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| |  | ATOMIC HOUND DOG - TWELVE
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Atomic Hound Dog – Twelve
As winter draws it’s slushy wet curtain across what hope we have of sunshine left, there are still some of you out there
that
hope for that little ray of light to shine on us once more. To warm our hearts with melancholic melody and the glow of a rustic
heater in the home. Step forward Atomic Hound Dog and take your place in our living rooms and tell us of your summery escapades
and pleasant musings.
Starting the Cd is ‘People on my TV’ which sets the acoustic tone you should expect through the rest of this album.
Acoustic
guitars galore, with subtle leads, foot tap and head nod inducing percussion, and a sharp ear for the best of Country, including
the occasional Emmylou Harris sounding vocals from Carolyn Walsh. The much lauded ‘Too much time (in your mind)’
is a great
pop song with Andy’s sensate vocals riding over the top of Carolyn’s deadpan singing. It’s a major coup for
Andy having a
female vocalist on these songs, as without them, maybe there would seem as though something is missing.
Things get real maudlin on ‘And Again’, a stark, beautiful love song with flicker picking guitars and tepid vocals
singing
“I try not to think to hard about it, and just hope things turn out right, turn out right”. Wills deserves a bit
of credit
for some wonderfully restrained guitars on ‘Momo’, while the full band tracks added as bonus tracks on the end of
the Cd,
show the band in full flow, particularly the second run through ‘Too much time’ in it’s original, almost tribal
demo form.
This collection of ditties from the Hound Dogs has been brought to you by no less than twelve people, and the title suggests
an acknowledgement to those twelve involved. With contributions from Rob Baker (Gunpowder Plot), Nancy Cunliffe, John Kettle
(Deep Roller & also engineer for this Cd, Lee (Glass Onion), Simon
Misra (Moco), and Matt Grice (Mook) supporting the original cast of the Atomic Hound Dog they form a true love-in band.
You can’t listen to full on rock music every day of your life. Sometimes you need some kind of, I wouldn’t say healing
music,
but, music to relax, to smile, to raise the hairs on the back of melancholy memories of past and current loves. Maybe this
is that album.
Available mid-November from www.atomichounddog.co.uk and from live gigs
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Pap Idol – Seesaw – Guilty – It’s only Rain – Limbosville
What started out as a side project with Syncopatio has blossomed for Si Fox into a full on force of creative song writing
since his split with Bushack last year. Now going under the name The Outsider and often joined by members of Gunpowder Plot
and ex-Bushack member Ben Gaskell, he has got his head down and created some great songs, five of those being on this demo
here. Of the others, the ‘Warts ‘n’ All’ as he calls them, there are some stunners such as ‘Fragile’ and ‘Friday Feeling’.
But that’s for the future. For now we have to content ourselves with these songs, all of which I have spoken of before on
these pages when I reviewed them in their original form a few months back.
Anyway, things have moved on since the last time I caught up with Si on these pages, and now the songs have moved up a level,
some are a lot tighter and have more punch to them than before, especially ‘Pap Idol’ Si’s answer back at commerciality of
modern music and the wistfulness of it all “Don’t take away what I believe in” The now speedy ‘Guilty’ much due to Rob Fairhurst’s
drumming jigs along with a jumpy bass that taps your foot and shakes your head in a kinky way.
There’s tender moments on ‘Seesaw’ with a killer line “I lost my cool, when I fell for you” that gets me every time. The great
timing of a thunder storm during the recording of ‘It’s only Rain’ decorates this song brilliantly at the start and finish
of the song. The shifting time signatures and droplets of guitar are first-rate with this hope-fuelled song about the rain
washing away blues, making your garden grow, rainbows and pots of gold and putting the colour back into your life. It’s only
rain but it’s essential!
Singing about the desolate voids that life can throw us at some time ‘Limbosville’ is a great sing along with it’s cheery
air asking “What the fuck is wrong with me?”. This is a great song that finishes off the demo superbly.
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