As the graffiti in Paris used to read (except, y’know, in French), the vote changes nothing, the struggle continues. The struggle, in this case, to whittle down the bulging sackful of eligible albums released in the last year to a shortlist of 12 in the election that really matters: the nominations for LOUD WOMEN 2024 Hercury Music Award.
A whole range of releases, including several brilliant debuts and a couple of my personal favs aren’t even here, such is the fierceness of the competition and the fact that I don’t just make all this up by myself. Instead, Team LOUD WOMEN collectively chose the following nominations through a series of tense, late-night, knife-edge negotations, via a transferable vote system too complicated for you to understand, from a longlist of full-length albums released by female/enby-led British/Irish bands since mid-July 2023.
Accept no substitute: unlike certain other suspiciously-similarly-named awards the Hercury has no entry fee, no corporate sponsorship, and no minimum distribution criteria. If you’re looking for an authentic DIY-inclusive alternative, you’ve hit the bullseye. Now let’s have a look at who could’ve won.
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The Baby Seals – Chaos (Apr 2024)
Fans bearing the long wait for the Baby Seals‘ debut have finally been rewarded, with a mix of rerecorded, spruced-up tracks from their eponymous EP, and new tunes inc. singles ‘Invisible Woman’ and the unstoppable earworm ‘ID’d at Aldi’. It’s perhaps possible to take the Seals for granted and forget just how poptastic songs like ‘My Labia’s Lopsided..’ really are, but meanwhile ‘…Money Honey’ and the title track reveal the other side of the band: their 70s rock-beast alter-ego.
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Cherym – Take It Or Leave It (Feb 2024)
Listening again to their “all craic, no crap” back catalogue, it’s clear that Derry’s Cherym have delivered greatness from the get-go, with a unerring knack for constructing irresistibly-melodic pop-punk nuggets. First album ‘Take it Or Leave It’ (fab classic rock title) is thus unsurprisingly impressive and featured singles include the heartwarming ‘Taking Up Sports’ and the striking small-p political (plus large-P if you watch the vid) ‘Alpha Beta Sigma’. The U.S. 90s influences are strong with this one, and even stripped-down track ‘Binary Star’ could be a globally-charting Green Day-style ballad dislodged from the collective memory; except that would be awful, whereas such is Cherym’s way with a perfect chord sequence, and the charm of Hannah Richardson’s affecting vocals, that there’s simply nothing here not to love.
Full review here.
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Chroma – Ask For Angela (Oct 2023)
“A series of aural brickbats.. exhilarating and serious.. a relentless-yet-tuneful wall-of-sound.. an engaged and engaging record”: Chroma‘s long-awaited debut album featured singles ‘Girls Talk’, ‘Woman To Woman’, ‘Don’t Wanna Go Out’ and ‘Don’t Mind Me’ followed by a succession of consistently intensive, emotional epics. Potent metal-edged alt rock, and quite possibly the finest Welsh power trio since Mclusky.
Full review here.
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Coach Party – Killjoy (Sep 2023)
One of last year’s undisputable highlights, Coach Party‘s debut album followed a series of excellent EPs and confirmed their skill at producing archetypal happy-sad indiepop, with singles like ‘Be That Girl’ and ‘What’s The Point In Life’, as well as punkier bangers like ‘Parasite’, ‘Micro-Aggression’, and ‘All I Wanna Do Is Hate’. Perhaps those harder-edged tracks aside, there’s something warmly comforting about Jessica Eastwood’s evocative vocals and Coach Party’s sound as a whole, almost as if they were beamed in from 1989 or 2009. I could get into nostalgia more if it felt as consistently good as this.
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Drahla – Angeltape (Apr 2024)
Now effectively a fivepiece with additional guitar and ancillary saxophonist, Drahla’s fairly irresistible second album is the potent blend of no wave-new wave-post punk-art rock you didn’t know you needed. Bush Tetras are still active but The Dance and Romeo Void are long gone, so this end of the market is hardly crowded. Crowned with Luciel Brown’s beguilingly deadpan vocals and garlanded with suitably inscrutable lyrics, Drahla deliver an energising, free-jazzed-up take on a sound that consequently never comes over as derivative. Play loud; play often.
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Charley Stone – Here Comes The Actual Band (May 2024)
Disclaimer: I play on this recording; thus conscious of COI I didn’t nominate it, but other people did [including Charley Stone, to be completely transparent], so here we are! Tempting as it is to point out how well Charley Stone‘s “plaintively attractive vocal style” and “grungy slightly-delic guitar” compliment my bass playing, it isn’t all about me, for real; there’s Lily Rae’s excellent drumming for a start. Charley is a great English indie-rock songwriter, with enduring American influences, and this would be a tremendous treasury of tracks even if it had been recorded solo and acoustic, live from Parkland Walk, during a persistent drizzle; instead Jon Clayton from Hurtling did the producing honours, in his fully soundproofed electric studio.
Full review here.
