Having been treated to both début record Hold On Now, Youngster and follow-up-album-that-wasn’t-really-an-album-but-was-still-brilliant We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed in 2008, the wait for new material for over a year has been excruciating.

We’ve been lucky enough to get a very early press copy and our first impressions are that it’s a worthy addition to their wealth of material. It’s a darker record, somehow more retrained than their ramshackle and raw early days, but fear not, it hasn’t been polished and buffed to take all the band’s personality out of it. It’s not an instant classic like their debut was, but we can spot a grower when we see one and we’re already sure Romance Is Boring will be one of our most played albums next year. Here’s a track-by-track:

1. In Media Res: First impressions are that everything is louder. Then there’s a lovely twinkly Christmassy type breakdown part before everything goes dark and Gareth’s vocals take the listener to the depths of despair. Already very evidently a marked departure from WAB, WAD. There’s a lot more going on here, but while that experimentation brings depths to delve into over time, there’s a lack of an immediate hook to grab the listener in. As is LC!’s preference, the song’s end leads into the next track, which is…

2. There Are Listed Buildings: The first proper single from the record is probably the song on the album that sounds most like it would have slotted in on one of their earlier releases. It’s controlled mania, if that makes any sense. Just as things are getting out of control Gareth pulls on the reins, like the police turning up at an impromptu rave. Not one of their best ever singles, but a decent opening into the album and a welcome sign that they haven’t lost their teenage rebellion streak.

3. Romance Is Boring: The title track and next single starts with a fierce guitar line, the instrument that will come to dominate the record. Like the Research did for their sophomore effort, LC! have held back on the keyboards, but haven’t gone as far as to ban them completely. “Romance is boring!” shrieks Gareth in the first of the album’s ‘post-as-your-MSN-screen-name-lyrics’ but the music is pretty much bog-standard LC! fare, a background groove with some shouty vocals from a handful of the band over the top. “We are two ships that pass in the night”, notes Gareth in the album’s best moment so far.

4. We’ve Got Your Back (Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #2): After a Flaming Lips-style wig-out opening the album is go. We get a female lead vocal for the first time, with handclap drums in the background. Again though, the vocals seem low in the mix. Previous LC! stuff has always had the emphasis on putting the sharp lyrics to the fore and we’re missing that open-heart honesty already. Gareth comes in a right mood halfway through with a right foul mouth – he needs to wash his mouth out with soap and water. We’re only kidding. We love it. “I’ve learned more from toilet walls than I’ve learned from those words of yours” mumbles Gareth repeatedly as the heartbreak returns. The track is a follow-up to one from from WAB, WAD.

5. Plan A: Wonderful intro with a staggeringly LOUD guitar line, with Gareth shouting something or other in the very dark background. Someone in the band has obviously discovered riffage. Sure to be a live favourite, on record it’s a bit overwhelming and when the guitar dips out for a second or two sporadically throughout the track it’s a huge relief. Fortunately it’s short – not sure if I like the rock LC! as much as I adore the vulnerable emo-pop one.

6. 200-102: Much more like it. A gently woozy opening develops into the album’s first of two interludes. Chance to catch your breath.

7. Straight In At 101: And we’re off again at breakneck pace. It’s tiring just to listen to it, I can’t imagine how knackering it must be to play. We get some rare boy-girl merged vocals here, a pleasure from the previous album we’ve been denied until now. It’s great, a really nice nod back to their older work without being stuck in the past. A wiggly-woo guitar bit hints at their more six-stringed based future and Gareth again controls the pace just right, switching gears effortlessly and dragging the listener along with him. The song finishes with Gareth singing acapella and in truth it doesn’t really work.

