Warning - potty-mouth language used throughout (in the interests of reviewing, of course)
Hercules and Love Affair - The Feast Of The Broken Heart - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Nu-disco, what is it good for? Judging by the pioneers of the genre, a fair bit and here's one of them. Album number three from Hercules etc sees lynchpin Andy Butler ramp up the beats and throw his bands in the air for a bit of shameless disco-house commerciality. After the self-promoting aural-selfie that is the opening track, it's back to business with the first of many sassy tunes with a guest vocalist, My Offence which features the joyful (according to Butler) exclamation "Let yourself feel cunt, cunt..." - it's a 'queen' thing apparently - followed by the not dissimilar I Try To Talk To You, featuring John Grant on disco crooning. Plenty more flamboyant floor-fillers follow on - That's Not Me, Think and 5:43 To Freedom all lift segments from early '90s house and come topped off with multisexual appeal and a sharp ear for production. Butler's on the ball, that's for sure - he's even booked John Grant for another vocal appearance, this time on the less essential Liberty. Overall though, The Feast... is a Herculean effort and deserving of a wider audience, other than the next inevitable Moshi Moshi compilation round-up at the end of the year.
Michael Jackson - Xscape - ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
Five years after the troubled star's untimely death and the archives are still getting trawled with an air of desperation. But what could have been a heinous travesty turns out to be merely superfluous branding at most. Comprised of just (just?) eight new songs, the original demos of the same songs plus Justin Timberlake sweeping up somewhere (as a bonus, presumably), Xscape features a handful of high-end producers such as L.A.Reid and Timbaland, all let loose with the latest tools and re-tooled to within an inch of its life. Lead single Love Never Felt So Good bubbles along in string-laden disco mode while the superior (though schmaltzy) Loving You recalls his '80s period. The shuffling A Place With No Name compares favourably to The Way You Make Me Feel and Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground and Slave To The Rhythm isn't the Grace Jones standard, merely a fidgety aggro-funk shadow of what Jacko used to be. Of far greater interest are the unrefined pre-trickery originals - Love Never Felt So Good is a simple finger-clicking piano-led semi-ballad while A Place With No Name sounds almost exactly like America's Horse With No Name, I kid you not. Writs would fly in a lesser world. Guffaws and smirks will no doubt greet Do You Know Where Your Children Are, while the rest of the album is mediocre-to-poor to be honest, save for the title-track which is actually way, way better than pretty much anything on the risible Invincible album. A mixed epitaph.
Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbot - What Have We Become - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
The thought of two Beautiful South peeps reviving some of that old magic is probably too much to bear for the most ardent of fans but it's real, it's all here on this much-anticipated project. Anticipated to the point where the album reached #3 one week after its release, just behing Jacko and Coldplay - believe me, that is quite some achievement these days. Kicking off with the soulful thoughtful Moulding Of A Fool, you are immediately reminded why Heaton and Abbot are so highly regarded - witty, warm and wily lyrics dressed up in bar-room blues and switchblade soul is a sure-fire way to cross-pollinate with an international audience. Live, you can bet odds-on that having a good time is de rigueur and on record too, the pair have lost none of that sparkle. D.I.Y., One Man's England and The Right In Me prove this point, while the quieter moments aren't too shabby either - Advice to Daughters sees Heaton splashing the lyrical verbals around against a melancholic backdrop. At sixteen tracks, patience might be required but the standard rarely drops to zero and What Have We Become ends up answering its own question.
Thumpers - Galore - ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
If you have heard joy-rockers Thumpers' material thus far, you'd be forgiven (or praised) for identifying a similarity with Friendly Fires (and Foals, Two Door Cinema Club and Bombay Bicycle Club, for that matter). Formed of FF's occasional tour-member John Hamson Jr and one-time Pull Tiger Tail's Marcus Pepperell, Thumpers create a drum and keyboard heavy melange that shouts from the rooftops in a seemingly endless optimistic manner that will either delight or have you yearning for the expansive miserablism of Editors, the Manics or The Horrors. As a sound, Galore is nothing original but has its moments. The opener Marvel is just that and rumbles forth like an Arcade Fire on heat, before things calm down for the rest of the album. The fidgety, wordy Unkinder is fairly representative of what to expect - Dancing's Done, Come On Strong and Roller all follow the same blueprint, the latter not unlike Everything Everything's most recent output. Together Now is a grandiose way to end any album and ranks as a highlight while Summercamp offer support on the reflective Now We Are Sixteen. Clearly the drum is everything and Galore doesn't let up in the percussion department, making it occasionally one-dimensional and frequently relentless. Promising, but are Thumpers different enough to rise above a sea of similar?
