Further Listening:

5. Neko Case Is Ready To Wreck

Whether as a member of New Pornographers, as a solo artist or with one of her many other projects, Neko Case has a way of drifting in and out of your life when you need her. The Grammy-nominated Vermont-based songwriter last shared her own music back in 2018 with the acclaimed Hell-On, although she’s certainly kept busy since then. There have been two New Pornographers records, her acclaimed and best-selling memoir, The Harder I Fight The More I Love You, and composing the musical adaptation of Thelma & Louise. Behind the scenes, there has also been plenty of time spent working on her next move, which will arrive in September in the form of her new record, Neon Grey Midnight Green, recorded with Tucker Martine, and previewed this week by Neko’s new single, Wreck.

A cursory listen to Wreck is enough to know Neko Case still has her way with a gorgeous melody, but scratch the surface and thankfully, there’s plenty more to admire. Here, she dives headfirst into the ability of love to send you into a spin, and the pressure to be kind to another person’s heart that comes with it. Lyrically, the song is a masterpiece, the words are so vivid and relatable, and yet feel deeply personal, “I know it’s selfish, but you’re the sun now, and it’s a big job, one you didn’t apply for”. The whole thing has that explosion of new love and the vulnerability and self-doubt it can bring out, as Neko continues, “maybe you want this too? Do I look like the sun to you?” The setting for this perfectly judge dose of sentimentality is equally sun drenched, the whole thing sounds like a skyward bound rocket, an eruption, a projectile of luxurious strings, swooping backing vocals and driving, skipping drum rhythms. Pop perfection in an adventurous jacket, this is a really remarkable song, or to put it another way, this is Neko Case doing brilliant Neko Case things, and that frankly will never get old.

Neon Grey Midnight Green is out September 26th via ANTI- Fore more information on Neko Case visit https://nekocase.com/

4. Roller One Release Their Best Music So Far

Hailing from Naarm/Melbourne, it has been seven years since the world last heard from Roller One, when they shared their third album, Better Than Fine. As things got somewhat worse than fine, and “a pandemic got in the way of life and art”, the band took some time to get back to spinning their Americana-flecked yarns. Since then, the band, built around the duo of Fergus McAlpin and Adam Affif, have recruited bandmates new and old, including members of their previous project Silver City Highway, and brought some new drive and energy to their music. This week, they shared the first snippet of their new sound with their single, So Far, the first taste of new album Fate Done Nice.

A band who’ve often been compared to country music’s early protagonists, here Roller One seem to drag things a little closer to the here and now, Fergus going full Bill Callahan atop Adam’s propulsive double-bass twang and the subtle complexity of the drums and gorgeous adornments of the piano. The whole thing has that delightfully unhurried quality, the push-and-pull like the rods on a steam-train, or the perfect moment when walking, when everything hits that unmistakable effortless unhurried rhythm. That sense of movement, of the leavings and returnings of life, is fitting for a song that seems to always have one foot out the door. Fergus is torn between the simple joy of what he has in front of him, “it’s you that I want more than anyone”, and his propensity to distraction, “sometimes I go out and get drunk a little, and end up far away”. Australia might be a long way from home for the Americana that so obviously inspires Roller One, yet their take feels perfectly authentic, a hemisphere-spanning exploration of the human condition that might just be their best moment yet.

Fate Done Nice is out later this year via Cheersquad Records & Tapes. For more information on Roller One visit https://www.rollerone.com.au/

3. Two Things In Life Are Certain – Geese & Taxes

Things have changed a bit for Geese since they last emerged with their much-adored second album, 2023’s 3D Country. That record’s “rollicking cowboy rock” had already propelled them forward, and then frontman Cameron Winter released his debut solo album, Heavy Metal, and things absolutely blew up. The release found Cameron winning fans in everyone from Nick Cave to Jools Holland, and finding a whole new audience ready to embrace his songwriting charms. Now getting the band back together, Geese this week announced a new album, Getting Killed, which will arrive in September, and shared the first single from it, Taxes.

