Single reviews- all out on the 15th November!

Single Reviews- Ellie Goulding, Florence and the Machine and Wolf Gang

Ellie Goulding- Under the sheets (Neon Gold) - for video see here
Here, Ellie Goulding, the chic hoodie and trainers supporter delivers her debut single. Having already performed on ‘Later live with Jools Holland’ without a release to her name, this 21 year old Hereford girl sees the release of ‘Under the Sheets’ on Neon Gold record label, previously home to Passion Pit and Marina and the Diamonds, who has just left the label to pursue her debut album release on a major label. This excellent debut, cleverly produced by up and coming producer ‘Starsmith’ is filled with a scrumptious pop melody, contagious drum beats, some form of electronic harp sounds and strong choruses. Her interesting (yet not too uncommercial) angelic voice caries the song well through honest and striking lyrics from the simple “we’re in a mess babe” to the metaphorical “You left a bloodstain on the floor.”

Florence and the Machine- You’ve got the Love (Island)
This exciting take on the original Candi Staton 90’s anthem is an absolute treat, I love how she has changed it vocally to her original recording for the B side of ‘Dog Days Are Over’ and the one found hooked onto the end of her stunning album ‘Lungs’ (for my review of this click here). The infamous strings riff found in the classic song has been replaced with a soaring harp and progressing keyboard, Candi’s remarkable voice of course replaced by the quirky and equally powerful voice of Florence Welch. You can hear Miss Welch’s passion when she sings this song, like it’s so personal to her, it’s clearly a favourite song of her which bestows many memories, just like her version does for me, I have seen her many times and more than often cried hysterically and smiled ridiculously during this song (see here here and here and here for reviews of her live performances). Her version unexpectedly became one of the most popular songs off her album and I think that it why it has been released, it’s certainly not an obvious choice and to be honest I would have rather seen ‘Cosmic Love’, ‘Hurricane Drunk’ or ‘Howl’ released as I would never want her precious version of ‘You’ve got the Love’ to be overplayed by sleazy radio presenters that don’t know what they’re talking about half of the time.

Wolf Gang- The King and all of his Men (Neon Gold, again!)
This song is everything that I expected of this talented gang of men, everything that I’ve heard from them has been fantastic! I would say that their music belongs mainly underneath the ‘synthpop’ bracket but they are excellent musicians rather than technology geeks. ‘The King and all of his Men’ contains fantastic instrumentation, a strapping chorus with catchy and well written lyrics and dancibilty on behalf of the drums. The song has been well polished off by producer ‘Blue May’ but not disgustingly so, this song contains all of the ingredients for a perfect pop song and I think that its qualities have been well mixed to create a butterfly of a song; it’s a very beautiful thing, something that anyone would wish to have created.
I also love the video, set in some sort of Victorian (these seems to be a popular style amongst the band, they certainly seem to like this era, see their myspace pictures for more details on this!)masquerade party:



Katie
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