Review: Bad Weather California, Sunkissed

Bad Weather California: Sunkissed
Akron/Family

Positivity and an outlook of sunshine and roses, in music as in all art forms as in life, can sometimes be accused of gross naivety. So those who believe that profundity can only come from heartache, realism or ideology should approach Denver's Bad Weather California with some caution. These are four young men who have unabashedly chosen life.

And frankly, when it is done this well, with equal parts musical imagination and all the vivid lyrical colours of adolescent vim, it's very hard not to get on board. Bad Weather California may well irritate some, but in themselves they secure a blissful state of inclusiveness, good humour and, oddly, a kind of meditative calm. From the rock and roll of 'Freaks and Geeks' to the ska-indebted 'I'll Reach Out My Hand', this is unadulterated glee.

The quartet, who are not exactly in the first flush of youth and whose members have meandered in and out of bands since the 90s, have been around for seven years for two significant facts up until this LP. They had released one previous, well-received album on a smaller label (Sunkissed is out on Akron/Family's Family Tree), and they were once backing band to Daniel Johnston, although it is difficult to locate any significant common ground between the two. Bad Weather California are fine musicians, clearly value production and steer away from heartbreak and anything particularly psychological.

Over on the band's predictably exuberant website there is a declaration that Bad Weather California are "taking misfit culture back to the streets" and that the punk ethic runs through their work. But this seems a slight misjudgement – at no point do they approach anything like anger, while there aren't even very loud. But then again, neither is there any strong sort of lazy, mellow, stoned or dappled-by-the-sun feeling. Then there is the charming 'I'll Sing Along', a quite unexpectedly accomplished ballad acting as a measured and calm conversation among the ebullient celebrations of the rest of the record.

To fully express their blissful disposition, they explore close to the full gamut of all those styles that are most suited to joy. The result is that the sound Bad Weather California achieve in the outbursts of high-jinks and youthful pleasure that are their songs (as well as their more staid moments) is often thoroughly reminiscent of Devendra Banhart's fine 2009 album What Will We Be. Both artists invest in the high-pitched, tinkling guitar that is meant to represent carefree high spirits. What Bad Weather California bring to it in abundance, however, is additional funk and sexuality – it is not quite a childish or innocent form of delight we are dealing with.

That's not to say that the spectrum of rock is their sole inspiration. The album's most gripping and satisfying track, 'Let It Shine', featuring call and response vocals and such suggestive lines as "If you don't mind if I go down low shout oh oh oh oh", has such a gloriously perverse instrumental line as to hint at The Beastie Boys and libidinous soul.

There is cock-sure swagger, to be sure. There are also a fair few skater references, but as they themselves would advocate, we must look past that and see just the positives.

Review: Field Music, Plumb

Field Music: Plumb
Memphis Industries

The first thing to get out the way with this exemplary album, which given the critical respect Field Music now garner surely stands as a major release of the year, is its length. Whereas their 2010 masterpiece Measure stood proudly at 70 minutes (and not a second too long), Plumb is finished in less than 36. And within that, there are some 15 songs, suggesting that the Brewis brothers have become quite brutal self-editors, or indeed something significant has changed in their approach.

In fact, the songs themselves are not so different to Measure. That same percussive energy persists, as do the terse little Talking Heads-style refrains and the harmonies that manage the trick of being sonorous and beautiful, as well as somehow demanding and dangerous. 'A New Town' is an example of that – beneath the sophistication of their instrumentation, production and arrangements, lurks a sense of desperate urban unease that has been with them ever since 2007's Tones Of Town and has also been a feature of Peter and David's respective solo albums.

This feeling is mostly conveyed through their remarkable words, which are both poetic and distinctly gritty at the same time. Kitchen-sink drama would be an insubstantial way of describing it, but banal domestic scenes and grim references to the unsavoury running about of 21st century life define their imagery. This is most poignant on the album's finest track 'Sorry Again, Mate', a neatly packed triumph putting one in mind, as is often the case with Field Music, of Peter Gabriel-era Genesis. It's the bombastic chorus matched by the lonely and isolated vocals of the verse that does it. And also like Genesis, childhood and nostalgia sweeten the mood further on Plumb, such as on the wistful 'From Hide And Seek To Heartache'.

