Emerentia – Silver Bullet

“Two for two.”

Tim: Wasting Water was one of the best tracks we featured last year, and Emerentia’s finally out with a follow-up.

Tim: And as far as I’m concerned, that makes her very much two for two. An ENORMOUS track, with, well, basically everything.

Tom: Agreed.

Tim: We get the verses out of the way pretty quickly, leaving us with a nice lengthy pre-chorus that is in some respects better that the actual chorus, or at least just as good but in a different way – we start out with an anticipatory melody and progressive drumbeat before going ALL IN and a bit shouty for the main part.

Tom: I’m not sure about that “yo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ou” part, but that’s a minor quibble in what is otherwise a top-notch track.

Tim: When it comes back from the middle eight as the piano gets doused? That’s wonderful, it really is.

Saturday Reject: Olga un Līgo – Saule riet

“Whoever thought of this deserves either a medal or a criminal record.”

Tim: Thomas, if I were to say to you “EDM meets country dancing”, what would you imagine?

Tom: Avicii.

Tim: One option. Here’s another.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eenD-H7vces

Tom: That… that was not Avicii. What the hell was that?

Tim: Here is what I love about this Latvian reject: the fact that even the lead singer seems far, far more focused on the dancing than on the singing. At the start, she can’t let go of her skirt, as she’s just dreaming of the moment she gets to pick it up and DANCE; at the end, she’s done so much dancing that she’s too out of breath to sing properly. Whoever thought of this deserves either a medal or a criminal record for drug abuse. It is quite, quite brilliant.

Tom: It’s like someone took the whole idea of farm-house music, repeated it down a slightly dodgy phone line to a producer in Latvia, and this was the result.

Tim: Am I upset that it didn’t go through? Yes, because it’d be a wonderful spectacle to have on the Eurovision stage; no, because the eventually winner was, as previously mentioned, the excellent Cake to Bake.

Eurotix – Life As It Slips Away

“Sound the awkward first year film student video klaxon!”

Tom: We occasionally get anonymous entries to our little submissions box, and this is one of them. The comment with it just said “retro 80s”.

Tom: Sound the awkward first year film student video klaxon! I hope that’s a deliberate dodgy-80s video aesthetic. For a track that’s so well produced, they’d have been better off just making a simple lyric video than that odd mix of badly-framed, wobbly camcorder shots.

Tim: Hmm. It is a little odd, although some of the pointless shots of, for example, the river flowing under the ice, do remind me of crappy videos from the 1980s, so that may have been a target.

Tom: Oddly, all it would take is a fancy camera and some depth of field and that’d probably be a brilliantly arty video. Unfortunately, it… isn’t.

So listen without the video: how’s the track? Well, it sounds like an album track from the 80s. Not a bad thing, I guess, and that chorus melody is actually damn catchy even though the vocals probably wouldn’t get any chairs spinning on The Voice.

Tim: I really like it, and it doesn’t leave me with the same feeling that their last one did, that it needed more variation. As such, a marked improvement.

Andreas Rodlund, Matt Hewie & B3TA feat. Jonny Rose – Ultimatum

“THIS.”

Tom: “B3ta”? Really? He knows that’s a bit taken, right?

Tim: Well, you’d think so, but apparently not. Or just doesn’t care. Anyway, whatever he’s calling himself, him and the rest have done this, some more Swedish dancepop for, though heavier on the dance and lighter on the pop than yesterday, so feel free to TURN IT UP LOUD, as it were.

Tom: You know how lately I’ve been down on a few average-sounding tracks, waiting for something a bit bigger and better? THIS. THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR.

Tim: EXCELLENT. Because “oh, haven’t we had enough piano dance yet?” went my thoughts, until the piano faded away and was almost entirely drowned by everything else in a quite wonderful manner.

Tom: I couldn’t agree more. This is the first time in a while that a chorus has lived up to the promise of the euphoric build before it. I want to dance to this, Tim. It’s amazing.

