The Empire State - "There Was A Hero"

Gender testing athletes, pan-Continental legal kerfuffles, banning festival flags, and demonstrations against equality in healthcare; just what on earth is going on in the world these days? Some common sense, that is what we're after, sitting down to observe the world from a sedentary position away from the madcap, the panic of for-the-hell-of-it news print, the rise in unnecessary worries.

And while you're sitting there world-watching, listen to some Empire State, the Lancashire band with a heavy dose of Turin Brakes and unplugged Manics about them. The mood through "There Was A Hero" is essentially contemplative with "Found Me In Your Photographs" a typical example of their mature take on topics so often wrung dry. Your standard indie band the Empire State are not, this EP is sober in all senses of the word. Its title track is a genuine and moving song not too far removed from "Local Boy In The Photograph" for those Stereophonics fans still around to admit such things.

Glasto Ferret

Preston's Mad Ferret is hosting its regular antidote to cramming in a bus down south with another "Glasto Ferret", this year packed with more emerging talent than a fire-drill at the studios for Britain's Next Top Model. From whom, I have picked some tasty names for delight, but this weekend there's the promise of ice-cream from a real-life frozen pudding truck in addition to the bands, beats, and beer. Anymore could you ask in all honesty...?

Mindshock are the definition of intriguing, the unique vocal twang (think Brandon Flowers with hiccups) setting a serious slant to leftfield songs. Their new EP "Dream Story" is on offer a iTunes and should be a vital purchase.

Raucous riff-crazed The Adventures of Loki are all the fun of British Bulldogs in the playground, with more playful boy/girl on-stage action than would be permitted overseas. When they suggest listeners "Dance Like A Maniac" only space disallows doing just that - the punching melodies are just half the story. For a full spec, they must be watched live - nay, witnessed - with anticipation turned higher than the speakers.

No festival, anywhere, can occur without madcap beardy loving, so ensuring all daughters are zipped securely away, The Loungs are one combine harvester away from perfection. With the full brass and cheery harmonies any sane person could ask for, this is the kind of sound you don't know you'll regret missing unless you do.

Underdogs have the sincerity and presence to convince you that they're running through your favourite songs, such is the strength of their infections, intelligent set. Dragging indie through strip-clubs and backstreet bars to toughen it up a little, avoidance of this highly impressive band is probably going to be harder the way things are going.

Swooning and sweeping melodies, the very sound of Kate Bush playing hopscotch in the rain, Sophie's Pigeons are alluring and magnetic, quite the curtain-twitchingly curious. In most cases they are not even trying to be impressive, the piano-led abundance of fun pours out sounding perfectly natural and feeling positively renewing.

Throughout the weekend from 26-28th June, there are over a dozen more outstanding groups from nearabouts, enough to tempt you from Wimbledon, clearing out the cupboards, or spending time with any significant other (they'll understand....)

Bikini Black Special - The Grim Mathematics Of Intercourse

Sounding like MGMT fronted by a Bond Girl, electronica group Bikini Black Special are menacing and intense, broken glass sharp throughout their debut album "The Grim Mathematics of Intercourse".

In place of abandonment and summer beach anthems, tight rock beats and layered samples roll and crash, the album veritably stuffed with the equivalent of speeding freight-trains of styles and additions following each other. Throbbing bass, trip-hop beats, vocals crunched and wrapped in white noise: this is a paradox of an album, hyperactive but paranoid, serious while celebratory.

While the crafting of each track is clear and potentially restrictive, "Grim Mathematics" will not fail to hook in any listener - be it the evangelical fervour of "Black Hat" or the techno revivalism in "Repo Men". The phrase "Bikini Black Special" refers to one of the highest levels of alert state used by the Ministry of Defense, with no defined target; the tracks here should put the exciting band on the highest state of alert, undoubted better things should follow.

The album "The Grim Mathematics of Intercourse" can be found http://bikiniblackspecial.bandcamp.com/album/the-grim-mathematics-of-intercourse

The band can be found at http://www.bikiniblackspecial.com/

"The Grim Mathematics of Intercourse" is launched at The Mad Ferret in Preston on 20 June

The Cities / The Northwestern

Appearing live at Mad Ferret
in Preston on Saturday 6th, two bands to keep up the heat of the summer with intense live reputations stacking up behind them

Local lads The Cities cram a novel of heartfelt lyrics into each song, a veritable thick-fruit smoothie of rolling melodies sweet with the bitter aftertaste of life's lessons learned. Stand out tracks "Cold, and "Scar".

