A Band on Hope Album Review

I know this review is about a week old and therefore not able to ride the wave of hype for the album release on September 15th, but I realise I should keep my blogs up-to-date with all the relevant material I am writing. This is the edited version which was uploaded to the Plymouth University The Knowledge webpage. If anybody would like to give this album a listen, check out their Soundcloud.

What happened when The Scribes front man Ill Literate and multi instrumentalist and producer Kristian Sharpe got together? Only one of the best collaborations of the year! A Band on Hope merges Sharpe’s multi-genre experience with the caustic reality of Ill Literate’s lyrics, distilling it all into a self-titled 13 track masterpiece.

From the very first track, I was unsure what I was in for – the rapping therefore came as a surprise – but as I progressed through the album, I found myself struck by the poignancy of Ill Literate’s words and the dream-like quality of Sharpe’s synths. It began to grow on me – immensely!

The opening track ‘Che Lives’ is an intelligent and breathless statement, infused with a modern melancholy which permeates in further tracks like the catchy ‘Low Budget High Life’, the poetic ‘So Far’, the terminal ‘Standstill’, and the edgy, acidic ‘Furgh Que’. However, it was the disturbingly honest likes of ‘Russian Doll’ which stood out to me, the lyrics dealing with the tragic effects of a parent’s drink/drug addiction on their children, the vocals of the chorus adding to the unease by being so quiet.

As if to ease the burden of so much reality, there are also a few songs which consist of much gentler rap vocals, slower guitar rhythms, and fluid synths. ‘Dead Angels’ is the first, a head-nodding fusion of feather-weight rap, playful rhyme, and down tempo rhythms, which becomes more haunting with ‘God Knows’ and trippier with ‘Mindfields’ – the only track without Ill Literate’s quick-fire vocals. That’s not to say reality is put at any great distance, as the album concludes on the stark, philosophical and bluesy ‘Spaced Out Break Out’, the alliteration and rhyme of which makes me realise just how poetic rap really can be.

After my second listen, I came to the conclusion that this album was almost too real, a creation of brutal self-reflection saturated with the blood of real people, and this came through in tracks like ‘Spaced Out..’ and ‘Russian Doll’. It seemed evident that, like the drug-addled parents, the listener would be in need of a drug of some kind too, to help them escape that reality, and this is provided in the shape of tracks like ‘Mindfields’ and ‘God Knows’. It is, effectively, a series of highs and lows, a literal rollercoaster of an album which has surprisingly won me over, which is unusual for a rap record. For fans of hip-hop, electronica, blues, and punk, A Band on Hope is the album to hitch a ride on.

Bastille - Send Them Off! Single Review

I was asked by a friend who is Arts and Entertainment Editor for Plymouth University's The Knowledge to write up a review of Bastille's new single 'Send Them Off!' and this is what I came up with:

Just when we thought London indie-pop stars Bastille were losing steam, they conjured up their next tantalising single, ‘Good Grief’ in June 2016, an original and catchy return to the alternative music scene, and one which was unlikely to leave any die-hard fans disappointed. Now, to kick-start the motor of forthcoming second album Wild World, which the simmering, anthemic ‘Fake It’ failed to accomplish, comes ‘Send Them Off!’, the single which I believe maintains Bastille’s original and iconic levels of swagger.

A bold hip-hop fanfare of horns to open leads swiftly into Dan Smith’s gentle yet powerful vocals which he explains are a fusion of “Othello meets The Exorcist”. Haunted by that green-eyed monster, Smith sings of a desperate jealousy which can be alleviated only by the exorcising of his mind. Alongside this comes a soft backdrop of guitar and piano/keyboard which steps up its volume and tempo as the chorus breaks in, echoing around the vocals and effecting slight chills in me with every subsequent listen. The addition of quotes from 70s sci-fi film ‘Cosmos: War of the Planets’ only adds to the band’s reputation for ‘magpie’ tactics, helping ‘Send Them Off!’ to defy the genre’s boundaries once again, and offer up a little darkness to the light of Wild World.

The band have already added a second London O2 Academy date to their Wild Wild World tour after selling out their first, and with a single as strong and relatable as this, there can be little wonder why. Previously I had only noted the band’s new releases in passing whilst listening to Radio X, but there’s something about Bastille which means each single latches onto something in you and now I think I might need my mind exorcised. Their new album Wild World is due for release on September 9^th, and if ‘Send Them Off!’ is anything to go on, it may well match first album Bad Blood in popularity, so get listening.

You can listen to the song here.