THE CORAL   Magic and Medicine   (Deltasonic)

A quick Google finds ‘Magic and Medicine of Plants’ and ‘Magic and Medicine in Menstruation’.  Well, we know The Coral have a fondness for certain leaves, and the new album is bloody good.  Second albums can be tricky buggers. Do you a) stick to a winning formula like Blair’s tongue sticks to Bush’s arse, b) change tack to prove you’re not a one trick pony and risk alienating your fans, or c) like the guy who walloped Doris Stokes, try to strike a happy medium.  Hoylake’s finest go for option c with a collection of songs that show a real progression lyrically, and precocious musicianship that leaves you gobsmacked. 

In the Forest is an odd but atmospheric opener with twittering birdies and seaside organ, the chorus having a whiff of Stray Cat Strut and the cryptic line ‘You’ll never know how much I……you’.  First single Don’t Think You’re the First is Gunfight with the OK Coral; you can just see Sheriff Skelly and his Scouse posse galloping across the open prairie (except for those flute trills).  That thieving magpie approach still works to great effect; Love, Mersyebeat, folk, blues, skiffle; they’re all in there somewhere.  Liezah is straight up Simon and Garfunkel, Secret Kiss has a Specials feel with a guitar break that sounds like it’s from a Brit 50s detective show, while album closer Confessions of A.D.D.D. has riffs Hank Marvin would be proud of and ends with an extensive jazzy/psychedelic workout.  And it mentions pirates.

Other highlights are the rocking Talkin’ Gypsy Market Blues, Careless Hands with its Med flavoured guitar work, the wonderful West Coast pop of Pass it On, and Bill McCai, the sorry tale of a stuck-in-a-rut salesman longing for his childhood; ‘Now Bill’s grown so fat and bald/He never thought that he’d grow old’.  This is a lyrical tour de force; ‘His wife can’t stand the sight of him/With his routine glass of gin/She makes his lunch of processed ham/And waits in for the meter man’.  His suicide gets a less than sympathetic ‘And we say bye-bye Bill McCai’.  Oh, on the melancholic All of Our Love with its refrain of ‘Love/Hate/Joy/Pain’, don’t leap up thinking ‘shit, one of my speakers has packed in’, the vocals start veerrrry quietly.    

‘Magic and Medicine’ is not a massive departure from their debut opus, the same influences are there, but it’s less eccentric, less chaotic; there’s nothing like the bonkers Skeleton Key and not a Cossack dance in earshot, although there is the fucked up fairground music of Milkwood Blues.  In their place we get a more restrained, thoughtful, mature and cohesive album, which, unsurprisingly, has shot straight to number one.  Chapter Two in The Rise and Rise of The Coral.

Reviewed by Graham S
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Alex: "I've got the Dizzee Rascal album. Do you want a review?"  Soundsxp Editor: "Er isn't it hip hop shit?" Alex: "Yeah but it's at the interesting, crossover end of hip hop, like the Streets were to Garage. I've heard two tracks on XFM and it's nominated for the Mercury. It's the sort of thing indie fans might be thinking about buying." Ed.: "Oh go on then." Alex: "Cheers" Ed.: "Oh and Alex.I really, really want you, big boy."  So that's how it happened. Oh alright then, I'll admit I 'sexed up' my recounting of our dialogue but the first part of it is true.

So is it worth buying then? In a word, no. The problem is that while Original Pirate Material was startlingly inventive and accessible to the non-hardcore garage crowd, Boy In Da Corner can't pull the same trick. 18 year old Dizzee has said he's happy to venture into more experimental territory so this may be less due to a desire to 'keep it real' and more because he is simply finding his feet.

Dizzee has genuine talent. The aforementioned tracks are original and exciting: I Luv U has an amusingly vicious duet where Dizzee and his ex bitch about each other ("That boy's some prick you kna, thinks that I care, all in my hair, these days I can't go nowhere") and Fix Up Look Sharp features a well-chosen sample from old rock track "Big Beat" by Billy Squier. But two smashes don't make a summer. Dizzee's lyrics are accomplished and he raps fast and frenzied but the minimalist style (an edgy tune / sample and light / enormously big beats) and relentlessly gloomy lyrics get tedious. Hip hop fans will be familiar with tracks about hard times in the 'hood and indie fans will be no strangers to "the world isn't fair and I want to die" type lyrics but this stuff makes The Smiths and Ice T sound like Steps. Sample lyric: "Looks like I'm loosing mates, there's a lot of hostility near my gates, we used to fight with kids from different estates, now 8-milimetres settle debates." Maybe someone should tell this kid he comes from East London, not fucking South-central L.A.

