Damaged Goods レコード& CD

Review: Medway's garage rock king Allan Crockford has credits flittering all the way back to the 80's including the likes of The Prisoners, Billy Childish's Thee Headcoats, The Solarflares, and even the OG line-up of the James Taylor Quartet, to name but a handful. Keeping sharp and busy, however, The Galileo 7 serves as his own passion project; melding 60s mod-beat garage rock with jangling psychedelic pop, leading to a sonic bickering between anthemic hooks and fuzzed out, twinkling guitar lines. Following two exceptional full-lengths released through Damaged Goods; 2017's Tear Your Minds Wide Open! and 2019's There Is Only Now, the collective return after a half-decade of respite to deliver another batch of lysergic, hazy power pop goodness, intended for the wannabe mod/hippie in all of us.

Review: Given the not-so-subtle reference to seminal 1960 French New Wave movie A Bout De Souffle (Breathless), you could be forgiven for thinking this retrospective compilation was from the Marseille power-metal outfit, Heavenly. It's not, and instead shines a light on the jangly indie pop of Oxfordshire, UK outfit, Heavenly.

Emerging from the ashes of Talulah Gosh, and eventually evolving into Marine Research following the death of Mathew Fletcher in 1996, for the uninitiated, think poetic lyrical delivery with punchy observational lines and stressed but harmonious guitar riffs that envelop the listener, combining to define a sonic space that's somewhere between Trash Kit, Garbage and Hinds, only with a thick sugar coating. Releasing just four albums in their time, what's here is a great insight into their catalogue and a good jumping off point for what happened before, and next.

Review: Now getting its utmost-deserved 25th Anniversary reissue on Damaged Goods, Here I Am I Always Am is the only solo album by Kyra, one of the members of the all-female Kent punk band Headcoatees, whom in turn began as the backing band for Billy Childish's Thee Headcoats. Though it's billed as a solo record, Kyra's album is backed by the members of the Headcotes and is a surreal, lo-fi excursion in garage-punk in its 90s heyday.

Review: Ah what could have been if people had just got them. In many ways, Talulah Gosh are the ultimate tale of youth misunderstood in band form - so much talent and so many ideas, but often delivered in such an uncompromising and unapologetic way many people simply tuned out, or walked away, without taking the time to actually listen to what was being said.

Now's the chance to do something about that if you were one of those naysayers. Was It Just A Dream? is a no-holds-barred collection of singles from the outfit's back catalogue, which makes one thing clear. If you're looking for a slightly trippy combination of 1960s girl groups, The Ramones and New Wave, this is it. You can't help but wonder if the troupe - who only stayed together for two years, disbanding in 1988 - might have enjoyed more success in today's irony-filled, remake loving world.