Aberdeen’s finest THE NEEDLES have already turned in a string of rollicking good singles and with “Summer Girls” they’ve done it again. Admittedly, this is a slightly more considered, dramatic outing full of chiming guitars, descending chords and a tangibly chilly melancholic tinge that they’d kept well-hidden before, but there’s bags of charisma in Dave Dixon’s ever-improving voice, and overall it shows they can do ‘moody’ ever bit as effectively as ‘breakneck’. Excellent, in layman’s terms.
The other great thing about The Needles is that they’re from the old-fashioned, but brilliant tradition of bands who care enough to shoehorn greatness onto the B-side (think also The Jam, Smiths, Oasis, The Fall etc) and with both “How Come It Doesn’t Rain?” and “Starting To Worry” they have two tunes hooky enough to be A-sides in their own right. “Starting To Worry” is quintessential Needles with revved-up Townshend-style powerchording fom Dixon and the band pulling the pin on another typically spiky punk-pop grenade, but “How Come It Doesn’t Rain?” is the clincher: with its’ swooshy harmonies, “September Girls”-style guitar motif and Richey Wolfe switching to harpsichord, it’s got ‘radio hit’ stamped through it like the best Blackpool rock. And it’s a B-side! Confident or wot, eh?
|
|
