ALL MAPPED OUT

The Departure

It's always nice to start off the week listening to high quality single. Unfortunately, the first single I heard this week was the O-Zone effort, still, on the bright side things can only improve from there. And improve they do, because this is great. It's hard to believe this is their first single and I'll tell you what, they've really hit the ground running. The sleeve is the first indicator that things could be good - there are no band pictures, just a grey sleeve with some lines etched onto it. This is a very encouraging sign, it means more work's gone into the music than the cover (Westlife take note). Another good sign - the singer's not trying to sing with an American accent like some British bands. It's a little thing, but it annoys me. The song's a bit of a mish-mash of different styles, you get rock, dance, funk, all sorts in there but it all fits together like a charm. It's hard to believe that this time last year The Departure didn't even exist and here they are with one of the best singles I've heard in ages. Funny old world. Not only that, but they're a local-ish band too, they're from Northampton, so if Northampton can produce a band that can hit the Top 30 first time out, perhaps one day Milton Keynes will be represented. Hopefully by a decent band, too.

SUMMER

Charlotte Hatherley

When band members go solo, their first single is usually compared to their previous output whether they like it or not, usually along the lines of "he / she should have stuck to the day job" or "now I know why somebody else usually does the singing". I'm trying hard not to see this as an Ash single and, I won't kid you, it's damned hard work. From the start, you can tell which particular band Charlotte Hatherley has taken time out from, but then, if you've spent the last seven years rocking out with Tim Wheeler and his mates, you're hardly going to kick off your solo career with a song written by Kylie Minogue, are you? Imagine a typical Ash song, not the guitars or the singing or anything like that, but the actual structure of the song, the way Tim Wheeler sings, things like that. Now imagine it with fairly jolly sounding guitars, pianos, (this is the obvious bit) a female singer and a general feeling of cheerfulness that's practically dripping off the edges of the single and that's Summer all over. It won't win any awards and it won't be troubling the Top 40 for very long, but I like it and that's good enough for me.

L.S.F.

Kasabian

What the hell's going on here? Everything I've reviewed this week is good! Things are very wrong somewhere. Oh well, while I'm here I might as well tell you why this song's not rubbish. For starters, it's not a retread of Club Foot (that'll be their last single). That was heavy stuff that was, still good though. I suppose the easiest way to describe this is as something that sounds as though it started out life as a dance track and over time, it gradually evolved into something that you could conceivably still dance to, but probably never will. God that sounds pretentious, but it'll do. There are twinkly noises, plenty of keyboards and electronic stuff, but there's still a real band in there somewhere and that's what makes the difference. For a start, there's a proper drummer doing what he's paid for and as for the singer, there's no way he's ever been to the Tony Di Bart Singing School in his life and the song's all the better for it. There's more good news if you're a student too. The poster that comes with the 10" format easily covers half a room, it's huge. I could have done with a poster that size when I was living in student accomodation back in my university days (and I do mean days) because after many years of students putting up and taking down posters the only thing that could possibly have been holding up the wallpaper was magic.