Category: Pop rock
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Blair Dunlop: Notes From An Island
All Dunlop’s albums we’ve had in the past have been good – you’re always guaranteed quality with Mr D – and we have seen him move from folk to pop, and Notes From An Island sees the move continue. It’s now more pop than folk, and more commercial. The tunes always seem simple (but aren’t…
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Middle Kids: Lost Friends
Good news: Middle Kids will sound great at any festival you catch them at, with their lively indie pop that varies from song to song; you’ll not get bored and the music is all very familiar. Bad news: on CD it’s all a bit over the place and ultimately lets itself down because they lack…
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Lily Allen: Shame
While Ange Hardy sings about her personal experiences and expands this into wise advice on living, Allen sings about herself. There is a difference. This new CD charts her personal life: broken marriage, social media harassment and all. It feels a bit lightweight, and even the sharp lyrics are good only for the first couple…
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Dan + Shay: Dan + Shay
This album sees US country duo Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney take a laid-back, pop approach to country that in places is almost boyband/commercial RnB in sound. It’s enjoyable and playable. They sing about everyday things that every one can relate to: opener Alone Together is about two lonely souls in a bar: “I couldn’t…
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Tom Bailey: Science Fiction
This comes 27 years after the release of the Thompson Twins’ eighth and final album Queer, and is the band’s founder and front man’s debut solo album. Whatever else he’s been doing, he’s stashed away some good songs. This manages to sound both like a throwback to the 80s, and something modern. The song-writing is…
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Jorja Smith: Lost and Found
While Anne-Marie goes for the formulaic and makes a fun album, Smith shows how the grown-ups do it. The 20-year-old singer has a smooth, soulful voice and blends soul and trip-hop on her debut album in a way that’s both retro and modern. She reminds us of one of our guilty pleasures, Deniece Williams, the…
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Sarah Blasko: Depth of Field
This fine pop album has its roots firmly in the 80s, while sounding modern: no dated, overly brassy 80s production here. The feel of the music reminds us of classic acts such as from Donna Summer to INXS, and even Pictures at 11-era Robert Plant, as well as Kim Carnes’ Bette Davis Eyes, the latter…
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Anne-Marie: Speak Your Mind
This is everything that’s right and wrong about modern pop music. Wrong, because it’s as formulaic as they come – EDM beat, X Factor-style vocals, lavish production but little melody (it’s all about the beat, man….) — but right because it’s impossible not to enjoy it, and it’s cheerful. Anne-Marie can sing: Wikipedia reports she…
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Matt Maltese: Bad Contestant
He’s got an unusual name, and this is an unusual album, somewhere between Frank Sinatra and Stephin Merritt, of The Magnetic Fields fame; his approach is also like Squeeze, slightly lugubrious pop with lyrics that tell stories. You could cite Morrissey, too, or The Divine Comedy. Maltese talks about life with a perennial hangdog expression,…
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Sean McGowan: Son Of The Smith
This came as a download and we thought it was Shane McGowan, drunken Pogue; we were not expecting the “cor blimey guv’nor” sound of the latest everyman poet McGowan clearly hopes to be. McGowan is a cross between sturdy man of the people Frank Turner and young voice of the streets Jamie T. His band…
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