|
|
CDs 2005 (3)
Well OK I'm let and this is published on December 29 and I haven't written the 4th quarter yet, but hey I never caught up with the final part of the year, so I'll finish the 4th quarter (well start it first) soon hopefully, and we'll see if I do reviews at all next year. Oh and don't ask me where the limit between 3rd and 4th quarter is because obviously now it's not so clear; the way I've been doing, this one should have been finished 3 months ago, that's all. Meanwhile here, along the usual UK suscpects, there’s a very strong scandinavian flavour here with great records from Sweden Denmark, Norway and even Iceland. Finland anyone ? Here's your 21 reviews, there should be less than 15 in the final quarter, before I attempt a top 20. Yeah, right... Brakes : Give Blood Some kind of (Brighton) superindie group rather than indie supergroup, including members of British Sea Power, The Electric Soft Parade and The Tenderfoot (no, me neither), with guestspots from Liela from The Duke Spirit, and The Pipettes (all three of them), this is not too dissimilar to what The Cure did in the late 70s with Cult Hero. Except that here, instead of just sticking to a nice 7in, they go the whole way with a whole (albeit short) album. It’s actually all right, will hopefully be good fun on stage too, and well stands on its own to be honest. Rather refreshing in a way, utterly pointless in many others. (10s songs are no doubt a fun moment to have onstage, as The Sleepy Jackson (when are they back?) once proved, but on a CD?) A fun but pointless 7/10 Top Track : All Night Disco Party. Just to push the point that little but further, it’s hard not to see similarities between this and Cult Hero’s title track. The Subways : Young For Eternity I think I wrote the review for this several times in my head, but now a few months on, I put the record on again, and we’ll see how it feels. The original impression was ‘you can’t slag it/you can’t praise it/it’s too innocuous/they need to split up as a couple to come up with something more meaningful....I mean hard to hate, hard to love, no shit track, just standard garage music from young upstarts with a sprightly spring in their stride that grates after the initial half-excitement. And well, I’m afraid I’ll have to stick with this, at least that’s the feeling I get straight from putting the first song on again: it’s OK but it’s so unexciting, too tinny in a way, it wants to play with the big boys but is still very much kiddies’stuff. They’ll need to live the hard life, but to be fair it’s not all bad, they HAVE got a few decent melodies and sounds....but rock’n’roll queen ? the lyrics are so cheesily cringeworthy it’s scary. Mary ? I know half a dozen of songs called this (or containing Mary in the title) who are a lot better than that, starting with Supergrass of course. This is just terrible. (Mary-)Charlotte really can’t sing, she’s got a very irritating (well OK, frankly shit) voice, she really should learn to sing or just refrain all the same. Another thing is they also need to beef up that sound somewhat. But for now, the Glastonbury competition winners of a couple of years back are still very much garage wannabes and nothing more. Lovely but...so totally inoffensive it’s tragic. Loveliness and garridge don’t go well together...It’s impossibly to hate but I’m really bored listening to this album. There may be a bright future for them, I wouldn’t be too surprised, but for now its 6.5/10 Top Track : With You. The sign that it’s good ? I heard it once, thinking yeah I like that one, and it took me about half an hour to figure out that it was The Subways.
