A reminder of how good Reuben were (and a bit of Biffy)

For proof of how brilliant Reuben could be in their genre, I've dug up the cover they did of Vex Red's 'Karin'. Vex Red were a fairly small band on the same sort of scene as Reuben in the early 00s, but they disappeared even sooner. 'Karin' is a decent piece of songwriting, but only ever made it to demo stage, so it's a bit sketchy and not particularly well padded-out. Reuben heard this:

And turned it into this:

I may be biased, but the energy and innovation in that cover, even with simpler rock instrumentation and the same riffs, is exceptional.

While we're on covers, I feel I should re-post the wackiest hard rock cover in existence. Ever heard Weezer's melodic gem 'Buddy Holly'? If not, or if it's just a faint memory, here's a reminder:

Now take everything you'd just heard, tear it up and listen to this:

"Suck on that!" as Simon Neil almost certainly said after recording that guitar part.

'Duke Pandemonium', Marmaduke Duke

Marmaduke Duke is the side project of Simon Neil from Biffy Clyro (The Atmosphere) and J P Reid from Sucioperro (The Dragon), and their first album The Magnificent Duke was a mad conceptual screamo-meets-noise-rock 18-track explosion of sound. Even if you decided to give up trying to dissect the album for its various 'concepts', it was a musical masterpiece which left you feeling bemused, emotionally tired and mildly enlightened.

On first listening, Duke Pandemonium could have been made by a different band to The Magnificent Duke. It is electronic synth-and-drum-machine-based pop, but it's amazing. I listened to it first on the bus, finding it hard to control my shocked facial expressions, especially in the breathtaking, muted soaring guitars in Erotic Robotic, and during the very weird Skin The Mofo Alive, in which there is every type of percussion you can dream of, including tropical drums and...spoons? I can definitely hear pots and pans being hit elsewhere. Tracks like Skin The Mofo Alive border on parody, though what it would be a parody of, I do not know; this is by no means a bad thing. In fact, it's genius.

This is what side projects should be like. In Plato's world of ideals, this would be the archetypal side project. It's exciting, always changing; all of the Biffy and Sucioperro ideas that were just too daft or mad to use have been rolled together to make this, and skilfully. Highlights include the seven minute extravaganza Pandemonium, sexy and lyrically amusing Erotic Robotic, and the ridiculous but sublime Je Suis Un Funky Homme. Anything here could be a dancefloor classic, but each track deserves more listening to that.

Have I ever heard anything like it before? No way. Is it too daft? Maybe for some. Do I like daft music? Hell yeah. Marmaduke put the 'mental' back into experimental.

9/10

10 Songs I Love Right Now - 1/11/08

The Animals - I'm Gonna Change the World

This track was very ahead of its time in the late 60s with the lyrics "No more black or white, no more left or right". It is all most identical in tune to It's My Life, though the sentiment is slightly different. The main idea is 'I have a thinking mind, I know how to make the world better, I'm going to change it.' and it's very uplifting even if it was written in a different society to today's. It's My Life is just as uplifting, if a little more teenage and angry.

Babyshambles - Carry On Up The Morning

Perhaps Pete Doherty has had a hard time of it recently in that he is persistently getting judged for his extra activities outside of his job as Britain's most poetic songwriter of the present day. Listening to this song, you stop caring what he does in his free time, it is such a good song. Containing the immortal line "In the morning where does all the pain go? Same place the fame goes - straight to your head", and other great lines, it is an enthralling song with a truly moving melody.

Biffy Clyro - Muckquaikerjawbreaker

Oh the glory of this track. Half of it is just experimental guitar work, but it has some bits in it which are very powerful. The lyrics are the usual Biffy-type lyrics - abstract and linked to some relationship somewhere, but they are nice and the melodies are lovely. I thank thekillingspree very much for sending me this free. Thank you.

Franz Ferdinand - 40'

This song has a great catchy riff as an intro, which immediately gets your foot tapping, and then it launches into edgy, quirky Franz brilliance. My interpretation of the lyrics is that someone is standing at the top of a cliff deciding whether to jump or not ("looking down, looking down, down down again, oh 40 feet remain"). It's melancholy, the words and the harmonies, but I think it's rather endearing.

Larrikin Love - On Sussex Downs

The lyrics to this song are all about some strange trip to Sussex where the singer took off all his clothes and played in the long grass of the fields joyfully. It's postively pagan, I love it. The idea of being a wild creature one day and then tied to routine the next is both uplifting and miserable. The best thing about the track is its sheer energy and ability to get you smiling; also found in the song about frustrated transexuals - Six Queens.

Kaiser Chiefs - Half The Truth

Half The Truth is so fun. I have gone off Chiefs a little recently, and although there is still a little bit of my heart wedged firmly between the steps of Billy's Bar's front porch (Elland Road) and thinking of February 2007 makes me smile, I'm not a huge fan of the new album. But this track is so so energetic, and it reminds me of Elland Road so much that I had to like it.

The Libertines - Vertigo

Piercing through the over-produced manufactured indie which was topping charts at the time, the first track from the first Libertines album was a great introduction to the amazement to come. Starting with a slightly unsettling guitar riff with absolutely no polish on it, it builds into a really down-to-Earth nearly-love song with out-of-tune vocal harmonies and almost-sexual lyrics. Hell, it deserves all those dashes.

