Various (Splendour and Misery) - album review

ECLECTICA

Straddling the darker genres, this compilation of tracks by the myriad of new and established artists affiliated with London based independent TV records holds together well. Ari, of label founders Breathless, opens and closes with some Godspeed-style epic bluster. Celebrated Secretly Canadian signees Early Day Miners lend a fine bit of creepy alt.folk. Coldharbour thrash like they hate everything. Bad Seed James Johnston chips in with a cracking slice of cinematic country melancholia, as do his other band, Bender, with a live version of ‘Laugh With Me’, recorded at Hammersmith Apollo. It’s perhaps a little bleak at times, but hey: such is life.