The Dead 60s Top Track : We get low. Maybe I like their reggae stuff more after all, and this is the best of the lot. Hard-Fi : Stars of CCTV Hard-Fi on the other hand seem to mix many more influences. While they might easily be perceived as softer and more pop and more commercial than the Dead 60s, they're also incommensurably more interesting and charismatic, which is never a bad thing. Also, as their Help/Warchild track testifies, they have a lot more strings to their bow than most. Straight from opening track and single Cash Machine, this album is mostly a collection of anthems (check the classic 'lalalalalaaa' on 'tied up too tight!') you can shout along to. There are clear ska/reggae moments and influences in there(witness the intro to Better do Better), but they are not overdone, and the always dubby bass sound they use fits along seamlessly with more classical indie guitar stuff (Living For The Weekend). Gotta Reason is yet another example of how to rip off that bass riff from A Forest and turn it into something altogether completely different, and while Hard To Beat is a bit overlong and too much of a French Disko sub Daft Punk (when they were quite good) cheesy kind of track, Unnecessary Trouble brings things back to familiar and enjoyable and still anthemic territory. There are some needless excursions in other territory (the soppy piano ballad sung in a falsetto Tim Burgess-like voice Move On Now is, well, just a soppy piano ballad, Feltham is Singing out is still anthemic but a bit boring in the end), but they are quickly balanced by stunning tracks that could even bring out a tear or two (Better Do Better is a beautiful tune about rightful unforgiveness or something). Living for the weekend is another obvious and explicit anthem, while album closer Stars of CCTV (the falsetto verse fits in better here) is a manifesto for the disaffected youth : we're the stars of CCTV, can’t you see the camera loves me? The Summer of Ska ? No, it never happened, and was never needed. But Hard-Fi ? As their record label implies : another necessary record : 8.5/10 Top Track : Better do Better. Just as my attention span was being slightly stretched, this made me stop take notice again and swoon: these boys can also make you shed a tear or two Editors : The Back Room No doubt as you must have read somewhere, this lot's heavily indebted to Joy Divison in singing voice and sounds(check the keyboard sound on Camera for instance). Closer to us, because it's 2005 after all, Interpol springs to mind. Beyond that, while Editors have got their own little tuneful treasures like Munich and All Sparks, they sometime fail to get anywhere (like on the overrated bullets), and while this is undeniably a very good, at times brilliant album which is no doubt better now that I have to drive back from work in the dark than in the summer, Editors still lack something to make them thrilling or interesting in the context of their too obvious influences. Fingers in the factories ? No thank you. There’s 3-4 really good songs in here, but I’m sorry they are too much sub-Interpol, down to the voice. One of the many overrated bands of the year as far as I’m concerned. 7/10 Top track : Munich. People are fragile things you should know by now...and a nice tune to boot, the following blood makes it a good couple. The Juan Maclean : Less than Human The Juan Maclean. on a year when I haven't found much electro to please me (OK i've not really got my fingers on the pulse on that area), when My Computer's not even reviewed (the new album is pish if you ask me), Four Tet has just gone boring and Daft Punk have turn into a parody of themselves, it is quite pleasant to come across this lovely chilled-out electro (minor-)masterpiece. It's not rock'n'roll, bt it's quite affecting and makes it actually quite ironic that Daft punk's album's called human after all and this one less than human. I know which one I prefer. A good point for this is that it's also not too long (though the final track itself, of little interest to me, is overlong and costs them a full point. So yeah after all still rather boring, mind. 7/10 (perhaps a little more on a good day). Top Track : My time is running out. The kind of lovely electronica Four Tet used to do. Sambassadeur. another gem from Labrador, the best label of the year it's official: the home of swedish twee, they practically never let me down. Many influences are mixed in here but all over is loveliness. As I mentioned when I put one of their tracks on the site, there’s a bit of everything here from the Velvet Underground (I’ll be your mirror-period on new moon) to Stone Roses (in a way, ice & snow is a slowed-down version of Elephant Stone), a touch of Suzanne Vega in the singing maybe, a pinch of Jesus and Mary Chain if you want (Still life ahead), a bit of the odd smithsian jangle too. And they cover Serge Gainsbourg and it still sounds like melting snow. There’s something magic coming out of Sweden...again! 