The big draw for the night is surely The Northwestern, the uplifting and optimistic band formed from Sam Herilhy and Simon Jones from highly regarded former Sony post-rock outfit Hope of the States. Together with Franseco Menegat, Ian McCullagh, and Jonny Winter, formerly with The Open, the new group maintain the sweeping guitars and orchestration but switch the introspection for sheer celebration. If you didn't pick up the upturn from final Hope of the States album "Left", it may take you by surprise to hear "All The Ones". Beaming and bright, the expression you can see on Herilhy's face is a smile. You should get used to it, he's clearly enjoying himself.

The gig is at Mad Ferret, Fylde Road, Preston, on Saturday 6th June.


Picture of The Cities from Michael Holdsworth
Also appearing on the night are Underdogs and The Fifty 50's

The Nightjars

"I'm sorry I don't really feel that way..."

With this melancholic tough to single 'Valentine', Manchester's current names-to-drop might suggest the usual indie reflection. Repeated listens to their new eponymous album shows how far they are from anything "usual"; indeed appropriately named track "Logic Has No Part In It" takes their respectful love for REM and Velvet Underground into playful time-switching areas not too far removed from YouthMovies or The Northwestern.



"Machines Gone Down" should be marked now as a future festival fave, sounding quite brilliantly like the Editors fused with the Kinks, sounds which emerge from the folk of "Valentine" or the acoustic musings of "Crash This Car" ("I can't speak for myself", a silly claim in an album full of wistful, wondrous songwriting).

Unlike the 2008 mini-album "Towards Light", this is not instant or immediate, the beautifully realised collection of songs proving there is still life yet in the age-old practice of allowing an album the freedom of tell its own stories. There are few albums suited to the days when the summer heat is as close at night as at high-noon; the Nightjars is a perfectly placed candidate.


(For those who like scoring systems "■■■■□")

"The Nightjars" CD is released 29 June
The Nightjars can be found at www.myspace.com/thenightjars
and also www.thenightjars.com
Online Press alistairbeech@hotmail.com

New Continental Beer Festival [Day 2]

The fact that the pint of loopy-juice in front of me has not been touched is either because my intake has reached dangerous levels already resulting in a rare moment of brain-sense booze wise, or the indentikit lager is offending the rediscovered love of real ales following another great day at the New Continental Beer Festival. Either snobbery or a skinful - I will take it being the former, for the sake of reputation if nothing else.

At the Continental a brightly dressed Canadian woman is enthusiastically pointing at every barrel with an increasing broad smile. "You guys are so inventive with your beers. You and the Belgians," she laughs, knocking back a few slurps of Bishop's Farewell (Oakham Ales, 4.6%). "Is it 'bishop' as in religion, or chess, you think?" she asks with a self-mocking giggle. "I don't want people to know I can't play chess!". On her recommendation I try the Bishop's, which is a SIBA National Supreme Champion Bronze Award Winner. Impressive stuff, it would seem, and it pleases the Toronto palate. This more robust Lancastrian mouth - with no offence to our colonial cousins - found it bright and friendly but the lasting taste did not match its fragrance.

While I go for the subtle and soft Santium (Pictish, 4.1%) my companion follows my recommendation from yesterday to try the potent Dark Side of the Moon. After a few sips he raises his eyebrows quite highly; "Think I will only have one of these."

With its toffee undertones Farmhouse (Roosters Brewery, 3.9%) is an unsuspecting good find, lightly fizzy and with tangy body. Our favourite bundle of enthusiastic Canadian joy is gleeful in her recommendation of True Grit (Millstone, 5.0%) which really did surprise both my companion and me. The hearty hoppy taste merges into a thoroughly bright and sparkly grapefruit flavour, rounded off with a sour tang not too dissimilar to munching on a slice of lemon.

My companion tries Cartfold Gold (Hart Brewery, 3.6%) while I aim for Cappuchin (Brass Monkey, 4.5%). Both of these lighter pale ales are good for bringing some balance to the onslaught of heavier beers: the former is pretty anonymous but the latter kicks in with a tougher undertone. Despite the good things said by our Canadian friend we both feel disappointed by Bitter and Twisted (Harviestoun, 3.8%) a Scottish ale which is supposed to be one of the beers to try but leaves a rather underwhelming taste. The twist is supposed to be a kick of lemon but nothing seems to come through at all.

The sun is greeted with rushes to the ciders and barbecue, but in the interests of research my companion and I decide to finish with two ales coming with high recommendations - and not just from Canadians. Little Brown Jug (Spire Brewery, 4.4%) is close to Newcastle Brown Ale in colour and taste, albeit with a brown-sugar spice in the aftertaste and a quite stunning smell. "It smells...awful," says my companion, "but if I breathe out before each taste it's really good."

