Jesus, this must have taken FOREVER. Over at the very excellent The Pop Cop, there have clearly been some late nights and some square eyes as they’ve gone through Google and listed all the Scottish bands they could find on Bandcamp. I’d taken my eye off Bandcamp, but on the back of this list it looks like it’s getting some traction from bands (Frightened Rabbit, Meursault, Amanda Palmer for example), and I’ve got all my fingers and toes tied up in knots this continues, because – just like everyone else – I’m flat-out sick of linking to them simply by default. The Pop Cop’s got the scoop though, so have a nose around, tell bands about it, tell your friends about it and encourage it. It’s just better that way.

It’s becoming weird, reviewing Come On Gang! shows. I stumbled across them by total accident a while back, and since I really, really liked them back then, I think I might now be getting a bit snow-blind and maternal when it comes to trying to be objective and all that guff. Essentially, I’m worried I might have completely crossed the line between “Hey, here’s a band I like, and here are the reasons why” over into “I’m a total fucking slavering fanboy and they can do no wrong anymore”. That said, I’ve been in an absolutely towering fucking temper all day long, with less tolerance than normal for dumbness, inconvenience or, in particular, people not living up to expectations. So, if something can cheer me up today, there’s probably an awful lot good about it – and I’ve just got back from the Come On Gang! show at Sneaky Pete’s and I’m grinning like a bit of an idiot.

Here’s something I didn’t know – all those “I Was Amazed!” quotes you get on posters advertising films or shows or whatever that are attributed to reviewers and critics should – apparently – be paid for. I had no idea – and according to the Guardian piece that spelled it out to me, clearly neither do lots of other writers either.

I think it’s silly season on Youtube for record companies this week. There’s Lightspeed Champion dressed as Elvis doing “Devil In Disguise” (pictured), there’s another video for the same song as was posted a few months ago from Maps, Adam Green’s gone video mental (third in a week), and Julian Casablancas’ video for “The 11th Dimension” features daft headgear but – fairly importantly, I reckon – no actual sound. Er… enjoy?

While 2008’s debut affair We Brave Bee Stings was all wide-eyed and tingling senses, synapses firing at new experiences and possibilities, this is a true follow-up, way more wistful, with hindsight the order of the day. This is an album that’s learnt its lessons, but without getting maudlin; it’s a bit more worldly-wise, but not quite yet world-weary. It was out in the States a few months ago, but it’s also my runaway favourite of all the long-players on the shelves over here this week.

Much as is the way for the singles, this seems to be a week of some fairly high-value releases on the album front, with follow up albums from Vampire Weekend (the feverishly anticipated and thoroughly leaked Contra) and These New Puritans (the stringtastic Hidden), as well as Minor Love, the long overdue new long-player from Adam Green and Acolyte, the super-hyped debut from Manchester bleep outfit Delphic. In the less travelled (though well-blogged) corners of the shelves though, other little gems dwell in the shape of albums from The Irrepressibles, Neon Indian and the excellent Erland And The Carnival (pictured).

I first came across Plan B as part of that whole grime explosion from a few years ago, when Lethal Bizzle was seeing “Pow!” banned from clubs because it caused violence where before there was only calm, when Dizzee was about as far from pop as it was possible to be, and when Plan B was getting busy deeply upsetting everybody with some of the most viscerally raw lyrics ever delivered by anyone, anywhere. 2006’s Who Needs Actions When You Got Words LP was full of some properly grim tales, and it was titanically, horrifyingly, and thrillingly dark – the end of “Rakin’ The Dead” will probably remain one of the finest, funniest and most fucked-up moments in British hip-hop history. It was an eye-opener and no mistake.

There’s some solid hipster names out on the shelves this week knife-fighting for your recessionary 7″ hard-earned, including White Rabbits‘ excellent “Percussion Gun”, Fyfe Dangerfield (off of The Maccabees) and his entertaining “She Needs Me” and the twitchy goodness of Good Shoes‘ “Under Control”. All worthy choices, we feel – but this week’s headgear gets tipped towards San Francisco’s 60s-tinged garage psychers The Fresh And Onlys, Chicago’s noisy and bombastic Campfires, and the flat-out fucking brilliant Sheffield kids Standard Fare (pictured), who I fell a little bit in love with in the space of about thirty seconds.

