Category: Pop rock
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Lukas Graham: Lukas Graham
Spending all day listening to new albums we don’t do a lot of radio so we didn’t know that Lukas Graham Forchhammer and his band had scored a number one hit with 7 Years and that everyone has heard of him. Graham seems to be one of those preternaturally talented performers who pop up every…
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Pet Shop Boys: Super
The secret to Pet Shop Boys’ success (the minor issue of writing some good tunes aside) is that while they always sound the same, they always manage to sound fresh. This is the case but more so on this new album, which seems to reprise their career by sampling a variety of styles. We could…
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Phil Collins: Dance Into The Light
We confess to never having heard this album or any of its songs, and it’s possible that even if we had, we’d have forgotten them. It’s all a bit unremarkable, though it’s a pleasant album with several enjoyable songs. The downside is that it’s Collins at his slickest; unmemorable tunes with an unremarkable voice don’t…
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Phil Collins: Hello I Must Be Going
The latest in the series of remastered and expanded Collins reissues is this, his second solo work and follow-up to 1981’s Face Value. While the latter is a pop album, Hello saw Collins adopt a style that was more akin to the music he made with Genesis. Playing it first time through, our main feeling…
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Matt Corby: Telluric
Corby sounds like he should be in a boyband and he appeared on Australian Idol some years ago, so were expecting something a lot less good than this. He’s a handsome surfer dude but clearly works hard — he released five EPs and then went off to learn keyboard, drums and guitar before knuckling down…
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Lucius: Good Grief
Lucius — Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe — have toured/worked with the likes of Roger Waters, Mavis Staples, Jeff Tweedy/Wilco and David Byrne, so they’re good singers and know their stuff. We’ve found that albums by backing singers can be hit and miss — standing behind a talented songwriter for 100 gigs doesn’t mean some…
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EPs – Meadowlark, John Parry
Meadowlark: Paraffin We’ve been doing this reviewing lark man and boy for 15 years or so and Meadowlark’s last EP is one of our favourite releases over that period. It came out last year but rarely a week goes by without us playing it. It’s an aural relaxant; nice melody but chilled and the dreamy…
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Christine and the Queens: Chaleur Humaine
Christine (really Héloïse Letissier, but those accents and spellings are far too European for us Brits) could build herself a house if she turned all the glowing reviews she’s collecting into bricks. (There’s an analogy that didn’t go as well as expected). It’s clearly a good album, to get all those glowing reviews, but it’s…
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Man Made: Television Broke My Brain
This album from new band Man Made is addictive as crack. At first play through we thought it was enjoyable, solid power pop. At the second play through it all sounded happily familiar and at the fourth play we had to force ourselves to take it off the CD player and do some work. Opener…
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