The wonderful Xtra Mile Records are 10 years old this year; 10 years of some wonderful releases from the likes of Reuben, Stapleton, The Xcerts and Frank Turner. To celebrate, the label are putting out four special 7″ single releases in a special package, featuring some of their newest artists as well as some more established acts.
Starting off at week one, with Chris T-T‘s ‘The Bear’ in all it’s fuzzy glory with it’s clever lyrics and dirty great big sound, and the second side featuring the much softer To Kill A King, ‘Rays‘ which features a sound that’s not too dissimilar to bands like Editors or Revere, with the incredible vocals a focal point on a nice musical backdrop. A great start then, but then week two pushes it even further, with the distortion and banjo picking of Larry And His Flask‘s track ‘The Battle For Clear Sight‘ creating a track that’s superior to the majority of songs in the same genre, showing off the incredible musicianship. The other side features long time Xtra Mile artist Beans On Toast, with his acoustic backed lyrical homage to the label of ‘Deadline’ talking about how he loves his label within such a ruthless industry.
For the third week, the vinyl starts with Jim Lockey & The Solemn Sun‘s ‘Wilderness Of A Wild Youth’ a fairly straight forward rock track comparatively, which still has some great moments. It’s not too far off of the sound of modern Biffy during the verses, although the chorus has similarities with Frank Turner‘s more rocky tracks. The other side features Crazy Arm‘s ‘Remembrance’, a fairly fast paced acoustic number with some lovely vocal harmonies.
The fourth week is, I’m not ashamed to admit, the one I was most excited to listen to based on the track listing. Side A comes from the awesome Mongol Horde, the project of Frank Turner, Ben Dawson (of Palehorse and Million Dead) and Matt Nasir (of The Sleeping Souls). ‘How The Communists Ruined Christmas’ sees Ben absolutely rocking the guitar riffs while Frank’s awesome lyrics and cracking screamed vocals absolutely hammer through. It’s quite apparent from this track that the band were living entirely on a diet of hardcore records at the time of writing the tracks, with a few familiarities to Million Dead in places.
Side B, equally exciting, contains the first two singles from ex-Reuben frontman Jamie Lenman. Showing the massive contrast between the two sides of his upcoming album, ‘Fizzy Blood’ is one of the heaviest things he’s done, even compared to stuff like ‘Alpha Signal Three’, the guitars absolutely hammering while Jamie’s instantly recognisable snarling scream fires over the top. God knows the man would have no voice left if he was performing this track day after day. Following on from that though is ‘Pretty Please’, a little number which starts fairly folky, but has various obvious jazz influences (the drums and the upright bass for a start, before we even talk about the horns). This isn’t necessarily something that I’d enjoy listening to every day, but it shows the songwriting ability of Lenman pretty well, as well as showing off a different type of vocal range.
All in all then, you’d do well to just purchase the box set containing each week of the birthday vinyl. All of the individual tracks make up quite a nice compiliation of songs which will no doubt see you looking into the rest of the available tracks from each artist. It’s a fitting way to wish Xtra Mile a happy birthday anyway!
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