Muse - Sober

There always has to be room for a Muse track in favourite track lists. Muse tracks are life-affirming. This one is a slightly angry and miserable personal attack on the one remaining person the singer loves, and how they 'turn on' him. It's all a bit dramatic, but hey, that's what we love about Muse, isn't it? And it's just brilliant musically, which helps.

The Specials - Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)

This is amazing. It's old, yes, it's a bit cheesy, yes, but how uplifting is it? It contains the title line 'Enjoy Yourself, It's Later Than You Think' which has to be one of the most fun and irresponsible statements they could have made, and the ska backing music with all the instruments and voices is so entertaining, so fun. Surrender, you know you want to.

The Libertines - The Good Old Days

I'm a sucker for a good romantic story, and this, along with Can't Stand Me Now and What Became Of The Likely Lads? soundtracks the very romantic tale of the Libs' ups and downs. The chorus has some very poetic lyrics and it all sounds a bit melancholy, an emotion I relate to very much; I like it a lot.

It's funny how many more I could find in just over a month. I listen to too much music.

10 Songs I Love Right Now - 28/09/08

Biffy Clyro - Buddy Holly (Weezer Cover)

I actually heard this cover before I heard the original. I assumed that the original would be pretty out there too; I went looking for it and found a sweet American pop song. Biffy have magically transformed this track into something very impressive. Built around ridiculously complex time signatures and shifting melodies, this is an amazing musical masterpiece. Then the Scottish voices singing the lyrics over the brilliance, following the original tune but fitting it very loosely around the backing just make the song what it is. They made it better. Obviously I'm biased, Biffy being my favourite band, but seriously, this would be a good cover either way.

Envy & Other Sins - Help Yourself

This song is so damn happy. I bought it on the Prodigal Son single at a gig in Stratford, a self-released venture by Envy & Other Sins which didn't really get anywhere, but which is really quite brilliant. Two days afterwards I fell madly in love with them on stage at Birmingham ArtsFest, and for days after that I was playing Help Yourself on repeat in blissful retreat from the world around me, and for that time I was happy. So it's a happy song for me now, very happy.

Caetano Veloso - Irene

I can't explain my love for this song very well, it's all emotional. For a start, it's my dad's music, which brings an element of guilt into it for me, but I can't deny how great it is. It's a love song with quite melancholy lyrics (when translated from Portugese) but the tune and the rhythm is so uplifting and cheerful. It makes me want to skip down the street, it's so beautiful and carefree.

Radiohead - Planet Telex Ah Radiohead. I suppose I'm late to discover Radiohead - it's not my fault I was born at the wrong time! This song is everything at the moment, eerie and sad but also perfect for encapsulating everything I feel. "Everything is broken." It's a dreary lyric, but it fits my mood - the rest of the words are generic enough to capture hundreds of people's feelings, but specific enough to feel like they apply to me only. It's set to very moving music too. My Iron Lung is also capable of this, the funk-rock heaviness towards the end giving me something to mosh to in my front room. Love.

Blur - Wear Me Down

This song is a bit dull to be honest. It's a twisted love song with sweet but predictable melodies and very little lyrical or rhythmic interest. But it's sexy, I suppose, the sleepy, deep vocals compelling and disobedient; the song is gorgeously morose and angsty, and when I don't want to hear something happy and I don't want to hear something sad, it's the perfect compromise. Damon's voice always gets me too. It's special.

Flight of the Conchords - The Most Beautiful Girl (in the Room)

I don't know, this song is just hilarious. The lyrics are hilarious and very cruel ("You're so beautiful like a tree or a high class prostitute, you could be a part-time model but you'd probably sitll have to keep your normal job"), but beneath them there's a very sweet tinge to this song which makes anyone with half a heart go 'awwwww'. He really seems to want to be with this girl, just has no tact whatsoever. It's cute and sweet and outrageously funny.

Biffy Clyro - Stress on the Sky

I love everything about this song. I love its name and its lyrics and the cover of the album it is on (Blackened Sky) and its screamo patches and quiet patches, its intro and its beautiful harmonies, and most of all I love the quiet, considered riff after about a whole minute of heavy guitar and aimless shouting. This song is tied to a very depressed few months in my existence, and whenever I listened to it, it took the world off my shoulders and made me sink into bliss for 4 minutes. The need for that has passed now, but I cannot help but feel a ridiculous attachment to the beauty of it.

Blur - Blue Jeans

This song is a very pretty melodic slow one about the mundanity of modern life (Blur's favourite topic) but I find it more attractive than others they have done of the same type. It brings up images of a failing relationship, going so well, so much love being lost to a tide of boredom and repetition. The chorus has such lovely harmonies and melancholy sweetness. It's an emotional sigh of a song.

The Cribs - Baby Don't Sweat

It's mostly the intro to this song which makes it great. It's sexy and raw and the whole track is upbeat without being too upbeat to listen to when you are miserable. It's simple but attractive, and best of all, I can play it on my guitar!

Marmaduke Duke - The Beaver and the Rabbit

Finally, Marmaduke Duke. Simon Neil's side project, I was bound to like it really. This song is angry and it doesn't fit into any of the usual structures songs have. There's no time signature that you can stick to, it's always morphing, the guitar work is simply amazing, and while the screamo bits are almost TOO experimental, it works. Stunning moments of harmony puncture the very hard and rough tune and it's impossible to listen to it without an open mouth.My 10 tunes of right now, explained.

Go and listen, go and explore, they are all mind-blowing.