Johnny Foreigner Side Project Tsunami: New Music Pending From Yr Poetry, Yr Friends and Fridge Poetry, Hear Titanic "Still Got It" Now

Remember the mid-summer news, that two Johnny Foreigner-related side-projects were Voltron-ing together to form still another permutation? Well, even if you don't, the fruits of the union of Johnny Foreigner guitarist and singer Alexei Berrow's Yr Friends project and drummer Junior Elvis Washington Laidley's Fridge Poetry project -- which operates under the nomme de guerre Yr Poetry -- are due Oct. 10 in the form of a cracking mini-album titled No Tribes. The raw and ready seven-song set was recorded with long-time engineer Dom James and will be released via the Yr Friends Bandcamp as a digital download and hand-made, limited-edition CD with booklet like it's the year 200x. Given the slack and subdued vibe of Yr Friends, and the burbling emo-tronics of Fridge Poetry, No Tribes is actually a bit of a surprise. Rather than expressing an average of the two side projects' sounds, the short set is, well, a complete face-rocker. Explosive standout "Bae Ruthie" is massive, with crushing distortion in the lead guitar riff (a sort of inside-out rendering of the riff from Johnny Foreigner's titanic 2010 rocker "Who Needs Comment Boxes When You've Got Knives"), breakneck drumming and Mssrs. Berrow and Laidley desperately harmonizing on the ridiculously catchy chorus "is that all you've got to say?" Impossibly powerful and poignant hooks seem to come to Berrow with disturbing ease, or at least ludicrous frequency, and closer "Still Got It" powerfully delivers with the repeated declaration -- delivered over a storming flurry of strumming and thrilling battery of snare and cymbals from Mr. Laidley -- "I survived a pop-punk summer, shiny heartbreak on the radio." The tune is on par with legendary JoFo album closers "The Coast Was Always Clear" and "Absolute Balance," and is definitive proof that Yr Poetry and its music shouldn't be treated as a secondary effort: No Tribes is the real deal. It is unclear whether we can expect to see Yr Poetry performing live again; our recollection (which may be faulty) is there was a single live performance over the summer. Johnny Foreigner are preparing for a short jaunt to South Africa at the end of the month, and there have already been rumblings about making a fifth proper full-band LP, so the band remains busy.

But not too busy to keep Yr Poetry's component parts from releasing even more new music shortly. Yr Friends' Yr Friends Don't Care What You Look Like EP was to have been released earlier this week, according to a recent email blast, although we have as yet not seen the project hit the Interwhatzitz (although, as we note below, Goldflake Paint has a taste). The new EP comes relatively hot on the heels of another EP issued in August called Yr Friends Ruined It For All Of Us, notable not only for being terrific (the tune "Hella Negatives (Version 2)" is dazzling and delicate and so, so pretty), but also for the inclusion of a cover of Hole's "Malibu." The same recent email blast to the JoFo list last week stated Fridge Poetry will release a new EP Oct. 15 titled Omstart Sessions. Given the title, we can only imagine the material contained therein will have been recorded at the aforementioned Dom James' Omstart studio in Birmingham, England, which as we failed to mention supra is the hometown for everyone we've been talking about here. Fridge Poetry's prior efforts -- particularly its collaborations with The Weaks' Evan Bernard -- have rocked most steadfastly, so we are eager to hear these new songs as well.

Stepping back for a moment, we are extremely happy to be getting so much new music from Johnny Foreigner and its related projects these days. The Birmingham fight-pop heroes recently very quietly passed its 10th anniversary as a band, although a 10th anniversary of bassist Kelly Southern joining up is still a couple years off, apparently feels more like something more worth noting, and is slightly more likely to be celebrated by the somewhat anniversary-adverse act. A recent, somewhat viral Twitter bleep noted with awe how much The Smiths accomplished in just five years; as a fan we're grateful that we are still able to see and hear what Johnny Foreigner are doing 10 years on, and hopefully will be able to say the same thing in another five and perhaps even 10 years. We are pleased to be able to offer a stream of the aforementioned Yr Poetry joint "Still Got It" below. We recommend turning it up quite loud. To hear more newness, check out Goldflake Paint's aforementioned triumvirate of exclusives from the three pending releases right here. And because we're totally jazzed by it right now, below "Still Got It" we're posting all of Yr Friends' Yr Friends Ruined It For All Of Us, as it hit the Internerds whilst we were on holiday this summer and as a result we didn't give it the digital ones and zeroes it deserved at the time.