If I were a wanky 30-something NME reviewer trying to show how 'in touch' I am I'd give this uncritical praise. Luckily I'm a wanky 30-something Soundsxp reviewer so I'll just say this is an impressive debut that hints at a great album to come in a couple of years.

Reviewed by Alex M
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This 25-minute disc is the soundtrack to a David Mackenzie film and, like 98% of soundtracks, it works less well without its complementary film.  If you’ve seen the film, the melancholic, tinkling, sweet-trumpet-topped, largely instrumental tracks might conjure up images other than the pastoral, vaguely sad, blissed-out Belle and Sebastian scenes that these songs evoke. 

Some tracks stand out: Dark Vincente is David Lynch-ian, oppressive with mechanical, power-overloaded humming.  Charlie’s Theme counterpoints a simple but lovely guitar-picked melody with slightly sinister piano and trumpet while Katrina’s voice on Everybody is a Star takes you on a languid lope through a very pretty song.  It’s Jarvis Cocker’s contribution that takes the palm though.  I Picked A Flower, written by Stephen, Katrina and Jarvis, is as rudely euphemistic as you might think: “maybe you didn’t dare/ plant your seed inside her flowerbed/ so she turned to me instead”.   It has an insistent, almost jazzy, groove as Jarvis, in best Lothario-guise, gives advice to a lover he’s supplanted.   The album is worth hearing, if not particularly clothed in Pastel hues, but the last track is the money shot.

Reviewed by Ged M
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Often dubbed the first ‘alternative’ band, LA’s legendary and hugely influential Jane’s Addiction were born almost 20 years ago, released two seminal, heroin-fuelled albums in ‘Nothing’s Shocking’ and ‘Ritual De Lo Habitual’, and split acrimoniously in ’91 at the first Lollapalooza festival (which, ironically, they founded).  After a coupla brief comebacks, a cleaned up Jane’s Addiction has risen, as energised as top-of-the-range Duracell bunnies, like the most beautiful, cocksure phoenix you could imagine from those wondrous ashes.  Well, three quarters of them anyway: Perry Farrell, flamboyant frontman; Dave Navarro, guitar god; Steven Perkins, drums; and new recruit on bass, Chris Chaney.  And what a fucking awesome, breath of fresh air, jaw-droppingly good platter ‘Strays’ is.

From the off, this is swaggering, riff-laden, super-cool rock, reminiscent of early Van Halen when they were fresh and vital, not the big, dumb stadium pantomime-metal band they morphed into.  ‘Here we go!’ yells Farrell at the start of True Nature as it hurtles off into super-heavy Led Zep territory with Navarro as Slash, Jimmy Page and Joe Perry all rolled into one.  The title track feels like a metal U2 with mandolin and a hint of Won’t Get Fooled Again at the end, while Wrong Girl and Suffer Some are infused with funk (Navarro did a stint with RHCP).  Just Because is the titanic, stomping first single; screeching guitar and Farrell’s soaring vocals: ‘When was the last time you did anything/not for me or anyone else/just because/just because’.  Superhero swaggers along like Aerosmith (another band revitalised after binning Class A substances), Price I Pay careens between rock ballad, funk-metal and Sabbath-heavy riffing with rumbling bass lines, and, natch, there’s ‘obligatory, thoughtful ballad with strings’ in the shape of REM-ish Everybody’s Friend; ‘Man of peace/man of war/tell me who knows more?’  Hypersonic lives up to its name, starting with a programmed loop, then speeding off into a hurricane of wailing guitar and staccato drumming before coming to a dead stop.  To Match the Sun starts all ambient; spacey synths and guitar, before it finds its heavy groove.  Chuck in some Beatlesy strings and you have a perfect epic album closer.

Old school, guitar-soloing, heavy rock may seem clichéd and anachronistic in this day and age (unless it’s a pisstake a la Darkness), but when carried out with this much energy, cool, ability and sheer glad-to-be-fucking-back-and-in-your-face joy, it’s hard to resist.  We’re in a heatwave that’s not half as hot as this album.

Reviewed by Graham  S
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Felt.  A cultish, influential, 80’s indie band from Birmingham fronted by the enigmatic – if not slightly odd – Lawrence.  During their 10 year existence, they produced 10 singles (a brace of which were indie hits) and 10 albums with stints on Cherry Red, Creation and el labels. ‘Stains on a Decade’ covers Felt’s recorded life with 15 tracks chosen by none other than Lawrence himself.   

