Tag: Billy Green

Gazelles: Follow-up Album from Billy Green 3

Our favourite loud Brit-popping local Geordie and gang are back with a second album. They’re calling it Gazelles, after the previously released single opener Endless Scrolling Gazelles, a sardonic rap on the overuse of social media. Yeah we reviewed that back in 2022, and it sure was a different approach for Billy Green 3, yet the breezy journey cruising interchanging archetypal indie styles dotted with experimentation puts them firmly back on the map…….

There’s three previously released singles on this eleven-track strong album which we’ve covered before, Garden being another stab at social media wrapped in quasi-rap poetry teetering with Geordie mockery, it holds an ironic slate against the charade of social media embodiment. “People posting inspirational memes in one post, and ruining people in the next,” Bill described its subject to me at the time.

Betwixt those, four tunes, Raised Scars is the dreamy side of indie, the Verve, the exotic hopeless romantic melody of I Don’t Really Sleep (‘til You Get Home) drifts more akin to Primal Scream, thumbs up for that, surely showing the trio at their finest. Back to the upbeat rock-rap with one called Not That Deep, swapping back to soulful ballad for With You.

Broken is the third, Britpop still, yeah, but with a melancholic riff drifting over a subtle Latino backdrop, I summed it as “Madchester in Ibiza” back in 2022. Four tunes follow, The Fire Works cherrypicks the euphoric element of the rest and embellishes it, there’s a spoken word section here, and the whole U2 album track feel displays yet another tactic that Billy Green 3 is no one trick pony.

Scars sends us carelessly drifting to shore, another previously released single, it seems, this technophobe must’ve missed due to all being on Spotty-fly these-a-days; hadaway and a shite, Bill, get in touch, oh and “up the toon!” (That’s the only saying I’ve got which sounds anything remotely Biffa Bacon.) Where was I? Lovesick, again a single release from 2023, fuses this hopeless romantic standard Billy Green 3 push, yet waivers between song and this spoken converse over a beat decidedly nineties indie-dance. 

And oh, another reference to the title, Gazelles plays out this beautiful album. Epic closure on the theme of the human disposition versus scrolling through endless media, this one encapsulates every angle explored on the album and rolls it into one conclusion, with a snippet Easter egg at the finale, and that’s my best gamer reference. Superb album, engineered at Potterne’s Badger Sett studio, especially for the wee brit-popper inside us all, though I expected as much, going on the debut Still.

Even if the second album is always a worry, Billy Green 3 can welcome in the new year confident. Put this on, grab yoorself a braan ale, n kick back like Guimaraes int nivvor leaving St James’ Park! But if you need further reading about Bill and his relation to Wiltshire, see here.

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Broken, with Billy Green 3

Rain after a heatwave can be “refreshing” rather than its normal, “annoying.” Save drizzle, though forecast, we’re still waiting for the storm. If it’s refreshing you want in the meantime, local Britpop trio, Billy Green 3 paid a visit to Potterne’s Badger Set studio, and the result is Madchester in Ibiza….

Melancholically drifting over a subtle Latino riff, Broken is the surprising new single, out tomorrow (Friday 22nd July,) and it’s gorgeously chilled, like lounging on a porch-swing with a touch of bourbon, while mizzle rejuvenates the charred grass. It’s the morning-after pill from a heady beach party, yet don’t rush off with the idea Bill has done gone turned into a bossa nova star or anything rash like that!

Thankfully more air-conditioned Santana than gold bikini-clad Shakira, we’re some way even off what Oakenfold might spin at some Balearic archipelago chillout zone, because Broken retains the model Verve-Embrace come new wave mod indie sound of Billy Green’s past tracks, just with a subtle nod to something retrospectively Latino, akin to Morcheeba’s Big Calm, or Screamadelica; something like that. “Think Cafe Del Mar…in Newcastle,” our Geordie frontman Bill pitches it to me, rightfully.

Phone speaker listening never does a song justice, I must break the habit, but it took me seconds to fall in love with this tune, despite lack of amplification. Fond of this, because it works, key is the simplicity against overthinking, at least with such a style, I put to Bill.

“I think so,” he replied, “I had an idea that I wanted to have a two-chord structure, and the emotion would come through the story in the lyrics, I’m not really had any songs with a complete narrative arc, so that was the very loose plan, once I had that we just build the instrumentals around the lyrics and that ebbed and flowed…” And it has itinerant romantic narrative, as tranquil as the sound, working as a cruising solo song, or maxing-relaxing with a loved one… just don’t try the aforementioned gold bikini-clad Shakira look in an accompanying video, Bill, it’s only going to lower the poignant nuance of a superb tune; well done, guys, very summery!

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Billy Green’s Garden

To deal with my forgetfulness I have a to-do-list. The only issue with my to-do-list is I forget I started it; Billy Green released a new single last month, it’s a poetic stonker of indie-rap, with his usual nod to Britpop, and still it fell through the floodgate. Apologies to Bill, but it’s a convenient time to bring it up, as he gigs at Trowbridge’s Pump next Friday, May 27th, for Sheer Music.…..

What makes it even more exasperating for me, is that I was gossiping about the man himself, with Pip Phillips of People Like Us at Long Street Blues Club, what was it, just last week?! All good things, reminiscent of when they were in the nineties indie band, Still, together. Because Billy Green has a history, and it’s savoured in a nimble and accomplished style of the time; zip your tracksuit jacket up to the chin and hide your swirly pupils under a Kangol bucket cap!

The impression of Still remains a forefront for Bill, who named his 2020 album after the band, and followed it with a preceding collection of lost demos, made with the band mid-nineties. Tales of musical happenings in times of yore, before I landed on planet Devizes, always fascinate me, and I never tire of hearing about the blues bands of an era long past, with good folk like Exchange-owner Ian James. Yet Billy echoes out his antiquity, The Pump gig will incorporate his songs from the Still album, which relish in this bygone fashion, adroitly.

Billy Green @ Still

Surprised I was to note the quasi-rap poetry of this new tune, Garden, but twas a pleasant one. Teetering with his Geordie mockery it holds an ironic slate against the charade of social media embodiment, “people posting inspirational memes in one post, and ruining people in the next,” Bill describes it to me; I know that sentiment, probably a smidgen guilty myself, Bill, you bloody stickler!

Though hints of the everyday rap style of The Streets, it’s wrapped rather in the upbeat jaunty attitude of Blur, awash with Britpop influences of acts like James, for example. But don’t take my word for it, ere, have a listen yourself mate, and you’ll be mad-for-it too; sorted.

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