Screaming Tarts Volume 3 (20-track compilation album) Reviewed By Steve Rudd

Already it's the third album in the series, and Screaming Tarts: Volume 3 is both sounding better and looking sleeker than ever. Once again the creator and webmaster of the hugely popular www.screamingtarts.com music e-zine (that long-haired, good-looking fellow called Mr Martyn from Driffield, East Yorkshire) has done himself proud, given the fact that he's once again collated a monstrous bunch of storming Glam-Punk-Rock-fuelled anthems.

Now with a full-colour inlay that's dominated by Mr Martyn's blatant obsession with pink, there are full details inside of all the bands featured, with lively Leeds rockers Phluid setting the ball rolling with their punk-powdered, pop-bellied Bang Bang blast that comes complete with an explosively political chorus. Frontman Polly coolly chants I love my country, but I fear my government. And boy does he have one hell of a point.

I've been obsessed with Phluid and their music for the past six years (and so has Mr Martyn); thus, it probably comes as little surprise that Bang Bang is my favourite track of all on this album, yet the other nineteen tracks are - to be fair - just as downright amazing in their own rights, especially when you've got the grungy rock of Mary Jane's Love (with the feisty Teri Flynn on lead vocals), before The Alive deliver their Away tune: a stadium-sized and riff-roaring anthem. Eccentric lads The Evangelists, meanwhile, proffer the crazy Alt.-rock cut Microwave Man, which somehow comes on like a cross between SOAD's most intense weirdness and Sack Trick's tongue-in-cheek brilliance.

The Uniting The Elements troupe, delivering passionate fem-fronted hard rock, is clearly a band to look out for in the future if the strength of their haunting Thank you song is anything to go by, yet some hardcore underground rock musos might just already be familiar with the voice of The Visions' singer. Yes, that distinctive voice belongs to Greg McDonald, the ex-frontman of the glorious Dawn Parade (RIP). Now, with his Visions, he belts out Morrissey's Tongue, which is a sweeping and heart-rending thing of truth and beauty. For those people who like their rock a little darker, Devilish Presley's adrenalised Black Glitter proves to be exhilarating stuff, and somewhat Placebo-esque in style.

And for those people who like Hollyoaks (yes, the C4 soap that's set in cosmopolitan Chester), check out Chairmen of The Bored and their song Suffocating, as band singer Ben Gerrard used to act in the programme, don't you know!

Mention has to also go to Robin Black's lust-driven Seventeen tune: trust me, just turn it up -and get your rocks off. And all of the above-mentioned bands and songs are a mere taster of what's in store on this outstanding album.

As with previous Screaming Tarts releases, there's not one single dull track therein, and there's a thrilling mix of both pretty well-known bands and newer bands that you might not have heard of yet.

For sure, that pesky Mr Martyn sure knows his stuff when it comes to sifting out the wheat from the chaff, and what you've got here in Screaming Tarts: Volume 3 is nothing less than the best of the best Rock 'n' Roll music to thrill mind, body and soul in 2006. In fact, to thrill mind, body and soul to infinity and beyond.

Copies of the album are only £6 each, and are now available direct from the www.screamingtarts.com website.

Album Reviews - Mogwai - Mr Beast (PIAS) Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	While this ten-track affair might not be as exhilarating as Mogwai's 'Come On Die Young' masterpiece of an album, this new long-player - which is the band's fifth - is still an epic and emotional joy to behold. With a running time of almost three quarters of an hour, their Auto Rock tune kicks affairs off, being a subtly enthralling piano melody, before Read more...

Single Reviews - Ricky We Are England (Beatcrazy Records) By Nick Quantrill
	This unofficial World Cup 2006 track was going to be the record that propelled Ricky into the big time, and kick-started a career for the band that already had promised much. Add in that the band clocked up in excess of 25,000 miles traveling the length and breadth of the country recording over 50,000 school children chanting the popular Easy Read more...

Album Reviews - How Long Have You Got? By Andy Stocks Reviewed by DJ Chris Plant
	I sat down today and listened to Andy Stocks new album How Long Have You Got? Andy is a Hull born artist who writes his own material along with close friend Matthew Davidson. The music is special and the lyrics have a lot of meaning. None of this crap we are hearing in the charts (i.e. Who do you think you are kidding Jurgen Klinsmann) sung by 1966 legend Geoff Hurst. Read more...

