Monday, 18 February 2013

Hello! Scotland Certainly Has Some Good Bands Huh?


I’ve never been good at introductions, but due to the fact for ONE WEEK ONLY I’ve been given the keys to the Scottish Fiction Kingdom now would probably be a good time…

Hey there faithful readers.
To most folks in my life I am known by the name Kyle Wood but around the age of 17 I decided that wasn‘t very eye grabbing for an emotive acoustic project so I straddled myself with the moniker ‘Lovers Turn to Monsters’ a name I guess you may - or may not have seen around town.
If not I’ll give you a catch up.  LTTM is a one man musical entity which gives me an excuse to drink whiskey, pretend I’m Lou Barlow and occasionally write lo-fi love songs.  The times though are indeed-a-changing as for the next week alongside my usual duties I shall become the ‘acting editor’ of everyone’s favourite Scottish music blog - Scottish Fiction (sorry Jim!)
So in the coming days you can expect things to be a tad different.  You can most probably expect me to be: promoting my pals, promoting myself, an awkward Tumblr level of personal detail and some other nonsense along the way.  I’m a man who likes variation.

To start the proceedings though I thought it would be suitable to give a run down of bands I look forward to hearing more of in the very futuristic sounding year of 2013.  In a hope to let you guys know where I stand and the such.  Someone also once told me gifts get people on your side, so with that in mind I opted to record a cover of each artists in my own special LTTM way and shoved them together on a little free EP.  Which can be downloaded below exclusively through Scottish Fiction:



Catherine, 1956 - PAWS

I had saw PAWS name around Glasgow for months and months but due to my stubborn nature for some reason had never got around to listening to them.  Even when I seen that they’d been signed to Fat Cat Records home of Frightened Rabbit, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Gregory & The Hawk and too many other fantastic bands to mention I still never batted an eye.  Then as the end of the years ‘Best Albums Of 2012’ rolled in, every other blog sited PAWS 'Cokefloat!' as their #1 choice.  The following week I gave in.  Huffing and puffing I went through the album track by track one gloomy January morning…
There’s a happy ending to the story though, 'cause of course as you may well know the album is bloody stupendous!  Amongst 'Cokefloat!' (which crash-lands stylistically somewhere in between sunny '90's grunge and adolescent pop punk) no track manages though to capture the rawness and tummy warming sound of the band as its opening track.  Now at the head of Glasgow’s indie label CATH records PAWS, if not busying themselves this year with a second album, will definitely be pushing some of Glasgow's best up and coming acts.

We Sleep Back to Back - So Many Animal Calls


If you have managed not to hear the tightly wrapped emo rock of So Many Animal Calls this year you have most definitely been living in some variety of cave or you were just really really busy.  In 2012 they clocked up plenty of mileage!  They released their first single 'Traps' to glowing reviews on the Glasgow based label Overlook Records, toured Scotland with close friends and local favourites Carnivores and managed to get a slot on the main stage at Rockness!  All in all a good year I‘d say.
I’ve been a fan of So Many Animal Calls from the moment I heard their first release 'Your House Is A Hospice' way back in 2010 but my levels of intrigue continued to increased when they roped in the skills of bass player Ross Coll who at the time was a member of one of my favourite Glasgow bands the (now defunct) Little Yellow Ukuleles.  From then on in the band went from strength to strength and with a new EP and tour in the pipeline I have a strong feeling it’s only going to get better for everyone's favourite pop rockers.

Bud - Honeyblood


Although Honeyblood vocalist Stina Marie Tweeddale led Glasgow pop rockers Boycotts, Honeyblood appeared from basically nowhere in my music scene peripherals.  The first I heard or saw them was performing their song ‘Biro’ on the rather brilliant Detour internet show.  Although I never really got into Boycotts I had always been a fan of Tweeddale’s vocals and could remember listening to a few of her more folk based solo numbers in the glory days of Myspace.  Honeyblood though in my eyes are the perfect setting for Tweeddales songs.  Her folky melodies seem in a better place accented with heavy handed wall of noise pop rock rather than crowded by edgy indie guitars.  The duo (completed by Kiwi drummer Rah) are definitely one of the bands I look most forward to hearing more of in 2013.  With an EP release slated for spring/summer time good things are most definitely expected.

The Mother We Share - CHVRCHES


CHVRCHES.  See: Every other music blog in the world ever.

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Anyway, yeah.  Enjoy.

Talk to y'all soon.

x

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