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The Empty Page – Imploding (May 2024)
Their long-awaited second album (we don’t say “sophomore” round these parts), and The Empty Page don’t disappoint, being in the top tier of bands who’d most likely be a shoe-in for commercial crossover if the clock were wound back 30 years. Times are tough, but pressure makes diamonds [check – Ed.] and the songwriting here is a case in point. Storming singles ‘Dry Ice’ and ‘Cock Of The Fifth Year’ (“lock up your sons!”), and politicised bangers ‘Gorge (Oh Well)’ – so good you’ll forgive the title – ‘Big Nasty Palpitations’ and ‘Medication Nation’ take turns with more emotive, measured tracks like ‘Life Is A Wave’, ‘I’m a White Hot Blade’ and the closing ‘What Happens Now’, demonstrating Kelly’s power and range to full effect. Giz isn’t too shabby on guitar either. Full review here.
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The Lovely Eggs – Eggistentialism (May 2024)
Unsurprisingly for a band whose seventh LP begins with the vocal “shove your funding up your arse, we don’t want your money!” The Lovely Eggs are proudly DIY, self-releasing music and continuing to write about whatever the hell they like, though (mostly) pursuing a less lo-fi/experimental direction in the last decade. Holly has been a consistently great songwriter since David was producing the first Angelica recordings in the 90s, and the Eggs have rightly reached (inter)national treasure status in certain circles, while continuing to pick up new audiences, as with this latest release. ‘I Don’t F*cking Know..’ and ‘Memory Man’ rock out in a punk/psych style respectively, while ‘Nothing/Everything’, ‘People TV’ and ‘Echo You’ are genuinely moving, and ‘Meeting Friends At Night’ does/is both. But pretty much everything they do is a highlight. Meanwhile ‘My Mood Wave’ is also available as a 7″ and air freshener, physical object fans.
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Problem Patterns – Blouse Club (Oct 2023)
They say that in ye olden times, you knew where you were with ‘singles’ because they always had a palpable existence; a corporeal form. That’s all over now, grandad; now we stream any song we choose and a band like Problem Patterns might come along and knock out an official video for every damn track on their debut album. Luckily this group shows the same knack as folks like the Menstrual Cramps (and of course Bikini Kill) for producing deceptively-simple catchy-as-hell punk earworms, and pretty much every tune – too many to list – is anthemically single-worthy (topped and tailed by a couple of slower rages). Songs and band are irrefutably righteous, engaging, funny, and slightly chaotic on stage, which is of course the best way to be on stage. All four members take turns at the front, for instance. The ‘Patterns formed for the greatest of reasons, that they had things they wanted to say, and they press every point home – even succeeding in putting class back into intersectionality – while sounding like they’re having the time of their lives. Consider the bar raised. Live review here.
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Shooting Daggers – Love And Rage (Feb 2024)
The shortest and possibly angriest record on this list, Shooting Daggers‘ debut has a half-dozen hardcore earbombs including singles ‘Smug’, ‘Not My Rival’ (“We’re the new generation that shake things up!”) from the split 7″ with Death Pills, and ‘Wipe Out’, surely the perfect soundtrack to an aggy gameshow in a better universe. Non-single ‘Tunnel Vision’, in particular, is another standout. Styling themselves ‘London Queercore’ as they do, far less anticipated are the dreampop/shoegaze influences introduced here on the moving title song, the powerful half-time breather ‘A Guilty Conscience Needs An Accuser’ and the guitarless closing track, ‘Caves’. We can’t wait to hear what they do next.
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Smoking Gives You Big Tits – Guts For Starters (Jul 2023)
With this debut, Salford’s Smoking Gives You Big Tits completed a long sidestep from their origins as a comedy folk-punk cover duo, whose legacy of quirky song titles and subject matter belies the fact that somewhere along the way they got serious about the music. The band rocks out in a grunge/punk/alt metal style, Helen Bradley/Taylor’s vocals are commandingly impressive, and tunes like ‘Porky Pies’, Short As F*ck’ and ‘Beer Fear’, in particular, demand to be played on repeat. The album sleeve has lyrics plus song introductions – why don’t more bands do this? – and they even hated the Tories when it wasn’t fashionable. I shamefacedly admit I was unaware of SGYBT before this year’s Hercury nominations, but I’m listening now (I’m literally listening now).
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The Mysterines – Afraid Of Tomorrows (Jun 2024)
At an epic 44 minutes the longest album on this shortlist, and the only entry on a major label; with their 2nd album just missing the actual Top Ten, alt-rock fourpiece The Mysterines don’t need any boost from us, but Team LOUD WOMEN are no inverted snobs, and if it floats the collective boat, it’s in. Lia Metcalfe and band conjure up some kind of cross between Garbage and late 80s gothic on some of these tracks; other songs are more stripped back and vulnerable, grunge-style. At their best – the driving ‘Stray’; the brooding ‘Jesse You’re A Superstar’; the raw power groove of ‘Sink Ya Teeth’ and ‘Goodbye Sunshine’ – comparisons are superflous and these are songs to lose yourself in.
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The winner of the 2024 Hercury Award will be announced in September.