Lawrence Arabia may be a new name to some people from outside New Zealand, but James Milne has been around acting as his musical guise since 2003. His self titled debut album had success and lead him to be nominated for several Bnet awards.

The latest album from Lawrence named 'Chant Darling' is described by himself as “New old fashion pop music” which suits this album down to the last pop treble fuelled guitar riff. The opening track is a melodie driven harmonic song named 'Looking like a fool', simplisticly dramatic, telling a story of a drunken chase of a girl, which ultimately ends with him looking like a fool. 

James Milne has tried his hand in many areas of music, having been involved with the successful pop group The Brunettes, toured with Okkervil River and Feist, and composed music for the theatre and film, leaving us with Lawrence Arabia's latest outing that shows an arrangement of different musical styles and instruments.

'Apple pie bed' is a catchy happy go lucky track that'll have you tapping your foot as you dress for a night out on the town, a song about a love that has taken over, the guitar riffs are a swing back from a 60s pops song with the high pitched harmonies to match.

The humor adopted throughout the album makes it even more of a joy to listen to, he seems not to care not for his broken heart and instead decides to turn it into something worth making fun of.

'The beautiful young crew' a song that stands out as a whistle along with me track has a chorus which marches into “We love each other/but we hate each other/we're afraid of each other/because we want to screw each other” and shows what kind of album we're dealing with... a happy look on a love lost.

The album is a joy listen to, from start to finish. Capturing a new 60's pop which will undoubtedly stick around for a while yet. Lawrences musical CV is written within the album and his dramatic songs sewn with witty humor make this album a must.

Another band mining the sixties era pop basement of the Kinks and early Beatles, The Echo Session are a Glasgow based outfit treading very similar musical territory to the likes of The Coral, The La's and The Zutons.

Having played gigs around the UK for the last few years and building up a sizable following, TELL ME is the first fruits of this bands recorded labours; a jaunty sounding throwback to Britpop unfortunately.

With quirky country flecked acoustic guitar work providing the musical backbone and mockney accents providing the vocals, The Echo Session sound more parody than anything else here, their Beatles by way of The Kinks shtik sounding way too forced and arch. For all it's quirks and influences, TELL ME somehow forgets to add much in the way of hooks either, The Echo Session throwing up something way too forgettable and slight here to ever really truly resonate.

TELL ME is an ultimately forgettable sounding slice of sixties aping pop parody, The Echo Session doing little to throw their own spin on proceedings here.