An intriguing next step for Geese, with its biblical reference points and expansive take on Americana, Taxes brings to mind the likes of Lift To Experience or Little Kid. The track opens with a delightfully complex percussive rattling, a quiet cacophony of layered clatter, like the sound of an army marching menacingly miles away or a particularly morose carnival. From the rumble, Cameron emerges, with one of the year’s more memorable opening lines, “I should burn in hell, I should burn in hell, but I don’t deserve this”, presented without much context to what he’s done or what his suffering is. The song thankfully gets no less intriguing from there, as processed backing vocals are used like fluttering synths, and Cameron slips into the guise of a financially bloated 1970’s rockstar and bemoans the inland revenue taking their slice, “if you want me to pay my taxes, you better come over with a crucifix, you’re going to have to nail me down”. That line acts as a fault line in the midst of the song, the whole thing bursting to life with a flourish of country rock fans of MJ Lenderman will surely admire. The size of Geese’s musical world is expanding all the time, and thankfully, their songs seem to be swelling with it. They sound like a band primed and ready to fly/honk their way to the stars.

Getting Killed is out September 26th via Partisan Records. For more information on Geese visit https://geeseband.com/

2. Neil Jarvis Takes Some Baby Steps

Frontman of the much-loved Manchester band Sprinters, who released Struck Gold, one of my favourite records of 2019, Neil Jarvis has spent recent years focusing on his on-off solo career, most recently sharing the Pandemic-shaped call to musical arms, Get The Band Back Together. Sometimes life can get in the way of music, but often it can also inspire it, as is the case with Neil’s new record, Day At The Park, “a living document of the past three years”, and “a concept album about fatherhood, childhood and growing up”. Ahead of the release, Neil recently shared the excellent single, Learning To Walk.

A song of small moments and parental adoration, Learning To Walk finds Neil reflecting on the shared excitement of his son experiencing life for the first time, “here he comes now strumming a guitar, humming the tune of a Beatles song, here he comes running in the storm, trying to stay dry with his raincoat on”. Ultimately, Neil concludes that for all the things his son is learning, he’s also learning along with him, “I’m learning myself about this crazy love”. Recorded in a perfectly lo-fi fashion and with little more than just voice and guitar, it has a similar small heartaches mood to that brilliant Benedict Benjamin album Tunnels, also heavily influenced by parenting, that blew me away a few years back. My instinct is to talk about Day At The Park as a record of life’s small moments, yet that’s not quite correct. These are huge moments, just on a small scale, personal revelations that resonate, the real living things we sometimes tend to forget to cherish when we worry too much about the world at large.

Day At The Park is out now. For more information on Neil Jarvis visit https://neiljarvis.bandcamp.com/.

1. Idlewild Just Can’t Stay Out Of It

This was a week of returns, in a year that’s seemingly been dominated by them, but few mean more to me than the very welcome return of Idlewild, not that they ever stay away for long. This October, they’ll release their new self-titled album, and this week they shared the first single from it, Stay Out Of Place. Idlewild at the Anson Rooms in Bristol was the first “proper” gig I ever went to. I’d seen bands before, sure, but this was different. Our teenage selves bought our tickets, although I can’t actually recall how that worked in the pre-internet days, piled into a car in rural Wiltshire without any parents in tow and went and had an evening of questionably sourced beer, sweaty moshing and at least two or three crowd surfers’ feet to the face. It was thrilling, mind-expanding and I can honestly say after that night, nothing ever really seemed the same again. I’ve seen Idlewild countless times since, and in many ways their songs are now a part of me, not just music but memories burnt into my being. And as for their new single, well no pressure chaps, but it’s got a lot to live up to.

As a reviewer, there’s often nothing more difficult than writing about the bands that really mean something to you. I can’t possibly offer an impartial word on Idlewild, so here I won’t really pretend to try. Roddy Woomble introduced Stay Out Of Place with that famous Walt Whitman quote, “I contain multitudes”, a study of the many voices we have and the way we choose one to represent us, or in a band’s case, “five voices collaborating, over time. We arrange the world in our own order, but sometimes you’ve got to shake up expectations and forget about the instructions”. Musically the track comes crashing into being, a flourish of crunchy guitar chords and drum clatter that reminds you that they were once a snarling punk band. As the track progresses, they take us through various other moods from their repertoire. There are the huge choruses, the folky breakdowns, and Roddy’s unmistakable, ever-poetic lyricism, “the world as we know it is still mostly undefined and you can only really hope to wonder why”. On Idlewild, the band promise to look back, “without being nostalgic”, for me, perhaps that’s an impossible task, but listening to Stay Out Of Place this is not a band living off past glories, it’s one remembering their history, knowing the band they are and gently pushing onwards to their next fabulous chapter.

Idlewild is out October 3rd via V2 Records. For more information on Idlewild visit https://idlewild.co.uk/.

Header photo is Idlewild by Euan Robertson