Geezers Of Nazareth - Songs On The Radio

  by Anthony Dhanendran

published: 25 / 1 / 2005

---

Yawn. Another record by a couple of studenty types just back from a gap-year trip to India ‘finding themselves’. But despite the inauspicious beginnings, this isn’t a record to be dismissed lightly. Yes, it was put together after the band – Adrian Meehan and Barnaby Reynolds – came back from a trip to Kerala in India, but fortunately for us there’s real talent to be found here. It’s a supremely relaxed record, and one that, while it wears its influences on its sleeve, is not immediately derivative of any one style or band. Opening track ‘Rush Hour Blues’ is a short meditation on tube travel. ‘Day In Day Out’ channel’s America’s Horse With No Name to create a breezy, carefree ode to, well, not a lot. Closing track ‘Sunglasses’ is a strange creature, spinning around a sample of an old Indian guy selling sunglasses on a Keralan beach. It is also an unashamedly pop album. Not in the factory-farmed music sense, but in the fact that the Geezers clearly aren’t bothered about being classed as ‘mainstream’. They have taken some of the best bits of 80's and 90's pop and added a splash of 90's indie sensibilities, as well as – yes – some Eastern spiritualism, and created something that, somehow, doesn’t seem quite right in this day and age. Several of the songs on ‘Songs on the Radio’ would have fitted in well, in fact, on bygone radio stations of the last couple of decades, and sound strange in the post-ironic 2000s, when we’re supposed to have heard all this stuff before. In a way, we have – the reference points are warmly familiar, but not cloying. This is an album that fits snugly in that mythical ‘English pop’ canon, taking in the Beatles, the Kinks, XTC, Squeeze, Blur and Pulp. It’s too early to say whether ‘Songs on the Radio’ will stand the test of time, but for now, it’s a rewarding, happy, entertaining record.

Track Listing:-

1 Rush Hour Blues
2 Day In Day Out
3 Gold Rush
4 Coming Home
5 Car Song
6 6am
7 The Geegees
8 Hard Bloke
9 So What
10 Songs On The Radio
11 Sunglasses

Post A Comment

---

Comment

Name

your name

Location

ie London, UK

Submit

Check box to submit

Adam Coxon
Adrian Janes
Amanda J. Window
Andrew Twambley
Anthony Dhanendran
Benjamin Howarth
Cila Warncke
Daniel Cressey
Darren Aston
Dastardly
Dave Goodwin
Denzil Watson

Dixie Ernill
Dominic B. Simpson
Eoghan Lyng
Fiona Hutchings
Harry Sherriff
Helen Tipping
Jamie Rowland
John Clarkson
Julie Cruickshank
Kimberly Bright
Lisa Torem
Maarten Schiethart

Malcolm Carter
Marie Hazelwood
Mark Rowland
Nick Dent-Robinson
Nicky Crewe
Nige Nudds
Philamonjaro
Richard Lewis
Shirley Procter
Spencer Robertshaw
Steev Burgess
Steve Kinrade

Steve Miles
Tommy Gunnarsson
Zena Grieg