ALBUM REVIEW ROUND-UP - Max Raptor, Chin of Britain, The Grand Opening, Music and Migration 3 etc

I seem to be surrounded by albums lately, rather than the customary heap of singles festering in my inbox. Here's a round-up of six albums that might well have slipped through the reviewing net, not because they're not any good but because I just don't have the time! First world problems aside, let's dive in...

Various Artists - Music and Migration 3 - Second Language - out now, mail order - ★★★★★

The third and final volume of music and field-recordings devoted to birds and dedicated to BirdLife International, this is perhaps the best of the lot. Electronica duo ISAN trigger proceedings with the gently eddying 'Kirkeskov', replete with brush-pads, bubbling synths and a meandering backdrop of faux tweets, calls and cheeps that isn't unlike something you'd find on Apollo Records in the '90s - it's lush. Other highlights include French eccentric Colleen offering up 'Bird Score', a sort of mesmerizing acapella workout, laced with wood-blocks and finger-clicks, designer Frances Castle with 'Flight Of The Swans' (she also illustrated the beautiful packaging here) and the ever-present and reliable exponent of recorded natural sound, Chris Watson with 'Namaqua Moves'. There isn't a naff track in sight and quick subscribers also get a remix EP featuring The Home Current.

Chin of Britain - Chin of Britain - Waltztime Records - out Oct 14 2013 - ★★★1/2

Now here's a real oddball. From the rather creepy sleeve (man is chimp, chimp is man) to the fuzzy bonkers alt-rock beyond, psychedelia crazie Chin Keeler has wheeled out an album of mixed fortunes, borne out of various sessions recorded outside of his usual Dark Captain boundary. At times beguiling, at others bewildering, 'Chin of Britain' is nothing if not adventurous if a little haphazard. So, we start with the rifftastic 'To The Sun And Beyond', a heads-down no-nonsense chunk of electrically-charged bluster that reminds me of Tame Impala or The Joy Formidable if they didn't insist on turning everything up to 12. Good start. More relaxed is 'Make It All Go Away' and 'Rot In Heaven', before the Reich-like 'Climb In Your Mind' threatens to pop my inadequate speakers with it's molten riffs and cyclical metallic-sounding motif throughout. Tis super. In fact, most of CoB is agreeable enough, if not entirely memorable, but then I'm an ageing old fucker with a brain shot to shit and maybe I should do what track 8 suggests and 'Chill The Fuck Out'.

The Grand Opening - Don't Look Back Into The Darkness - out Oct 14 2013 - ★★1/2

One-man Stockholm multi-instrumentalist John Olsson isn't cheering up anytime soon for this, his fourth album. Despite starting promisingly, albeit all sad-face in a Scandinavian manner, 'Don't Look Back Into The Darkness' quickly outstays its welcome by being too bleeding miserable, even for me, Mr Minor-Key 2013. Thus, 'Blacker Than Blue' funereally staggers forth with a pretty arrangement and a chilly air about it, a formula repeated throughout the entire album with only the single 'Towards Your Final Rest' sounding like a Eurovision entry in comparison (you can tell by the title, it isn't) and 'There Is Always Hope' a contender for 'album highlight'. If you want an album to make Smog, Red House Painters and The Blue Nile sound like a Radio 1 playlist for a Saturday evening, you'll clamour for The Grand Opening's death-march.

Max Raptor - Mother's Ruin - out Oct 21 2013 ★★★

Following on from Young Guns, Tellison and Biffy Clyro, Burton-on-Trent's uncompromising scream-meisters Max Raptor don't so much rip you a new arsehole with this album's opening song, 'Back Of A Barrel Wave' - they plug it back up again with a sharp fisting motion before giving you a wedgie and throwing your ears down into a pit of smashed beer-glasses and old tramp's piss. Now that's all very well but whether you can bear to repeat the process across nine more songs is up to you. 'Taming Of The Shrewd' and 'England Breathes' are cracking little belters, especially the latter which is single material, while hot on the heels of New Model Army's sneery brand of grungy folk-rock shouting from thirty years ago is 'Grace and Favours'. It's at this point that the last memorable tune rumbles over the horizon like your blunted drunken uncle, before coughing a grolly into your bitter and shagging your cat - 'Breakers' is a mosh-pit anthem, enough said. As for the rest, go see 'em live.

Sons Of Kemet - Burn - out now ★★★★

Formed of three key jazzists from the current UK scene, Sons of Kemet aren't your traditional blowin' and bashin' quartet - they're actually pretty contemporary and rather special, for the most part. Barbadian saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings has parped with the best of them since the late '90s - Soweto Kinch and Courtney Pine among the shared performances - but the Sons Of Kemet project is a debut super-group project that also stars two drummers in Seb Rochford and Tom Skinner and tuba player Oren Marshall. 'All Will Surely Burn' is an opening maelstrom that features some gale-force drumming and ominous sax and tuba that heralds the coming of the four jazzmen of the apocalypse. The opening track is merely a harbinger for what is to follow. 'The Godfather' has an element of truth about its title and is an edgy fidgety piece that builds and deconstructs in equal measure, before SoK spark up a fat one on the funkier, blistering and utterly relentless 'Inner Babylon'. Crikey, we're only three tracks in and I'm concerned for future audiences - think back to the whirling dervish that Fela Kuti could serve up, double it and these Kemet boys are someway there.

Blitzen Trapper - VII - out now ★★★

Any pictures of anyone wielding a banjo other than Public Service Broadcasting, Chas and Dave or The Lancashire Hotpots normally incites a nervous reaction from me, but after listening to Blitzen Trapper's blend of Bluesiana and Americana, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. In other words, they don't sound like the bloody Mumfords and for that we should be truly grateful. Since 2000, the Oregon quintet have been melding lowdown hoe-downs with some break-it-down to the break-a-dawn, a perfect example of which is 'Shine On', the second track on this their seventh album. Laid-back, just a tad funky and riddled with country-folk-blues influences, it's the kind of song that would get Blitzen Trapper booked for intimate shows in far-flung places - y'know low ceilings, great beer, no assholes, sweat-soaked walls and a long walk home - the best. The songs tell stories, some of them probably tall, all dressed up in overalls and armed with a sawn-off, the pick of which is the hip-hop flavoured 'Neck Tatts, Cadillacs' which comes on like DJ Premier if he'd joined The Handsome Family at Wilco's house for a shindig. The latter half of the album deviates somewhat ('Heart Attack' sounds like a Marc Bolan cast-off) but there's still enough to slap your thigh to on 'VII'.