The North Pole - The Grip b/w How Can I Explain By Nicholas Boldock

Let me relate to you a few irrefutable facts. You, like 99% of the population of the world, have never heard of The North Pole. You don't own any of their CDs. You have never seen them live. You don't know what they sound like. You don't know their names. You've never met them - or rather, if you have, you didn't realise who they were. You don't know whether you like them or not. You don't know whether you want to. You looked at the title of this review, and you thought - "who the FUCK are they?"

Firstly, it is important to point out that The North Pole are not wet behind the ears, and they are not the newest band on the block - they've actually been together for years, only they didn't bother to let anyone know what they were doing. What they were doing (it would appear) was working on their song writing and production skills so that they could produce a CD that sounds (and looks) as professional as this one does. This isn't their first release by any means - they've been quietly putting out sporadic demos for a number of years - but it's very possibly the best so far.

First track, The Grip is a beautifully retro slice of bittersweet indie-pop that sounds like it's just been smoking spliffs in a Manchester bedsit, circa 1990. If Bloc Party started mainlining Nytol, stopped listening to The Cure, and sacked their drummer, they'd sound like this. Layered guitars (like the Mary Chain but without the feedback), married to a killer bass line that could easily have been nicked from Peter Hook (it wasn't), and a gorgeous lovelorn vocal, add up to, and let's not ponce about the privet here - one simply fucking great song. Second track How Can I Explain is a different proposition, a lo-fi slice of psychedelia underpinned by a mournful piano line, backing a suitably minimalist acoustic guitar riff.

The lyrics are startlingly honest, stark almost - She's not my woman, I'm not her skin ... How can I say that I'm lost without you, that I don't know what to do when you're not there? - and what bleeds through the track from the very beginning is that horrendous feeling of having been completely destroyed, a feeling that you can only ever get when your girlfriend's just chucked you at three in the morning, leaving you standing outside a nightclub in the freezing cold, crying like a great big girl. And it's raining. And you've spent your taxi fare.

Real or imagined, you can feel the hurt in the words, and that's the mark of a smart piece of songwriting. Plus, it sounds quite a bit like Looper (some time label mates of Belle & Sebastian), and that can only be A Very Good Thing Indeed, as anyone who has ever heard Looper's brilliant Up A Tree album will no doubt testify. So, you still don't know who The North Pole are, and you still don't know whether you like them or not, but you should now at least know whether you want to (clue: yes). In which case, seek and ye shall find...

More info, and the CD itself of course, is available at the band's official website: www.northpole-music.co.uk (which has been down recently, but this should be temporary) and at their MySpace area, www.myspace.com/northpolemusic (where you can get your hands on four downloadable tracks, including the two reviewed here). Enjoy.

Album Reviews - CD Reviews - Make It Better Later - Music By Numbers By Kelpy D Pictures by Anna Drake
	I was thoroughly unprepared for this. For what just issued forth from my CD player. So much so I grabbed my laptop and began to write, shocked into action by a band with a sense of humour to rival their creative vision. My stereo had been turned up to a volume appropriate for a single man in his front room dancing to Gold by Spandau Ballet in the vain hope of Read more...

Album Reviews - The Sesh 4 Compilation CD By Joe Hakim
	I'm going to start off by mentioning just how good the overall quality of The Sesh 4 CD is. In the past, the production has varied in quality from track to track, but each and every track on this CD sounds as though it has come fresh from a big studio. This, combined with Darren Rogers' simple yet slick cover-design, has resulted in a product Read more...

Album Reviews - Delta - The Life and Times of Jim Vallie and Sweet Rosalyn By Michelle Dee
	Naomi and Grainger, have known each other since they were seven years old and now they are both twenty five, are busy promoting their first album. They play their own take on the soul pop sound with heart and feeling. Naomi's voice on opener Ten years in Harlem is powerful, soulful at times warm and invites the listener in. The song has strong lines with a standout Read more...

Album Reviews - Liv Kristine Enter My Religion on (Road Runner Records) By Michelle Dee
	Since receiving this disc from www.manillapr.com it has lain on my desk at home on top of the ever growing pile of demos and promos. I have played it on a number of times in order to absorb what she and her music are about. I came up with synth led moody pop intermittently good. The first track Over the Moon was catchy enough for Read more...

Album Reviews - CrackTown - There Must And Shall Be Midgets (an appraisal) By Michelle Dee
	A consumer of CrackTown am I, with songs irrepressible and wry. You would be mistaken, for the thought they'd forsaken, here's the second album we cry. Music to bring you out of your gloom, an antidote by the shovel not a spoon. They might well be misfits, there must and shall be midgets, hark the piper, calls a different tune. When CrackTown recorded their first Read more...

Album Reviews - Last Gang - Beat of Blue (48 Crash Records - Limited edition 7" vinyl and download) - Reviewed By Nick Quantrill Release Date : 30th October 06
	If you like your guitar-pop with a bit of kick and bite, then you could do a lot worse than to check out one of Yorkshire's best kept secrets. It's taken a while for this debut release to materialize, but the slow and steady approach looks set to pay dividends, especially now that influential figures in the music industry such as Steve Lamacq are beginning to Read more...

Album Reviews - Delta (A.KA.) Naomi and Grainger E.P. By Michelle Dee
	I received this EP early summer just as the days were getting hotter. I played it through and wrote some notes on the back of an envelope and then what happens, I put the envelope down in a pile and promptly lose it. It turns up, well half of it some weeks later and I spend the next few days staring at half of the words trying to remember what else was there. Read more...

Album Reviews - 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) Read more...

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...

Music Band News - iLiKETRAiNS Terra Nova Single (Fierce Panda Records) Release Date: 29th May 06
	Sandman described their last single nothing short of phenomenal and A Rook House For Bobby sold out in two days. Room Thirteen.com proclaimed the song, released through the KiDS label, an unequivocal masterpiece. thisisUll.com described the band as epic and malevolent after the Leeds five piece stole the show at Scarborough's Read more...

Single Reviews - Gregory Darling - That'll Be The Day (F.O.D) Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	This exceptionally talented singer-songwriter has certainly had an extraordinary career in the music business to date, having worked with the infamous likes of Julian Lennon and ace producer Tony Visconti, and having recorded with the likes of Faster Pussycat in the past. Now, he's showing off his songwriting talents on his own terms, and in doing so now delivers his Read more...

Single Reviews - Mogwai - Friend Of The Night (PIAS Recordings) Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	Mogwai have undoubtedly been one of the most exciting art-rock bands of the past decade, and so it's with open arms that we welcome these five lads back with this new single that's taken from their new album, Mr Beast. Their tear-jerking and spine-chilling Friend Of The Night single is melodramatically enchanting, as a subtly rousing patchwork of sublime Read more...

Music Band News - Ernest Double A Side Puppies /Preggie Single Released through Sonic Vista Recordings Release Date: June 19th 2006
	They have been called the most under rated band in Hull. They find new life long fans whenever, wherever they play. They do spectacular things with lights, sounds and bubbles. They play jaw droppingly good music. They are Ernest, the one, the only Ernest. They have signed to Sonic Vista Recordings and are preparing to release a very special Double Aside Read more...