Los Campesinos! have announced that they’ll be hitting the road in October with LA based No Age and Ohio’s Times New Viking. They’re calling it the “Shred Yr Face tour”, and it’s taking place in association with the Coalition / Rough Trade Shops and Drowned in Sound.

Los Campesinos! have also given members of their mailing list a free MP3 of a track which didn’t quite make their debut album:
MP3: Los Campesinos! - How I Taught Myself To Scream

Tickets are on sale now, priced between £10 and £12 for each date.

Tuesday 14th October - Brighton Komedia
Wednesday 15th October - Liverpool Carling Academy 2
Thursday 16th October - Leeds Irish Centre
Friday 17th October - Dublin Whelans
Saturday 18th October - Glasgow School of Arts
Monday 20th October - London Electric Ballroom
Tuesday 21st October - Bristol Fleece
Wednesday 22nd October - Manchester Academy 3

Recently I’ve had a bit of a thing for lo-fi pop. You know, basic, raw pop tunes that sound like somebody’s scrabbled them together in about ½ an hour, but still have the power to draw vivid pictures. Fresh from supporting Los Campesinos! And Tokyo Police Club, ultCult are the latest band to catch my attention, sounding remarkably fresh and like they’re in a complete world of their own.

Radio 1’s Huw Stevens loves them, and whilst normally I’m not a huge fan of his picks, he’s on the money with ultCult. The tunes on their myspace all sound like they should be the soundtrack to a dreamy Skins episode, like the homemade demos of Patrick Wolf or Lykke Li.

Lead singer Lucille’s vocals sound remarkably fragile, like a singer who has yet to be corrupted by the remarkably vicious UK music industry. She reminds me a bit of a younger version of Lesley Feist (of 1,2,3,4, fame), particularly on Odious Emporium, which is below for free download.

Just back from Iceland where they recorded their debut single, the Yorkshire four piece look set to have a busy year ahead, based upon the already glowing response they’ve had. If you want to catch them live, they play London’s Macbeth on Friday 8th August, and Doncaster’s Vintage Rockbar on Sunday 14th September.

Free MP3: ultCult - Odious Emporium (demo)

The Pigeon Detectives, Fratellis, Zutons and CSS have all been announced to be headlining their own three night UK and Ireland tours for MTV as part of their “Brand Spanking New” tours. Some of the best names and up and coming names in the music biz will be making their way around the country, playing venues smaller than they normally do. So be sure to get your tickets when they go on sale on Friday (7th March) at 9am.

The Pigeon Detectives / The Metros / The Rascals
Monday 28th April - Cambridge Junction
Tuesday 29th April - London Islington Academy
Wednesday 30th April - Liverpool Academy

The Fratellis / The Ting Tings / Alphabeat
Sunday 27th April - Cambridge Junction
Monday 28th April - London Islington Academy
Tuesday 29th April - Liverpool Carling Academy

The Zutons / One Night Only / The Script
Sunday 4th May - Cardiff University
Monday 5th May - Glasgow ABC
Tuesday 6th May - Dublin Academy

CSS / The Futureheads / MGMT
Monday 5th May - Cardiff University
Tuesday 6th May - Glasgow ABC
Wednesday 7th May - Dublin Academy

Radiohead, always ones to go against the grain of the music business, have announced a new album. And it’s out in just 10 days online, and about 2 months in the shops.

“In Rainbows” has 10 tracks, and is available online from 10th October, and in a discbox from 3rd December.

The band are also trialling the innovative idea that people choose how much they’re willing to pay for the album - you can have the digital download for free if you want. But you don’t get all of the extras that the full CD version gets. And it’s also not very fair.

Very good marketing lads. Great idea. I’ve ordered my copy - make sure you get yours too!

Tracklisting:

1. 15 Step
2. Bodysnatchers
3. Nude
4. Weird Fishes / Arpeggi
5. All I need
6. Faust Arp
7. Recknoner
8. House of Cards
9. Jigsaw Falling into Place
10. Videotape

When a band has a slow burner hit such as the New Pornographer’s Twin Cinema or The National’s Alligator, their follow-up effort has an incredible burden of expectation placed upon them. Sometimes they manage it (see The National’s Boxer – Alligator’s equal if not better), and other times they just miss the mark, as is the case with “Challengers”.

Challengers is their fourth album and all expectations were pointing towards it being another indie-pop classic such as Twin Cinema, having the fun, slightly chaotic vibe that made them so many fans. However, Challengers has much more of a “morning after the chaotic party” vibe. Many of the songs suffer from too much production, taking away any sort of feeling or atmosphere, and as I mentioned earlier this year it sounds too much like AC Newman’s project instead of the Canadian Super-Group they were way back. The energy gone, the collection is like a Canadian version of a Feeder album – all consistently good tracks, just all a bit samey and nothing new or innovative, which is a shame given their debut Mass Electric, and their third album, Twin Cinema.