The Roots - And Then You Shoot Your Cousin - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
There's no doubting this duos musical influence - in fact, after collaborating with the likes of Elvis Costello, Betty Wright and John Legend, Jools Holland will surely be back on the phone to book them for his next series sometime soon. But Questlove and Black Thought aren't just any old hip-hop act reeling in big names to sell records - their imaginative output stands alone as a testament to what you can achieve without resorting to lame lyrics and bland beats. They've performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival, schmoozed with Def Jam, Common and DJ Krush and been inspired by Sufjan Stevens and J Dilla. Not surprisingly, The Roots utilise these experiences to deliver their fourteenth full-length set which commentates on America's violent society and social ills with notable aplomb. Far from their most commercial set, tracks such as the plaintive The Coming and Never wouldn't sound out of place in a stage-production. Dramatic, atonal in places, this is not for booming out of a convertible to impress your hood, more like a headphone experience to imbibe indoors.
Mariah Carey - Me, I Am Mariah, The Elusive Chanteuse - ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Good Lord above, gospel-music has crept back into Carey's handiwork if opening track Cry is anything to go by. While we're not being asked to 'lay our hands on the sick' and 'somebody say Hallelujah fo' me", after a few minutes I am reminded what a powerful set of lungs this woman has on her. But, as with everything in her life, a little of Carey's voice isn't enough and within two minutes she's hollering up and down the scales like someone with a bee's nest in her pants. And so it goes on. The inevitable parade of 'pals' turn up across the album - Nas, Mary J Blige, Fabolous, R Kelly et al - to add the merest weight of creativity to an album so fragile and flyaway, a fart would dissipate its very existence (well, one of mine certainly would). Actually, it's not as bad as the infamous Glitter - there are some half-decent melodies tucked away on Dedicated (a sort of homage to hip-hop) and that opener had promise before its creator started to scare off the animals. Miguel lends the tedious misogyny and lazy lyricism required in R 'n' B records with "You're beautiful/You're fuckin' beautiful" and "with an ass like that..." (on #Beautiful), on Money with Fabolous, we get "come on Mariah, let's git higher" (FFS!), while another 12 or so songs sail by on a sea of twiddly beats and swollen strings that, on an instrumental album might have worked - on here, it's a muddle, a battle between Carey's frequently over-layered vocals and flat production. If only she'd make one decent album of just pure soul, just one, without the needless pomp - one like Emotion or Daydream. I Don't Know What To Do she trills on one song. Nuff said.
Neil Young - A Letter Home - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
It seemed inevitable that Jack White would soon be sidling up to Old Shakey in some creative form and what better way to do it than on this utterly unique way to make an album. Apparently recorded in a refurbed vinyl-recording booth from the '40s and replete with clicks, pops and crackles normally associated with a shellac 78 record, A Letter Home is an intimate tour-de-force that stars Young's wavering vocal amidst vintage atmospherics. It works a treat. The songs are covers (save for the spoken-word 'phone-call' intro), played solely by Young and intermittently accompanied by White on piano and vocals. I imagine a few silly souls will be returning their copies to the point of purchase upon first listen - listen people, the clicks and scrapes are meant to be there, OK? What matters most is the concept I guess - these are classic standards such as Dylan's Girl Of The North Country, Hardin's Reason To Believe and two fine Gordon Lightfoot songs that ought to be covered more often.
How Neil Young is going to tour this album is best left to your imagination. Install a booth in the middle of a shop and have him play? Now there's an idea.... Whatever, A Letter Home is a rather charming concept.
Sharon Van Etten - Are We There - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
A soured relationship can do many things to an artist. It can drag you down to despairing depths or feed the creative fire in your belly. In Van Etten's case, it's achieved both - Are We There is a record that is both despairing and a firebrand. Eschewing the intense rock chops of her previous long-player Tramp, this fourth set provides solace for the disappointed, the broken-hearted and the emotionally-traumatised. As such, it isn't a joyous listen - first track Afraid Of Nothing is the equal of anything Van Etten has written before and then some. It is a stunning starter. It's also one of the key highlights here of which there are a few. Our Love is a funereal slow-tempo folk-flavoured march, the admittedly splendid Tarifa makes Mazzy Star sound like Katy Perry although it perks up when the smoky chorus arrives and Nothing Will Change is subtle, subdued and a soporific sojourn. All this spread over an entire album might have you dropping an electrical appliance into your full bath with you sitting in it but don't fret - Sharon Van Etten's disconsolate elegies may bring you hope after all, if you take the time to stick with them.
