Saturday 31 March 2012

Mascot Fight - Played a Hand (Cassette County)/Allo Darlin' Europe (Fortuna Pop!)

I'll admit to still being hooked on the amazing Tigercats album, but I took a break yesterday to listen to something else for a few hours.

Mascot Fight are still going, and thank heavens for that. Their brand of awkward pop deserves to be heard by more people than a few people in the East Midlands, but the band seem terminally ignored even after their last breathtaking album 'Pantomime Hearse'. This new download-only single is out on Monday, and if you're tired of the same old chords played in the same old order then you should chuck a few pennies their way.

'Play a Hand' again mixes Pavement-ish pop with a genuine sense of the maudlin, and makes for reliably cuddlesome listening, whilst 'Moderate Man' comes on like Blur doing a Kinks song if they had even one atom of creativity. Lucikly, the Fight (yeah, that's right) have it in spades. Lastly, 'You Said a Mouthful' reminds this listener of mid-period Morrissey. That's a compliment, by the way.

Have a listen to 'Played a Hand',

Whilst Mascot Fight continue to battle apathy, Allo Darlin' are flying, of course. Their second album, 'Europe' could make them and Fortuna Pop! a small fortune if they don't spend it all on breakdown recovery.

Their next single, the title track of that album, is all about their traumatic European tour last year when they traversed the continent running on empty - metaphorically and listerally. It's a pretty frank admission for a band who are on such a steep trajectory; yeah, sometimes touring can be dreadful, it seems.

'Europe' doesn't stick out to me a single, but it's a fine song all the same. It has lilting strings and Elizabeth's voocal is as perfect as ever. Then in the last forty seconds or so, the handclaps come in - almost as an act of defiance. It's a happy ending.

'Europe' is out on 23rd April on Fortuna Pop!

I'll leave you with Mascot Fight live in a radio studio in Nottingham.

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