When they break into “All The Things That Go To Make Heaven And Earth” early into the album I couldn’t help but feel that things were going to go on an up, however how wrong I was when 2 minutes in you realise it’s just repetitive, lacking in any of the power-pop juice songs like The Bleeding Heart Show had.

As the album progresses things get better, with an air of managing to master the pomp and circumstance of an end-of-film soundtrack, rather than soundtracking the party. “Adventures in Solitude” is a slow builder that manages to capture a snippet of the magic Twin Cinema once managed. Followed by album closer “The Spirit of Giving In” the pair provide the standout tracks to the album. A campfire sing-along, it manages to capture a tiny bit of their old magic.

Perhaps this lacklustre album is partly down to the lack of Neko Case and Dan Bejar playing the large roles that they used to in the band, or perhaps it’s just a running out of energy as the band members focus more on side projects. Either way, it’s an okay collection, but by no means a match for Twin Cinema.

One of my favourite bands of the last few years, She Wants Revenge are back in October with a new album.

“This is Forever” is released stateside on Tuesday 9th October, with thirteen tracks. “Written in Blood” is available now on their myspace page, and quite honestly sounds much like just another album track on first listen, lacking the immediacy of “These Things” or “Tear You Apart” had, and pure feelings they conveyed. However, I may well change my mind in coming weeks on more listens.

Tracklisting for “This is Forever”:

1. First, Love
2. Written in Blood
3. Walking Away
4. True Romance
5. What I Want
6. Just Begun
7. She Will Always Be A Broken Girl
8. This is the End
9. Checking Out
10. Pretend the World Has Ended
11. Replacement
12. All Those Moments
13. Rachael

Oxford lads Supergrass have been announced as playing a special one-off home town gig to help launch the shiny new Oxford Academy, formerly the Oxford Zodiac.

One of my favourite venues, the zodiac was what every venue should be - dark, dingy, sticky floored and in a questionable location. For all of its faults you couldn’t help but love it. Since it was bought by AMG earlier this year they have announced a complete overhaul with an increase to 1,350 total capacity for the whole venue, which means some bigger bands will be coming its way. There’s an interesting debate about it over on Drowned in Sound.

Tickets for Supergrass’ show go on sale on Monday (22nd July) at 11am, and more shows are to be announced shortly.

Photo of Supergrass taken from Groovehouse’ flickr stream.

I know, I know, I said that the last post would be the last one about events on sale this week. I was wrong. Just found out that one of my like all time favourite bands, Ladytron, are playing the Bloomsbury Ballroom on Friday 31st August.

They fuse electro and indie and shoegaze altogether for one hell of a mishmash of sounds, that is just sublime. Plus the two front girls are decidely easy on the eyes.

Photo from anadah’s flickr stream.

Quite a few medium-profile releases this week, including Queens of the Stone Age’s new effort, “Era Vulgaris”, “Tally Of The Yes Men” by Goldspot (I can’t stand it, but has some big record company backing, so could be one to watch), Calvin Harris’ “I Created A Disco”, Tiny Dancers’ “Free School Milk” and finally Bon Jovi’s “Lost Highway”. However, the one I’m going to focus on for this week’s “Band of the week” feature is Ghosts, another sort of middle of the road indie pop band from London who have their debut album out on Monday, “The World is Outside”.

Normally I’d just write them off as being another bunch of Keane wannabes, and they may always be destined to have that label. However, they have one song that is simply sublime. Its “Stay The night”, which you may have heard recently on Virgin radio.

Their lyrics are typical teenage simplicity that’s not gonna win them an Ivor Novello, with ‘original’ lyrics such as:

Oh why don’t we take a taxi back to mine,
I’m sure that we’ll find a way to pass the time,

As much as I want to hate this band I just can’t bring myself to, with their catchy songs and simple tunes that just beg to be hummed along to all summer long. Definitely a band to divide opinions, they will have you loving them or hating them pretty quickly! Hardly a band that will earn you a lot of street cred, they could well be one of the slow burners of the year, doing a Snow Patrol on us and slowly wowing festival crowds.

Everyone’s favourite middle of the road pop stars that you and your mum can both love, Maroon 5, have announced a winter UK arena tour, where they’ll be taking in such heady heights as Glasgow, Manchester, Brum and London. Tickets are on sale on Saturday morning I do believe, though it may be Friday possibly. Probably Saturday though.

Wednesday November 28th - Glasgow SECC
Thursday November 29th - Manchester Arena
Friday November 30th - Newcastle Arena
Sunday December 2nd - Birmingham NEC
Monday December 3rd - London Wembley Arena
Thursday December 6th - Brighton Centre

Picture taken from digiyesica’s flickr stream.