8. Who Fell Asleep In: LC! turn their hand to a ballad in this one. It could almost be the track that England inevitably go out of next summer’s World Cup to, but doesn’t quite pull it off. “I don’t mean to be selfish but I think I’d sooner be dead”, deadpans Gareth in his best Morrissey impersonation and you’re not sure if he’s joking or not. There’s a distracting, wailing something-or-other in the midst of it all that spoils it for me. Again it seems like there’s just a bit too much going on, that there’s been a lack of restraint in the studio and the band have just kept on adding layers over the top of the important components: a simple, memorable hook and Gareth’s voice. They’re fighting for space and could learn something from Arcade Fire’s approach. Less is more, even when you have multiple band members to keep occupied. Amazingly we’re only just past the half-way stage. You always get your value for money with LC! albums but they aren’t half a bit of a slog.

9. I Warned You: Do Not Make An Enemy Of Me: Track nine of 15 now and we’re back in rock territory with a ridiculously fast intro guitar line that reminds me of RATM, quickly giving way to more traditional if a little heavier LC! fare. Gareth doesn’t seem to be enunciating clearly. It’s hard to tell what he’s singing at the best of times but it’s impossible throughout this one. Then that riff comes back and frankly, I’m in danger of losing interest. I’m starting to wonder if the reason I love WAB, WAD so much is that at just ten tracks it’s nice and light, an elevenses snack. This is a full Christmas dinner with all the trimmings and a whole Christmas pudding for afters.

10. Heart Swells/100-1: Another short interlude. Sigur Ros type noise with Gareth singing over the top. Nice, but a bit pointless. Sets up for another rocky intro into…

11. I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know: Ooh, some strings making a brief yet welcome appearance. Again, the vocals are buried very deep in the mix with the raft of instruments scrapping more than ever for air time. Very frustrating listen so far. At times brilliant but all too often just too ambitious, if that makes sense. They
‘re trying to run at Usain Bolt speed when I preferred it when they jogged along barely breaking sweat. There’s a great bit near the end when you finally get the chance to listen to Gareth’s voice and lyrics, but it doesn’t last.

12. A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show Me State; or, Letters From Me To Charlotte: A typically ridiculous LC! song title (or titles) and the song really lives up to it. Starts with a noise like a Dalek, drums thud in, there’s some organ in the background, then Gareth’s voice. Finally we see some restraint, the instruments are brought in gradually and there’s no haphazard throwing them all in aimlessly. The main riff recalls their early tracks and I suspect that’s why it stands out as an album highlight. Some annoying brass unsuccessfully tries to spoil it. It’s too long though, like most of the tracks on Romance Is Boring.

13. The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future: At this stage the album needs a track to lift it and it gets one at the perfect time. Released as a sneak peek back in September this track shows off LC! at their best. It starts at almost funeral pace and is the first time we really see some reflection in the music on the band’s progress. If I was a betting man I would suggest this is the direction some of the band wanted to take, while others wanted to ramp up the punk-pop, which is why the album seems like such a distorted mess at times. The track tells a story, of a girl, naturally, and the chorus is the first proper singalong of the record. Romance Is Boring should really have had more songs like this and fewer trying but failing to be rocky numbers. It’s really great. Really really great.

14. This Is a Flag. There Is No Wind: We’re warming to a theme now and it’s looking like a strong finish to the album. The first really memorably guitar hook cuts through the song, despite it sitting calmly under the surface. It’s almost like the band recorded Romance Is Boring in track order and had got the hang of it by the end. It’s rare to hear an album that has almost all its better moments in the second half but this is certainly what we get here. The shouted opening line of “Can we all please just CALM THE FUCK DOWN!?” is classic Los Campesinos!

15. Coda: A Burn Scar In The Shape Of The Sooner State: Another excellent track to round off a patchy and confused-sounding record. Perhaps it will all make sense over time but off the first few listens this writer is lost and misses his former favourite new band.

If you are new to LC! they are possibly best described as a wonderful mess. Unfortunately from the first few listens we’ve had of Romance Is Boring it appears less wonderful than usual and more messy. The seven of them make a joyous racket tinged with the kind of teenage angst you might expect from a formed-at-Uni band, but they’re so much more than that. It’s a shame Romance Is Boring doesn’t seem to show off their potency. Lyrically is where LC! come to life. Gareth’s twin couplets are often heartbreaking and delivered at such breathtaking pace that multiple listens are required in order to keep up. But far too often on this album his words are too buried to hear properly and only the most hardened LC! nuts will rewind time and time again to decipher them. It’s not an accessible album to newcomers, but it’s not a successful development of their sound either. The rock tracks don’t work at all and there isn’t much progress on the others from their first two records. The glorious immediacy of their pop EPs seems lost for ever. This new version of LC! will be much harder to love, I fear. But the final third of the album is truly majestic.

