Scottish rockers Honeyblood have just released a video for Walking At Midnight, my favourite track from their audacious second album, Babes Never Die.
It's definitively a post-watershed sort of affair. Imagine Stephen King's Carrie set in a drag club, and you're basically there. It was directed by James Copeman and stars drag artist Virgin Xtravaganzah... a name I bet Richard Branson wishes he'd copyrighted in 1972.
Having spent the best part of 1993 crushing on Juliana Hatfield, I am predisposed to like jangly, female-fronted indiepop.
So it is with great delight that I stumbled across two new songs by Honeyblood (pictured above, left) and Best Coast (above right).
Honeyblood's newest song is The Black Cloud - a Record Store Day exclusive that's also the band's first single since drummer Shona McVicar was replaced by Cat Myers.
It finds singer Stina Tweeddale (love that name) eulogising a friend who "fought my corner when I wouldn't open the door." As she emerges from her eponymous Black Cloud, the track opens up into sunny, hazy harmonising.
It's lush.
On first listen, Best Coast's Feeling OK seems similarly optimistic.
"I know it's love that's got me feeling OK," sings Bethany Cosentino. But that "OK" is telling: She's not going full Nina Simone on us... and, true enough, there's a melancholy undercurrent, as she observes: "I get so down, but I'll keep trying to stay this way".
Feeling OK is taken from Best Coast's third album, California Nights, from which we've already heard the title track and Heaven Sent. Those three songs seem more focused than their earlier work, while retaining the band's wispy charms.
According to the band, the record has been informed by 1990s grungepop (hello again, Juliana!), while trying capture LA's "epic sunsets" in musical form.
"When the sun sets, I feel like there is a large sense of calmness in the air, and I feel like everything that happened to me prior in the day, whether crappy experiences or good ones, at night, it all goes away and I sink deep into this different kind of 'world,'" said Bethany.
California Nights is out in May, pre-ordering fans.
This new video from Glasgow's Honeyblood just popped up on my timeline and it's like someone suddenly declared Summer was open for business.
Full of rollicking drums and scuzzed-up guitars, Killer Bangs is like Kenickie having a scrap with The Go-Gos over a distortion pedal - ie it is very good. The lyrics ("I don't wanna have to go on without you / but I have to") may be about the death of a relationship, but the melody couldn't be sunnier.
The video captures Stina and Shona's blistering live act, spliced with shots of the band standing against a wall or standing on a bridge or standing near the sea.
In a major production oversight, they do not sport "bangs" (that's American for a fringe) at all. What a shame.
Killer Bangs is coming out on a limited edition (300 copies!) 7" vinyl - you can pre-order it here. And if you're in the band's hometown, they're playing the Introducing Stage at Radio 1's Big Weekend at the end of the month.
And if you're really, really interested, you can read an interview I did with the band on the BBC.
Glasgow's Honeyblood have been making my Batsenses tingle for a couple of months now, thanks to their jangly, catchy indiepop single Bud, which came out late last year.
They are Shona McVicar (drums) and Stina Tweeddale (guitar and vocals, pictured above), veterans of the Scottish rock scene, who quit their former, male-dominated bands to form a sort of Testosterone-free White Stripes. "We'd been in bands with boys before and wanted to do it on our own," Stina told MTV last year. "There's definitely a solidarity amongst female bands because there aren't many of us around really! But at the same time it's totally about what kind of music they're playing; if they're good, that's all that matters at the end of the day."
Luckily their music is the good sort of music - grungy and lo-fi but decorated with actual tunes. Exactly the sort of thing, in fact, most rock bands lost the knack of doing somewhere around 2004.
Their new single, Choker, is inspired by Angela Carter's macabre short story collection The Bloody Chambers - where all the chapters are dark, violent retellings of children's fairy tales (in Red Riding Hood, the grandmother turns out to be a werewolf and is stoned to death). See if you can spot the influences, below:
Bonus content: Here's a captivating live rendition of Bud recorded in one of the BBC's many cupboards.
This has been a pretty good week for music - we had a polished video from a re-energised Britney, a mini-movie from The Arcade Fire and a tear-jerker from John Legend, not to mention (great) new albums from Justin Timberlake and Haim. So this week's strays and leftovers are pretty high quality. Have a gander...
1) Gary Barlow - Let Me Go
Gaz breaks out the banjos for his first solo record in 14 years. Let Me Go, basically a speeded-up Hey There Delilah, is precision-targetted at Radio 2 mums.
That's not a dig, by the way - Gary knows his market. He's even booked an advertising space on the bus stop in Coronation Street. Clever boy.
2) Goldfrapp - Annabel (live on Jools Holland)
Looking like Bad Romance-era Lady Gaga, singing like a fallen angel, Alison Goldfrapp graces Later... with her tranquil beauty.
3) Honeyblood - Bud
I picked out this catchy indie-pop gem a last week, and now it's been given a green-fingered video, shot in a stately garden near Herefordshire. It's no Ground Force, though, having been based on the influential, surrealist Czech movie Daisies (which you can watch in full here).
4) Lupa - The Creature
Move over, Lorde, here's a new antipodean singer in town, and this one's only 15.
Lupa is the stage name of Imogen Jones, a classically-trained violinist who's branched out into pop. Her home demos, published on Soundcloud two weeks ago, have already been picked up by influential Aussie radio station Triple J. And rightly so - Lupa's electronically-scored harmonies have a subtlety and sophistication beyond her years.
5) JLS - Billion Lights
The title of JLS's farewell single makes you think it'll be a weepie uber-ballad - but no! Billion Lights thumps like a Hitler's fist on a sturdy lectern.
The video is a three-minute potted history of everyone's favourite colour-coded boyband - their X Factor audition, their first number one, their first arena tour. You'll feel nostalgic, then you'll remember you never really liked them after Beat Again.
6) Wardell - Opossum
OK - this one's two years old, but you should keep your eye on Wardell. Otherwise known as Stasha and Stephen Spielberg, their dad is literally the man who made ET; and Jay-Z has just signed them to Roc Nation.
There's no indication of what their new material sounds like, but this 2011 track, Opossum, has a pleasing bluegrass vibe that reminds me of the Edward Sharpe song on those Peugeot adverts (the one that goes "Alabama, Arkansas - I do love my Ma & Pa").
7) Sampha - Indecision
You've probably heard this all over the radio recently - it's the one with the chorus that goes "let it all work out" over a glitchy, melancholy piano sample.
Sampha is best known for his work with Jessie Ware and SBTRKT, and has just appeared on the new Drake album. This track is from his solo EP Dual, which came out in July. It wears its complexity lightly, letting Sampha's gorgeous voice draw you into its mournful tale of shattered hearts.
Hope those tracks tide you over for the weekend... I'll be back with more on Monday morning.
Everyone say hello to Honeyblood, a Glaswegian garage duo with a nice line in knitted hats.
They are Stina Tweeddale and Shona McVicar, aka "short and shorter" (their description). A stripped-back guitar'n'drums combo, they're essentially The White Stripes without all the testosterone and sexual tension.
So far, they've only had one release, No Spare Key, on a blood red cassette tape that sold out months ago. All traces of the song have, rather excitingly, disappeared from the internet in the meantime.
But their first vinyl single, the short-and-sweet Bud, is coming out on FatCat records next month. Produced by Rory Attwell (Palma Violets, Veronica Falls), the duo have described it as "crunchpop". It's a little bittersweet, but if you're a fan of The Breeders, Best Coast or Juliana Hatfield, you'll find it to your taste.