Is it over yet? Can we now stop talking about lists, top tens, Santa, new year’s resolutions and all the other guff that’s been going on elsewhere over the last fortnight? I did the sensible thing and left the country, so am blissfully ignorant of anything that’s happened recently. I’ve no idea what your album of 2009 was, and I also don’t care – new stuff beckons. Today, that comes in the slightly jerky shape of these recent videos released into the wild by Adam Green, Blood Red Shoes, The Rural Alberta Advantage, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson (pictured) and Tindersticks. Oh, and a video re-posted by SXSW to promote our previous Album Of The Week-ers Turbo Fruits upcoming Austin show that just deserves mentioning because… well, just because I feel like it.

Usually, when bands say they’re having a “Christmas Party”, my blood starts to boil, evaporate, condense and then boil again. This is nothing to do with the fact that Christmas is my least favourite major religious festival and more to do with the definition of “party”. Ninety-nine times out of one hundred it’s a thinly-veiled excuse to fleece you, the paying punter, and to trot out a set lashed together with half-rehearsed old guff and make you pretend they give an arse about you. Usually.

It’s been a long time cooking, but as with all eagleowl fare, their latest dish is best eaten slowly, savoured at leisure, and served when it’s icicle cold outside. If only all records at Christmas sounded like this.

Bit of a dull week for music video, that. Sure, there was new bits and pieces, but it’s all a bit major label if you know what I mean. Leave it to art-jokers Flaming Lips and Japanther to come up with something well worth the eyeballs though. And, honestly, I’m not being ironic, Rick Parfitt & Rolf Harris‘ video for Christmas In The Sun is awe-inspiringly funny.

Imagine you hadn’t seen an old friend for years and suddenly, after only hearing quick bursts of what they were up to through other friends, they resurface. Naturally, you invite them out, and when you meet, you grin – because you’re quite excited and pleased to see them – and your friend smashes you over the head with a bar stool, sets fire to the curtains and leaps headfirst out of the window into traffic. Welcome to the ridiculously late Comanechi debut LP – it’s been too long in coming, it’s a ridiculously challenging listen, but it’s chuffing amazing. Welcome back.

Maybe out of a sense of blessed release after this week’s Album Of The Week, but I’ve found myself loving this. Not sure if that’s a sensible thing listening to Comanechi followed by Blue Roses repeatedly, though. It’s like sitting in a room and turning the lights on and off and on and off and on and off. Can’t be good for you, right? This is though, it’ll make you all warm and nostalgic and pleased with yourself.

I really, really hate Christmas. I can’t tell you how much. Just writing that I hate Christmas makes me hate it even more. Not because of the nature of Christmas itself, you understand, but because it has the effect of turning everyone in the world into a drooling, fat fucking idiot for about six straight weeks, and I end up running around trying to avoid the trouble they all cause me. In a roundabout way, this then is why the release list this week is just a list, and everything else is late. “Bah, humbug” just doesn’t seem enough, somehow.

Either I’m not looking hard enough or there’s really not been a huge amount of new videos out this last week. I know that Blur trailer’s causing some excitement… and Hot Chip have put up a “video” for the new single, although the video’s just a screen full of static and it’s called a ‘listening post’ and not a video, which is just fucking wasting bandwidth if you ask me. Still, there’s new stuff from Twilight Sad, and Delphic as well as a cracking new Phoenix video by the La Blogotheque geniuses, which goes some way to making up for it. Oh, and some scaffy chancers called Off The Beaten Tracks have put up the video for the recent Scott from Frightened Rabbit / Meursault collaboration, too.

There’s been a fair bit of blog buzz from LA about Jail Weddings, and not just because it’s a shit-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that GREAT name for a band. More out of curiosity than anything, I got hold of their Inconvenient Dreams mini-album (out 30th Nov over here), but I’ve had it on – loudly – at least once a day ever since.

A good spread hits the tables today, with platters served up by Beans On Toast and Sparrow & The Workshop, as well as a fair load of other stuff to expand that oversized room full of vinyl you just can’t help adding to.

Yeah, yeah, the album’s been out for ever, and no, there’s nothing new on here that’s not on the LP. Doesn’t mean this won’t stroll home with Single Of The Week, though.

There’s a lot of looking backwards this week, with Slow Club covering songs from the 1960s, Twin Atlantic sounding like Hundred Reasons from the early noughties, Sennen sounding a bit like a shoegaze band from the early nineties and Elizabeth Frazer sounding nothing like one (despite being in one at the time) and Johnny Flynn doing his medieval troubadour thing. Mcfly? McFly? Hello?