Starting off with Something Sends Me to Sleep (the listing is fairly sequential) Felt start off with left-field 80’s indie-pop (cf Associates and Pulp), all neutered production with jangly reverbed guitar and non-emotive whiney narrative (cf Lou Reed meets Ian Curtis) and generally slightly depressing mood (it must have continually rained in the 80’s).  In the mid-80’s, the tempo picks up and there’s a brightness to the production brought by Robin Guthrie (the Cocteau Twins much in vogue in the time); Primitive Painters, which includes Cocteau bandmate Liz Frasier doing her Edward Lear vocalization, sounds like depression on a trampoline, whilst Ballad of The Band, is all organ swells and fairly speeds on like a fairground carousel with Lawrence sounding impassioned singing “That’s why I feel like giving in”.  By the end of the 80’s the sound shifts once more, meandering around percussionless mood pieces, filled with acoustic guitar and sax noodling (The Final Resting Place of the Ark) or organ and sax (Be Still) and the odd funk guitar, jazzy organ figures and strings of the ending Space Blues.  It’s idiosyncratic and original stuff.  Sure, the music can sound dated by the technology of the time but the majority of the songs are strong enough to be more than curiosity pieces for the nostalgic or the those doing their homework.   

Oh, if you like this prepare yourself for the re-release of all 10 Felt albums over the next few months! More info at http://www.cherryred.co.uk/cherryred/felt.htm

Reviewed by Kev O
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Like Marie Osmond, Cracker have always been a little bit country, and this album sees them let these horses off the reins.  The first track ‘Truckload of Art’ sets the tone, throwing the listener in at the deep end with a raw country sound complete with howling and accordions, describing works of art burning in a truck crash like so much worthless pretension.  The next song ‘Duty Free’ is much more accessible, the darkly humorous lyrics of displacement, corpses and Irish singers set to soul-warming slide guitars and harmonies.  But don’t be fooled, they’re not just dabbling, and if you don’t like country don’t buy this album.  Having gigged this material around biker bars under the name Ironic Mullet, Cracker seem as in love with the romance of the redneck world of bourbon and pickups, “kicking hippies’ asses and raising hell” as the original country artists were with gunslingers and pioneers.  On ‘Family Tradition’ David Lowery is keen to distance himself from alt-country singers who ask why he “must… live out the songs”, and it’s true that on tracks like ‘Reasons to Quit’ the songs really stand up without any irony: “hardly ever sober and my old friends don’t come round much any more”; “smoking, drinking, having fun, never thinking”.  When he sings, “the low is always lower than the high” he does get close to the greatness of a song like ‘Ruby Don’t Take Your Love to Town’.  This is a long way from the cap-wearing Camden rednecks you’ll see at a Kings of Leon gig.

Springsteen fans (go on, admit it) get a cover of  ‘Sinaloa Cowboys’ made of straight-faced honesty and twanging guitar.  The album finishes with ‘Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself’, a heart-felt tribute to their old record company, Virgin, who didn’t understand the new direction on Countrysides and bought out their contract…  Maybe I was wrong: buy this album and you will love country.

Reviewed by Mangusta
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Consider the two paths of the successful indie rock band. One, you produce a handful of classic albums, eschewing your early attempts to pass yourself off as the world’s first Pontefract based post-grunge phenomenon. They have mass appeal, selling millions after a ‘legendary’ Glastonbury headline set, but underneath all that lovely acoustic guitar strumming tell the heart-bleeding stories of drug addiction, the unexplained disappearance of your bass player in the ‘early days’, and all from a staunch anti-capitalist/pro-nuclear disarmament/animal rights viewpoint. Door number two leads to an altogether darker existence. You struggle for years releasing albums that will be ignored by everyone bar a couple of students, when all of a sudden your piano ballad (one of many) appears on the soundtrack to Cold Feet, propelling your once flagging career to the dizzy heights of floating around the top 5 for over a year by peddling your wares to Mondeo owners nationwide. Credibility in tatters, you console yourself by rolling around in a pile of money. And so we pose the question. On the release of a potentially brilliant eponymous debut record, which path will Psychid be taking?

With the reverb knob superglued firmly in the max position, Psychid have produced a LP decent enough to lift their head and shoulders above the class of vaguely leftfield but altogether uninteresting indie dirge in the shape of Elbow, The Doves et al. The landscape created is an altogether bleak one. The moody beats and ethereal harp fuelling Moonshine or the epically spacious piano of Little Bears is met by a tundra of frenzied bass and drums, and the lyric ‘Mother! I’ve lost all feeling!’ of Field Day, under a hail of guitar feedback.

