t try to be anything more than it is: a slow and gentle song, beautiful and melodic. It sits somewhere between Rockabilly and Soul, but doesn’t try to hard to be either of them.

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The Dog

To be honest I found it hard to pick a third song to talk about, as the songs are all so similar and all equally as dull. 

The Dog however is slightly different to the rest of the songs on the album, taking a more indie sounding slant. Reminiscent of bands like the Mystery Jets or Vampire Weekend, it’s still not a great song but at least it shows some desperately needed originality.

The songs not too bad even if is does come off contrived and gimmicky.

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Over all the album's not too bad. Not great but not awful. It just comes across timid and boring, but if you are looking for something to just have playing in the background of a dentist waiting area then Paradise is for you

Let me know what you think of the album below and remember if you want to get featured on the site just email a track to unlabeleduk@gmail.com

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Noah And The Whale - Last Night On Earth

Noah and the Whale - Last Night On Earth

Noah and the Whale suffered from what I like to call far-too-catchy-first-single-syndrome. When Five Years Time topped the charts in 2008, it was too far removed from the rest of the album.

The cheesy hook from the single alienated the majority of the Folk/Pop crowd and semi-serious nature of the rest of the album didn’t satisfy the people who bought it off of the back of Five Years Time.

The band’s first album, ‘Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down’ was both a commercial and economic success, but for their second album they completely changed their musical styles. The band dropped the childish clapping and catchy chants in favour of serious songs with narrative and emotion.

Although the second album was defiantely one from a more musically developed band, it lost some of the charm of the first album. It’s not that the album was bad, on the contrary it was an excelent album, it just strayed too far from the niche of charming folk/pop that the band carved out for itself and ran in to something that felt self-indulgent.

The second album was made into a feature length film, a kind of meta-music video, that was received fairly well, but for me is a sign of a band taking its self far too seriously.

Last Days on Earth brings the band to a comfortable spot in-between the cheesy first album and the serous second album. They have managed to keep the hooks and chants that made them what they are without sacrificing their desired musical direction.

Let's take a look at a few songs from the album.

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.

The song manages to hold complex themes like the better songs off the band’s second album, being the loneliness that surrounds a barmaid and a writer, but doesn’t lose the fun charm that made the first album so great.

Still a complex and musically distinct song like ‘Stranger’ from First Days of Spring, but with an awesome hook that makes it so much more fun to listen to.

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. is by far the best song on the album, and is endlessly re-listenable.

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Tonight’s The Kind Of Night

Not every song on the album is a strong as L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N., Tonight’s The Kind of Night conforms to NATW’s classic style of upbeat folk/pop, but for some reason comes out unbearably average sounding.

For all the pep and tension and release, the song falls flat in emotion. Charlie Fink has an incredible talent for writing songs that inspire feelings in people. Tonight’s the kind of night completely fails to do this.

It’s not that this is a bad song, the problem is that for a band that have built them a reputation for emotionally engaging and clever songs, this is a bit of a let-down.

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Old Joy

Old Joy makes more sense if you know some of the history between Noah and the Whale’s Charlie Fink and singer-songwriter Laura Marling.

Laura used to be Charlie’s boyfriend, he produced her first album, Noah and the Whale provided all the instrumentals and the bands second album First Days of Spring is almost exclusively about Charlie’s broken heart.

Old Joy is one of those wonderful songs where you can almost feel the writer’s sadness. The song is about slowly getting over Laura, and is a great example of how emotionally involving NATW’s songs can be.

With a strategic placing of very last on the album, it brings the whole thing to a wonderful conclusion. A testament to a band having fun but without losing their integrity.

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All in all the album is pretty good. It has a nice mix of upbeat and slow songs and works as a whole. It’s not as good as Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down but it’s better than First Days Of Spring.

You can pick up the album from here, or download any of the tracks from the widget below.

Be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think of the album or NATW in general.

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