9/10 Top Track : Sense of sound. More than just a sense, a real grasp of it.See it's not all about its speed. But to be honest the whole album is a sweet sweet sweet treat. Dogs : Turn Against This Land There’s too many art-rock/indie/garage/punk/urchin bands going on these days, so the war is on. On one hand you've got the battle for the art-rock crown with Bloc Party (Streets ahead), Franz Ferdinand, Maxïmo Park, The Futureheads & The Rakes (soon to be joined by Kaiser Chiefs if you worryingly listen to their latest AA side sink that ship) battling to stay alive. And on the other hand, you've got more grotty punk rock with (in a very broad way) the likes of the paddingtons, razorlight, soon to be joined by Dirty Pretty Things probably...and Dogs. So what about dogs ? Well they're pretty much par for the course, but they'll need to work harder if they are to get out of the shadows. Competent, probably good live but far from original and therefore rather forgettable. They might come very good, but for now it’s a bit premature to call them great. A very definite Razorlight flavour here, but nowhere near as good as the original. I wonder if they don’t remind my of My Vitriol at times too, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. 6/10 Top track : London Bridge starts the album and well, you may be bored after more than one track. The Rakes : Capture/Release Capture.Release. Short and to the point. Saw them live once. It was OK. Listened to the album once. It was OK. Let it lie. Listened to the album a couple of months later. Absolutely brilliant. Saw them live again. Brilliant chaos. Anyway, yeah, the Rakes’ album is a killer. It hasn’t got a duff track and is packed with incisive and very distinctive riffs, kept simple all the time. Tales of everyday life, booze and all, 22 grand jobs, spies in Strasbourg (OK this doesn’t happen everyday) and most of all work work work (pub, club, sleep). T-bone? Well done! Terror is on the menu too, and even when they do it slow (binary love) they keep the blueprint and never fail. There’s something in the simple and crystal clear riffs that makes every song memorable too. One of these very rare treats this year : an album that doesn’t make you skip a single track, keeps it short enough and leaves you thoroughly satisfied.8.5/10 Top Track : Retreat. And so it is : you wanna go out, not miss out on anything yet feel this need to stay home. So what do you do ? Put it on at home or hope they play it in the pub or the club. Stars : Set Yourself On Fire Another band from Canada, they use a violin. So the new Arcade Fire you would think ? Well no, they sound much more like the Delgados if you ask me, particularly notable on the opening track (your ex-lover is dead) or track 4 too. And here’s another CDs that easily bears coming back to it months later. The other day in the car, I was listening to it, it sounded familiar, I wondered what it was and then realised it was just because I’d listened to it a month previous or so and these tunes had crept their way subconsciously but easily under my skin, generally a sign of mini-classics. So they’ve got a bit of everything, slow, fast, various influences : Delgados as I said, New Order (check the end of what I’m trying to say), maybe The Notwist (check the chorus on the first five times), a little bit of Air (he lied about death, which also features some crazy Give me It (The Cure song) saxophone flourishes), and well it all blends together well to create a lovely well crafted album, with high-quality super singing, which is rare enough these days to mention a worthy mention. Celebration Guns with its closing ‘Goodnight, sleep light, stranger’ should by right conclude the album, but as it is, there’s still two more tracks to go. And well they’re not too shabby, Soft Revolution doesn’t add much but is still enjoyable while calendar girl (featuring guest vocals from fellow Montrealites The Dears) is absolutely lovely. This album gets better everytime and deserves its 8/10 Top Track : What i’m trying to say, the song itself isn’t bad, but it’s the finale that steals it, also one more proof how influential New Order are these days. Black Rebel Mororcycle Club : Howl It seems to be a new thing for bands previously tagged as JAMC imitators to pare their sound down, go back to basics and bare their sounds if not their souls. But where the Raveonettes revealed it was even darker without the feedback, BRMC go all country on us, which is nice but loses a bit of edge in the process. And overall, despite a few nice moments (the opening shuffle your feet is a classic piece of acoustic work, very far west-ish in vibes), I’m afraid I find this terribly boring overall. So unless you really like this style of countryish music, expect to be disappointed with the ‘new’ direction. I gotta say, hearing it a few months later it feels slightly better, especially when they just play a stripped down version of their old stuff (like title track Howl at number 2 which is quite good indeed)... except Devil’s waitin’ is exactly the stuff I can’t stomach in this coutrified world, and while aint no easy way indeed ain’t bad, Sons and Daughters do it consistently better ! And then it gets fairly boring, the voice is too affected and I’m nodding off by track 7 –some kind of pink floyd bore-a-thon. Weight of the world opening ‘side 2’ (so they say, thanks for informing us CD users) enlivens proceedings a trifle and feels like one of the better tracks here, though maybe it’s only relative to the preceding few. So while I’ll stick wih the Raveonettes without the shadow of a doubt, for me it’s bye bye to the BRMC...6/10 Top Track : Howl. Then run away please. Youth Group : Skeleton Jar Just a quick mention for Patrick Matthews (ex-Vines bass player) new band. It starts with a New-Order fronted by Tim Booth number (Shadowland...clear early 80s influence), then goes on all the same, at times early Pink Floyd fronted by Tim Booth (Baby Body), at other times simply...James with less anthemic tunes (See-Saw, well you've guessed by now that the singer sounds