Meanwhile, 'Choosing Sides' and 'Guillotine' are fascinating in their subtle and atmospheric depictions of life amid financial ruin across the land. The messages that lurk within their art often exist so peripherally as to easily pass the listener by, especially when you have such strange and ambitious prog-infused, orchestral pop music behind it.

The brothers' desire to incorporate chamber music and that awful buzzword, 'baroque', into pop music is one they have talked about frequently, but they can balance that with what is an innate instinct for the accessible and catchy. As well as the elaborateness of both classical music and prog, they are fans of Prince and Funkadelic ('A Prelude To Pilgrim Street' heads in this sort of direction) and let's not forget they were once part of a tight-knit Sunderland collective with The Futureheads.

And it's a love for the immediately satisfying that perhaps explains why the album is half the length of its predecessor. It's not that the point they are making is less complex or intricate (or brilliant), it's just that that want to make it a lot quicker, in order to get this latest project out the way and continue on their restlessly eclectic journey.

Simone across the desert

Despite being someone who believes the apogee of life to be a lengthy train trip in a sleeper compartment overnight across some continent or other, I have only ever been on three such adventures. This is due to the constraints of time and money as well as, on one gravely disappointing occasion, striking public transport workers in France when the trip was to be Zurich to Barcelona.

When I was about seven I took a night train from Sydney to Melbourne, before going on to Phillip Island. Then 12 years later I was one wretch among many in lower class during a rather warped re-enactment of 'Marrakesh Express' on a 10-hour journey between Tangier and Marrakesh. Then in 2011 I went from Prague to Budapest. And that's all.

Most can surely relate to the cosy satisfaction that comes with such journeys, what with the rhythmic movements of the carriage to go to sleep by and the forced inertia acting as a holiday from any acts of doing. But upon reading Simone de Beauvoir's fascinating America Day By Day, her account of a four-month journey across the USA in 1947, I have discovered what must be the most succinct and beautiful description of why such an experience is so childish and exciting that was ever committed to print.

She writes of riding from Chicago to Los Angeles:

I pull the rough green curtains, fix them in place, hang my dress in the closet, and arrange my things in the mesh bags. The window is covered with a blind, and I switch on the little light above my head. On the other side of the thin partition, people come and go in the corridor; yet no room with thick walls has ever given me this feeling of relaxation and calm. This sleeping berth I'm stretched out on is more than a bed; it's a whole dwelling reduced to the dimensions of a bed. There are childhood memories associated with this pleasure. I remember a weeping willow in which I made a house, a large canopied country bed with heavy curtains, and that dark compartment where I loved to hide under my father's desk. Psychoanalysts see in that a desire to return to the maternal womb, but this language is too symbolic and doesn't clarify anything. My berth is not the recollection of lost happiness; it gives me a satisfaction sufficient unto itself: it is refuge, solitude separation. The tension and fatigue entailed in every existence originate in other, larger forms of existence; in these berths stacked on either side of the corridor, like tombs in the galleries of the Catacombs, each person achieves an absolute solitude. This nocturnal dwelling evokes the peace of the funeral chambers at Mycenae and Cerveteri; no appeal from the outside world can penetrate here. My life is now longer pulled in different directions or tied to anyone or anything; it has closed in on itself in the silence of death. I turn off the light and shut my eyes. I feel the rhythmic movement of the train as it rolls into the unknown; this movement also brings me peace - the peace of an alibi. Not only am I separated from everything, but I am not situated at any particular spot in the universe: I'm just passing through. I have no more ties to the earth, no more desire or curiosity. The sleep that pulls me from this world is in in harmony with the rolling of the train, which minute by minute denies me any unique place in it. That's probably why my sleep is always so refreshing on trains.

All The Colours: 2011's Best Albums

1. D - White Denim
Downtown / Cooperative

White Denim's previous two albums saw this gifted and spirited three-piece innovating with limited equipment and whimsically meandering through classic and garage rock. It was brilliant at times, patchy at others. But it turns out everything the Austin band had been doing was leading to this, a most extraordinary, near-flawless LP. When restrained songwriting is called for ('Street Joy' and 'Keys'), they are experts. When ebullient, melodic jamming was the go ('Back At The Farm') they were astonishing. And as ever, their take on the concept of the 'riff' was wonderfully askew and varied. Having employed an extra guitarist to complement James Petralli they have somehow lost none of their primitivism, yet are notably more advanced as musicians and composers. If a better band exists right now they must be performing for the gods, as there is none better down here.