Album Reviews - They Died Too Young - D.N.A Neglects Demo By Nick Cobley Pictures by Michelle Dee
	Upon starting the D.N.A Neglects demo CD the first thing I noticed was the production quality which sounds excellent. With prices of recording being really high as always, it made me think they must have spent a lot of time and effort on this. The first track is Hanger Lane it starts with clean guitars, and I think I can even hear an acoustic in the build up Read more...

Album Reviews - Propaganda 625 by Phluid Skudakoi Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	Following on from this Leed's quintet's previous album releases, Cynical Smile and Release, this EP is really more of a mini-album in that it's exhilaratingly comprised of three new studio tracks, three live tracks, one specially-recorded acoustic track, plus a secret bonus track that might surprise a lot of ardent fans - even if it's not a Phluid Read more...

Album Reviews - Chapter XIII - Dream Salvation (Level Sound) Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	The debut single from this here Bristol quintet in the undeniably cool cut The Last Time understandably caught the attention of both aficionados of great music and A&R men in high places. Well, in theory such a single should have done, as should this full-length release that stunningly bears testament to just what this band is trying to achieve. Fronted by Gareth Marshall Read more...

Album Reviews - Lights By Brigade (Mighty Atom) Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	Right from the swirling, tension-mounting intro of single-release Magneto, that proceeds to explode into a euphoric Emo-edged rock tune, through to the mighty closing track of this 11-song-strong album, there is one anthem after another after another after another - and not one of them is dull. Meet Me At My Funeral stampedes, Assemble/ Dissemble is a huge, Read more...

Album Reviews - The Voltaires - Anti-Love EP (This Is Art) Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	Leeds lads The Voltaires sure know how to turn heads with their inspirational brand of indie-fuelled rock 'n' roll, with the three tunes that comprise this EP all being quirky, catchy and supremely cool in due course, right from the title track itself, Anti-Love, anchored by a rollicking riff, stand-out vocals and a classy chorus. Fronted by Gareth Williams Read more...

Album Reviews - The Leano - Steps To Leanoland (Colarj Records) Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	The Leano is a one-man rapping machine with a social conscience and a hugely original approach to music-making. He might hail from London, but he wrote and produced this stunning thirteen-track debut album up in Hull of all places. The city is even immortalised in the acoustic guitar-accompanied Ganjaholic, a tongue-in-cheek ditty which wryly Read more...

Single Reviews - D'Ya Feel Lucky? by The Fondas (Levelsound Records) Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	Swiped from their Dirty Kicks album, this storming anthem is one of the finest cuts from such a long-player, brimming with explosive energy, and locked and loaded with guitars naturally cranked to the max, resulting in a battering wall of sound off which the singer's voice-to-die-for valiantly bounces. D'ya Feel Lucky? is both inescapable Read more...

Single Reviews - Sunday International - So Calm (Future Butterfly) Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	Should you be bored with the latest wave of rock 'n' roll bands that are currently dominating the airwaves, make a beeline for this hugely exciting band before the masses catch wind of them - for Sunday International sure can write some storming tunes. Their So Calm rock anthem, for starters, is a gloriously energetic tune that is fearlessly fuzzy, explosive and Read more...

Album Reviews - Waiting For Tomorrow by Soular Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	Hailing from New Mexico, this top US band has been strutting its highly original stealth since 2002, with this release building on the reputation that their 2004 Time And Space record nurtured. Having opened gigs for the likes of Liz Phair and Longwave, they are already a pretty well known and hugely respected outfit, and now it's time for the good people of the UK to Read more...

Album Reviews - Under Attack by The Alarm (EMI) Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	As with every song on every past Alarm album, every single one is a trail-blazing anthem. Welshman Mike Peters is, always has been, and always will be the voice of The Alarm. And what a soul-powered voice he has got, as opening tune Superchannel takes up where the previous Alarm long-player - In The Poppyfields - left off. Here we Read more...

Album Reviews - CD Reviews - Lorca (10-track demo) Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	Every last one of these ten tracks is special in its own right, with opening tune Nothing Stays The Same paving the way for some grand emotions delivered courtesy of some beautiful music and extraordinarily touching vocals. Indeed, the opening track progresses from its lush acoustic guitar-based foundations into a majestic rock masterpiece, Read more...

Album Reviews - Dirty Days by Jaed on Instant Karma Records Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	The Jaed entity is basically Vanessa Eve on vocals and guitar, backed by a bassist and drummer. It's primarily Vanessa's 'gig' as such, and she's clearly the driving force behind all of these eleven songs. Vanessa grew up in Melbourne, but her childhood wasn't a particularly rosy experience for her, especially when she found herself living Read more...