uncannily like Tim Booth, haven't you ?), And while this hardly sets the pulse racing overall, little gems like Someone else's dream (this one will stick in your head for a while) or interesting single Skeleton Jar make this a very pleasant surprise for what's after all a nearly-random (OK I read somewhere that they weren't bad) second-hand buy. I’ve wasted more money on albums that are a lot worse than that this year. 7.5/10 Top track : Shadowland. This has got all the good ingredients of a very good song (and he doesn’t sound that much like Tim Booth there...actually listening to it all again, the voice sounds familiar but maybe I got my reference wrong), from the basic bassline and the jangling guitar line to the simple chorus and the synth-knob-twiddling bit before the end. Yes this really deser ves a favourable mention. Röyksopp : The Understanding I’ve got to say I didn’t expect much from this one (coffee-table and adverts electro-music ?) but still went along saying ‘why not?’ as everyone seemed to agree it was good. And well, as it is, I don’t think I bought many electro albums this year, but this towers over anything else of the genre that I’ve heard this year. The opening track sets the tone with a quiet start and then a beat comes in and it’s all rather good. And then comes first single Only This Moment and wow, all you can say is ‘choon!’ (or ‘tune’ if you really must speak well). Sounding like the Beloved at their best (and they did some good stuff back in the days), you’re a little surprised Jon Marsh’s not credited with the vocals, but it’s a heavenly treat. The following (and next single) 49 percent is early massive attack-ish, then track 5 Follow my Ruin is another wow-zer, quite good. Ok there’s the odd dud (Sombre detune sounds exactly as uninteresting and slightly irritating as initially expected, in as much as I rememeber their previous album (i.e. not much it’s true), but then there’s gem after gem with tracks 7 & 8, just check it and fly away ! It all goes a bit Air-by-numbers after that, but overall this is a quite rewarding listening, not triumphant maybe but nice and dreamy all the same. The final thirs is slightly less good, with darker beats and some boring bits, but never irks or irritates. So hooray, there’s at least one electro album to enjoy this year. How far is Norway ? 8.5/10 Top track : Only this moment. Quite simply the most beautiful track committed to record this year. Super Furry Animals : Love Kraft Pretty much standard fare for the Furries here. Which is good by anyone’s standards. But is of no interest whatsoever in the context of the Furries’ already sizeable oeuvre. Honestly ? Boring. 6.5/10 Top Track : Ohio Heat. This one you may be inclined to pay attention to. Supergrass : Road To Rouen Pretty much standard fare for the ‘grass here. Which is good by...oh hang on! This isn’t true! From the onset, it could have been done by some other band, and as it happens, Supergrass start here with an instrumental part to a track that is one of the coolest they have written in ages. No attempt to vainly recreate former glories as on the previous (and slightly disappointing) Life on Other Planets. Here Supergrass seem to be enjoying themselves, starting with a riff not dissimilar to The Smiths’ The Draize Train, carrying on with single St Petersburg which is a bit like Doves’ Melody Calls but with added chimes and charm. And so on. And while there is nothing here likely to set the world alight, the ‘grass manage to enjoy themselves while kindly pleasing us. Hardly a contender for the end of year polls, but a satisfactory release nonetheless that gets better after each listen. There’s a couple of daft tracks as usual with them but at 35 minutes it’s a lot shorter than the SFA album and all the better for it. A deserving 7.5/10 Top track : Tales of Endurance (Parts 4,5 &6). No the first three parts don’t exist, which is typical of Supergrass’s quirky humour, but these will more than do. Sigur Ros : Takk I find it nigh on impossible to review a Sigur Ros album (hey I gotta get lazy with all these CDs to review). I mean the only thing you can only ever compare them to is themselves. It's not as new as it was a couple of albums ago, and this one doesn't quite have the same dark brooding intensity as ( ). Yes they're still amazing, maybe sounding more 'serene' or something (well maybe it’d be possibly to know if the lyrics were there to be understood). In a way slightly disappointing. But also a work of genius obviously X/10 Top track : Gong. First it’s the only one that’s simple to spell and means anything in a normal language, but beyond that it’s got a bit of a different rhythm to the rest and some appreciable elegiac singing. It’s quite a magnificent track actually ! Elbow : Leaders of the Free World vs The Silent League : The Orchestra, sadly, has refused. There’s something about Elbow I can never really get into and still I buy their albums because there’s always a single or two that sucks me in. And while this is possibly their best album, still the voice isn’t cheerful, it’s all a bit depressing, I very nearly can’t be arsed reviewing in, but I thought putting it againt The Silent League’s album might be interesting. A couple of listens in (is it yet another grower?) I’m trying to like this but it still gets me bored not even two thirds through. The Silent League have one immense advantage first, is they don’t have the bored voice of Guy Garvey to contend with. Maybe if the singer here fronted Elbow, they’d be more appreciated by me. It’s said that they count Mercury Rev keyboardists among their members, and there’s certainly a common vibe with them here (opening title track could easily have featured on any of the last 2 or 3 Rev albums), and there’s some truly beautiful moments hee. And all throughout, while there’s the same kind of the understated and modest approach, The Silent League are more dream-like where Elbow are so down to earth they nearly melt on the pavement. So Catskills’ eerie vibes vs Manchester’s ‘it’s grim up north’ everyday tales ? Both are nice in their own way and may strike a chord if played at the right time. But me ? I’m a dreamer. 