Get On Your Boots

As I prepare for another one of my mini UK tours (York - Manchester - Salford - London), I find myself drowning in more work than I can handle, and yet I somehow always find time for my weekly podcast. Better still, I find that it calms me down and helps energize me to do everything else I need to do with more verve.

This week's podcast is the 148th edition on the Mużika Mod Ieħor series. Now that we're already almost 4 weeks into the new year it's understandable that most of the material I'm including consists of new releases. The first of these comes from Airport Impressions, who have just launched a single called Borderline. I'm sure they'll be playing this song at the upcoming Malta Eurosong 09, where they're among the guests who will undoubtedly outshine many of the contestants.

Before moving on to two more new releases, I turn back to an EP called Idiosyncratic, released towards the end of 2008 by Gozitan newcomers The Imagery. I featured a song from this EP when it came out, but now that I've managed to acquire my own copy of the CD I though it would be an appropriate way to mention that they will be appearing along with Cable 35 and nosnow/noalps at the Liquid Club in San Gwann next Saturday, 31 January. Sounds like an enjoyable line up to me to make the evening very worthwhile for any follower of the local alternative music scene. The song I've picked to play today is called Out There and the first few verses sound to me to be beautifully reminiscent of the Maltese lament ballads from the traditional għana, even if the song has a totally different structure from anything like that.

Guitarist Billy Lee has just launched a song called Don't Give Your Heart Away. This is his debut release as a soloist. Regular listeners of the MMI podcast will remember him that he also plays guitar with Metrokueen and Dayline. I can understand why he would want to sing his own songs, but to my ears he's a far better guitarist than he is a singer. Still, it's not to say that I'm not keen to hear him sing more songs. I have a feeling that if he continues to do this, he will eventually get better at it, particularly if he tried a heavier groove...or at least we can still enjoy his very skillful guitar playing.

Extreme Death Metal band Abysmal Torment are still riding high on the success of their overseas touring. They are now poised to release a new album called Omnicide in April and have just uploaded a couple of tracks from it to their MySpace page. From this I've picked a song appropriately entitled Omega to close this week's podcast.

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