IN CONVERSATION: Tim Wheeler (Ash)
ash

Andy Page’s Tracks of the Year 2018

In the penultimate Tracks of the Year list, Andy Page gives us his ten best from 2018.

1. Ash – Buzzkill

Downpatrick’s favourite sons returned with an irresistible piece of sweary fuzz-pop with backing vocals by none other than Peely’s faves The Undertones

2. Cabbage – Arms Of Pleonexia

Parent album Nihilistic Glamour Shots was packed full with darkly delightful songs, Arms Of Pleonexia surging with some intensity and a killer chorus.

3. Josh Rouse – Love In The Modern Age

The title track of Rouse’s 11th studio album perfectly showcased the 80s sophisti-pop within, pitched somewhere between The Blue Nile and Tears For Fears circa Songs From The Big Chair. In other words, glorious.

4. Holy Motors – Honeymooning

If you loved last year’s Cigarettes After Sex album or maybe Mazzy Star, make room in your life for the wonderful Holy Motors, who trade in the same kind of beautifully realised melancholia.

5. The Coral – Eyes Like Pearls

Enjoying something of a renaissance, The Coral turned in a set of sumptuous tunes not far away from ELO circa their 1979 Discovery album. Eyes Like Pearls was maybe the pick of the bunch.

6. Amber Arcades – Simple Song

Annelotte de Graaf, AKA Amber Arcades, provided this slice of understated loveliness which recalls Stereolab while simultaneously moving on a step from her stellar 2016 debut Fading Lines.

7. B.C.Camplight – I’m
Desperate

From the very brilliant Deportation Blues, I’m Desperate is a breakneck turbo-charged song which it’s impossible not to play again immediately once heard. Try it!

8. Johnny Marr – Spiral Cities

The standout tune from Marr’s third solo record Call The Comet, Spiral Cities had been a live favourite for three years already, but came of age in 2018 and finally came out as a single. Featuring guitars that sound, pleasingly, a lot like Johnny Marr.

9. Anna Burch – 2 Cool 2 Care

A proper feel good song which takes residence in the head after a single listen and sounds maybe very slightly like The Wannadies‘You and Me Song’.

10. Pinkshinyultrablast – Dance A.M.

Mixing more of a dance element into their shoegaze blueprint, the Russian superheroes made the best album of the year, which started with this fabulous track. 

God is in the TV is an online music and culture fanzine founded in Cardiff by the editor Bill Cummings in 2003. GIITTV Bill has developed the site with the aid of a team of sub-editors and writers from across Britain, covering a wide range of music from unsigned and independent artists to major releases.