6.5&7.5/10. Top tracks : Elbow : Forget myself. Title ‘almost’ nicked from Doves best song on their own album this year, though not nearly as good. Still a very decent track (and a great video if you’ve seen it), as you think it’s going to be a great album at that moment (track 3, but it all goes downhill from there). The Silent League : Breathe. Breathe helium obviously, light and floating. Mew : and the glass handed kites I’d love to say it’s again a fantastic underrated northern indie rocking gem like their opening album, but the truth is that this follow-up really really confuses me. I can’t even decide if it’s a good or a bad album. It’s certainly a lot less immediate than their first (not that Frengers was an easy album, by any stretch of the imagination). It’s just messy, songs are even less structured than before, and there’s nothing as instantaneously gripping as 156 or Snow Brigade here or as compelling as Comforting Sounds. It’s more all like Am I wry ? No, which, if you remember it, was just as its title implied without the answer (still confused? Well, exactly!). Despite that, the final tracks are still quite good and there’s a middle section starting with Apocalypso that borders on sheer brilliance. It’s also hard not to fall under the spell of The Zookeeper’s boy. So it’s well fucked up, leaves me befuddled, weird, but the more I listen to it, the more I get into it and love it.Subtle but still a bit inconsistent ? 7.5+/10 Top track : Special. Following Apocalypso seamlessly, this one’s fairly easy to like, no not easy listening, just good and like you wish they did more of. Acid House Kings : Sing Along with the Acid House Kings. Autumn is here, winter is approaching, time to get your cardigan out (erm OK, their album is out soon) and head back to Sweden. Do all Swedish chanteuses have the same voice ? Well anyway, here’s another gem from the Labrador rooster. What can I say ? Pop music doesn’t get much better than that. As warm and unfashionable as a woolly jumper, it’s comfy in the summer when you don’t need it, and it will keep you warm in the winter. Just like their outfits on the artwork, it’s highly twee and unashamed to be so. But it’s sweet sweet sweet as candyfloss or the slow falling down in Stockholm. If you hear a better pop album all year, I’m willing to change into a fluffy cloud. 8.5/10. Something funny ? It comes along complete with Karaoke DVD (oh yeah!), which makes you realise that most of the charm may actually lie with the voice. Top track : Sleeping. Can’t you hear the snow falling, the bells chiming while you’re slowing going to bed ? I’m really gonna melt now... (P.S. : yeah, I did write this review early autumn....) The Legends : Public Radio Now there’s a singular album.It’s actually slightly bizarre that it is legally on sale, but hey-ho I’ll explain. As soon as the first drum beats kick in, heavy on reverb and with an instantly recognisable pattern you go : ‘oh, a cover of Play for Today’. Then they keyboard line from A Forest appears, and well the song is called Today in what one can only assume is a clear reference or homage. And here’s an album which clearly belongs to early 80s’ England (People like us, a title with a clear New Order reference, sounds uncannily like a track off that band’s Movement) rather than mid 00s’ Sweden. And while there’s the odd bit of JAMC dicreet feedback to get them nearer labelmates The Radio Dept. (seems like I have to mention them in most Labrador records review), where do you draw the line between homage and rip-off ? Because it doesn’t stop here. Air is Seventeen Seconds (the song), while I want to be like everybody else is Secrets. Rarely has an album been so much indebted not to just one inspirational band, but to one particular record off that band. Everything in the guitar, bass and drum sounds and effects brings you back there, Which is a shame, because Seventeen Seconds has actually been re-released this very year, and when The Legends let go a bit, like on haunting single He knows the Sun, the chorus of Something Good (shades of Teenage Fanclub here?), or the pulsating final Do you Remember Riley ? they reach skywards in a more early Boo Radleys-ish vibe and prove themselves a very attractive proposition of their own. So to sum up, a lot of unfulfilled potential. I mean, it’s very good mostly because 17s is, so it will nicely complement a cold winter, but there’s a lot more to be done than just a cover version of a whole album indeed. 6.5/10 but the best 6.5 I’ve ever given. It’s actually addictive, haunting, in itself very good, like nearly every single release from Labrador. It's a true 8/10 record, but it’s just that if Cure lawyers were on the case... Top track : Do you Remember Riley ? Because He knows the sun might be better but this is a good send-off that makes you think they may have a great original album in them soon.
|
