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albums - current and forthcoming releases... page 30 |
Late September 2003 |
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THE RAPTURE Echoes (Mercury) |
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The Rapture piss on convention. Under the dfa influence they’ve made a (largely) dance album into which they’ve stirred chunks of Cure, Duran Duran, Talking Heads, Happy Mondays, Bowie and PIL. There’s punk-funk; no album escapes the Gang of Four reference and The Coming of Spring is this album’s reference point. Echoes is pure Public Image wobble-funk while the spunkily danceable House of Jealous Lovers is becoming THE student disco record, like ‘The Passenger’ in ye olden days with its fat rhythms and “shakedown” shriek of a chorus. Luke Jenner, on the slinky Olio, sounds like, but probably dances better than, Robert Smith while Heaven contains brilliant bursts of James Chance-like squawking sax. To trump the New York disco feel, I Need Your Love is D-I-S-C-O (not Ottawan, more a blend of Chic and Blondie) and Sister Saviour evokes the golden age of electro-dance-pop. It’s not totally dancefloor-oriented though; Open Up Your Heart is like doo-wop meets ’Cabaret’, Love Is All is Big Star jangle-pop while Infatuation is an apocalyptic comedown record (Big Star-influenced again but the intense third album this time) that closes the album. ‘Echoes’ is well-named. It reworks the past and makes dance music for now, for thought-heavy indie kids and brain-lite disco bunnies alike. And the inclusion of contrasting styles shows they’re not mindless slaves to the rhythm. Great stuff and expect to see this in lots of end of the year best-ofs. Reviewed by Ged M
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| MUSE Absolution (Taste) | |
After the military marching of Intro it’s straight into the Rachmaninov rock-opera of Apocalypse Please, all crashing piano chords, Dom Howard’s thumping drums, and Bellamy’s wailing operatics – ‘It’s time we saw our miracle/Come on, it’s time for something Biblical’. I think we’ve just had it. Current single Time Is Running Out starts with dirty, electronic funk complete with finger clicks before the guitars start chugging and Muse unleash one of their catchiest choruses yet. Download-only single Stockholm Syndrome is Muse at their bombastic, grandiose best; soaring vocals, driving guitars and romantic keyboard flourishes, powered along by Howard’s fantastic drumming. But Bellamy paints his musical canvases using chiaroscuro; this is an album of light and shade, and in between the cataclysmic rock are moments of tremendous beauty: Falling Away With You with it’s gentle acoustic finger-picking and tender yearning (‘Forget the reckless things we’ve done/I think our lives have just begun’), Sing For Absolution, a mellow, tinkly piano lament until it veers off into heavy guitar histrionics, and Blackout, which sees Muse slap a restraining order on themselves for a melange of haunting Sibelian strings, muted guitar noodlings, and what sounds like a balalaika and Russian opera chorus in the background. Calling Bellamy a songwriter is like saying Shakespeare dabbled in drama; he’s an architect and an engineer, constructing galaxy-straddling cathedrals of sound. Witness the stunning chaos theory-inspired Butterflies and Hurricanes; pounding rock, lush strings, and at just over halfway through it transforms into a mini Tchaikovskian piano concerto. From the earth-shatteringly heavy The Small Print to the breezy pop of Thoughts Of A Dying Atheist via the holiday camp cabaret of Endlessly not one second is wasted, note one note too many. Even the brief Interlude is no simple album break, it’s a fuzzy-guitared, warped spin on Barber’s anguished Adagio for Strings (c’mon you Philistines, you’ve all seen ‘Platoon’). Album closer Ruled By Secrecy with its Philip Glass-like keyboard arpeggios and dreamy vocals could, but for the burst of romantic piano, be from the ‘Kid A’/’Amnesiac’ sessions. Muse haven’t made an album, they’ve made an object of worship to which all others should bow down in obeisance, erecting gleaming temples in its honour. Our fathers who art in Devon… Reviewed by Graham S
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| STARSAILOR Silence Is Easy (EMI) | |