Dark Ruby Mild (Sarah Hughes, 6.0%) was spoken about before hand as the potential winner of the best ale of the festival, so with all the originality of investigative journalism it is the last drink tried. My head throbs a bit, my eyes go a little blurred, and then I take the second slurp for a full-body shock. As a mild it is an intense and angry pint with a sweet punch that calms down in the backnotes which acts like a sparking fire.

The old-guard veterans speak of this being one of the best festivals they can remember. It certainly seems to have gone down very well, even with Canadian women, and what do they know about beer.

New Continental Beer Festival

To Preston's The New Continental Beer Festival (you can find them here - http://www.newcontinental.net/)

The turnout to the 2nd Beer Festival has surprised those helping serve from the one-hundred ales behind them. They dart to and from eager customers like minor celebs in a children's television show participating in one of the more physical and confusing games. Clumps of people form and separate much like any other normal pub crowds although unless within walking distance there is a former Polytechnic, historic railway line, or financial institution, these crowds are more prone to getting out notepads and pencils.

Mixing a love of proper beer and anorak-tendencies towards ticking off every minor brewery in the country is a particular curiosity attracting the particularly curious. If political party conferences draw the kind of crowd which could be identified as such by an alien beaming down from Mars, so too the Beer Festival faithful. Three men turn up wearing t-shirts from past Festivals in the style of gig goers putting on vintage tour t-shirts. Some guard their notepads like Neighbourhood Watch types surreptitiously gathering information about the woman next-door-but-two with the different cars outside the garden every other night. All of them, certainly the lesser spotted dutiful wife, are starting slowly, ponderously, which surely cannot last for the whole four days. Rumour has it the drinks may not last the weekend...

My first drink of the night is Golden Sands (Southport Brewery, 4.0%). As I wait to be served, an older man near by turns to his friend to sneer at the inclusion of perrys. He uses the same voice a golf club member would use upon spotting someone in the club house wearing jeans. The Golden Sands goes down quite quickly: it is light and mildly fruity. I notice my behaviour - nodding on recognising flavours, arms folded, studying the Tasting Notes - has moved me from mere mortal to a lower level Festival junkie. I over hear a woman assure a friend that after two pints she would pull her husband into town. The air around her clears with cynical reactions from gentle coughs to broad, obvious smiles.

I move onto Amarillo (Crouch Vale Brewery, 5.0%). The taste is smooth but nothing comes through of much distinction. The back notes are not obvious enough, the aroma unusually flat. On either side of me, men more noticeably my age point seemingly at random at first until they too show the anorak, veteran realities. "Has to be Pictish ales next, mate, they were the highlights at Leicester".

Glotts Hop (Howard Town Brewery, 5.0%) is my next choice, and blows all the work stress out of my head. The heavy spice brings with it the slightest suggestion of fizziness. My head begins to swell until another gulp washes over the brain with a hoppy fullness.

At this point I am cornered inbetween the trumpeter on one side and old lads on a session on the other. My main correspondent tells me about other Festivals like a music journalist would namecheck bands and gigs. Goosnargh, I am told, does a good run of ales. Somewhere on the outskirts of Leeds, too. He suggests Farmhouse (Roosters Brewery, 4.3%) which has a deep, unusually sweet taste, with the back note of a Wham bar. Using his table as my base for the evening, I stride over to try Ginger Marble (Marble Beers, 4.5%). It is like drinking a gingerbread man, the reaction to which seems to appear all over my face. Am I in danger of not being accepted as a Festival old-hat if I can't take my ginger ale? I stand firm, cross my arms like my dad would, peer over the other drinkers, nod. A group of younger men have been joined on a round table by two older types sharing notes. I hear someone suggest moving down from the strongest ale to the weakest, someone else thinks the opposite would be better. Tough, serious business this ale festival lark...

To end this opening night I choose Dark Side Of The Moon (Spire Brewery, 4.3%). This seems to be the choice of everyone, with word spreading of its quality. "I used to be into subpop, you know, before Nirvana released that....what was it....blue cover, baby....Anyway, that came along and we all thought, 'Shit, okay, grunge is big, time to move on," so we did. Upstairs attic conversion in Plungy, bit of reefer going on, Floyd. Oh yes, mate, oh yes." My friend approves. He sounds like Steve Coogan's Saxondale, which I guess means I am only a few years from sounding the same. This particular version of Dark Side holds a lot in common with its seminal album namesake, the depth and texture, the ease with which it settles the brain but slightly confuses the palate.

With so many choices - okay, yes, there are ciders and perrys - the first two days of the all-weekend stretch will be the days to go for total satisfaction. Like so many train spotters down the years I leave with a notepad of facts and figures, all set for the next timetabled departure. All set, all aboard...