Gabriel's Dawn - Gabriel's Dawn

Carrying the baton for jangly guitar pop! Musical sunshine from the Midlands.

I've recently had my faith restored in jangly guitar pop and it's all thanks to Gabriel's Dawn, a band who hail not from the sunny enclaves of Laurel Canyon, but from the mean streets of Leicester and Newcastle under Lyme. The band cite their influences as The Byrds, Love, Buffalo Springfield, through to '80s/'90s indie bands such as Teenage Fanclub, The La's, and on into the 21st century with El Goodo, The Stands and The Coral. It's a thread that pretty much mirrors a large part of my own record and CD collection!

What all these bands and scenes have in common is guitar-based music that's big on melody, literate, and with a non-macho mindset (not "fey" as claimed by detractors). There's also a love for 12-string guitar chime, plenty of arpeggiated chords, and beautiful vocal harmonies. In short it's a kind of musical sunshine. As befitting music that has its roots in '60s folk rock and '70s country rock, the lyrics are as important as the backing, and so it is on Gabriel's Dawn's eponymous debut album.

There's a transatlantic push and pull at play - while wide-eyed wonder of Americana permeates songs such as 'Loose Canyon', it's offset with a defiantly British cynicism and humour elsewhere, most notably via the lyrics of 'Real Love'. Who could fail to fall for a song that references underage smoking, Bargain Booze, staying in bed, and the debris of countless takeaway meals. And it does so while sounding like a lost Stone Roses B-Side - scuzzed-up British bohemia at its finest. Songs such as 'We' and 'I Don't Believe (in The Summer of Love)' battle it out for the strongest earworm award. Which one wins? Well have a listen and decide for yourself. Then again there's the less immediate slow burners such as album closer 'Gentle Chimes', a Byrds-eque take on the creative process which yields more with each repeated listen.

World domination may elude Gabriel's Dawn but I guess that was never the band's intention anyway. One thing I know for sure is that I've feel in a better mood after each listen to this accomplished debut. What more could you want than that!

Available on limited edition vinyl and CD via the band's Bandcamp page from May 30th, and digitally via all the usual platforms from June 27th.

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Paul Messis - Songs Of Our Times

Third album from the garage punk outsider! 12 new tunes on a 12” piece of plastic!

Paul Messis is a man who knows how to achieve a biting guitar tone. As a student and aficionado of '60s US garage-punk, his attempts at re-capturing the sounds made by mid-west teens in thrall to British Invasion bands are pretty much unrivalled. Whether it's a biting bridge pick-up lead break, a Byrdsian 12-string chime, or a fuzz-guitar motif inspired by a copy of a copy of The Rolling Stones' 'Satisfaction', Messis seems to nail it each time. More than the sounds though it's the spirit of those records he captures. That sense of being at odds with the mores and prevailing attitudes of the times.

So much for the sonics and spirit then but what of the subject matter? As we've come to expect from Messis there's a similarly biting lyrical barb that permeates this album. An attack on apathy here, a shot at governmental failings there, and expressions of disappointment in society's mores throughout. He's no killjoy though. Such pessimism merely point out that Messis believes in a better world and much like punk rock in '77, his lyrics call for more care and compassion, beginning on a one-to-one level and resonating throughout the wider world.

A hippy in garage-punk clothing? Perhaps not but it's clear Messis believes in the power of music to voice something, be it inner pain, critical diatribes against those in power, or day-to-day dissatisfaction. At the heart of this is a desire for communion and community. It's a thread that's present in all Messis' solo output as well as in the records he's made as a member of home-counties bile-punk band The Suburban Homes.

There's more to this LP though. Evidence of more mellow and nuanced sounds than we've previously heard on his solo LPs. 'Apathy's Calling', which closes side one of the LP's vinyl version has a more reflective and folksy vibe. A possible pointer to music he may make in the future, and proof that he's as adept at introspection as he is at protest. Other highlights include 'The Ballad Of A Strange Cat' which contains a neat autobiographical twist, and 'Mainstream Lifestyle Blues' where he channels his inner-Dylan and goes for that thin wild mercury sound. 'Don't follow The Man' also branches out into raga-psych territory.

Aside from his solo work and The Suburban Homes Messis continues to run the small but perfectly formed Market Square Records, specialising in limited edition 7” singles. He's also a member of The Higher State, whose latest album we covered here last year. It's in these solo records that Messis is truly himself though and we're glad he finds the time to make them. 

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