Hey all,
check out the bands reviews in The Chronicle!
To see the review from the first week of august click on the link below. The latest one is not online just yet, but we have taken the liberty of copying and pasting it below.
'John McIvor and The Tizzlettes EP’
This is undoubtedly our favour- ite tune of the moment and has been on the CD on repeat for at least a week; it’s got the poten- tial to become one of our all-time favourites. As in ever, of all time.
It’s got the sound of modern English folk from the likes of Noah and the Whale and in par- ticular the Mumfords, at least as far as the vocals go, and to some extent it’s got a similar sound, with acoustic guitar and quietly played, if powerful drums.
But it’s also got a more weighty feel than the whimsy of Noah or the cheeky grin of Mumford; comparing it to Neil Young is going a bit too far but it’s heading that way. The three tracks on this EP are less for dancing to than sitting and listening to.
Opener is “Heroes”, about rela- tions between the US and that country, reducing it to the per- sonal level of two men, one
American and one Afghan, and about how they blame each other for the mess that Afghanistan is in. Whoever’s right, the results is pointless destruction and pig- headedness.
It’s a beautiful song, starting off slowly and then building in a quiet sort of way — live music fans who’ve seen Robin Pierce’s cover of “Hey ya!” will recognise the song structure (for the rest, it’s on YouTube, on the Congleton Chronicle channel) and the drums are very similar. It’s almost a pro- test song, but not quite.
The second track is “The gar- den”, which is again acoustic and quite beautiful, and the third song “Anna”, which after repeated lis- tens is as good as “Heroes” in its own way, a downbeat love song that has some nicely technical but chilled drumming, plus the acous- tic guitar.
This is really good stuff and if the album’s as good, it will be a stunner. It’s so good that we’d say that McIvor delivers what the Magic Numbers promised: those who remember the days before the MN’s debut came out, will recall that it was very exciting thinking how good it could be and then it wasn’t; Mr McIvor fills the void that disappointing debut left.
They play the Blue Cat Café in Stockport on 26th September and the Fuel Bar Café in Manchester on 8th October. They’re on MySpace (/johnmcivor) and as well as the usual stuff, you can see them play live courtesy of Balcony television. JMC
