Category: Dance
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Lisa Stansfield: Deeper
We weren’t sure what this was going to be like, except that if the Press budget extends down the food chain to us, great things must be expected. Deservedly so. Banish thoughts of cheesy pop or pop diva-ish warbling: this is a great pop/RnB album and Stansfield gives a masterclass in how to produce music:…
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Pet Shop Boys: Please
We’ve had the later re-releases, now here are the remasters of the early albums, with Please being the debut. Two things leap out: first, it’s truly majestic pop; second, they’d have to release a lot of terrible albums (which they haven’t) to even partially squander the goodwill albums like this built up. No wonder people…
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DeStijl: Debut
DeStijl love a joke: they formed before White Stripes released their album De Stijl in 2000 and so released an album White Stripes in 2011. This album is not their debut. As you all know, De Stijl is Dutch for “The Style”, aka Neoplasticism, a Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917 in Leiden by artists…
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The Go Team: Semicircle
When the Go Team first emerged, we (and lots of other people) loved them: infections, joyous pop/hip hop performed by a lively band, led by a singer called Ninja. We saw them live three times; by the third time we were a bit “meh”, the lack of depth to their tunes soon leaving the listener…
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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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Pet Shop Boys: Yes
This is PSB’s 10th album and it’s the latest in a series of reissues that we’ve been enjoying. We were never massive PSB fans, the early singles aside (though we have seen them live, and surely no-one actually dislikes the Boys) but being sent albums to review, we’ve been impressed at the intelligence and diversity.…
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Guy Wampa and Justin Percival: Ammut
We played this several times knowing nothing about them. It’s slick and commercial; the singer (a Wampa or a Percival, we know not) sounds like the Canadian K-os (released some slick hip hop a decade ago, including Crabbuckit and Love Song), with smooth soulful vocals, and music to match. And despite being electronic, it’s a…
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Betsy: Betsy
“The new Cher” say some of the reviews, and that’s not just the sound. The feel of the whole CD harks back to an era when a woman could have a ship’s gun between her legs and not get mocked on social media. The sleeve art is Betsy wearing tight tops in a garage-based scenario…
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Blancmange: Unfurnished Rooms
It’s always amazing that, no matter how forgotten the band, there are people who still love them. As far as we were concerned, Blancmange had a couple of hits way back — Living On The Ceiling was the biggest — but at the time we just thought “Meh”, even with that song’s attempt at getting a…
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Re-TROS: Before The Applause
Re-TROS were formerly known as Rebuilding The Rights Of Statues and, for entirely sensible reasons, have shortened it for this new album. They’re one of those Chinese bands (or Korean, or whatever) we sometimes get to review, copying Western rock but with the addition of quirkiness — something always gets lost in cultural translation. The…
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