Groove Armada - GA10

A few weeks ago, Groove Armada released a new version of their Greatest Hits album to help kick off their 10th birthday celebrations and now they are back again already with the next stage. But while that collection was targeted at the kind of people who would see it, remember having heard some of their nice songs on adverts on the telly, and then buy it, this one is definitely for the fans. GA10: From The Vaults 1997-2007 is a collection of rarities, B-sides and remixes from the last 10 years, taking in pretty much all of their hits, but in a more roundabout kind of way. It's been split into two discs, each one chosen and mixed by one of Groove Armada, with Tom Findlay taking care of the Uptempo disc and Andy Cato responsible for the Downtempo one, which is quite a nice idea for this kind of retrospective, as it shows that they've at least had some real input on it rather than letting the ad-men decide like with the obvious Greatest Hits album. The split between Uptempo and Downtempo works well too, taking the two sides of their musical personality and focusing on them individually, rather than shoving them all together in a collection that ends up all over the place. If we had to state a preference we'd go for the Downtempo disc, because you can't really argue with something that starts with Remember (featuring those Sandy Denny samples) and ends with a decent remix of the overplayed At The River. However, the Uptempo disc is also a lot of fun, and they key here is that while Greatest Hits sounded a whole lot too familiar due to the fact that so many of the songs are on TV everyday in adverts, the mixes on here make the tracks sound more fresh and interesting. By that same token, if you are looking for those songs that you know and love, don't expect to find them here, because GA10 is not for the casual Groove Armada fan. It's very much for the die-hards and as a retrospective for them, it's certainly worth it and provides a nice balance for their anniversary releases.

Crash My Model Car - Ghosts And Heights

The OC may be gone, but its influence on music continues. Crash My Model Car are an indie band from Scotland who are barely known so far, but they've still had a song appear on the show about spoiled brats in California. Mind you, it's not hard to understand why the makers decided to use In Dreams, because it does sound very American and particularly very Death Cab For Cutie, who are of course very 'OC' in the kind of music they make. Quite how obscure British bands like CMMC and Alabama 3 get noticed by big American TV studios we'll never quite know, but while In Dreams certainly won't have had the kind of seismic effect on them that Woke Up This Morning did to Larry Love and Co, it is at the very least a foot-up in the industry. And they deserve it, because Ghosts And Heights is a very good album that builds on the promise of that opening track with excellent tunes like Siren and West Coast Train both using singer Iain Morrison's voice perfectly (he actually sounds quite a lot like Gary Lightbody, but has a lot more good tunes to sing). They may have a sound that owes a lot to American alt-rock (Morrison also sounds a bit like Ben Kweller), but CMMC are still very rooted in Scottish music as well, and they fit in well with the likes of Camera Obscura and Aberfeldy. Maybe, from their debut EP, sounds a bit out of place with its more straightforward rock approach, but there's enough use of the quirky keyboard refrain to save it from being the album's sore thumb. They are much better off sticking to the slower, more reflective material, because Maybe is an alright song, but tracks like Island Scientist show much more quality and class. Crash My Model Car might struggle to rise above the many other bands making this kind of music, but they have certainly come up with a great debut album.