CDs/DVDs
Thomas H. Green
The third album from Stockholm rowdies Viagra Boys doesn’t muck about with what they do, but it’s more persistently punkin’ than their last. There’s more than a snifter of Iggy and the Stooges in both the vocal style and the raucous over-amped riffage, but Viagra Boys spice their sound with electronics and, where early-Seventies Ig was always about untrammelled “Raw Power”, this lot are as happy to offer wry lyrical critiques among the all-out stompers.Thus, goofin’ rock’n’roll trashiness such as “Troglodyte”, which comes on like The Cramps discovering Krautrock, sits easily alongside songs Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The last minute of Found Light’s third track “Seaside Haiku” is defined by the repetition of a single phrase: “give but don’t give too much of yourself away.” Before this is the line “I’ve learned a lot from pain.”Working out whether an album’s lyrics are a form of personal reportage or if they’re about imagined scenarios is always tricky. In this case Laura Veirs has said her 12th album is about what comes after divorce, so it feels safe to assume that “Seaside Haiku” is born from past events and describes an outlook generated by what’s been experienced.Elsewhere on Found Light, other lyrics Read more ...
Barney Harsent
“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” That’s the rule, right? Unless, of course, what happens is that you form a pop-rock act with a remarkable ear for a route-one hook and a direct line to the emotional core of teenagers everywhere. In that case, you definitely don’t stay in Vegas. You take the world by storm while leaving critics largely scratching their heads and saying, “I don’t get it”.Mercury – Act 2, the follow up to last year’s Mercury – Act 1 (and released, confusingly, in a two-disc set with its older sibling), won’t change any of that for frontman Dan Reynolds and co. Fans will Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“The historic, the prehistoric, the natural, architectural, geological, ornithological, or on the side of its folklore, Christian or heathen – the place teems with subject matter that is as curious as it is interesting.” So the Gothic Revival architect John Dando Sedding wrote of Cornwall in 1887.Now, the county’s riches are supplemented by the third album from the Wales-born Gwenno Saunders, on which all but two tracks are sung in Cornish: one is in Welsh, another is an instrumental. Sedding’s inventory applies to Tresor – which translates as "Treasure" – as much as it does to Victorian Read more ...
Guy Oddy
The last time that Paolo Nutini was on the public stage, he was knocking out fine blue-eyed soul and having substantial hits like “Scream (Funk my Life Up)”. That was eight years ago though.His new disc, Last Night in the Bittersweet sees Nutini undergo something of a change of direction from the Caustic Love album, by dropping the brass and taking a considerably more rockist approach, while noticeably turning up the Scottish accent in his singing voice. This double album also brings with it a host of unexpected influences, from early Eighties Celtic rock to mid-Seventies kosmiche, new wave, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
American singer-songwriter Damien Jurado is both prolific and enigmatic. His latest album follows too many to count (OK, not really, I think this is his 20th). On his own label, it's as opaque as anything he’s done, and that’s saying something.There are 12 songs, at least half of them around the two-minute mark, all opaque and mysterious, but also often fascinating. “What is he singing about?” the listener asks themselves, a sense of what’s going on elusive but also, tantalisingly, almost within reach.A concept album, then? Kind of. There’s a very loose thematic of films sets. Possibly. Or Read more ...
peter.quinn
An artist with a myriad of strings to his bow – gifted wordsmith, multi-instrumentalist, captivating storyteller – what enables James Vincent McMorrow’s singularly personal songs to take flight is the fact that he’s also a supreme melodist.The Less I Knew is chock full of killer chorus hooks, with album opener “Hurricane”, in which McMorrow’s gloriously harmonised vocal line is supported by the additional ear candy of Alex Borwick's horn parts, being a case in point. Borwick also supplies some driving mandolin work on “Heads Look Like Drums”, as well as engineering and mixing the Read more ...
Katie Colombus
When did life become so theoretical? In the penultimate track of her new album, Home, before and after, Regina Spektor plays the role of classroom teacher to list all of the -ologies, from porcupineology through pleaseology to sorryology and loveology.Set to endearingly intimate piano, it’s a sardonic poke at the current epidemic of self-branding and the categorised polarisation of thought this has created. Perhaps this is why – in a world where everything now published extraneously from our internalised thought process has become a concept to be marketed – this album is such a breath of Read more ...
Kathryn Reilly
In a world seemingly devoid of joy, Hollie Cook's fourth album is a very welcome salve indeed. It’s not just the deliciously mellow groove of the genre and her mellifluous tones, but the feeling of stepping away from the everyday – a holiday from the horrible – which makes this a musta-have for all summer gatherings. At first listen, Happy Hour can seem a bit "samey" but that’s an illusion. Stick with it. In fact, this, her first self-produced effort is something of a triumph. Dreamy and serene, this is Lovers' Rock for the Covid generation. Deceptively simple, the first three songs – Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Porcupine Tree’s members have said they don’t know if their 11th album and this autumn’s North American–European tour will conclude their 35-year career. If it does, it would be typical of the progressive rock trio – as averse to standing still as King Crimson – if they bowed out with a record that doesn't suggest a grand finale. As its title hints, Closure/Continuation sounds like a work in progress.Less dependent on singer-guitarist (and here bassist) Steven Wilson’s compositions than its predecessors, the project was jammed into life by him and drummer Gavin Harrison, and composed with Read more ...
Nick Hasted
His car skids through an LA stoplight, then Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) enters his insurance office in the small hours, taking a lift as if to the scaffold, coat hanging like a cloak, a dark stain on his shoulder. From his upstairs office, the desks below look like a hellish pit, the lamps insectile. Even with the light on, his face stays eaten by shadows at first. Fumbling for a cigarette, he turns on a voice recorder to confess. “Yes, I killed him. For money. And for a woman. I didn’t get the money. And I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, ain’t it?”Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck, Read more ...
mark.kidel
The 400 Blows (1959) and Jules et Jim (1962) established François Truffaut as an outstanding and original director. His next film, The Soft Skin (La peau douce) from 1964, was not in the same league.Although it displays many of his story-telling skills, not least a gift for suspense, the film feels dated, the characters are not quite as interesting as in his earlier hits, and the plot – a middle-aged married man has an affair with an air hostess, and his worn-out marriage falls apart – is a little formulaic. It is by no means a bad film, but it is certainly not among Truffaut’s best.The two Read more ...