Author: jerobear
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Green Day: God’s Favourite Band
No really, God loves them. Not THE God, obviously, the one whose son’s birth we celebrate, but a Python-esque carton voiced by an actor on the Stephen Colbert show, presumably so they could name this hits package what they did. Green Day’s last hits package was 2002’s International Superhits, at which time they had a…
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Alexander Armstrong: In A Winter Light
We were expecting to mock this: a cursory play through, a pithy review, job done. Unfortunately, it’s pretty good; if it was more Christmassy, it’d come with free reindeer poo and tinsel. We played it about six times on the run. Armstrong is not only the voice of Dangermouse, he went to St Mary’s…
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Franz Nicolay: The Humorless Ladies of Border Controli
Subtitled “Touring the punk underground from Belgrade to Ulaanbaatar” this is probably the best travel book ever written by a musician, up there with Steve Earle’s novel for best book of any kind by a musician, and probably the best book about touring ever. There’s not much about the actual gigging, a repetitive event that…
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Madeleine Mitchell: Violin Muse
This CD demonstrates the violin at its most bleak/stark/purest; take your pick. Even Atlantic Drift, which opens with the sound of a lively folk song, is sparse and with an edge. This is not a criticism, just to say the album is mostly not warm or romantic, just dry and slightly melancholy; more a funeral…
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Pet Shop Boys: Elysium
This was their 11th album and named Elysium for the place the ancient Greeks sent their Gods for a blissful afterlife. It’s chilled and for a dance act, low key. That’s not to say the album lacks variety. Not as good as Very, reviewed last week but it has the comfort of the familiar, a…
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Squeeze: The Knowledge
Younger readers might not have heard of Squeeze, famous for hits such as Up The Junction and Cool for Cats; witty, insightful lyrics coupled with catchy pop tunes. In latter years they’ve reformed and toured but not achieved the same status as Madness or even some of the 2-Tone bands still touring. It was never…
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Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow: Franz Schubert: Complete Piano Duets
This came out a while back. It’s a lovely thing to have, as an object: a nice box, with seven CDs and a thick booklet. That’s before you hear a note. Short of an essay, how can you review it fairly? Worse, Anthony Goldstone died last January, while Divine Art was finalising the design…
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The Septura Ensemble: Music for Brass Septet, Vol.5
This is not really a Christmas album, but it’s Christmassy. Septura (not to be confused with the Brazilian metal band from Belo Horizonte) brings together a number of London’s leading brass players. It’s a brass septet and thus has no traditional repertoire, and is creating its own, recording a series of 10 CDs of different…
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Simon Callow with the Brighouse and Rastrick Band: A Christmas Carol
As a Christmas treat this is great. Fans of audible books know that a good reader can make the difference between a good and bad book (that Jane Austen we once listened to will never be forgotten, with its mispronunciation and poor edits. And poor edits./ This version of Dickens’s classic is as luxurious as…
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Skinny Lister: The Devil, The Heart, The Fight
Roaring drunk in Hamburg. Locked in a bunker in Berlin. Tearing up the road in New York and Tokyo. Dreaming of Cairo. Originally recorded in Newcastle-Under-Lyme. They get about. We saw these live at Rode Hall’s Just So festival in 2016 (we think; possibly 2015). This album was put together while they were on the…
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