Everything on offer here is, in the most part, very very similar in style and content to “Love Is Here" with a few (and only a few) stand-out moments along the way, believe it or not. It’s a bare and confessional album revealing that Walsh and Co yearn for some sort of recognition from their industry peers and fans. As a result some of the lyrics are scene-settingly bare (“If we get it wrong / They’ll feed us to the sharks” of the "cleverly named" and starkly arranged “Shark Food” being a case in point. Do we have to form a queue by the way?) and some of the arrangement is spiky but still lightweight. The highlights however are the tracks where, thanks to some shrewd and sharp shooting production from gun-toting Phil Spector, Starsailor journey into unchartered, listenable waters. Vocally Walsh delivers perhaps his most bearable performance on the album's title track, an energetic and bitter tale which certainly shoots from the heart lyrically. If the target is for the Chorley lads to shoot to stardom in the US of A, then this is the track that will surely hit the commercial bullseye. Elsewhere on the release "Music Was Saved" is an up-tempo if not ironically titled given the artist affirmation of musical passion and "Four To The Floor" is probably the most upbeat and disco-esque you're ever likely to hear from act based solely on the tradition of the torch song. "White Dove" is also pretty enough and the chorus of "Fidelity" is rocky and pleasingly catchy. The fact remains though that this is all-too-similar to what's gone before. If you think that Starsailor are a bunch of shoe-gazing, soap-dodging students singing painful to the ear dirges about getting "dumped by girls" in a voice like a box of false nails being driven down a blackboard with a pile driver then there is nothing at all here to change that opinion. It'll be reinforced if anything. If however you take "Silence Is Easy" as a standalone piece, hear past the voice and compare it to some of the other twee shite around these days you may find an album worth the odd listen or two. I can't help thinking though that not only is silence easy, it would also, in this case, be more pleasant. Reviewed by Dave B
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| VARIOUS Sex: Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die (Olla) | |
Marco Perroni compiled this album from his jukebox faves as resident self-confessed “’Sex’ shop layabout between 1974 and 1976”. Is it just false memory syndrome or were they really this trendy?: R&B (Arthur Alexander), garage music (Count Five, Flamin’ Groovies, Sonics), dark glam rock (Alice Cooper’s Eighteen), swamp blues (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins), country (Loretta Lynn’s brilliant The Pill) and bizarre (The Moontrekkers’ 1961 twangy guitar instrumental Night of the Vampire complete with creaking coffin sound effects). And it has both sides of the Spades pre-13th Floor Elevators You’re Gonna Miss Me for a triple word score in musical credibility. The one clunker is Screaming Lord Sutch who lost his deposit on this one (again). Apart from the pretty tenuous “Sex” jukebox link, the album has no unifying theme. However, as everyone seems to have said at some point, “Sex sells” and if the pic of Jordan in rubber outfit under the “Sex” sign draws you in, the quality of the music is enough to keep you there. A great collection of tunes and a sock in the mouth to gobshite TV buffoons like Stewart Maconie who believe that all everyone did in the 70s was ride spacehoppers while eating pot noodles and listening to Abba. Reviewed by Ged M
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| THE WANNADIES Before & After (Cooking Vinyl) | |
Setting out to make an album of two halves, Before and After is happy versus sad, fast versus slow. But much more than that it is full of melodies, harmonies, hooks and riffs; it is funny, witty, wry; this is downright catchy pop, with a left field indie slant. The ‘up’ side opens with Little By Little, an abrupt chord chopping pop tune, bright and chirpily rising (“C’mon just a little bit more/We’re almost there”), whilst Piss on You sounds like they may have been mimicking Madge’s Music acoustic guitar samples, and any happily righteous tune that has an addictively singalong chorus “I piss on you/I know I do” deserves to go top 10, and Skin is indie powerchords rising wiht a pounding drumbeat over a simple ode to love (“I love your skin/And what’s within”). Whilst the Before side seems like love in its first glow the After side feels more like waking up out of the love haze and, well, ….the Singalong Song (“Someone to pick you up/Someone to bring you down”), is filled with laconic horn stabs, reggae type bass, and is a wonderfully lazy tune, drifting along in a psychedelic Beatlesy way, whilst the ending Love Letter, could be a dear john or a suicide note to love. As well as some terrific tunes, the CD comes packed with other goodies, including three videos to Skin, Piss on You, Little By Little, which are all well worth watching. This is a wonderful and refreshing indiepop antidote to the faux rockers about the scene at the moment and I, for one, am glad to see The Wannadies back. Thank fuck that someone somewhere is clinging to their own dreams and not re-enacting someone else’s. All I can say is, long live The Wannadies! Reviewed by Kev O
