Bright Sparks is posted every few weeks and offers a collection of really great songs that we’re determined not to let slip past our radar.
Mess – Cave
Mess are a quartet from Kansas City who are gearing up to release their debut album Learning How to Talk later this year. In the meantime, the band have released a new single ‘Cave’ as something of a taster to keep your appetites whetted over the summer.
“‘Cave’ is a snapshot of a toxic relationship,” explains songwriter Allison Gliesman. “It was written in a tense head-space, characterised by the helpless feelings paired with watching someone you love be controlled.” Which goes some way to explaining the dichotomous nature of the track, the tender-yet-fierce sound portraying two levels of a relationship—the old, true affection driving a desperate plea for change. However, through the tumultuous crescendos, Gliesman’s vocals remain steady and bright, a lighthouse in the storm hoping to aid navigation, and welcome their dear person to safety on the other side.
Learning How to Talk is due out this autumn, so be sure to keep an eye on Mess’ Facebook and Soundcloud pages for more news.
Foundlings – Misery / Your Sister
Foundlings are a new four-piece out of London who released their debut single this spring. Put together at Marketstall Recording in Bermondsey, the tracks have an insistent, guitar-driven energy across which the vocals are lifted, setting the tone somewhere between urban style and sweet nostalgia. ‘Misery’ places itself firmly within the later category, the frenetic guitars and drums creating a semi-dangerous swagger, while ‘Your Sister’ is altogether brighter, a time viewed in retrospect—the edges softened and rounded, the primary emotion that of fondness.
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Head to the Foundlings Bandcamp page to buy both tracks.
Squirrel Flower – Conditions
We’ve featured Squirrel Flower, the project of Ellä Williams, several times here at VSF, covering both ‘Not Your Prey’ and ‘Daylight Savings’ from their debut EP, Contact Sports. This summer sees the re-release of that EP on vinyl, complete with shiny new artwork and two previously unreleased tracks.
In order to celebrate the release, Squirrel Flower have put out a video for the track ‘Conditions’ by Williams and Helena Gruensteidl, which serves as a great introduction to the style and sound for those who might have missed it the first time around. Straddling a brooding sense of emotion with an earnest openness, Williams’s vocals soar through the moody guitars with a calm conviction, though as the track progresses a vague sense of threat comes to the fore, as though the track is trying to persuade and warn simultaneously.
Contact Sports is set for re-release on the 20th July and you can pre-order it now via Bandcamp.
Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread – Less Than Positive
After time fronting Page France and Cotton Jones, Michael Nau set out solo in 2017, releasing the well-received album Some Twist and The Load EP. Forming a band of the same name, this summer sees Nau put out a brand new record, Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread, building upon his previous work to form a layered, sprawling record of poetic folk rock.
The lead track from the self-titled album, ‘Less than Positive’ finds Nau tucked into the space between carefree cheer and suffocating gloom, as though these opposite poles depend on one another for existence, and to fall into one completely would be to fall into nothing. Better then, to toe the line right the way down the track, to try to figure out the big picture while embracing the rhythm of life.
Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread is set for release on the 3rd August via Full Time Hobby.
Samia – 21
New York-based songwriter Samia makes music pitched somewhere between ironic and sincere, or perhaps embracing both poles simultaneously. Her brand new single ’21’ is no different, combining an intense sense of feeling with wry humour that makes the overall tone hard to pin down. At times her vocals have a carefree swagger, though this can shift just as quickly into a keen desperation, as though certain lines are dragged from within her chest by some external force. The result could be described as adolescent, where moods swing in an attempt to best frame an insistent rage, though the self-conscious lyrics hint at an over-arching intelligence operating behind all this too.
“I weigh a hundred and fucking something pounds,
That makes me almost good.
It is nice to be a hero,
but it’s better to be anything
that anyone could want in a woman.”
Samia is on Grand Jury Music and you can find her on Bandcamp.
Hop Along – How Simple
Hop Along’s 2015 album Painted Shut cemented their place amongst the very best in the indie rock genre, with the songwriting and vocal delivery of Frances Quinlan and distinctive and captivating as any in the field. This spring saw the release of Bark Your Head Off, Dog, the long-awaited follow-up album that retains all of the immediacy and spirit of previous records, and pushes the boundaries of the Hop Along sound with new, varied sources of inspiration.
While we hope to get a full review up at some point, for now let us point you toward lead single ‘How Simple’ as the perfect demonstration of what make Quinlan and co. so noteworthy. Complete with a video by Derrick Belcham, the song marries every aspect of the holy trinity of music—a keen sense of energy, emotional immediacy and clever lyricism. As such, the song disproves any theory that aiming for a sense of movement and catchy chorus means sacrificing any complexity or depth in terms of writing or feeling.
Bark Your Head Off, Dog is out now via Saddle Creek and you can get it from Bandcamp.
The Duke of Norfolk – Dylan Thomas / Bitter Bitter
“I’ve long been fascinated by Dumas’s idea that there’s neither happiness nor misery,” says Adam Howard of The Duke of Norfolk. “There is only the comparison of one state to another.” Such nuance and thought is intrinsic to Howard’s sound, as new single ‘Dylan Thomas / Bitter Bitter’ attests. Blending the intimacy of folk with a grand orchestral sound, The Duke of Norfolk follow the likes of Typhoon in building a kind of ‘sublime folk’—songs that seem to coalesce from the surrounding landscape, channelling energies far older than the music communicating them.
Inspired by ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, the poem Dylan Thomas wrote after the death of his father, Howard’s single alters Thomas’ call for rage into one of mournful sadness to create a requiem for his own terminally ill father. However, that is not to say the track comes off morose, with the instrumentation swelling around the profoundly personal lyrics to creating a soaring, transcendental response to loss and grief.
The Duke of Norfolk are releasing a new full-length, Attendre et Espérer, on the 15th June and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.
Valley Queen – Chasing the Muse
LA-based Valley Queen are readying their debt full-length, set for release in the summer, and have released the first single, ‘Chasing the Muse’ in anticipation. Continuing the throwback folk-rock of their EP Destroyer, the song sees lead Natalie Carol deal with the aftermath of a break up in a way that’s at once reflective and swaggeringly defiant.
“One part anger , two parts heartbreak
Three parts relief
I’m escaping this reality we made
Four parts fear
I’ve made a terrible mistake but
only a fool would stay”
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The album is going to be released on Roll Call Records, and you can pre-order it now from the Valley Queen Bandcamp page.