2. Gentle Stream - The Amazing
Subliminal Sounds

Overly accomplished musicians are generally a drag. But The Amazing (two things to remember: don't call them a Dungen side project and don't say anything so nauseating as "with a name like that they'd better back it up" as too many reviews did) have a restraint, taste and lightness of touch that makes their technical prowess more palatable. Gentle Stream is a pastoral, melodic, textured and deeply spiritual second album based around Christopher Gunrup's Romantic perceptions as both singer and songwriter. This is music aiming seriously high, and indeed minute by minute reaches loftier plains.



3. Ashes & Fire - Ryan Adams
Columbia

Housewives dropped their pots and pans and stood still. Men ceased chopping the wood and listened to the air. Obama asked "can I have the room?" when he heard the news: the first Ryan Adams album in three years was on the way. Ashes & Fire is his best since 29 (2005) and similar to that album sees him assuming the role of trembling romantic. As heavily pointed out in reviews, this was a throwback to a different period of his life before he started those endless jams with the Cardinals, therefore the emphasis is on the strange poetry of his lyrics as well as some typically beautiful songwriting - case in points being 'Kindness' and 'Rocks'. Time has mellowed him, but not blunted him.



4. WIT'S END - Cass McCombs
Domino

The best song from Cass McCombs in 2011 came on his second album of the year (see below) but as a rounded, comprehensive statement, WIT'S END was the superior effort. His theme since 2008 has been defiant misery, with doses of terrifying urban imagery thrown in too, and on here it really was often a case of the rather overused term 'beautiful pain'. Opener 'County Line', 'Memory's Stain' and 'A Knock Upon The Door' revealed his growing awareness of the power of different instrumentation to add to the gravity of his sound, while his lyrical narratives about those depraved characters remain as stark as ever.



5. Humor Risk - Cass McCombs
Domino

When a measure of light returned to McCombs' music in November it was a little confusing. The varying degrees of energy and excitement on this album led to some accusing it of being somewhat disjointed and inconsistent, but say what you will, this contains some fascinating songs. None more so than 'The Same Thing' of course, but multiple listens to the strange 'Robin Egg Blue' reveal another brilliantly constructed example of his art and increased the mystery surrounding the man himself. The two albums taken together are, to coin a phrase from 'The Same Thing', 'cut from different sides of the same cloth'.



6. Don't Act Like You Don't Care - Luke Temple
Western Vinyl

Temple, whose Here We Go Magic material never quite hit the heights, referred to this as his 'country' album as it was being recorded. Given that it is not country at all suggests the departure it is from his usual aforementioned band. These are all old songs of his given a new interpretation, with the results being startling. Accessible but slightly odd, Temple reveals depths as a songwriter he has only hinted at before. This is somewhat reminiscent of Phosphorescent's Here's To Taking It Easy (2010), and pleasantly echoes that mix of humor and pathos.



7. Tripper - Fruit Bats
Sub Pop

It's debatable whether Tripper is the best thing Eric D. Johnson has ever done, but it is certainly his most eclectic. Using his familiar folk-rock template as merely a launch pad he explores such things as glam, synth-pop and his really very attractive sense of humour from start to finish. There are many touches of sentimentality amid the grit and glitz, but never does anything obscure the fact that Johnson is at least the creative equal of his pals and collaborators James Mercer of the Shins and Andy Cabic of Vetiver.



8. Smother - Wild Beasts
Domino

I am one of the few who believes Wild Beasts' first album, Limbo, Panto, to be their masterpiece. That record was full of the joys of bounding young men finding their musical feet and was an audible testament to their friendship. Smother is the logical next step from Two Dancers in establishing them as bona fide artists, demanding they be taken very seriously, and taken seriously they must be. This is their first slow-burning album that will take a few listens to sink in, yet it will eventually reveal itself to any listener to be triumphant. Since they started out, there is not much more they could have done to achieve perfection.



9. Sun & Shade - Woods
Woodsist

When a band is as marvelously consistent as Woods it is sometimes difficult to examine an album in isolation and assess it on its own merits. But Sun & Shade genuinely is probably a class above the rest of Jeremy Earl's output, forcing together all of his influences - from Fairport-like folk-rock to the drone of the Velvets to their most obvious debt this time around, early Neil Young and Buffalo Springfield. Earl is a beautiful, if derivative, songwriter whose maturity never gets in the way of playfulness. Woods may not have released their Sgt Pepper yet, but this may be their best album to date. And give me them over Fleet Foxes any day.