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| J XAVERRE These Acid Stars | |
Reviewed by Mangusta
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| RANCID Indestructible (Hellcat) | |
Reviewed by Paul M
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| THE BUFF MEDWAYS 1914 (Transcopic) | |
Opening with drum roll, chiming chords and “do, do, do”s, ‘1914’ almost immediately contradicts Billy Childish’s assertion that "there's no progression at all from the last record". Musically there’s truckload more variety, from a couple of years earlier than usual (early blues on songs like ‘Evidence against myself’) through Link Wray, all the way to, well, nearly the end of the sixties. The stripped down, muddy blues sits next to beat group bass and vocal harmonies, more like the Brit Invasion inspiration than the one-hit US copyists that started garage punk. ‘Saucy Jack’ in particular is very Kinksy, and for all the claims of the likes of Damon Albarn, in a way, Billy Childish is our Ray Davies, making a very English kind of noise out of American rock and roll. The songs have a wider range of sounds and dynamics, and quality control is up, but it’s not a sell out – it’s still the familiar Childish racket, if at times a little too familiar – the only disappointment is the pointless rehash of an old Thee Headcoatees song “All my feelings denied”, itself exactly the same as “Troubled Mind” from ‘Steady the Buffs’ but with different words. But what words. As economical with lyrics as he is with chords, Childish has a gift for simple phrases like “I’m unable to see the good”, shot through with an acute insight into the pain and joy of human interaction and expression while rocking along like teenage punk or bubblegum pop. ‘Just 15’ catches those free-fall seconds of fear and excitement waiting to discover if your love is requited. It’s not as if you won’t have heard this tackled in a song before, it’s just that you won’t have heard it done so well, with such disarming honesty. One of a handful of singers who can shout with vulnerability, Childish has a voice like a fragile yob, the speaker-overload of the songs amplifying his sensitivity, not masking it with bluster or studied cartoon cool. But I’m making it sound like it’s no fun. This album rocks, maan. Wolf Howard’s drumming is seemingly sixties-simple, but keeps surprising you with little spasms of brilliance, and Johnny Barker’s bass is key in giving this album its extra ebb and flow. White hot valves and scritchy four-and-a-half note guitar solos tear through the whole thing; ‘Nurse Julie’ and ‘Barbara Wire’ roaring along like a Teddy boy racing a brakeless Dormobile in a built-up area. ‘You are all phonies’ is a heart-warming rant against the meaningless tat of modern life, and how even the best of us can’t avoid it: “Being cool is bogus… the Gap is phoney…New Art is bogus… hedge trimmers are bogus... Garage rock is bogus.” It’s seldom that an artist’s most commercial work is his best, rarer still that it should come twenty-odd years into his ‘career’, and almost unique that the spotlight of fashion should focus on him at just that moment. As such this album is a solar eclipse, a comet passing, and although the Buffs might want to “remain nobodies”, ‘1914’ shines dazzlingly beneath the celestial glare, fusing the fuzziness of your favourite Seeds track (you do have a favourite Seeds track, don’t you?), the speeding muppets bounce of your favourite Buzzcocks tune, and the sound of a raw, rare talent perfectly expressed. Reviewed by
Mangusta
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During punk we pogo-ed
but we hated Saturday Night Fever. During post-punk, we threw those weird angular
shapes but we hated nightclubs and the Bee Gees. In the late 80s/early 90s, it took
substances to make us dance but we preferred moshing and other forms of unarmed
combat. We always knew that you can do ‘dance’ if you’re being ironic
or Mancunian but don’t take it seriously (sorry, Shriekback) or the wallflower police
will come around and hang the DJ. 