The Singles Collection comes as a reminder of how much impact Spears had on the world of pop. Put simply, she is the biggest female pop star of the modern era. And deservedly so. Her singles are usually finely-crafted nuggets of pop gold, with choruses that lay permanent roots in your brain within seconds. But curiously, The Singles Collection is not as good an album as 2007′s Greatest Hits: My Prerogative.

Spears’ last two albums have seen the singer embrace the ubiquitous auto-tune technology that dominates the American charts. It’s a shame, as Spears has always stood out for her vocal talent, occasionally sickly sweet, but always right on the mark. The over-production on her recent material suggests a lack of confidence in her ability to continue to hold a tune and her consistent miming on tour would seem to back that up. Frankly, her voice could be anyone on the new songs. She’s lost her edge and her individuality.

With any hits collection it’s pretty simple to qualify how good it is. You just count up the great songs against the not so great songs. Perhaps eight of the tracks on this LP would make that mark, with the other ten falling short. That’s not a great ratio when you consider Spears’ six albums over ten years of consistent output. In my opinion My Prerogative has nine great tracks, so somehow Britney has gone backwards over the last few years.

Curiously, a number of Spears’ early, more innocent songs has been ditched. Sometimes and Lucky, two of this writer’s favourite Spears tracks, are dumped, to be replaced by new tracks If You Seek Amy (plodding, dated Euro-pop) and Radar (catchy but annoying). Also dropped is Do Somethin’, which not only sparked Spears’ journey into darker disco territory, but also spawned Muse’s Supermassive Black Hole. It’s odd that Spears has chosen to continue on that path with the brilliant Womanizer and the much less good 3 and at the same time ignore the tune that started it all.

But it’s difficult to argue with the rest of the changes. The dreary Overprotected disappears, as does b-side at best Don’t Let Me Be The Last To Know. The car crash that was I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll is also, thankfully, nowhere to be heard but for some reason the awful duet with Madonna, Me Against The Music, stays. The remastering of the older tracks is minimal, with it just sounding like a lazy producer has, as the kids say, put a donk on it.

But the new tracks that come in are no better. Piece of Me and Gimme More are one and the same, while Circus is totally forgettable. The problem with the new computerised Britney is the soul has gone. It would have been interesting to see her bare her heart after her much-publicised problems and confront them head on. Instead, by ramping up the sex and making the outfits skimpier, Spears is clearly using her sexuality (she’s looking as good as she ever has at the moment) as a defence mechanism to hide behind. The result of that is that Britney no longer stands out in her field and has been overtaken by the likes of Lady Gaga and Rihanna, two truly 21st century performers. Spears seems unable to make herself seem important in this new, scary era.

But there are bright sparks. Everytime is wonderfully half-prescient, poignant and perceptive, with its matching video of Spears rowing with a boyfriend and being taken away in an ambulance having cut her wrists in the bath, the haunting melody twinkling around behind Spears’ most delicate vocal on record. Crazy is still a fantastic tune from the opening seconds shout of “Crrrraaaaaaazzzzzzzeeeee” and Toxic will arguably be the track that Spears is remembered for the longest.

Looking back, Oops, I Did It Again marked the start of Britney 2.0 with her defiantly stating “I’m not that innocent”. It’s almost as if the last few years of her life have been trying to prove the 2000 version of Spears right by taking deliberate wrong turns.

