SpideWriter

Single Review Two Face by Gabby Rivers Release Date: 17th August 2023 It’s here at last!  Gabby Rivers latest single is out on all streaming services. Gabby Rivers: Opening the doors on shop talk. Pic: @ellenbphotography This song has been acclaimed at recent gigs, including a Latitudes appearance and Brighten the Corners.  Two Face is a cathartic number written in response to the tedium of working in retail and how shop-talk can turn toxic when shop-talk turns to cheap gossip, where a professional smile is part of the job description. Like shop work, the song has sharp changes of pace, before it’s end-of-day,  I must absolutely get out of this place , screaming escape.  It is a dramatically structured piece of pop-rock.  Rivers and her band stroll in the front door of this number and crash out the staff exit having covered a chaotic working day in a three-minute smash and grab. The richness of the Rivers’ voice and the energy of the band, wh...

  Album Review Erasure – ‘Always’ (The Very Best of Erasure) Double Vinyl out on Mute / BMG 18th August 2023 Want to tap into a feel-good feeling, have a sing and dance until your feet are killing you? Put this record on and the best (or possibly the worst) parts of forty years are quite simply wiped away.     It is easy to forget everything that has passed since the musical phenomenon that was and is Erasure, first stepped on stage.  They blew away the gloom and dreariness that accommodated the dour technicians of early electronic music.   They made the sounds of synthesisers popular around the world and continued to do so ever since forming their duo in 1985. Erasure sang fine songs that caught the ear, but touched the soul. These were songs drawn from and essential to the burgeoning gay nightclub scene, that drove that sound sensational  onto the national Radio 1.  Out, proud, clever and loud. Listenable on a number of levels, Erasure...