Review Corner

Author: jerobear

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    Letlive: If I’m The Devil…

    We’ve not come across this band before. From what we can tell from other reviews, their previous albums have mixed raucous punk with soul; singer Jason Aalon Butler is revered by fans as a genius, and this new album is either brilliant or terrible. One website had two reviews, one good one bad. We can…

  • Terry Wogan: A Celebration Of Music

    This is in aid of Children In Need and Sir Terry is a lately deceased national treasure, so it is impossible to say anything bad. It’s a double CD collection of Sir Terry’s favourite tunes. There are some proper classics on here, and some very talented people, but the tone of the songs is the…

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    Donizetti and Mayr: Messa Di Gloria and Credo In D Major

    Again, not really Christmas music but at least it’s church music, and the polar opposite of the comforting open-fire-and-logs baroque we recently reviewed: this is the music from a Dan Brown film where a full choir sings in St Peter’s as Tom Hanks fights to keep evil at bay. According to the sleeve notes, Donizetti’s…

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    Johann Joseph Fux: Concentus musico-instrumentalis

    This isn’t really a Christmas album but it’s baroque (with a feel of early music). It’s the kind of music you’d have playing while you imagined you lived at Chatsworth House, freshly-scrubbed  servants singing carols out in the hall and wood, gathered by minions that morning, burning merrily on an open fire on Christmas morning.…

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    Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou: Madjafalao

    This is surely going to go down as a classic in world music. It’s ace. Poly Rythmo are from Benin and play afrobeat, funk, soukous and other styles, often based on religious music rhythms. They formed in 1966 and recorded around 500 songs between the late 1960s and early 1980s. We came across them via…

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    Trainspotting: OST

    Trainspotting was a hit film in 1996, both the film and the Britpop soundtrack summed up the state of the UK at the time. Britpop was never our cup of tea, with a few exceptions; rock stars shouldn’t hobnob with prime ministers either. Pulp and a few others aside, there were loads of rubbish bands…

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    John Brown’s Body: Fireflies

    We’re guessing this is modern reggae; they’re from Boston and call themselves “future roots music”. We like a bit of reggae but it’s (obviously) a tight genre, so we asked our local reggae fiend and he said they’re “making waves, an up and coming band”. They’ve actually been going 20 years so we guess this…

  • Peter Hope: Wind Blown

    Hope is best known as a composer of light music — his Ring Of Kerry is palatable and easy to listen to, so easy that it was used as test card music back in the day (you can find anything on YouTube). Petit Point is similar, the kind of music Monty Python would use in…

  • Disturbed: Live at Red Rocks

    Disturbed are led by David Draiman, a man with a loud voice and impressive showmanship, to the fore in this live show; he sounds as if he should be doing voice-overs for carpet or double glazing adverts. This live set reels off all the crowd-pleasers and, given that Disturbed has found a winning formula and…

  • Cerrone: Red Lips

      Cerrone is 64 and he’s been quiet for a while but he’s back with this new album. Fans of Jacko who miss that classic disco era sound and thought it had gone forever are in for a treat. This is music from the time before disco became hundreds of genres, when house music was…