Album review: FIVE GRAND STEREO – Sex & Money

Five Grand Stereo [Release date 26.01.18]

Five Grand Stereo are Chris Singleton (vocals/guitar/piano), Jane Fraser (vocals), Stelios Kalisperides (guitar), Michael Kirkland (sax/synths), Zane Maertens (bass) and Ben Woollacott (drums). Chris Singleton has of course released a series of excellent pop/rock albums and now he is in this rather splendid band. It took awhile to record as the band and this is a real labour of love, with the album preceded by the well received ‘David Bowie’ EP.

The best song, on a very strong album, is ‘Iceberg’ what a great tune. Tom Petty like guitar riff and a chorus Jeff Lynne would be proud of, plus the strings are there. Pop rock tunes don’t get much better than this! Radio 2 take note and get this on the airwaves.

The band have a lovely musical pallet, there is the 70′s rock stomp of ’1975′ - hint of Roxy Music on this one. ‘David Bowie’, which unsurprisingly sounds a little bit like David Bowie, has strong chorus and melody. Have fun spotting the Bowie songs and lyrics name checked in the song.

A foil to Chris Singleton’s vocals is Jane Fraser who has a wonderful, soothing vocal and her vocals add nicely to ‘This Stuff’ – this song reminded me of Supergrass at times – and ‘Mr Lighter’, a wonderfully evocative tune. She gets a solo spot on ‘Corinthians I & II’, two haunting pieces of music that show another side to the band.

The cutting lyric on ‘Clip Joint’ reminded me of the Divine Comedy, no bad thing in my book! Seriously there is not one bad song on this album.

This should be a massive hit if there is any justice in the musical world. A sheer delight from start to finish and one of the few albums I can happily award five starts to. A proper old school album in that is all killer, no filler. *****

Review by Jason Ritchie

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