Change is inevitable but it is not always for the better, at least that is what you hear people moaning about as they get older. Thankfully, Eli Tidmore proves that even something as iconic as the love song can be updated to represent the technological age without losing the magic and majesty that such a sentiment needs to be built on.
The song wanders the pop-rock divide, pulling at infectious threads from one side and adding enough power chord crunches from the other to take things into some brilliantly playful and dynamic realms. The result is a mature but accessible song built on sharp beats and a groovesome drive, a sweet yet wonderfully understated chorus and more hooks than a Peter Pan convention. All of which are classic song writing building blocks perhaps but the real up date is to be found in the lyrics.
Like it or loathe it today’s world is mobile, instantaneous and on-line and so a “will they/won’t they” love story centred on modern communication is only to expected, art reflects life after all. But where as a lesser artist could make this cliché or forced, Eli’s charm is that whilst the focus is the clinical world of the phone message, the sentiment is timeless. Those tentative steps into a new relationship, that reservation, those doubts…the feelings people have been grappling with since we first climbed down from the trees and invented language with the sole purpose of asking each other out for a drink.
The world turns and whilst the trappings of life change, the way that the head and heart operate doesn’t and what Heart in My Phone really shows is that as much things change on some levels, they pretty much stay the same. Somewhere in the distant future out there in the vastness of space people may develop psychic communication over millions of miles but those young kids will still be getting the same flutters in their hearts as they wait for that all important reply.
The wonderfully named 
Every band should get to have their AC/DC moment. The Cult did it better than most, certainly better than Accept did it, Rose Tattoo did it in it’s native accent and Humble Pie seemed to do it through the use of time travel. 
If in the minds of many, at least to those looking in from the opposite shores of that big old ocean as I am, music from the great state of Texas conjures ideas of outlaw country bands, boogie bluesmen and the cross cultural beat of the borders spicy groove, then Elmont are determined to write a whole new chapter in the musical history books. Pop, rock and indie sounds all mix with ease on their self-titled EP, but everyone and their uncle are doing that sort of thing these days, so why do these Dallas boys get it so right when so many others clearly miss the point.
Pop music doesn’t have to be clever, in fact it is often at its best when it is relying on baser, more emotional driven urges. But every now and then someone proves that it is possible to blend the two, the cerebral and the passionate and the wonderfully named Josh Birdsong is the perfect example of head meets heart music. And if the term pop music may give you the wrong impression, though pretty much everything with an accessible quality is pop(ular) music to me, let’s dig a little deeper.
I’ve had a run of acts come my way of late that fall into the broad hip-hop/rap spectrum and who claim to be really pushing the boundaries of what the genre can be as we move forward into a new era. Most, however, has been the sonic equivalent of dropping a hand grenade into the middle of the listener’s expectations and then trying to rearrange the debris into new and pleasing shapes. Sure, you really shake things, and then some, but you also find that the result is normally, well…a total disaster.
Music is cyclical, we all know that, 30 years seems to be the recognised time span for music to drop off the fashion radar long enough to seem cool or cult and be rediscovered and reinterpreted by a new musical generation. Brit-pop was a re-discovery of sixties guitar bands, punk was the distilled spirit of rock’n’roll for generation feeling similarly lost and even grunge had its roots in the garage rock and nascent metal scenes of a previous generation.
The collective back catalogue of the wonderfully named Canute’s Plastic Army’s Neil and Anish covers a lot of ground, indie rock, traditional folk, raw retro blues and poetic alt-rock to name a few, but I doubt anyone expected to find them working in the realms of gothic-folk-pop.
There was a time when being a left handed guitar player meant that you either had to retrain yourself to play right handed or you had to put up with a series of compromises. Compromises such as playing a flipped right handed guitar, swapping the order of the guitar strings and putting up with the controls all being in the wrong place. And none of these are real solutions, guitars are set and calibrated to work in very specific ways, a flipped over right-hander is never going to compete with one built specifically with the left-handed player in mind.
But of course as high tech and forward thinking the industry is these days, somethings can’t be improved on and people will always be looking for that original sound driven by authentic, not to mention, vintage gear. Used, road tested and pre-loved pieces such as a second hand 
This is the second album from the Irish duo now based in London, to follow 2014’s “And So It Began”, and is something of a mixed bag in terms of apparent influences and styles. Think Britpop meets Kasabian meets mainstream 60’s pop, and you’ll not miss the mark by much.