10. Konkylie - When Saints Go Machine
!K7

When Saints Go Machine have equal reverence for sugary house, out-and-out pop, hip hop, trip hop and by the sounds of Konkylie, lush orchestral music. This is not an album to listen to in the background, because every note and nuance from the Danes must be heard and its puzzle worked out. The title track sounds like a strange medieval piece played out on synths, while other tracks, such a 'Kelly' are superbly crafted pop tunes. There's Scott Walker in here, as there is The Human League, Grace Jones and Beck. It's that confused, and that good.



11. The Errant Charm - Vetiver
Sub Pop

Of course, The Errant Charm is not even close to being as good as To Find Me Gone (2006), but Andy Cabic deserves credit for allowing Vetiver to recover from the really very boring Tight Knit (2009). Granted, there are several hangovers here from that album that prove he is not quite over his 50s rock and roll fetish quite yet, but there are enough gems on here to suggest that something incendiary still lurks inside the San Franciscan. Opener 'It's Beyond Me' and 'Can't You Tell' are among his most interesting tracks - he is has not succumbed to the pitfalls of being too nice just yet, then.



12. No Witch - The Cave Singers
Jagjaguwar

In the four years since they formed, The Cave Singers' profile has remained surprisingly stagnant, mainly, despite the fact they have released three excellent albums of passionate, sometimes nearly hysterical, devil's music. Like many on this list, the trio have made repetition and sparseness the source of their emotional energy, with the voice of Pete Quirk consistently astonishing in its nasal beauty. This was slightly better that Welcome Joy (2009) and is deserving of considerably more attention than it got. One of the year's understated folk gems.



13. Zeroes QC - Suuns
Secretly Canadian

To many, this is the standout album of the year, and it is certainly one of the most original. Like When Saints Go Machine, they have taken all the most accessible and infectious elements of several other painfully modern styles (in Suuns' case, more on the side of industrial, indie, drone and dance) and constructed a mesmerising tribute to their own tastes. This is nothing less than a triumph of studio production and craft, and that it trumps even the latest Battles album suggest just how excellent Suuns' debut truly is.



14. Pajama Club - Pajama Club
Lester

It's true that Neil Finn's devotion to having his wife so closely involved may be on the verge of stretching too far, and it's also true that there are some uncharacteristic lyrical disasters here, but there was a lot to love about this idiosyncratic little morsel from the great man. 'Can't Put It Down Until It Ends' is everything that is good about weird Neil (hear below), while 'Go Kart' felt like a regression back to his pre-Split Enz teenage attempts at songwriting, and is all the better for it. And when the inevitable sentiment comes ('Diamonds In Her Eyes', 'Golden Child), it's not out of place. A super trick.



15. The People's Key - Bright Eyes
Saddle Creek

The emotion surrounding the fact this may well be the last Bright Eyes album should not get in the way of the fact that on its own merits, this latest instalment was certainly worthy of Conor Oberst and his band, and indeed is probably the best album he's done of any kind since 2005. The easy route would have been to tone down the ideology, but if anything he has ramped it up a notch, with his familiar cryptic take on it still adding a mystique to his darkly-lit folk rock that none can match. The enigma and charisma of the (still) young man ensures this is a fitting farewell, if farewell it must be.



16. Who's Breathing? - Ryan Driver
Fire Records

The Silt's 2009 debut Cat's Peak was a wonderfully interesting thing - equally indebted to the rough folk of Will Oldham or Iron and Wine as well as the meandering soul of Marvin Gaye or a host of other Motown artists. Ryan Driver's voice rose above the sophisticated arrangements of this uncategorisable group to take centre-stage then, and his second solo album is even more imaginative. Anything rustic has been binned as Driver seeks out a musical domain somewhere between exemplary singer-songwriter (Ron Sexsmith, Tom Brosseau) and indeed a distinct jazz-club, after-hours sense of romance.



17. Bachelorette - Bachelorette
Drag City

Annabel Alpers did not find a huge number of friends among reviewers when she released this, but it is nevertheless an extremely satisfying, indulgent and syrupy work of electronica that genuinely does explore its own themes and ideas. It's not hard work, this, but it is instantly gratifying - a tricky thing to pull of. Alpers' vocals tie the thing together, those tremulous tones a stark and beautiful assertion of humanity amid all the artificial noise. She has made better songs in the past, without everything coming together as nicely as this.