Despite the gusset-flashing, her continued inability to wear a bra that guarantees her regular appearances in the tabloids and the gossip press, the head-shaving, the two failed marriages, the cringeworthy snog with Madonna, the very public breakdown and her subsequent weight battles, The Singles Collection comes as a timely reminder of the talent she was blessed with in the early years of the decade. But, sadly, it also stands as a mark of how Spears has struggled over the last five years or so to keep on the straight and narrow, both personally and professionally.

If the record was to be ordered chronologically, there would be a clear point at which her star began to fade. That’s probably why the record label have got it in this order, actually. Anyway, if you’re a fan, you’ll already the songs on The Singles Collection. Part-time admirers will have the better tracks from buying the previous best of release. Non-fans won’t care and I refuse to believe even young teens will be wholely new to the Spears phenomenon. And both hits albums are on Spotify anyway, so there’s really no need to buy this and line the record label’s pockets further. Save your pennies.

The Scottish rockers will play seven dates culminating in a huge gig at London’s newly HMV-sponsored Hammersmith Apollo.

The dates are in support of their latest album Only Revolutions, of which we will have a review on the site soon.

The dates in full:

APRIL
29 Perth, Concert Hall
30 Sheffield, O2 Academy

MAY
1 Blackpool, Empress Ballroom
3 Leicester, De Montfort Hall
4 Portsmouth, Guildhall
5 Bristol, Colston Hall
6 London, HMV Hammersmith Apollo

Fans who buy a ticket along with a pre-order of all three versions of the staggering upcoming single Many Of Horror will be entered into a Golden Ticket draw to win the chance to attend a special, highly intimate pre-show performance on the afternoon of each gig (it’s normally called a sound-check). The single is out on January 19 and will be backed by all-new b-sides.

Tickets are on pre-sale now, and general sale tomorrow (Friday December 11).

Picture by Twistyfoldy.net

Sorry about the caps, but we’re staggered. We knew people quite liked Coldplay. They sell a lot of records. A lot. It’s inevitable. But this is a level of devotion – or, let’s face it, idiocy – that frankly staggers us.

The bland (that’s a mixture of bland and band – how clever!) are playing at Exeter Castle (why does Exeter have a castle? Who in their right mind would attack Exeter?) on December 19, their first home town show since 2000.

The BBC reports that fifty people had queued up since Tuesday for the tickets, which went on sale this morning.

Gibbering idiot Charlotte Foster, who clearly has no job, no friends and no life if she can afford to spend two days waiting outside a HMV store for sodding Coldplay tickets, said: “I’ve seen them before and I really like them. It sounds like it will be a really good show. I just thought it’s worth queuing.”

At this point we must point out that the show is for cha-ri-dee, so it’s probably unfair to mock the afflicted that are forking out their hard-earned to go along. The charity in question is Mencap, which ‘represents people with learning disabilities and works to improve services and challenge prejudices’. Ironic really, as the people going to the show are probably the sort of people who Mencap should be helping.

The gig will be hosted by Radio 1 DJ Jo Whiley and also stars La Roux and Lily Allen.

Picture by Yodel Anecdotal

The Brighton band last week unveiled the first cut from the new album, a seven-minute epic proggish, punkish wig-out titled Colours Fade. Which we loved.

The tour dates:

2  Bar Academy, Birmingham
3  Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
4  Thekla, Bristol
5  Komedia, Brighton
6  Cockpit, Leeds
8  Electric Circus, Edinburgh
9  Doghouse, Dundee
10 King Tuts, Glasgow
11 Academy 2, Newcastle
12 Academy 3, Manchester
13 Garage, London

Tickets go on sale tomorrow (Wednesday December 2).

The procession of slightly wacky women with ball-clenchingly high vocals is showing no signs of abating, with Welsh/Greek songstress Marina the latest off the production line.

Her debut, titled The Family Jewels, will be released on February 15 with a single, Hollywood, preceding it by a fortnight. The record includes previous singles I Am A Robot and Mowgli’s Road.

