Review Corner

Category: Uncategorized

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    Various: Body Of Songs

    There must be reason for this enjoyable CD but we can’t work it out, other than “why not?”. It’s the first album we’ve reviewed that is supported by the Wellcome Trust, University College London Hospitals, the Gordon Museum and the NHS. The Body of Songs team has enlisted various performers to write songs about functions…

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    Beans On Toast: Running Up The Hill

    Last week we reviewed EJ Moeran’s Folksong Arrangements (Naxos 8571359), a collection of old songs collected by Ernie Moeran. We made the point that they were songs from an age before mass entertainment, when farmers or sailors would gather and be entertained by songs that told stories to which they could relate. The words were…

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    Reverend And The Makers: Mirrors

    The wonder of Reverend And The Makers is not that this is any good but that they’re here at all. Becoming known because of a couple of tunes and being mates with the Arctic Monkeys, they’ve never really fulfilled any potential and seem to keep going because main man Jon McClure is a character who…

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    Metric: Pagans In Vegas

    We should really like this Canadian band (whom we’ve not heard of before): Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw perform with Review Corner favourite Broken Social Scene, and Haines has guested on albums by artists such as Stars, both of which are quality indie. This album lacks the appeal that Broken Social Scene have, and despite…

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    BBC Radio 1: Live Lounge 2015

    Yet again it’s that annual exercise in making us feel old as, despite listening every single day to new music, the teenage associates of the Review Corner make it clear that this what da kids (or at least a lot of them) listen to. Our problem is that we like bands and musicians who make…

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    EJ Moeran: Folksong Arrangements

    We’ve been enjoying this collection of folk tunes, which doesn’t sound as you might think, neither stuffy nor reminiscent of a bearded man in sandals with one finger in his ear. A modern equivalent — CDs are like buses — is the Beans on Toast album (review next week); that band’s Jay McAllister being an…

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    Postcards From Jeff: Modern Language

    We quite liked Postcards From Jeff’s EP last year; we thought they were American but now discover they’re from Manchester (so know “quite liked” means “really liked”). This full-length collection of tunes sees us part happy and part a little disappointed: they create dreamy indie rock/pop and do it well but they don’t wander much…

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    Ian Mitchell: Isn’t This A Time? American Music For Clarinet

    This avant garde CD features Ian Mitchell, who (so our notes tell us) is one of the leading exponents of contemporary music for clarinet. As its name suggests, the album features work by American composers. These include jazz legend William “Bill” Smith, co-founder of the Dave Brubeck Octet, and Merle Travis, whose Sixteen Tons, recorded…

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    Rudimental: We The Generation

    Thanks to the lateness of this arriving, it was already number one in the album charts (and it’s 40 in music on Amazon), which tells you as much as a review could ever do. People like this stuff. Rudimental appear to have become the house band for new talent (though they write the tunes too).…

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    Richard Hawley: Hollow Meadows

    Hawley treads a thin line between sublime songs that are works of art – as good as any music you will hear, anywhere – and more pedestrian tracks that are just ok. Although his earlier solo albums were mostly gentle, anachronistic crooners the last was more psychedelic and this new one is a mix between…