CDs/DVDs
Thomas H. Green
Pop that summons the word “cute” has a tendency to nauseate. If executed with the correct ratio of candy to content, however, it may persuade. The Scandinavians have proved effective in this area and Jonas Angergård and Karolina Komstedt, from the south of Sweden, add to the region’s good stock. Their latest album sits somewhere between The Cardigans and St Etienne, a very conscious electro-pop tinge coming to the fore, especially on numbers such as the toy town hi-NRG of “Taking My Time”.The duo have been around for years and this is their eighth album. Angergård is also a member of mid- Read more ...
David Nice
Fans of this bewilderingly popular musical, and they are legion, will not be disappointed. Director Tom Hooper knows how to tell a fast-moving tale that makes light of the final running time (originally 158 minutes, slightly shorter in this DVD release, which offers no extras. Those who went to the film more than once will, I'm told, miss a couple of scenes). The lighting is appropriately lugubrious, most of the settings convincing – though occasionally there’s too much dependence on CGI – and famously the singing actors perform their numbers on set, often in long takes. Casting is strong, Read more ...
fisun.guner
Steve Martin has a number of strings to his bow: comedian, actor, playwright, novelist, screenwriter and – who knew? – banjo player. And if you need any convincing, his 2010 release The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo, won a Grammy for best bluegrass album.It’s in this capacity that he’s collaborated with Edie Brickell, formerly of The New Bohemians, with whom she had a major hit with single "What I Am" way back in 1988. Aside from raising a family, the intervening years have been quiet, but some off-radar musical collaborations include those with Harper Simon (she’s married Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Various Artists: The Sun Rock Box - Rock ‘n’ Roll Recorded by Sam Phillips 1954-1959It’s no exaggeration to say that Sam Phillips transformed society. With his associate Ike Turner, he brought Jackie Brenston’s “Rocket 88” to the world in 1951. He may or may not have known it then, but Phillips had set the template for what would become rock ‘n’ roll. Then, in quick succession, he disseminated the message via Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis. By the end of 1956 rock ‘n’ roll was, indeed, here to stay. The world would never be the same again.Then there’s the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Anything said about A won’t affect its sales. Guaranteed to sell millions, it’s the first album from ABBA’s former singer since 2004’s all-covers set, My Colouring Book. It’s also the first to contain original material since the one which preceded that, 1987’s I Stand Alone. In keeping with the privacy with which she leads her life, she’s not prolific. Fältskog’s return is newsworthy and welcome, so it’s deeply depressing that A is so feeble. Worse than that, her personality is hardly evident.Can the lyrics to "Perfume in the Breeze" (“I’m not sure what happened, it happened so fast/ people Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Post-Screamadelica, there's a general consensus that Bobby Gillespie’s acid rockers have been gently sliding downhill (their nadir being the dad-rock of "Country Girl"). Those who believe this may feel better disposed towards More Light. It's not their best, but it's significantly better. The album is an eclectic, angry mix of stoner rock, industrial sounds, rave and rock’n’rollMore Light may also be one of the most evocative recession albums so far. There’s nothing particularly illuminating in what Gillespie actually sings. The lyrics apparently include nonsense like "police station Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
There’s a slight unease I feel about Savages which only grows with every listen to the band’s heavily-hyped debut album. Perhaps I’m too old to experience my music as just one facet of a conceptual art project, where it comes as part of a package that’s as much provocative manifestos about the emptiness of modern living and interviews packed with loaded statements about sex and violence.Yet these things demand to be examined by the fact of their very existence, because everything else about Silence Yourself seems to be carefully constructed. That in itself is unsettling, as the sonic Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A female hiker is naked. A village is close. Lying on the slope down to a river, she invites the taciturn man she’s followed to have sex. They do. She begins shrieking and foaming at the mouth. He fastens his face to hers. She could then be dead yet begins crawling into the water, looks heavenwards and spreads her arms.The images of baptism and rebirth are clear. But the motivation of the man, David Dewale’s Le gars (the man or guy), is less clear cut. Bruno Dumont’s Hors Satan (Outside Satan) is hard to read in terms of specifics, but overall it dwells on the arrival of a mystical outsider Read more ...
peter.quinn
Born just a year apart in the 1950s and having both clocked up almost 40 years' work in their respective scenes, it's surprising that it's taken quite so long for fellow trailblazers Pat Metheny and John Zorn to work together. It's certainly been worth the wait, as this collection is a real barn-burner.Apart from his frequent collaborator, drummer Antonio Sanchez, guitarist Metheny is responsible for every other sound you hear on his contribution to John Zorn's gargantuan Masada songbook project: bass, keyboards, bandonéon, percussion, flugelhorn and much more. All six richly detailed Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Russian director Karen Shakhnazarov has three decades of memorable film-making behind him, but remains much less known than he should be, at least in the English-speaking world: his edgy perestroika-era films like Courier and Assassin of the Tsar deserve far more atttention than they've generally received. Last year's White Tiger reunites him with longtime co-scripter Alexander Borodnyansky, and this time they've aimed resolutely for the mainstream, though it's a bid for the popular with an unusual twist.Shakhnazarov's first venture into locally popular World War II territory, White Tiger is Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
There isn’t really a consensus on what the single best Fall album is. However, I did come across a thread on a fansite asking devotees to nominate their favourite album title. Not album – album title.This prompts a number of observations. Firstly, there are a lot of Fall albums: Re-Mit is the 30th studio release since 1976. Secondly, there plenty of very serious Fall fans out there. Thirdly, Mark E Smith, the band’s frontman and only common denominator across its 37-year life, has a somewhat legendary turn of phrase (most votes on the poll went to 1983’s Perverted by Language ).On that front Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Various Artists: We Are One - Eurovision Song Contest Malmö 2013From the British perspective, one thing stands out at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. And it’s not our entry, the turgid power balladry of Bonnie Tyler’s sure-to-stumble “Believe in Me”. It’s the Armenian entry, “Lonely Planet” by Dorians. Although not that great a song for Armenia's return to the contest after last year's withdrawal, the composer is Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi. Its building chorus, powerful delivery, authentic rock dynamics and plank-spanking guitar solo would easily slot into in the musical Rock of Ages. Read more ...