Animal band update: Bees liberated, but dogs in tragic automobile incident
A month or so ago, my mate Steve (he of the excellent book about Ibiza) lent me a preview copy of the Bees’ new album Free The Bees. He was raving about it after taking it on holiday. Well, I took it, and ripped it…but never really listened to it.
I didn’t really like The Bees first album. It was perfectly pleasant breezy summer stuff - just rather unmemorable, so I didn’t fell the urge: and, at the time Steve loaned it to me, I had a mountain of CDs to listen to.
Well spurred on by a recommendation in Word this month from Lauren Laverne (she of Xfm and previously Kenickie): I listened to it, properly. And it is fabulous retro stuff. They sound like a completely different band from the first album. It’s retro in a whole Beatles-meets-early-Led-Zep kind of way. They just about tread the line between the slavish dad-rock of Ocean Colour Scene and being flagrant Coral copyists. Go on. You know you want it.
The other two recommendations from Word this month are Homesongs by Adem and Please Describe Yourself by Dogs Die in Hot Cars. Both have been ordered.
DDIHC in particular have ‘Next Big Thing‘ written all over them. They seem set to be to Franz Ferdinand what the Zutons have become to The Coral: and, of course, when I had a chance to see them at Glastonbury, I was elsewhere, probably wolfing down another beanburger somewhere….
