THIS BAND ARE GOOD ENOUGH TO SHOUT ABOUT. They’re called Capitals (you can see what I did there), they’re a duo from Edinburgh that features an ex-member of The Cinematics, and a man who’s previously made music under the banner of Araya. Both of these were excellent – I was devastated when the former split, let’s just make sure we’re clear on that – but I haven’t been keeping tabs on new projects, so it was with great joy that I discovered that Angus Carbarns and Keir Macculloch have teamed up to produce intense, brooding electronic music with pop sensibilities.
They have a single out on March 12th. It’s a double A-side; both of these songs are good enough to be the lead song on a single or EP, so no wonder they couldn’t decide which would lead and which would follow. It’s a tough call to make, saying which of these songs I prefer, but it’s the one on the flip, Sinking Ships, that has grabbed me the most, sounding like a hybrid of Radiohead (the beat could have been lifted straight from The King of Limbs) and Midas Fall (plenty of atmosphere with a little more punch thrown in); more importantly, it’s awesome. On the other side is Jealousy, a song with a chorus that has no right to sound as big as it does: it’s seriously unexpected, and it’s quite eye-opening too. While songs with lyrics as intense as what crops up on these two tracks don’t exactly scream accessibility, the pair’s way with melody does exactly that. There’s going to be a lot said about Capitals in the coming months – don’t miss them.
I recently saw Michael Stafford hailed as ‘the new Amy Winehouse’. There’s already something wrong with such a comparison: for starters, even at its best, Frank was merely a promising debut album, one that hinted at greatness, which, as we all know, arrived with Back to Black in 2007. On the evidence of Lonely Are The Brave, Stafford has already stolen a march on the late Miss Winehouse, because his debut album has delivered the goods.
There’s no escaping it: as an opening statement, it’s simply magnificent; a supremely confident album that finds Stafford, though most will know him by Maverick Sabre, sticking his fingers into many different pies. It’s a strikingly diverse album that manages to retain an air of cohesion throughout. It is also an intensely personal record whose lyrical content draws attention to its title: he documents much of his own loneliness on it, and must be considered extremely brave for doing so. He doesn’t simply confront his past, he tackles it head-on with an almost unnerving clarity of purpose. The idea of pulling punches is foreign to him.
Then there is the voice. Heavily accented and immediately arresting, it’s his most versatile asset. From his soulful turn on I Need, to passionately chastising an ex-lover on current single No One (‘When I kiss you on your cheating lips, all I ever picture is you with him’), to the rapped delivery of the verses on the unquestionably brilliant Open My Eyes (insistent hook + massive chorus = future single – I’ve done the maths, and this works out), it’s the reason the Winehouse comparisons hold water, and the best thing about it is that you would hardly expect Stafford to possess such a set of pipes.
Appearances can be deceptive, of course, and this is something that extends to the album as a whole. It’s surprising just how uplifting and cathartic it can be, even when dealing with stark and unsettling subject manner. On These Days, he admits that he’s ‘been lost for days, in hopeless, broken hating,’ while on Sometimes, he documents his early childhood, addressing the times when he was ‘bullied, beat up weekly, kicked and slapped away / Clutching onto monkey bars, hoping they’d all go away’ before going on to relate his move to Ireland, a place he describes as ‘the green emerald, a thousand welcomes negative’, and one in which he was ‘a constant outsider’.
By his own admission, he didn’t fit in back then, and his music seems to reflect that, but in the best possible way. Drawing on R&B, soul and pop music, it’s not the sort that can be easily pigeonholed, which is why a song as immediate as Let Me Go can slot in with Memories and Cold Games, a pair of songs that are still accessible yet manage to bring out Stafford’s more experimental side. There are even some hints of dubstep scattered throughout the album as well. It would have been easy for him to draw on the album’s opening trio of songs and create an album that pandered to the pop crowd, but he’s stuck to his guns admirably. There’s even a Sam Cooke cover in there as the penultimate song, A Change is Gonna Come, and in typically impressive fashion, Stafford makes it his own.
Maverick Sabre is brave in a number of ways: he’s not afraid to speak his mind, and Shooting the Stars is a scathing view of police brutality which seems to gain even more resonance when applied to the context of the riots last August. It’s not an easy listen by any stretch of the imagination, and this could also be said of the album as a whole. As debut albums go, though, this has come at precisely the right time, because not only does Stafford speak his mind, it soon becomes clear that he has something quite important to say. Lonely are the Brave filled with references to the past, the present, and also the future, there is nonetheless a sort of timelessness to it. It’s obvious that he hasn’t written his best work yet – he’s only 21 after all – but this is simply thrilling.
Album sampler:
Lonely are the Brave is out now through Mercury Records
For such a young man to wear his influences on his sleeve is no crime – there’s quite a lot of Bob Dylan in this song – but he’s taken them and done something wonderful with them. Released as a single last week, Trouble Town has already been receiving support from such notable people as Steve Lamacq and Huw Stephens, which means that Jake Bugg has gotten off to a hell of a start – and well he should, because the 17-year-old from Nottingham has written a song that does far more than keep up with the zeitgeist; it captures the spirit of small-town alienation and frustration so perfectly as to have a real shot at becoming an anthem for many young people just like him. Stuck somewhere where ‘the only thing that’s pretty is the thought of getting out’ and mentioning ‘a secret road to take me far away’, Bugg’s want-away lyrics will strike a chord with lots of people; small wonder he’s opening himself up to a big audience. The song itself is nothing too ‘out there’ – guitar, bass and percussion are the order of the day – but it’s the message contained within that’s most remarkable. Things are definitely gathering steam for him. Here’s one Bugg that you’ll be glad to catch.