Not without its list of obvious influences, the album takes chunks from pretty much any and every spaced out, shoe gazing artiste of the last 20 years. Jezebel harks back to a Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space-era Spiritualized, Everything She Is acts as a slice of pure Joy Division, Wires Ripped Out sources the Beta Band and soon to be single Digging For Victory sounds altogether not that far off Depeche Mode’s heroin blitzed Songs Of Faith and Devotion age.

Where Psychid end up is frankly, anybody’s guess. On the one hand, a new OK Computer, on the other, The Man Who. You’ll like it now, you may hate it later. And so it remains. Far too unassuming to be ever be labeled essential, but nonetheless a great record to get stoned to.

Reviewed by James B
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Mates of State are Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel, whose partnership extends from marriage to music.  She plays keyboards, he plays drums and they both sing, though her voice is most prominent on the album.  So far, so minimalist.  The differentiation comes from the varying shades of keyboards, the discordant vocals and different drum patterns.  It’s all pretty California-quirky, especially with the samples of teenage sister Kelly Gardner on the first (theme from Cheers) and last (Fame) tracks.  The songs aspire to Burt Bacharach and Brian Wilson but are also as off-beam as They Might Be Giants.  

Proofs is the proof of that TMBG sound, with its in-your-face vocals and left field melody.  Everyone Needs An Editor is more melodic and song-like, relying on the tension between fast ‘verse’ and ‘slow’ chorus, though the stop-start changes in tempo and twisty poetic lyrics (West Coast, cut up, unfathomable) don’t lend themselves easily to such terminology.  La’Hov is another slow track, the vocals carrying the melody while layers of keyboards add texture to the song.   Ride Again and Tan/Black have a fuller sound, with more bass and a keyboard sound resembling the Ladybug Transistor.   The former, in particular, suggests that Jason’s softer voice ought to be used more.   It’s a challenging half an hour’s ride, an acquired taste even, but it wears its very individual, low-fi style with pride.

Reviewed by Ged M
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With UK media attention making its annual visit north of the border for the Edinburgh festival, what better time for the release of the latest cracking album from the Scottish capital’s premier indie imprint, SL records?

The Starlets actually hail from along the M8 in Glasgow, like so many other great bands of the past 20 years, and it shows from some of the influences at work here. Unlike many of their contemporaries though, they certainly won’t allow themselves to be pigeonholed with any one sound. The eclectic, mixed-up tone of ‘Further Into Night Forever’ is encapsulated by the presence of the gently sweeping cinematic instrumentals that bookend this album. Making use of the diversity of instrumentation at their disposal, including brass and strings alongside the core rock elements, they immediately throw you off guard. Particularly when a third, Today For A Lifetime, emerges halfway through like Phil Collins’ A Groovy Kind Of Love being deconstructed by Mogwai on a lethargic, balmy summer’s day.

Perhaps these wordless wonders are included to stop singer Biff Smith’s high-pitched Geneva-esque vocals, as first showcased here on May Your Sunny Day Come, from getting a tad too much across a full album. There’s no doubting it’s a fine voice but it’s a shame that the rockier likes of Colourblind and I’ll See You Sometime let the guitars off the leash, snarling at The Wedding Present and Placebo respectively, only to muzzle them in the mix.  The record works better when it’s quieter on the whole. Lullaby is as tender as the name suggests, with wisps of flute and piano flying in a breeze above a field of crickets, and All To Make You Feel Brand New builds to a Belle and Sebastian style climax of trumpet and violin. To The Winter Park sees the former ‘wee Belle’ herself, Isobel Campbell, guest on vocals to add another element to the twee factor present.

If ever an album was in the right time and right place, this should be it. As long as the London media core can tear themselves away from Aaron Barschak and his ‘hilarious’ Osama Bin Laden-in-a-dress routine that is.

Reviewed by James S
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The Clientele’s second album is a collection of 13 urban hallucinations, a dreamy city folk-rock, full of “fading light” and “gathering dusk”, summer heat and rain on windows and parks - lots of walking through parks.   It has a hazy, spacey West Coast psychedelic feel, sounding like Arthur Lee swapping verses with Burt Bacharach and crossed with the shimmering elegance of the Go-Betweens at their best. 

Lots of songs have delicate picking and a shuffling beat while Alistair’s whispery vocals suit their cloistered worlds.  Mostly it’s gentle and soporific in the best way, the way you feel in summer’s dense air.  House on Fire has a direct line to the 60s, a wonderfully warm analogue sound augmented by soft strings.   The title track is jangly and vibrant, with a warm and hazy California-transported-to-London suburbia feel.  It strives for an old-time authenticity: songs like Porcelain are as literally delicate as they sound, with a scratchy crackling added to them that sounds like rediscovered vinyl. 

