Music

Nosferatu D2 split up in 2007 and yet here we are witnessing the release of their album, only a couple of years late and not the result of the band but of someone called Jamie Halliday who claims to specialise in commercial suicide. On this basis, who could argue? Clearly he’s a big fan of the band, though one hopes he doesn’t have them tattooed on his stomach and only owns the one mug…

‘Miranda formerly of The Bis’ the poster outside read. Ouch. Luckily, someone had the sense to grab a marker pen and rectify this. It’s a) Manda and b) just Bis, none of that ‘the’ nonsense.

Only that now it’s not Bis. For Bis have split quite some time ago and it’s about time people recognise young Amanda as a popstress in her own right.

At long last! Something new from Belfast’s bestest electropopsters! Quick, everyone gather round and adore this band! If you like synths and perfect pop songs, you will love this. No really, you bloody well will.

Up until now I didn’t even know this venue existed. Looks like the evil Barfly people are expanding left, right and centre. The venue is okay, if a little small and the sound is abysmal. Mind you, never trust a sound engineer with dreadlocks.

I'll begin with the promotional literature because it left me fairly confused. In a bid to be whimsically clever it manages to tell me nothing about the band except that they dislike Bono and Johnny Borrell and (presumably) they hate writing biographies. Don't we all, but this doesn't give you carte blanche to write something as bad as this:

Superman Revenge Squad is one man, formerly half of Nosferatu D2, formerly a third of Tempertwig, so clearly worthy of attention. One man and a guitar is generally not the most arresting of things musically and even the best songsmiths can be rendered dull and empty by the process, but SRS avoids this somehow.

2007 has been a good year for the Helen Love fan collective. A new album and a new single! You have to import it from Spain still, because it isn’t out in the UK yet (argh!). It is lovely though. The cover is particularly pleasant – it has a girl with good hair and headphones on it. Whoever this is, I do want to go to her clubnight. No really, I do.

It’s My Club is a fun, partly vocodered discoey number. We got bubblegum punkrock disco soul … we got glitter dance floors … we got backbeat, baby. Ooooh, do you really?

This is very much a personal take on 2007 and shouldn't be taken as the view of the site as a whole, if the site could be considered to have such a thing.

10. Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound

Not Shellac's best record and I debated leaving it out for a long time and bringing in maybe Liars or Thurston Moore at the bottom. There are eight great tracks and one (Genuine Lulabelle) that's usually a stinker unless you're in the mood for a bit of rambling nonsense, but those other eight are really good. The main issue is that the Peel sessions of End of Radio, Paco, Steady as She Goes and Spoke are all much meatier sounding and possibly better takes. Surely everyone prefers "Play the drums!" to be barked out rather than murmured quietly? I do, but then maybe that's just because that's how I heard it first. So I decided to ignore the 'spoiling' nature of what I'd downloaded and consider how great I'd have thought all these songs were if it was my first listen. Certainly a better record than 1000 Hurts, maybe better than Terraform and deserving of a position in the top 10.

Mobile phone network’s web sites are supposed to be making life easier, not more difficult. You’re supposed to log in and access everything with ease.

I’ve had the same mobile number for seven years, and still haven’t managed to access this web site. Not even once. Password no working. Password reset not working. Web site down. Email address wrong. The list goes on.

All I’m trying to do is find out what phone I can get as an upgrade. This time I’m intending on doing this in a more informed fashion than last time where I just rang and declared I wanted ‘the pretty red round one off the telly!’. (the pretty red round phone wasn’t so good. It got in a halestorm and hasn’t been right ever since).

A co-release from the people that brought you the lovely Oppenheimer (Smalltown America), and the people that brought you Tiny Masters of Today initially (Tigertrap).

The innovative packaging (you have to rip it open and the damage is irrepairable, because it involves tearing a strip of paper off) will have collectors either in tears or buying two copies (so they can keep a mint one in their cupboard).