Songs For the Weekend, Vol.4

This weekend marks the start of the 2011 International Rugby World Cup. As exciting as this is, and as supportive as the fans of, well, probably all the teams participating are, I don't actually know any rugby songs, and even if there actually are any that have been made with ingredients other than an orchestra, I think you'd be pretty hard- pressed to find any decent ones. So instead, here are some tunes that will be dominating my ipod over the next few coming days, and hopefully they'll do the same for you.






Los Campesinos!- By Your Hand

Depressive twee indie-poppers Los Campesinos! return with their fourth album "Hello Sadness" on the 4th of November, and "By Your hand" is the first single released from the record, and is a mighty fine taster of what we can expect from the record. In typical Los Campesinos! fashion, the lyrics deal with the trials and trivialities of young love, but in the most heart- wrenching fashion. They're a band who, akin to Wild Beasts, have always done sexual tension and heartbreak very well, and "By Your Hand" only re-enforces this tenfold. Musically it's more poppy than anything they've done before, but the catching keyboard melody along with their trademarked noodling guitars and hand claps and arguably the best chorus they've ever written, it's probably their most instantly memorable song to date. Front man Gareth Campesinos! has said that the songs on the new album are so sad that he'll struggle to sing them live without crying- sticking to their depressive guns though, he does try to asphyxiate himself in the video. It's a masterful pop song, but it's not for the faint hearted.

Gallows- True Colours

Alexisonfire split up ----> Frank Carter Leaves Gallows ----> Gallows search for new front man and recruit ex- Alexisonfire guitarist Wade McNeil ----> They then start making some of the most monstrous yet exhilarating heavy music you'll hear all year. It's an equation that makes perfect sense, and one that, by the sounds of "True Colours," they've made work fantastically well. "True Colours" is a 37- second long stab of furiously pummeling drums, crushingly heavy riffs and Wade McNeil's meaty growl, marking it as the shortest but heaviest thing Gallows have done to date. Whereas Carter's strong cockney brogue was more clear- cut over the rising tide of punk heaviness, McNeil's vocals are simply demonic, leading Gallows to amp everything up by about 1000 times. If Gallows are to follow this direction on their upcoming record, then you can bet your life that it'll be heavy record of the year 2011. You can also grab this tune as a free download over at the band's website.

Junkie XL- Molly's E (Azari & III instrumental remix)

There seems to be somewhat of a House revival going on at the moment. Last year the emergence of artists like Canadian DJ crew Azari & III spurred house music into new pastures of fresh creativity, and since then a more refined version of the music that dominated the charts in the early '90s has found its niche. Junkie XL is one such artist from Chicago, whose acid- fried funky house deserves to be sound tracking nightclubs all over the world. In their own artistic implosion however, Azari & III have chosen to make an instrumental remix of his track "Molly's E." They've turned it into something twice as subtle but just as funky, it's more minimalistic and mystic, almost more daring, but something that is ultimately dreamy. It's probably the kind of thing you'd rather put on when you got back from a big night out rather than whilst you're at a club, but all the same, it's a brilliant piece of dance music.