It slips into a mood and barely switches and, in truth, it’s a little long to sustain that mood.  Some tracks do their best, especially the eight-minute long The House Always Wins which starts with their trademark whispery, soft jangle and builds up into a more insistent rumble before finally exploding into life and becoming a Quicksilver Messenger Service type guitar punch-up.  If the sound of plastic San Diego on the Liffey isn’t sufficiently thrilling for you, the more real and resonant sound of mid-60s Sunset Strip in early-noughties North London might just restore your mojo.

Reviewed by Ged M
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This is one for the cool cats, gogo gals and sleazy loungecore lizards.  A veritable feast of spy style themes, beatnik bouncers, late night jazzy jizz jivers and bigbeat groovers.   It’s the sort of stuff that the boys down at Club Blowup would have gone ape for and you can see why – 22 great kitsch numbers, many of which will have you going “Hang on, don’t I know that one?”  as you realise it’s an orchestral take on a 60s hit but usually with a slight twist (eg The Who’s I Can See For Miles is sitared by er Lord Sitar).  Other groovy fuckers are the Fatboy Slim-ish Here Kitty Kitty by Jacknife Lee which you expect to be accompanied by an ageing oddball Hollywood star swooping from the ceiling, the Big Train theme by Resident Filters and old classic Watermelon Man by Marcello Minerbi. 

Bizarrely the highlight though on this medley of retro hipswingers is the inclusion from our very own Teenage Fanclub.  Kickabout is an old b-side, but rather than their usual homage to Big Star and the Beach Boys, it’s a wonderfully happy clappy singalong with vocals seemingly performed by year 6 of Stranraar school for girls.  Chirptastic!

Reviewed by Paul M
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"....the kids, man, they wanna rock they just don't know how. So it's our duty to show the way and if that sounds egotistical well you're damn right." So said Tim Rogers, You Am I's quintessential frontman, in 1997 and over the years he has made his fair share of rock quotes. Some we're meant to take seriously and others we should just put down as the ramblings of the lead singer of a rock n roll band. So when Tim said the above my guess was that most people weren't likely to take this comment all too seriously. 6 years later I guess I underestimated 'the kids' as a new wave of Australian bands including the likes of Jet and The Vines are taking the world by storm and all cite You Am I as one of their biggest musical influences. So whether or not Tim Rogers inadvertently started a modern day rock revival is open to debate, but with the sort of following You Am I have you would expect them be one of the biggest bands in the world right now. But the fact is that a lot of these bands are more well known whilst being around for a much shorter period of time.  It may seem unfair that after recording 5 studio albums, touring the world for more than a decade with the likes of the Stones, Soundgarden and The Strokes, that the band have never really broken through on an international level. While a lot of bands in similar circumstances have fallen apart at the seams You Am I look to be in a stronger position than ever. 

On their 6th studio album "Deliverance" not only do we see and hear everything we've come to know and love about You Am I but we see the band refine their sound even further as a four piece. The ingredients on here are that of a typical You Am I record but with a few more nods and winks evident to the likes of the Stones and Little Feat (you only have to take a glance at the back cover to get that idea).  "Deliverance" could be the most relaxed the band has ever sounded, moving seamlessly between hell raising guitar riffs that see the band playing as hard as ever ("Who Put the Devil in You") to delicate acoustic ballads that Rogers continues to master time and time again ("Know What you Want"). Each track flows to the next with such ease and certainty that one would think this is the result of the mutual respect and trust each member has toward each others playing and contribution to the band dynamic. Although there are moments when it is obvious there is no big time producer with them to crack the whip when needed there is an understated charm to the sound of this record, a feeling of celebration that may not have existed if outside forces were allowed to intervene. The welcome addition of Davey Lane on guitar on their previous effort "Dress Me Slowly" is paying greater dividends here as he has really started to come of age and is now an integral part of the You Am I sound. There seems to be a second wind in the You Am I sails and one we hope will stay regardless of whether the rest of the world takes notice of them or not.

Reviewed by Daniel Stulic
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The Rain Band emerged from the ashes of shameless Oasis wannabes Sussed and whilst they’ve added a few more strings to their bows they must have searched the length of the, er, Greater Manchester Metro for their new inspiration.  It’s almost like a Cheetham Hill karaoke machine that’s got all the hits mixed up.  It has Hooky’s basslines and mournful post punk keys from New Order, the bagged out funk of the Stone Roses and the brash swagger of a Shaun Ryder or Liam Gallagher on vocals.  The result is an album that faithfully captures many elements of the Manchester music scene between 1982-1992 but one that sadly neither lives up to the sum of its parts nor sounds anything like as exciting now as it might have done then. 

Reviewed by Paul M
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