Hercules and Love Affair - The Feast Of The Broken Heart - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆Nu-disco, what is it good for? Judging by the pioneers of the genre, a fair bit and here's one of them. Album number three from Hercules etc sees lynchpin Andy Butler ramp up the beats and throw his bands in the air for a bit of shameless disco-house commerciality. After the self-promoting aural-selfie that is the opening track, it's back to business with the first of many sassy tunes with a guest vocalist, My Offence which features the joyful (according to Butler) exclamation "Let yourself feel cunt, cunt..." - it's a 'queen' thing apparently - followed by the not dissimilar I Try To Talk To You, featuring John Grant on disco crooning. Plenty more flamboyant floor-fillers follow on - That's Not Me, Think and 5:43 To Freedom all lift segments from early '90s house and come topped off with multisexual appeal and a sharp ear for production. Butler's on the ball, that's for sure - he's even booked John Grant for another vocal appearance, this time on the less essential Liberty. Overall though, The Feast... is a Herculean effort and deserving of a wider audience, other than the next inevitable Moshi Moshi compilation round-up at the end of the year.
Michael Jackson - Xscape - ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
Five years after the troubled star's untimely death and the archives are still getting trawled with an air of desperation. But what could have been a heinous travesty turns out to be merely superfluous branding at most. Comprised of just (just?) eight new songs, the original demos of the same songs plus Justin Timberlake sweeping up somewhere (as a bonus, presumably), Xscape features a handful of high-end producers such as L.A.Reid and Timbaland, all let loose with the latest tools and re-tooled to within an inch of its life. Lead single Love Never Felt So Good bubbles along in string-laden disco mode while the superior (though schmaltzy) Loving You recalls his '80s period. The shuffling A Place With No Name compares favourably to The Way You Make Me Feel and Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground and Slave To The Rhythm isn't the Grace Jones standard, merely a fidgety aggro-funk shadow of what Jacko used to be. Of far greater interest are the unrefined pre-trickery originals - Love Never Felt So Good is a simple finger-clicking piano-led semi-ballad while A Place With No Name sounds almost exactly like America's Horse With No Name, I kid you not. Writs would fly in a lesser world. Guffaws and smirks will no doubt greet Do You Know Where Your Children Are, while the rest of the album is mediocre-to-poor to be honest, save for the title-track which is actually way, way better than pretty much anything on the risible Invincible album. A mixed epitaph.
Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbot - What Have We Become - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
The thought of two Beautiful South peeps reviving some of that old magic is probably too much to bear for the most ardent of fans but it's real, it's all here on this much-anticipated project. Anticipated to the point where the album reached #3 one week after its release, just behing Jacko and Coldplay - believe me, that is quite some achievement these days. Kicking off with the soulful thoughtful Moulding Of A Fool, you are immediately reminded why Heaton and Abbot are so highly regarded - witty, warm and wily lyrics dressed up in bar-room blues and switchblade soul is a sure-fire way to cross-pollinate with an international audience. Live, you can bet odds-on that having a good time is de rigueur and on record too, the pair have lost none of that sparkle. D.I.Y., One Man's England and The Right In Me prove this point, while the quieter moments aren't too shabby either - Advice to Daughters sees Heaton splashing the lyrical verbals around against a melancholic backdrop. At sixteen tracks, patience might be required but the standard rarely drops to zero and What Have We Become ends up answering its own question.
Thumpers - Galore - ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
If you have heard joy-rockers Thumpers' material thus far, you'd be forgiven (or praised) for identifying a similarity with Friendly Fires (and Foals, Two Door Cinema Club and Bombay Bicycle Club, for that matter). Formed of FF's occasional tour-member John Hamson Jr and one-time Pull Tiger Tail's Marcus Pepperell, Thumpers create a drum and keyboard heavy melange that shouts from the rooftops in a seemingly endless optimistic manner that will either delight or have you yearning for the expansive miserablism of Editors, the Manics or The Horrors. As a sound, Galore is nothing original but has its moments. The opener Marvel is just that and rumbles forth like an Arcade Fire on heat, before things calm down for the rest of the album. The fidgety, wordy Unkinder is fairly representative of what to expect - Dancing's Done, Come On Strong and Roller all follow the same blueprint, the latter not unlike Everything Everything's most recent output. Together Now is a grandiose way to end any album and ranks as a highlight while Summercamp offer support on the reflective Now We Are Sixteen. Clearly the drum is everything and Galore doesn't let up in the percussion department, making it occasionally one-dimensional and frequently relentless. Promising, but are Thumpers different enough to rise above a sea of similar?
