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Barefoot Confessor

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RED STRIPE RECOMMENDS

Tracks:

Alphabeat ‘Boyfriend’ (Angel)

Okay, so it’s indulgent and trashy pop music, but isn’t that the basis for all our best loved guilty pleasures; the trashier the better. This is a remarkably cheerful tune, a flamboyant and colourful swim of shiny guitars, androgynous vocals and chirpy Scandinavian pop. A highlight of the Secret Garden Party and V Festival, they’re a band you have to love. As gratifying and lovable as a new puppy, this new song is biting at the heels of bubblegum pop; nothing too intellectual, nothing to deep. Just great pop music.

Kings of Leon ‘Sex On Fire’ (RCA)

If every song was this good, there’d be no need for bargain bins. We’d be living in some sort of Bill and Ted future where music has saved civilization from itself. If every song was this good, there’s be no need for sex itself as this track offers all the love, heartbreak and sweat of any climatic physical encounter. It’s a massive pop song aiming at Springsteen and hitting it dead on centre; in fact in three words you could sum this single up as ‘better than Springsteen’. It’s got more fire, more emergency and all of the brilliance, all the genii of The Boss. This is how music should sound and wonderfully, it’s not even the best track on their new album.

Album:

Kings of Leon ‘Only By The Night’ (Columbia)

You’ll have to excuse our love for KOL this week; you see it’s been a while since anything as good as ‘Only By The Night’ landed on our desk. It’s been about 12 months. That’s when the bands last album washed up on our shores and blew our hearts and minds away and now with this follow on we’re left even more spellbound.

The brothers Followill have struck back to what they were doing on earlier albums with a clatter of southern state Americana garage, only now having learned the formula of writing epically great rock anthems (tricks they picked up from ‘Because of the Times’), they can now see their vision through with maturity and heroism. The UK scene has taken Kings of Leon as one of their own, the band doing far better here than in their native USA, and with complex and well thought out rock tracks like ‘Use Somebody’ and ‘Crawl’ it’s no guess as to why.

This album is genius, and please know we don’t throw that term around. It’s heart lies in ‘Sex On Fire’, a rambunctious track we’ve celebrated above… but that’s not the full story, not by any means. The album may be slightly smoother than their previous record, but there’s so much more here, the ‘big songs’ merely serving as milestones along the road. It’s the minutia of this record which makes it work so well, all the hidden riffs, subtle moments of tender vocals and of course the lyrical droll. They’ve really made something special with this record and it’s a clear contender for album of the year. It’s dark, it’s big, it’s blistering and it’s going to be all over the radio.

Recommended Band:

Barefoot Confessor

This new band is a very exciting prospect. Their front man looks like Dylan but sings like Springsteen while the band take on board the quirky chop of the tracks with a not so pretentious dollop of indie guitar valor. They’re a thinking mans guitar band, but don’t fall into shoegaze, rather their intelligence is met by their musical panache, making a sound that you can recline from, drawing from your pipe at the back of the venue, or gallop forwards and dance your inhibitions away to. They’re a strange mix of the quirkily complex and unbelievably catchy pop. You can image One Night Only singing ‘Urgency’, though you can also imagine the Beatles doing it, and now that’s exciting.

It’s got obvious influences in it, but the music of Barefoot Confessor isn’t much like anything else around. Sure, you can draw comparisons, but they’re not pasticheurs, rather they make true music that they have crafted with their own sound in mind. Playing at Proud Galleries recently they were a smash and any naysayers among the crowd were thwarted with valiant charmers ‘He Doesn’t Love You’, ‘Camden Road’ and the set centerpiece ‘Heart Skip Jump’. Front man Michael has a superhuman voice that drags you in, and the band keep you hostage. This is early days for a sure to be huge group, but there’s plenty on offer to even the most reluctant of rock ‘n’ roll fan already.

Playing at Scala, Nambucca and the Notting Hill Arts Club in October, they’re certainly one for our radar.