The tracklisting will be:

1. Are You Satisfied?
2. Shampain
3. I Am Not A Robot
4. Girls
5. Mowgli’s Road
6. Obsessions
7. Hollywood
8. The Outsider
9. Hermit the Frog
10. Rootless
11. Numb
12. Guilty

Marina herself describes the album thus:

“I am really proud to finally release my début album, The Family Jewels. It is a body of work largely inspired by the seduction of commercialism, modern social values, family and female sexuality. Each song was intricately produced and written by myself and my only hope is for it to be enjoyed and consumed as a story and theory that encourages people to question themselves.”

Wow.

Oddly enough the PR bumf announces proudly that Marina took a staggering 482 vocal takes on one song, at her own insistence rather than that of producer Liam Howe. It’s being hailed as uber professionalism, but to us, it’s not a good thing that it took her nearly 500 goes to get it right. Anyway, if she’s had that many attempts, there’s no reason why The Family Jewels shouldn’t be an early contender for album of 2010.

The Night Train EP will be released on May 8 and features the band’s collaboration with Somali/Canadian rapper K’Naan as well as a track that features Japanese MC Tigarah. Pianist Tim Rice-Oxley also takes a rare lead vocal on one of the songs. To say it sounds like a departure from their usual safe sound is something of an understatement.

Following the EP release the band will head off on a tour of England’s forests, including a near-homecoming show at Bedgebury Pinetum.

Those forest dates in full:

JUNE
10 Thetford Forest, Suffolk
11 Bedgebury Pinetum, Kent
18 Westonbirt Arboretum, Gloucestershire
19 Sherwood Pines Forest, Nottinghamshire
25 Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire
26 Cannock Chase Forest, Staffordshire

Tickets will be £32 and are available from Wednesday (December 2) from the band’s website, www.keanemusic.com.

The rapper will headline the Friday night with the New York rockers playing on the Saturday.

Blondie, Pink, Orbital and Squeeze are also on the bill for the event.

Festival promoter John Giddings said: “Ever since I heard the first Strokes album, I’ve wanted them for the Isle of Wight. Jay-Z and Pink are two of the best live acts I have ever seen and the Blondie hits speak for themselves. I can’t wait.”

55,000 people are expected to attend the Seaclose Park bash in Newport, which takes place from June 11 to 13.

Tickets go on sale on Friday (December 4).

The Sunderland pop-punkers have made new track Struck Dumb, a preview cut from their upcoming fourth record, available to download for nowt.

Again it will cost you your e-mail address, so use the same one you’ve just made up for the BRS track  – sendmefreemusicnowplease@hotmail.co.uk or whatever it is you went for.

You can download the track via Clash Music.

Our initial verdict is that it’s pretty good. It’s typically catchy and angular (although it’s a horrible cliche to call the Futureheads angular they just are) and there’s a weird Bohemian Rhapsody acapella bit near the end of which we approve lots.

Ch-ch-check it out and come back and let us know what you think by using that comment box thing below this text stuff.

EDIT: We’ve just got a mailing list announcement through from ‘Ross and the lads xxx’ right this very minute announcing a couple of tiny club gigs just before Christmas. They will play the Lexington on December 14 and Moho! in Manchester on December 18 (otherwise known as Mad Friday) with loads and loads of bands, including The Reveres, The Leftrights, The Marivaux, The Suns and The Laureates and a couple of other The Something Or Other bands for good measure. Tickets for the Manchester gig are from here and Lexington tickets will be on sale to mailing list members – which you’ll be automatically become once you download the free track, crafty buggers bands are these days – tomorrow morning.

The band are making their comeback ahead of the release of their second record early next year.

As a preview, the pair have made a new track, Colours Fade, available from their website. All it’ll cost you is your e-mail address. And obviously you can always set up a new one in two minutes flat if you don’t want to be signed up to their mailing list or used for experimentation of new shampoos, or whatever it is bands want your e-mail address for these days.

We’ve been listening to it on repeat for about half an hour and can conclude it is BRILLIANT. It takes the tried and tested BRS formula and as they say, turns it up to eleven. It’s seven minutes long. It pretty much defines epic. It sounds HUGE. Go download it. Then come back here and comment below how ace it is and we can all revel in their joyous noise. Yay!