One Direction // One Way Or Another (Teenage Kicks)

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Yes, it’s time for Comic Relief again and this year, single honours have gone to the One Direction boys with a mash up of One Way Or Another and Teenage Kicks

To be honest, there’s more cheese here than on a mozzarella pizza. It’s a very safe track for them, if not slightly creepy seeing as they have kept the majority of the lyrics. But basically here, there is nothing that we haven’t already heard them do in the past by them. It might be for charity but after a few listens it starts to get a tad annoying.

Of course fans will enjoy it but for the general listener, it will probably get tired very quickly.

Rating: 2/5

Lawson // Learn To Love Again

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Buy @ Official Store

It’s been a great year for these boys and their current single Learn To Love Again continues that momentum.

We briefly mentioned it when we reviewed the album and said that it was a delve back into the pop side of things with a positive song about love. And it is.  It’s a great little number that will have you singing along even if it is just the chorus. And with the boys heading across the pond, hopefully songs like this will win them some US fans as well

Rating: 4/5

Fun // Why Am I The One

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We can’t help want to call this latest offering from Fun as We Are Young Part 2.

Why Am I The One really doesn’t offer much that we haven’t heard in the previous releases and as we' said, we just feel that it’s sequel to the song that really brought them to the attention of the listening public. You can’t help feel that maybe…just maybe…it’s starting to get desperate to keep their name out there….and this is the 4th track off of the album…

Rating: 2/5

New Music Friday: Peter Hollens

We thought we’d introduce you to Peter Hollens. We first came across him in with the “duet” with Lindsey Stirling on the Skyrim Theme. What we love about him is that all his music is done just using his voice! His latest offering comes in the form of a cover of Josh Groban’s Brave. Check it out below:

Official Site | Youtube

Little Mix // Change Your Life

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Single number 3 from the 2011 X Factor winners also happens to be track 3 from their debut album, DNA. We think we can start to see a pattern emerging here but maybe more on that later

Change Your Life is one of these songs that looks at the negatives in the world but then turns on it’s head come the chorus singing  We gonna stick together / know we get through it all / Change, change your life, take it all (yeah, take it all) / You're gonna use it to become what you've always known. It’s a bit more mellow than their last two offerings, but at least it showing different sides to them

So…prediction for the next track….Always Be Together? It is track 4 after all…..

Rating: 4/5

Train // Mermaid

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Considering that they’re just about to go on tour in the UK, it’s probably about the right time to release another track from their current album California 37 and it comes in the form of Mermaid.

We’re of split opinion on it. On one hand we’re loving the rhythm of the track with images of people (probably most likely women) having a little wiggle of the hips along to it. Then on the other hand, there is something in the lyrics that we don’t like. We can’t decide whether or it’s because it’s got feeling of a summer that we don’t know of and that it’s coming our in the dreich month of February…or maybe it’s telling us that love can just wash up on a beach given that it is the month of love.

The shore is close at hand but we think that this track may just be floundering in the shallows.

Rating: 3/5

Emeli Sande // Clown

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Seems just now that piano driven ballads are the order of the day at the moment as Scots singer/songwriter Emeli Sande brings her next offering to the table in the form of Clown.

As well as being piano driven track, it’s also delicately balanced with strings coming in on the first chorus. It shows Sande’s vocals off beautifully and shows a confidence in her voice that she doesn’t have to bulk up a track with added extras in order to make a song work and that she can produce a song using the ‘bare’ essentials.

An interesting change from the last couple of tracks and a track that’s like to keep her and her album, Our Version of Events in the spotlight for a while longer.

Rating: 4/5

SHY & DRS // Read All About It – The Covers EP

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If you’re going to do a cover, then you’re at least expected to do it justice and at least make it your own. Well, the boys from SHY & DRS have done just that with their latest offering Read All About It – The Covers EP.

They’ve taken 5 recent tracks (Taylor Swift’s I Knew You Were Trouble, The Script & Will.i.am’s Hall Of Fame, Fun’s We Are Young, Professor Green & Emeli Sande’s Read All About It and Ed Sheeran’s The A Team), got a couple of mates round, changed almost all the lyrics bar the choruses and hey presto, you have an EP.

It’s an interesting take on the tracks that even with the lyrical change still maintain a similarity to the original, but yet they are completely separate.Sure, it won’t be for everyone, but considering that their debut release is on the horizon, it a nice little thing to keep those waiting tided over until it comes out.

Rating: 4/5

Dido // No Freedom

It’s a been while since we’ve heard anything from Dido. With her new album Girl Who Got Away just around the corner, the first offering from it is No Freedom.

To be fair, there is nothing here that we haven’t heard in the past from her. It’s almost as if she’s just came back and continued on from where she left off. Maybe this will work in her favour given how long she has been absent from the music scene. There is something that we like about it, but at the same time, we keep wanting the track to go somewhere that it doesn’t.

Hopefully it won’t be setting the precedence for the rest of the album. But then, things can only get better, right?

Rating: 3/5 

Alicia Keys // Brand New Me

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Brand New Me is the third single to be lifted from her album Girl On Fire. So how does it measure up?

It’s a beautiful piano driven ballad that allows Keys beautiful yet powerful vocals carry the emotion through the track. Instrumentally, it starts building about midway, reaches a crescendo at the bridge before dropping back to just voice and piano. It’s similar to her last track Girl on Fire yet you can’t help feel that this is in a league of it own.

Lovely track that shows another side of Alicia. And just what we’re needing for this time of year.

Rating: 4/5

New Music Friday // The Vibrant Sound

We mentioned this ‘outfit’ on Monday after seeing ‘him’ support Lindsey Stirling in Glasgow. But seeing as we’re don’t know how to really describe them, we’ll let them do it instead!

The Vibrant Sound is a movement of ingenuity. Combining eclectic styles from Los Angeles to New York, this trio has captured a sound that defies boundaries on all sides. Based on the song writing slash lyrical delivery of lead man McKay Stevens, the Vibrant Sound came together to create music for ghetto blasters to speak through and people to connect to.

Check out their latest single below:

Official Site