Daughter
If You Leave
4AD
Out Now
7/10
Of the remaining songs, Youth (an older song lifted from the 2011 EP “The Wild Youth”) kinda drags on, Still tells an unsettling tale of unloving bed-partners and Lifeforms sounds like Tonra is about to leap off a cliff in despair. Never let it be said that Daughter couldn’t clear a party within five minutes of tuning up.
But despite all the gloom, If You Leave possesses occasional tranches of hope within its dissipated grooves – Human is positively brimming with energy, while Amsterdam is perhaps the highlight and could have kicked off the album. Closer Shallows is a languid epic that seems to draw partial
inspiration from an earlier 4AD artist, Kendra Smith – it’s rather lovely with an air of mystery about it. Overall though, you’re left wishing there was more of Shallows and less of, say, Tomorrow.
Vondelpark
Seabed
R&S
Out now
6/10
To say this is one of R&S’s weakest releases for some time, is a tough admission for a fan of the label. Mind you, I’ve already indulged in James Blake’s emotional meanderings (it’s OK – I’m convinced) and Airhead and Trimbal’s hipster-friendly musings (not convinced – yet), so investing in Vondelpark might not be as big a disappointment as first feared.
The two opening tracks are promising and really rather fabulous – Quest is gorgeous electronica while Blue Again is Craig David swimming underwater with other R&S signings Egyptian Hip Hop. But then it all fizzles out for a bit with only Always Forever keeping the nu-soul thing going and the superb soulful Bananas (On My Biceps) able to raise an eyebrow and a few nape hairs. The closing Outro 4 Ariel is pleasant enough as well.
It’s not that Seabed is awful, it really isn’t. But, when compared to the earlier EPs released in 2010 and 2011, it pales in comparison. Of course, the theft of the band’s laptop probably didn’t help – an entire body of work frustratingly disappeared, along with the prick who stole it, before Vondelpark regrouped and wrote an entirely new set of songs (save for the previously issued California Analog Dream and Dracula).
V.O.
On Rapids
Humpty Dumpty Records
May 6th
6/10
British jazz-rock and progressive folk. Imagine Midlake taking Robert Wyatt to a festival curated by Beirut and Tame Impala and you’re somewhere there.
There are some lovely ideas here, although none of them seem to gel to make a song as such. Take Everything is Bathed in Light, for example. It’s got a great title for a start, then great vocals, neat riffs and off-kilter drums but it all adds up to nothing more than four minutes of music. The same can be said of the even-better but no more rewarding When You See Red or the closing L’Exode.
I like the vaguely uplifting Seven Trees, which sounds like something El Records might have issued thirty years ago (that’s a compliment), while Giant Steps in the Plains isn’t far removed from Young Knives or Mystery Jets chilling out. The rest of the album should be approached with caution though – opener The Missing Part isn’t a great way to start an album and L’Orage et le Vent is atonal at best. Basically, On Rapids sounds pin-sharp in places, flat in most others and warrants far less attention than it thinks it’s going to get.
Hero & Leander
Tumble
Tapete
May 13th
4/10
It’s difficult to see what Essex’s poppy sextet has been spending its collective money on musically because Tumble is like listening to a label-sampler, rather than one group’s work. There are elements of Squeeze, Lloyd-Webber, Kirsty MacColl, Lemonheads and just about everyone who’s
ever been near a studio in the past fifty years. Trouble is, the best bits of those artists have been left behind at the mixing-desk, save for a few good ideas.
After the initial burst of genuine excitement on that opening song, we have the pretty Everything Will Be and One Three Four, but not a great deal more to be thrilled about. Many songs sound like they should be in West End musicals and a few shouldn’t be on this album full stop. Thing is, Hero & Leander probably have enough in their tank to make a decent album – tracks like the Simply Red-like The Infinite and the irksome Kiss Me By The Water Cooler (the Lloyd Webber reference I mentioned earlier) suggest they might not. “Kiss me when you stub your toe”….. no, thanks.
Scout Niblett
It’s Up To Emma
Drag City
May 20th
6/10
without the sonic – you get the picture.
It’s Up To Emma is English troubadour Niblett’s seventh studio collection and sees the performer stripped, naked and electrified with little in the way of accompaniment and compromise, save for some impressive strings on Can’t Fool Me Now and one or two passages throughout this otherwise motionless collection.
“What do you want from me?” she intones incessantly on Second Chance Dreams, accompanied by some ominous guitar-work and what passes for a full band behind her. This is the closest Niblett comes to structure - in fact, this is the closest we get to joyful redemption. It’s not her only stab
at ‘pop’ though – she candidly knocks out a butt-naked version of TLC’s sugary soul anthem No Scrubs, just to tease and tantalize and lull you into thinking Scout is letting her guard down. Is she fuck? Along comes Could This Possibly Be? and What Can I Do? to slow things down to a crawl and end the album in spurts of emotion, coughed up from the gut in a drunken, drug-crazed haze of pain, regret and despair.
It doesn’t all work but Niblett has a latent and threatening undertone all too absent from many a singer’s canon these days.