The Temper Trap return to Brighton's Great Escape festival this year

We don't like to blow our own trumpets at Bobbysix.com (we actually really do), but we've been raving about The Temper Trap for years now. In fact, for longer than they have even been called The Temper Trap. Our love for the Melbourne band is almost as big as our love for the beautiful city of Brighton, so imagine how excited we were to hear that the two are coming together for The Great Escape Festival this year. The boys too, are really up for it, saying, “We can't wait to play The Great Escape again - being part of the event in 2009 was incredible and 2012 is going to be even better. We'll be playing songs from our new album, its set to be a very special show”.

The Great Escape 2012 is well on the way to bursting point as a whopping 141 artists were today added to the line-up taking this year’s edition to an unparalleled level of showmanship. The news comes at the same time as a decision from Arts Council England to support the festival with a £38,000 grant. The award is intended to help the festival to deliver local collaborations, education and development and to promote international diversity and collaboration between artists.

Other excellent artists set to make the trip down to Europe’s leading festival for new music include Jack White signings The Black Belles on their first UK trip, while Supergrass alumnus Gaz Coombes will be performing his brilliant new work. We Are Augustines, St Lucia, Body Language, Devin, The Front Bottoms, Cloud Nothings and more will also play, while, fresh out of SXSW, Haim, Pond and Wild Belles will be doing their thing. A few more established acts like S.C.U.M, We Are Scientists, We Were Promised Jetpacks and Kids in Glass Houses will be there too.

You can check out the full programme by day and venue, as well as getting yorself some tickets, at www.escapegreat.com today. The festival will hit Brighton this May and you can still just about get the early bird price before the deadline. So don't delay.

Supergrass - Diamond Hoo Ha

I reviewed the new Supergrass album last week, for Drum Media in Sydney:SUPERGRASS
Diamond Hoo Ha

When Supergrass released Road to Rouen back in 2005, a decade after they had burst onto the Britpop scene with the stunning I Should Coco, it seemed they had left their jaunty indie-pop roots behind them. However, if the brooding, psychedelic folk-pop of that recording showed a band growing old gracefully and moving on, then Diamond Hoo Ha sees them return to what they know best.

Named after the temporary touring project of frontman Gaz Coombes and drummer Danny Goffey while bassist Mick Quinn recuperated after sleepwalking through a first floor window, the album sees a smile returning to the reunited band’s face through a familiar brand of perky melodies with glam rock sensibilities.

Ok, so maybe this is merely the sound of a bunch of elder statesmen trying to recapture the vibrancy of their youth, but they certainly haven’t lost their knack of writing tunes so outrageously catchy that you’ll be humming them in your sleep. Big and brash in its production, the album opens with Coombes screaming “Bite me” in the chorus of the title track like a man who has rediscovered his mojo, while Rebel in You is the kind of joyously singalong tune that the band is renowned for. Elsewhere, Coombes’ vocal strangely wanders into Bob Dylan territory in Ghost of a Friend.

Supergrass simply don’t release bad records, and though Diamond Hoo Ha isn’t the best of their six so far, it’s a genuine grower with enough effervescence to suggest that, 13 years after their debut, there’s life in the old dogs yet.