Category: Pop rock
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The Ramona Flowers: Part Time Spies
This album is an odd mix of cool electronic dance and 80s synth pop: one minute it sounds like a tune from Rob da Bank on the radio (or think Delphic), the next a Duran Duran B side. Opener Dirty World is not bad, despite having an intro that melds Kim Wilde’s Kids in America…
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Smokey Joe and the Kid: Running To The Moon
Well, we might have gotten us right here our most played album of the year. Yessir. It makes you talk like this because it drops in bits of dialogue from top movies and is a bit 1920s. The opening track has lines from O Brother, Where Art Thou?: “You work for the railroad, Grampa? I…
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Teenage Fanclub: Here
We suspect this review is aimed only at non-Fannies (as the band is known). The true fans will have bought this, probably after studying the band members’ DNA for flaws and cross-referencing with what singer Norman Blake had for tea on Wednesdays in 2003. Looking at reviews of this and their live gigs, we saw…
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The Handsome Family: Unseen
Based on a series of complex algorithms, this is the second best album* we have received to review in the <mumble mumble> years we’ve been doing this reviewing game. That doesn’t mean it’s got the best tunes or the best singing or the wildest guitar solos: it’s a combination of meticulous song-writing, musicianship, production and…
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Peter Sarstedt: England’s Lane
Sarstedt is best known for Where Do You Go To My Lovely, which he wrote, and reached number one in 14 countries. It features on the rather lacklustre Ab Fab film soundtrack, which we reviewed, but, curious as to where he was now, we found that this had been re-released earlier in the year and…
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Bat For Lashes: The Bride
This remarkable album follows the story of a woman whose fiancé is killed in a crash on the way to the church for their wedding (complete with Leader Of The Pack-style sound effects). The bride goes ahead with the honeymoon on her own and the album reflects on meditation on love, loss, grief, and…
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Gemma Ray: The Exodus Suite
This late night, gothic CD sounds like it was made in another era, when albums were albums and twitter was only the sound that birds make. This is meant to be listened to as a complete work, like in the old days. Any fans of geology (or indeed Santorini) will appreciate track one, Come Caldera,…
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Mick Harvey: Delirium Tremens
Fair play to Bad Seeds’ Mick Harvey; he’s made plenty of good music in his time, so if he wants to scratch an itch and revisit the songbook of Serge Gainsbourg, he can. Like Nick Cave’s band, Gainsbourg sounded cool but could talk dirty, so Harvey is paying tribute to a man who influenced his…
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Various: Beating Heart Malawi
This is a hard album to review: it’s for a good cause but the quality is varied. African music goes down well in the Review Corner, the rootsier the better (ideally one player on a two-string guitar and another with krakebs) so this looked promising: traditional music from the International Library of African Music remixed…
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Against The Current: In Our Bones
We don’t know much about Against The Current, but we’d guess they’re going to be massive, playing catchy commercial music as they do, and with a rapidly growing fanbase. They started on YouTube, playing covers, then released a self-funded EP. Now they’re signed to Fueled By Ramen, home to slick bands such as Gym Class…
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