18. Country Ways - Carlton Melton
Agitated

Perhaps for the first time, Carlton Melton settled down in 2010 and put their minds to making an album, rather than a slew of unfocused jams that they released without a whole lot of thought. The result of that new-found structure is an album of pounding psychedelic, improvised rock and roll that was both a fascinating headphone listen as well as a good example of their legendary live show. This was also better mixed, arranged and produced than their previous material. That said, their fearless pursuit of the loud and messy remains their most attractive feature. Their ultimate statement.



19. Starry Mind - P.G Six
Drag City

If only for that sumptuous opener, 'January' (below). For all the talk of the 60s folk-rock-revival revival, there are few who have been able to capture the essence of Fairport Convention, The Youngbloods and perhaps snatches of Neil Young quite as brilliantly as this. Of course, P.G Six, an exceptional guitarist, has been around for ages so this is no blistering opening statement, but it is the latest in a career that has plodded along with no fanfare but with a great deal of soul. Derivative as hell (add the Jayhawks and some Britpop in there too), he truly tapped into the spirit of the Paisley Underground, and a whole lot more besides.




20. Violent Hearts - Shimmering Stars
Hardly Art

It's never a very good idea to name your band after the way you sound, but these Canadians can be excused, I suppose. 'Shimmering' or 'glimmering' describes their shameless take on the Everly Brothers, with their deliberately shabby recordings ensuring we are in no doubt as to who they are aping. That is going to infuriate many, but the trio do seem very sincere and frankly obsessed with the Phil Spector approach - plus the songs are excellent. Another pretty disposable listen but one that is as warm and emotive as anything else this year.





Highly Commended

Two-Way Mirror - Crystal Antlers
The Whole Love - Wilco
Napa Asylum - Sic Alps

Reissues Of The Year

1. Time Capsule - Lone Pigeon
2. Love Has Made Me Stronger - Carol Kleyn
3. Smile - The Beach Boys
4. Tomorrow The Green Grass - The Jayhawks
5. The Sophtware Slump - Grandaddy

Interview: A Letter From Cass McCombs

To many, Cass McCombs went to his darkest place yet on new album WIT’S END. Here was a collection of morose and rather archaic-sounding ballads that told helpless tales of lost love, grief and existential angst. One almost wondered what demons had befall Cass in the two years since his distinctly more witty and varied previous LP, Catacombs, such was the elastic emotional range on show on WIT’S END.

The thing to remember with this artist though, is that ever since his first album A, his songs have always been ‘story’ songs. The ‘Lionkiller’ of Dropping The Writ is not him, Catacombs’ ‘The Executioner’s Song’ is not his personal paean to job satisfaction and the miserable figure at the centre of WIT’S END’s epic closing track, ‘A Knock Upon The Door’, is not him either. It all begs the question of how he is able to call upon these reserves of apparent despair… maybe it’s the mood he finds in the American air these days (because if there is one artist peculiarly obsessed with being American, it is McCombs).

As an artist and songwriter, McCombs wants to feel everything and be everything – to tell the tales of kings and of paupers alike from the inside. And perhaps this is why he is so reticent with media coverage and interviews to the point that his ostensible reclusiveness is as well known as his music. To talk about his songs is to reduce them to one thing, to frame them when they should be allowed to sprawl and expand, both in the minds of listeners and more importantly, himself. So he simply doesn’t talk about them, or at least, is incredibly careful of whom he communicates with, how he communicates and the language he uses.

When his third album Dropping The Writ was released in 2007, he was still willing to do the odd telephone interview, albeit providing many one-word answers and leaving endless journalists enduring his trademark excruciating silence. Then when Catacombs came out, it was email questionnaires only, so he could pick and choose which questions he answered and to what extent of detail. Replies were invariably pretty laconic, to say the least.

Then finally, when it came to doing press for WIT’S END, McCombs chose to communicate with the media by post. Journalists were expected to write a letter of questions to his manager in Los Angeles, who would forward them on. As well as embracing the romance of epistolary communication, McCombs was ensuring he only heard from those who cared enough to go through this unusual rigmarole.