Tim: There’s not a lot to say about this, really, aside from: LOUD, GREAT, and, if you’re paying attention to the lyrics, just imagine he’s American and ordering you to forget your old tomato. Go on, try it.

Tom: Oh… oh, damn it, Tim. I was really enjoying this.

Tim: HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA YOU’RE WELCOME.

Nick Sky feat. Daisy – Save My Love

“It’s certainly at least half decent.”

Tim: “You know when you’ve met that very special one but it’s just too soon in your life?” asks Nick. Well do you, Tom?

Tom: I’m a cynic with a phobia of commitment, Tim, so I’m going to go with “no”.

Tim: Ah. Well in that case, you’re probably not in a prime position to appreciate this song.

Tim: I love you, but I don’t want to do anything right now. So hang on, let me “run wild for a while and suck the very most [I] can out of life,” he says, just for a few years and then I’ll come back to you. When, presumably, I’m all done with life. So just wait there, cheers. Yep, right there. Don’t move.

Tom: You know where I’ve heard that before? The Beautiful South’s A Little Time.

Tim: Oh yes, there was that. Some would say that’s quite a big ask, but apparently not Nick (or, as you say, The Beautiful South), who presumably thinks he’s worth hanging around for. And, well, I can’t find any pictures to judge him on that basis but he can at least put a half decent dance tune together, so there’s that.

Tom: It’s certainly at least half decent, although I wouldn’t go too much further.

Tim: Yeah – I’m fairly sure it’s at that level. It seems to go quite quickly, which I suppose could be a negative in a whole “washes over you” kind of way, but it also doesn’t leave me wanting it to hurry up and end like some tracks.

Tom: It’s only three minutes, but even at that length it seems to go on a bit long. The best bit is the build to the chorus — the chorus itself is a bit repetitive, and if I’m honest, the middle-eight feels like a bit of a letdown.

Tim: Yes – I suppose overall we could say “oh, it’s fine.” Just a bit of a dickhead basis to the lyrics, really.

Frida Sundemo – Hanging By A Thread

“The loveliest thing about this has been almost entirely slaughtered.”

Tim: Frida, we may or may not have noted before, has a lovely voice. But that’s not the loveliest thing about this track.

Tom: That’s pretty calm and, as you say, lovely – and I’m not sure, but is that a downward key change for the final bit?

Tim: Do you know, I think it might be. Unorthodox. Upsettingly, the loveliest thing about this has been almost entirely slaughtered by SoundCloud’s compression, because it’s the big synth notes that I really love about this, that appear for a bit in the middle and then return to bring it to a close.

Tom: That’s not Soundcloud: they don’t do compression.

Tim: Oh. Then…

Tom: That’s the mastering on the original track, and yes — it absolutely buries that synth under everything. It’s an odd decision.

Tim: Huh. It is, because they’re wonderful, and fit in beautifully with the strings that run underneath throughout; it’s just such a shame they sound so awful. Well can we have it remastered please? That’d be nice THANKS.

Gerda Monroe – Understood

“Excellent production, excellent tune, shame about the video.”

Tim: This is some loud Swedish Danish (thanks to Bob for pointing that out) pop. Up for it?

Tom: Good grief yes. It’s been a rough morning. Shouting please!

Tim: “Hey, guys, I’ve got this great idea for a video, TOTALLY unique. I’m just gonna walk down a street or two, and it’ll all be done in one take. Yes?”
“Sounds good, if you reckon you can do it.”
“HELL YEAH I can.”
…
“Oh. Oh, hang on, she’s got distracted AGAIN. Oh, we can’t start all over for a fifth time, tell you what, just pull the camera up to the sky with her, and we can pretend it’s thoughtful or something.”

Tom: I’ve shot video like that before.

Tim: Fortunately, the same “this’ll do” attitude doesn’t apply to the music, which is really very good indeed. There’s the chorus, which is top notch, and the main hook, which somewhat controversially comes both before and after the chorus, bookending it marvellously.

