Review: RoughTrade Record Store Day

 

 

Rough Trade always puts on a good show for Record Store Day – good selection of the limited releases, early opening for breakfast, DJs in the courtyard and live music throughout the day. We headed along to get our tabs round some live tunes.

 

First up are Nottingham band Keto aka singer Leah Sanderson, backed with a keyboard player for this gig. The first two songs are played on acoustic guitar, the sound given some depth by the keyboard, sounding like the modern folk of First Aid Kit.

Then the electric guitar comes out, although initially the finger picking technique remains. For the last two songs, Leah switches to strumming, which adds extra menace to the line “baby won’t you be my friend” on Baby. A good, little set is concluded with What We Do, the title track from Keto’s recent EP.

 

 

The next band, PINS from Manchester, are a different proposition altogether. The first song sets the manifesto with the chorus, “Everyone says that we’re no good, we don’t do what we should”. Wild Nights had one of those great Definitely Maybe-esque guitar riffs.

It would be incredibly lazy journalism to refer to them as a female Oasis just because they’re a five-piece from Manchester. However, I’m nothing if not lazy and Young Girls with its “what will we do when our dreams come true” refrain brought to mind those early Oasis tracks about dreams such as Fade Away.

Death’s Door has more of late ’70s sound, with its electric drums and Undertones-esque “erratic/static” rhyme. Frontwoman Faith Holgate has a proper presence about her, despite the clichéd sunglasses and leather jacket. She leads the way as part of the twin tambourine attack on If I Was. It doesn’t quite quote from Monkey’s Gone To Heaven with lyrics, “if I was God”, “if I was an ape” and “if I was a man”. They end on a high with the excellent Waiting For The End, which would have fitted perfectly on the Dum Dum Girls’ debut album.

Then it’s Lee Southall from The Coral. He went on hiatus from the band in 2015 so that he could look after his recently born daughter and write his first solo album. Much like former band mate Bill Ryder-Jones, he took his time, making sure that everything was right before finally releasing the album the day before Record Store Day.

Opener Misty May contains The Coral’s DNA but with a more grown-up sound, although that could just be because one man on his own, playing acoustic guitar always sounds a bit more grown-up. Yesterday Morning was written for his daughter but Lee admits that she prefers Barbie Girl (which just happens to have been re-released on 7″ picture disc for Record Store Day) Sometimes these sort of songs can be awful but this one works by virtue of being not as sappy as Wonderboy by The Kinks nor as outright terrible as Little James by Oasis.

The title track from the album, Iron In The Fire has lyrics on the album but due to its complex four-part harmonies that Lee can’t reproduce on his own, it’s presented as just an instrumental. Of all the songs here, Spread Your Wings sounds most like The Coral. Although the lyrics in closing song, In Accordance; “he drowned in a dark wine sea” show that these aren’t the early playful sea shanty type Coral songs. Maybe it’s the accent but these sound like the sort of songs that you’d expect to hear on a much-anticipated Lee Mavers’ solo album.

Words & Photos by Gav Squires

@GavSquires