Review Corner

Author: jerobear

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    James Whitbourn: Carolae Music for Christmas

    Another Christmas album but like the Septura one last week, mostly not specifically for Christmas. It’s a choral album but Whitbourn is adept at taking magnificent music and making it listener-friendly; this could be music from 500 years ago, contemplating the Christian message and enormity of eternity but in Whitbourn’s hands it’s palatable for modern…

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    Michael Bublé: Nobody But Me

    Nobody But Me It’s Christmas! It must be time for the Bublé to release an album. Thankfully it’s not a re-release of Christmas, though having released it as a normal CD, then deluxe, super deluxe, super deluxe with bells, super super deluxe with whistles and tassels and super dooper deluxe best-ever honest (remastered) with free…

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    Columbo: We Know Who You Are

    At first listen, we though this band was either eccentrically brilliant or just eccentric. Anything that includes the hook from the Good The Bad And The Ugly and the classic theme from Rhubarb And Custard has got to be something to do with inspired. Maybe not actually inspired, but at least living next door. The…

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    Saint Leonard’s Horses: Good Luck Everybody

    This album will be a classic. You read it here first, so remember. Kieran Leonard (who is Saint Leonard’s Horses) has a cv to make you feel totally inadequate — he’s spent much his life travelling and the people he comes across recognise a unique talent: Ryan Adams let him use his studio, Stanley Kubrick’s…

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    Kate Williams: Four Plus Three

    Williams is the daughter of one of the world’s greatest guitarists, John Williams (a member of Sky for those with long memories), though given her own talent it would be appropriate to say that John is the father of pianist Kate. This latest project of hers combines a jazz piano trio with a string quartet…

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    My First Christmas Album

    If you’re looking for a Christmas album that the kids will like but won’t drive you up the wall, try this. It’s one of a series of Naxos CDs that try and introduce children to classical music, My First Complete Ring Cycle and My First Foray into Schoenberg’s Free Atonality being others. (OK, we made…

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    Jeremy Loops: Trading Change

    Mr Loops is somewhere between Ed Sheeran, as in acoustic-based pop, and he uses loops a lot (as one would expect), and the dreaded Mumfords — it’s the kiss of death to use the M word in a review now — but it’s banjo-centric and has the bouncy feel of the Mumfords at their best.…

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    Septura: Christmas with Septura

    Seven-piece Septura have played a blinder with this album, which presents classic Christmas music played on brass. Septura, a group that brings together London’s leading players “to redefine brass chamber music”, manages to sound both non-brass band-y and non-Christmas-y on an album that offers a brass band playing Christmas music. It’s a Christmas miracle. By…

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    Stevie Nicks: Bella Donna / The Wild Heart

    Stevie Nicks is the bonkers but brilliant singer with Fleetwood Mac, whose ethereal, scratchy voice is famous. You know the sound, so you know what these two remastered CDs contain. Bella Donna was her first solo release and is the better of these two, presumably because she had a batch of songs written over the…

  • This Wild Life: Low Tides

    We occasionally compare an album of sumptuous pop/rock to Manchester band Longview. Their debut (and only) album Mercury was released in 2003 and it was great. They wrote soaring pop tunes about lurrrve, and had some success on television soundtracks, but never did as well as they should, and split. With song titles such as…