Tom: I couldn’t quite get over that descending melody line in the hook: for some reason it grates, and I can’t work out why. It’s a nice enough song, but perhaps you shouldn’t have sold it to me as “loud”: I was expecting Icona Pop levels of enthusiasm.

Tim: Possibly, but there’s still the fact that there’s just so much of it – call it instrumentally loud, and in a very good way.

Tom: True, there is that.

Tim: Excellent production, excellent tune, shame about the video. Oh well.

Saturday Reject: Janet Leon – Hollow

“It’s just not right.”

Tim: On the night, this was one of my predictions to go straight through to the final; in the end, it came eighth. That’s disappointing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Jt6TWyOF8

Tim: Now, I don’t want to be as rude as I was a couple of weeks ago, but really, last place? This is, as far as I can tell, a genuinely spot on piece of pop music, and surely one that even non-pop fans can appreciate as a possible victor.

Tom: And again, I’m not hearing it. It’s slow, the vocals don’t seem to properly harmonise, and the chorus is basically a dull version of Little Boots’ Remedy.

Tim: Oh, come one. Admittedly, that week we had Janet, Linda and the awful Ellinore competing for female pop vocalist of the night, so some vote-splitting may be inevitable, but seriously, last place for this versus an Andra Chansen placing for Ellinore? It’s just not right. To be honest, if Alcazar hadn’t qualified straight through to the final I think I’d have entirely given up hope.

Tom: Speak for yourself: it seems about right to me.

Kylie Minogue – Kiss Me Once

“Once that reaches the chorus, it’s lovely.”

Tim: “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on,” they say about legs, and now they should say it about songs off Kylie’s new album.

Tom: Ha! That took me a couple of seconds.

Tim: In particular, the title track, which this is, and it’s vastly better than Sexercise, the video she put out the other day which is everything that’s wrong with music videos today.

Tom: Oh, once that reaches the chorus, it’s lovely.

Tim: Yes, it’s really very good indeed, you see, and while it’s fair to say it’s not particularly ‘2014’ (see Sexercise for that), it’s also entirely fair to say this is a wonderful track that has Kylie stamped all over it, and that’s good enough for me.

Tom: Agreed: she’s got a distinctive voice and sound, and this is a good use of them.

Tim: It’s a little bit more grown up than yesterday’s kissing song, with lines like “we’ve got some loving to do” and “come up for air”, though you might expect that given that she’s about three times their average age BUT ANYWAY. I could listen to this a lot of times (and in fact have done), because it’s great, bells and all.

5Angels – Kiss & Tell

“Yes, it’s a bit shit, but it’s also a bit fun”

Tim: Remember these Czech girls from last August? They’ve got a new song out about kissing, which is good, because a song about anything more than that would probably land people in very deep trouble indeed.

Tom: Crikey, Tim. I mean, you’re right, but… crikey.

Tim: Yes, it’s a bit shit, but, well, it’s also a bit fun, with the video and the ‘dance routine’ all taking place in a milkshake bar (because obviously they can’t go to a proper bar) and a fairly LOLsome story about fake-numbering.

Tom: Did you… did you just say “LOLsome”? Because firstly, it isn’t, and secondly, you just said “LOLsome”.

Tim: Sorry, granddad – I’m just speaking their language. The chorus is pretty good, and probably hits its peak at about the second or third time, because it’s take a while to get you in the mood but then does become a bit tiresome once you’ve heard it nine or ten times, with no variation towards the end of the song.

Tom: Yep. Even a broken-down middle eight can’t save this from the fact that it does Go On A Bit. Oddly, I think the return from the middle eight reminds me of a Kylie song, but I can’t remember why.

Tim: They still, presumably, have their ‘comparable to One Direction’s’ fan base we were told about last time (though I’ve since realised that could just mean that someone’s once written ‘Compared to One Direction’s fan base, 5Angels’s is practically nothing’).

Tom: Ha. Yes, that’s true.

Tim: They’ve been touring with Union J and are currently touring schools because, well, skipping lessons is naughty. Well done everyone, I’m sure they’ll be at the Grammys just as soon as they’re allowed to stay up that late.