There's no doubting this duos musical influence - in fact, after collaborating with the likes of Elvis Costello, Betty Wright and John Legend, Jools Holland will surely be back on the phone to book them for his next series sometime soon. But Questlove and Black Thought aren't just any old hip-hop act reeling in big names to sell records - their imaginative output stands alone as a testament to what you can achieve without resorting to lame lyrics and bland beats. They've performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival, schmoozed with Def Jam, Common and DJ Krush and been inspired by Sufjan Stevens and J Dilla. Not surprisingly, The Roots utilise these experiences to deliver their fourteenth full-length set which commentates on America's violent society and social ills with notable aplomb. Far from their most commercial set, tracks such as the plaintive The Coming and Never wouldn't sound out of place in a stage-production. Dramatic, atonal in places, this is not for booming out of a convertible to impress your hood, more like a headphone experience to imbibe indoors.
Mariah Carey - Me, I Am Mariah, The Elusive Chanteuse - ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Good Lord above, gospel-music has crept back into Carey's handiwork if opening track Cry is anything to go by. While we're not being asked to 'lay our hands on the sick' and 'somebody say Hallelujah fo' me", after a few minutes I am reminded what a powerful set of lungs this woman has on her. But, as with everything in her life, a little of Carey's voice isn't enough and within two minutes she's hollering up and down the scales like someone with a bee's nest in her pants. And so it goes on. The inevitable parade of 'pals' turn up across the album - Nas, Mary J Blige, Fabolous, R Kelly et al - to add the merest weight of creativity to an album so fragile and flyaway, a fart would dissipate its very existence (well, one of mine certainly would). Actually, it's not as bad as the infamous Glitter - there are some half-decent melodies tucked away on Dedicated (a sort of homage to hip-hop) and that opener had promise before its creator started to scare off the animals. Miguel lends the tedious misogyny and lazy lyricism required in R 'n' B records with "You're beautiful/You're fuckin' beautiful" and "with an ass like that..." (on #Beautiful), on Money with Fabolous, we get "come on Mariah, let's git higher" (FFS!), while another 12 or so songs sail by on a sea of twiddly beats and swollen strings that, on an instrumental album might have worked - on here, it's a muddle, a battle between Carey's frequently over-layered vocals and flat production. If only she'd make one decent album of just pure soul, just one, without the needless pomp - one like Emotion or Daydream. I Don't Know What To Do she trills on one song. Nuff said.
It seemed inevitable that Jack White would soon be sidling up to Old Shakey in some creative form and what better way to do it than on this utterly unique way to make an album. Apparently recorded in a refurbed vinyl-recording booth from the '40s and replete with clicks, pops and crackles normally associated with a shellac 78 record, A Letter Home is an intimate tour-de-force that stars Young's wavering vocal amidst vintage atmospherics. It works a treat. The songs are covers (save for the spoken-word 'phone-call' intro), played solely by Young and intermittently accompanied by White on piano and vocals. I imagine a few silly souls will be returning their copies to the point of purchase upon first listen - listen people, the clicks and scrapes are meant to be there, OK? What matters most is the concept I guess - these are classic standards such as Dylan's Girl Of The North Country, Hardin's Reason To Believe and two fine Gordon Lightfoot songs that ought to be covered more often.
How Neil Young is going to tour this album is best left to your imagination. Install a booth in the middle of a shop and have him play? Now there's an idea.... Whatever, A Letter Home is a rather charming concept.
Sharon Van Etten - Are We There - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
A soured relationship can do many things to an artist. It can drag you down to despairing depths or feed the creative fire in your belly. In Van Etten's case, it's achieved both - Are We There is a record that is both despairing and a firebrand. Eschewing the intense rock chops of her previous long-player Tramp, this fourth set provides solace for the disappointed, the broken-hearted and the emotionally-traumatised. As such, it isn't a joyous listen - first track Afraid Of Nothing is the equal of anything Van Etten has written before and then some. It is a stunning starter. It's also one of the key highlights here of which there are a few. Our Love is a funereal slow-tempo folk-flavoured march, the admittedly splendid Tarifa makes Mazzy Star sound like Katy Perry although it perks up when the smoky chorus arrives and Nothing Will Change is subtle, subdued and a soporific sojourn. All this spread over an entire album might have you dropping an electrical appliance into your full bath with you sitting in it but don't fret - Sharon Van Etten's disconsolate elegies may bring you hope after all, if you take the time to stick with them.