Whether they amuse
or bemuse, the Teignmouth Trio have ascended to the rock pantheon thanks to
the unashamedly OTT cosmic pomp of 2001’s ‘Origin of Symmetry’. Muse
don’t just move rock’s goalposts, they take the whole pitch, stands, floodlights
and all, and relocate it several million light years beyond the known universe. The
pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Sydney Opera House; all monuments to man’s ambition,
ingenuity and creativity. If ‘Absolution’ could be rendered in bricks and mortar
they would seem but a random scatter of children’s building
blocks. 
At least
Starsailor are aware that, in indie circles at least, their formulaic, essentially middle
class, pseudo-soul, karaoke moping goes down like a member of a trendy guitar-based band
on a burglary charge. But try and leave all you know about them behind and here lies a
just-bearable jaunt through the plastic-indie badlands.
Question:
What did punks listen to before punk? If you shopped at “Sex”, Malcolm
McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s fetish clothes shop on the King’s Road, you had
a brilliant choice of tunes on the jukebox between buying your rubberwear and gay cowboy
t-shirts. 
Now on their own
label, the criminally underrated The Wannadies have set out to record the best album in
the world and, you know, they may have achieved it. Avoiding fads (no they
haven’t gone Noo Yawn punk funk, or become the Scandanavian Strokes) they have honed
their indepowerpop chords and sensibilities, expanding it with quirky vocalisations and
programming, to make this the best of its kind since, well, their own ‘Bagsy
Me’. 
This is a solo
album from ex-Kenickie man Johnny X, and it’s a largely acoustic laid-back
treat. Whether you’re going to be interested in songs like ‘The Ballad Of
J Xaverre’, detailing his experience being the drummer in a short-lived indie band,
is a question only you can answer, but there’s no doubt this is a thing of
beauty. Like the second and last Kenickie album, this is wonderfully produced, with
the same double-tracked vocal sound, lush slide guitars, ethereal background noises, and
nice details like fuzzy pianos and snatches of dialogue. While not particularly
distinctive, his voice is pleasant and personal, with an intimate, and – in the best
sense - homemade feel (any one else remember the first Ultra Vivid Scene album.
Thought not). The songs build and fall, second track ‘Great All Great’ a
stand-out tune of little verses and big choruses. Even when the songs start to get
grand and epic, there’s not a hint of aggression, or of anything ‘rock’,
they just grab you like a bear hug. A Sunday morning record, and wimpy in a good
way. 
Brushing off accusations
of ‘sell outs’ following the sale of their Hellcat label to WEA Rancid would be
easy to dismiss as mohawked dinosaurs flogging a dead horse were it not for the quality of
the tunes. Now into their sixth album, they’ve produced a toe tapping variety
of efforts and their most instantly accessible long player since the And Out Come The
Wolves LP seven years ago. The diversion of the Transplants has obviously left Tim
and Lars willing to try new styles outside of the hardcore field Rancid have recently
penned themselves into. There’s still a little bit of Specials style ska-punk (Red
Hot Moon) and a fair bit of joyous full-on moshing oi (Out of Control) but most
of it is somewhere between, gloriously catchy and enjoyable. Arrested in Shanghai
is part Clash/part Hells Ditch era Pogues with the result a plaintive almost-Springsteen
style ballad. The highlight though is Ivory Coast, thoughtful edgy politics married
to a great riff and chorus. Overall, there may not be quite as much spittle as
previously but it’s still gobsmackingly good.