Guillemots, I’m looking at you. Their last couple of albums showed a lot of potential, a fair amount of pretension (possibly to be expected from a band fronted by a bloke whose first name is Fyffe; Fyffe, for fucks sake) but a smattering of good tunes. Their latest single ‘Get Over It!’ – an exclamation mark in a title is usually a sound indicator that bad things lie that way – is excruciatingly awful. And I mean Robbie Williams, Rudebox awful. It sounds like the theme tune to one of those BBC Saturday Morning kid shows they ran when Going Live was on holiday. There is a backing part which sounds like the noise a brain-damaged deer makes after you have run it over but before you bring the spade down to end the misery. It is NOT GOOD. Sadly, having listened to the album, it is one of the highlights.
Guillemots have tried to deflect attention away from this sonic assault on the senses by intimating that none other than Sir Paul McCartney has expressed an interest in working with them. That’s just the sort of collaboration Macca needs -people who used to know pop but have lost the ability to write a decent tune. Talk about the blind leading the blind there?
Next up, Portishead. I have a confession – I was never that big a fan. To me, they were always beloved by white indie kids who wanted to pretend they liked the Bristol scene but found Tricky just too mental. But still, ‘Glory Box’ was a tune, and when it comes on it still makes me laugh because I think the title refers to fannies, and even if it doesn’t, it could do, and that makes me laugh. But yes, I’d admit they knew their way round a gloomy Trip-Hop tune. Their new single ‘Machine Gun’ though – is it a joke? Are they trying to take the piss? Beth warbles away like some pissed up madwoman at the Cambridge folk festival, apparently unaware that that geeky looking cunt is making noises like a machine gun in the studio next door. Over and over and over. Come to fuck guys, is that the best you could do? Someone phone for Dizzee Rascal, all is forgiven. That tune made up of mobile phone bleeps sounds like ‘Addagio’ compared to this. I imagine if diseases had a sound, then leprosy would sound like this.
And a fiver says that Jo Whiley still sounds like she’s about to secrete smug ladysoak into her designer knickers when she plays it. You knows it.
So, must try harder folks. Or just fuck off and leave us alone. You are making me worry about the My Bloody Valentine reunion.
Filed under: General Stuff Tagged: | Guiilemots, portishead