Today's Hotness: French Leisure, Dark Blue, Fury Things

>> Following great bands pays dividends in a number of ways, and one of these is getting turned on, by association, to excellent record labels or other bands. Case in point is the French label Beko, which we first encountered sometime in the past year because of its releases by Mooncreatures and The Bilinda Butchers [zing! pow!]. Indeed, the label has been mining some serious quality recently, and thanks to the almighty push notifications of the indispensable Bandcamp we know that one of its latest releases is among its most thrilling to date. We speak of the single #2 from French indie rock trio French Leisure. Band principals Laurent, Elsa and Gaël previously played in the long-running and influential Parisian indie rock concern Acetate Zero, which split in 2011. The trio rotate instruments on the regular, apparently, and hail from various cities -- or have together moved around quite a bit -- as their brief bio notes the act is from "Paris, Nice, Brest, Montpellier, wherever... whatever." The A-side of #2 is the mid-tempo, crisp guitar-driven ballad "Curtains," which calls to mind the patient and melodic indie rock masterpieces of Bettie Serveert or Karl Hendricks Trio. The flip side is the peppy, seemingly Versus-inspired rocker "Inner Shark." It's no stretch to surmise that French Leisure derives a fair amount of influence from classic American indie rock: in a recent interview, the trio reports that its favorite albums include Pedro The Lion's Control, Bedhead's Transaction De Novo and the epochal What's Up Matador? comp from 1997. It is little surprise that French Leisure's first single was titled #1, but what is more surprising is that it was released by Beko only a month ago. Although the band bemoaned in the interview linked supra the slow pace at which they are able to complete material (or at least we think they do -- our command of the French language is abominable), it would seem they are working pretty rapidly to bring the rock music to the people. Beko released #2 May 28; both of its singles for French Leisure are download-only and are available for free, meaning there is really no reason for them to not be in your life. Don't be a dumbass.



>> There's a side of Philly that's never been kinder and gentler, that prides itself on never having been kinder and gentler. And although it is important to note that it is not its only side, perhaps nothing embodied that in the music scene of the City of Brotherly Love in the last decade more than provocative punks Clockcleaner. Confrontational, loved and loathed equally, the band -- which Wikipedia claims was named after a nasty batch of heroin -- nevertheless blazed a wide path over the course of a relatively prolific, six-year career that ended with mercurial fronter John Sharkey reportedly splitting for Australia unexpectedly in 2008. All of that feels long ago and far away, even more so now that Mr. Sharkey has returned with a thrilling new trio called Dark Blue, which appears to have sprung from the ashes of another project called Puerto Rico Flowers. Dark Blue is set to release via Jade Tree July 15 a terrific, sophomore single that is surprisingly reverent to certain postpunk sounds. The waste-of-breath shorthand we've seen on the band so far focuses on Sharkey's baritone and lazily compares it to that of Ian Curtis. But if we're going to make lazy comparisons, folks, let's at least come correct: Dark Blue sounds a hell of a lot like a tougher version of the excellent, Morrissey-approved but sadly defunct UK guitar pop combo The Boyfriends (ploing!), which released its only full-length in 2006. Dark Blue's Jade Tree single features the anthemic, midtempo basher "Just Another Night With The Boys" on the A-side, and a riveting cover of John Cale's "Hungry For Love" on the flip. Both tunes were recorded by Philadelphia's Jeff Zeigler, who seems to have touched every excellent sound recording that has come out of the city for the last few years; a full-length Dark Blue LP is planned, and we're hopeful that Mr. Zeigler's name will appear on the back of that one as well. You can stream both cuts from the single below; we highly recommend that you do. Pre-order "Just Another Night With The Boys" b/w "Hungry For Love" from Jade Tree as a 7" vinyl single or digital download right here. Dark Blue's debut single was issued by the Brooklyn-based label Katorga Works and it can be downloaded gratis right here.



>> Minneapolis-based fuzz-pop dynamos Fury Things have a gift for crafting big, glossy melodies (and also, apparently, covering Hole songs). On its new, three-song release simply titled 7", Fury Things make a dense and gloriously glossy racket. Shoegazy guitars on opener "Leave Winter Behind" shimmer and bend along the crest of a sturdy, tambourine-studded beat. The tune is equal parts sugar and crunch, and it gentle vocal harmonies -- which recall the cracking melodicism of Scottish indie heroes Teenage Fanclub -- work to accent the former. The tempo and energy level steadily increase across Fury Things' three tracks, such that closer "Follow" feels almost out of control, given its peppy pace. Despite the short set's title, we can find no information about a pending vinyl release of the three songs, which are all new. With hooks this sharp, a vinyl issue would certainly seem to be a solid idea, but presently the music is on offer only as a digital download. The aforementioned 7" is not Fury Things' first release: the threesome issued a demo EP in late 2012, and followed it up quickly with a second, self-recorded short stack several months later simply titled EP 2. We'll keep our eyes open for additional information about 7", but don't let the question of its availability keep you from its glorious bash 'n' dazzle: stream the entire deal via the Bandcamp embed below. Fury Things play St. Paul's Amsterdam Bar and Hall June 15 before heading across the border to Calgary for a few dates surrounding the 2014 Sled Island music festival.