Little Brother Eli – Little Brother Eli EP

You’d think with The Strypes hitting the scene there’d be a tsunami of rock and roll, and blues rock bands buzzing all over the place. Woodstock would be relived, rockstars would set their guitars on fire again and we’d start taking tabs whilst listening to Hendr…Well yeah that does seem a bit far fetched. But despite The Strypes’ recent (and possibly given to them on a silver platter for singing pretentious songs) success, there’s been a serious lack of blues bands, especially the more mature ones. If you really did want something interesting and current though, you’d find yourself all over the internet and end up at Little Brother Eli’s EP.

EP opener Animal Fair has the classic blues opener of the singer crooning with impeccable power, leading to the the fuzz of the guitar charging through the song. The riff is pretty catchy too, but the production of an unsigned band becomes quite evident here with the fuzz occasionally overwhelming the whole song, and the screeches of the guitar making me wince. The breakdown doesn’t do much to the song except propel the following solo. And oh man, does this make the song, I just wish it was longer.

From their website, Soundcloud tags, and Facebook page, Little Brother Eli make a point to tell the world their hip-hop influence. It’s not too explicit, in fact the subtlety of it is really refreshing. A lovely fusion of blues, rock and hip-hop, without sounding like Nu-Metal? Yeah I can live with that. I get a hint of Justin Timberlake in track two Awkward Positions, and who wouldn’t love that? The song flows along with a jazzy drum beat, warbling chords, and a lead that’d remind anyone of the most tempting femme fetal. There’s something special about the singer of this band, his vocal range is pretty wide and he could easily go absolutely massive with his delivery.

The EP closer When She Sings, though is the special one. The soft, feel good, reminiscent of Little Joy album closer that could soundtrack any love story. The vocals in this are just beautiful while the singer fluctuates the melody so modestly. And just for the hell of it what do Little Brother Eli do? Incorporate some ska-type guitar work to give it even more of a dance-y mood. As the song gets heavier to add more depth in places, the melody just makes it all the more sweeter when at the same time backing vocals bless the track. Ending back on the classic acoustic guitar, well, it’s almost too good to be true isn’t it?

Little Brother Eli love their classics, and this first EP bleeds classics. It’s likeable, fun to listen to, and really catchy in some places too. Although at times production is a bit rusty, and the songwriting seem a bit immature, the substance is there nonetheless. I can only see them developing into a band that’ll define their sound later on to form something very great indeed.

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Words by Saagar Kaushik

@bhench0d

6/10

 

The Coral – Dreaming of you – 13/03/2012 – AW

The Coral

Probably shouldn’t writing this while I’m listening to Paul Weller’s new album ‘Sonik kicks’, which sounds promising so far, three tracks in ad quite good, it’s another step in the ‘Wake up the nation’ direction, which isn’t a bad thing just prefer his acoustic stuff, so there will probably a post about that album tomorrow, gimme chance to listen to it.

Anyway, I’m supposed to be bloggin about The Coral, yeah, well I chose to do write about this song because I heard it on the radio today and I thought, “shit, ain’t heard this in a while, this is fucking great”, and that’s when I decided to write about it. So, The Coral? They started in 1996, and are still doing stuff now, don’t think they’re doing a fat lot though because haven’t really heard about them for a while.

This is probably one of their most recognised songs, it featured on their debut album entitled ‘The Coral’, and only got to #15 in the charts, which I’m surprised about because it’s a catchy little song, which the public normally like and adhere to. They’ve got other great songs, buy the ‘best of The Coral’ and you’ll know what I mean, can’t be arsed to go through em’ all getting tired, feel like rubbish and still gotta do my 20 minutes on the bike (getting fit and that). I’m sure everyone has heard it somewhere, it’s one of those songs you’ve just heard of, whether it was when you was walking the dog and the man walking driving past has got it playing his car, an advert, your mate playing it, there is so many ways you could of heard it and you probably have. You only have to listen to one second of it, then you will be able to remember it.

The Coral