I sent him 15 handwritten questions, never for a second expecting he would answer each one in turn, or even one directly. Naturally, I received a straightforward one-page letter in return… typed out using Word, by the looks of it – so much for the romance of us men of letters.

However, the questions that took his fancy, that he seemed to be addressing in the letter, were:

1. What has your life entailed over the last year?

2. WIT’S END is a beautiful record. How did you approach the songwriting and recording process as distinct to Catacombs?

3. WIT’S END and Catacombs seem less directly autobiographical than Dropping The Writ. Is that the case from your point of view also?

4. What is your relationship with the idea of ‘tradition’, do you see yourself as part of one?

And that was about it. Here’s the letter:

“Barnaby,

Thank you for taking the time to write to me. I’ll try and answer your questions best I can.

This past year… after spending a lifetime of trying not to get my hopes up, I’m not concerned bout convincing anything to anyone, it’ll just be taken the wrong way. There’s no different approach to any of my records, I just write and record continuously and release the songs that seem the most complete. I have a sketchbook approach to making records, they’re drafts for a better version somewhere down the line, maybe a better live version, or maybe someone who can really sing will find my songs. Recordings give a general layout of songs so you can see what’s possible. The greatest possibilities are non-recordable, they are transient. I’m after a pure feeling through music, which anything could trigger if you’re open to it, mainly I’m talking about the feeling that comes across through performance, the feeling that is passed back and forth from the audience to the stage, the most thrilling and surprising feeling, pure spirit.

In my old age I’m interested in songs with a good story, with characters that carry my imagination. I think through storytelling the true spirit of the songwriter comes through far more than if they were writing in the first person, spilling their guts out. I’ve learned this the hard way. Nobody wants to hear your feelings or your opinions. Nobody can relate to your innermost thoughts, the best we can do is trade stories, speak in parables, and be good listeners.

I’m sure we’re all part of a tradition, though beats me where it’s taking us. Perhaps under the Vatican is hidden a scroll that explains the sacred bloodline of songwriters, right next to the family tree of the first person who mated with a ghost, causing the bloodline of the white race, a half-breed race of half-human and half-ghost. I don’t know and don’t care about tradition except to carry the old time songs into the future. It’s bad news that so few people care about the old songs, but what can you do. I’m talking about the really, really old songs. The kind that return us to our primordial essence.

My music has nothing to do with my factual life, it never has. The songs are told through characters that are totems for feelings that I get from friends and people I meet. Songs are masks.

I saw a snake yesterday.

I hope this finds you well.

Rest in peace, live in love.

CM”

Wings Of Desire

Live Review: Pajama Club @ Oxford Art Factory, 13/6/11

When Neil Finn reformed Crowded House in 2007 it put a firm stop to the interesting things the 53-year-old was doing on his own. While it would be a stretch to call his solo work experimental, 2001’s One Nil, as well as his dalliances with film soundtracks and the like, saw him embracing synthesisers, reverb, effects pedals and other strange noises of the future.

The Pajama Club, where Finn is joined by his wife and erstwhile wallflower Sharon along with New Zealand ‘music personality’ Sean Donnelly and Brisbane indie jewel Alana Skyring, allow this side of him to be fully indulged. It’s been rather too long since the world saw Finn’s freak flag fly.

Playing their fourth show ever tonight, they made the promotional push of playing their forthcoming album in its entirety, a record that from tonight’s showing promises to be full of dramatic space-rock flourishes, touches of Talking Heads-style keyboard from Donnelly and a meandering ‘jam’ quality as to call to mind the work of Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks. There is even enough of a sprite within Finn on this project to take one back to 1980 and Split Enz’s suitably eccentric True Colours album.

The only song available to be heard by fans prior to the show was ‘From A Friend To A Friend’ (released online), actually far from being the strongest song in their set, that honour falling to their propulsive (and unknown) opener, Sharon maintaining a one-note bassline for its entirety while her husband brought the track to a shuddering climax on his good old red Gretsch Firebird.

That richness was heard again on ‘Diamonds In Her Eyes’, while some more familiar melancholic chord changes could be found on the comparatively sedate ‘TNT For Two’. Mention must also go to a strangely awful duet between the married couple about carnal etiquette featuring Neil on drums, and a quite spectacular mid-set medley that saw ‘Suffer Never’ (from the first Finn Brothers album) mutate into Tubeway Army’s ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ That was the only nod to Finn’s past all night, ensuring that this project has a special energy of its own.