Category: Pop rock
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Formation: Look at the Powerful People
Formation have had a good idea: James Murphy is putting LCD Soundsystem back together (an album is due later this year), so they can steal a march and fill a hole in the life of LCD fans. They don’t do a bad job. The opener Drugs has it all: plenty of cowbell, a massive repeated…
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My Baby: Prehistoric Rhythm
We reviewed Little Dragon’s new one last week, noting they’d lost some of their early bounce. Now we know where it’s gone — the super-bouncy My Baby have nicked the bloomin’ lot This is the third album for Dutch band My Baby and we’ve been enjoying it a lot. It’s a mix of Little Dragon…
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Basement: Promise Everything
We suspect — based on no evidence whatsoever — that Basement have a fanbase that is madly devoted; they play heartfelt rock that verges on emo. It’s easy to digest but rock enough to be cool. The band members look like lads you’d not mind your son or daughter bringing home, and the sleeve photos…
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Creeper: Eternity, In Your Arms
For some reason, were we expecting swampy goth rock from this but it’s mostly punk, in some parts the rapid snare/kick drum punk of bands like NOFX (though there is no band like NOFX, of course), as well as that shouted call/more melodic response thing that punks do. Elsewhere it’s somewhere between AFI/Alkaline Trio/Blink 182,…
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James Blunt: The Afterlove
A bit like Ed Sheeran, James Hillier Blount produces bland pop that relies on his personality to sell. Sheeran is ruthlessly efficient, Blunt ruthlessly self-deprecating, getting lots of free PR by being witty on Twitter and mocking that which made him wealthy. We recently read a telling a comment from Blunt (who captained the Household…
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Andrew Combs: Canyons Of My Mind
You could call this country — he’s a Texan based in Nashville — but much of the music leans towards the classic ballady pop of the likes of James Taylor, or the folk of Gordon Lightfoot, with “proper” country only cropping up in a couple of tracks. The classic/old-fashioned nature of his approach continues in…
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The Orwells: Terrible Human Beings
The Orwells occupy the ground somewhere between landfill indie and genius. Landfill indie, for those lucky enough to have forgotten, was a guitar-based rock of the lowest common denominator, designed to appeal to young lads on lager and with lyrics to match. The Orwells’ sound is that, and every song sounds a bit like something…
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Fleetwood Mac: Tango in the Night
You should all have heard this, or parts of it. It was the Mac’s second-best selling album after Rumours and some of the tracks are as well-known as the Rumours classics — Seven Wonders, Caroline, Tango in the Night, Little Lies and Family Man among them — so there’s not much to say on the…
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Stormzy: Gang Signs and Prayer
We can see why people love Stormzy, the first grime artist to land a number one album; he’s got charm and intelligence. The aging musos in the Review Corner haven’t got much in common with a black man from London, but even as young dogs we’d not have gone down the Tip Café to meet…
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Nick Cave: Lovely Creatures
The titular lovely creatures are the songs, and as Mr Cave told us in a Press release: “There are some people out there who just don’t know where to start with The Bad Seeds. This release is designed to be a way into three decades of music making; the songs we have chosen are the…
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