Review Corner

Category: Uncategorized

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    Rory Gallagher Kickback City

    Rory Gallagher: he might be dead, but he’s going to write this review for us. Over you, Rory . . . . This town could take a child’s smile / And turn it into stone. Just look right over here / Back up against the wall / Hands on the bottle. My baby’s done me…

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    Keziah Jones Captain Rugged and Manu Chao Clandestino

    We’ve spent all week playing these two excellent albums, both of which would fall into the genre of “world”, though we’re getting increasingly tired of typing that to describe music that’s just not USA-influenced RnB or pop. Keziah Jones’s album is a quality prog / funk / pop / reggae album that just happens to…

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    12 Years A Slave

    This being an important film, this is not just a soundtrack it’s curated, by John Legend. So it’s surprising that he picks Hi-NRG disco as the soundtrack, a genre that’s the least suitable . . . only joking but he could have done, as this is an “audio companion” to the film, ie not actually…

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    Glenn Tilbrook Happy Ending

    Instantly recognisable as one of — if not the main — name behind perennial favourites Squeeze, Glenn Tilbrook’s fifth non-Squeeze album is what you’d expect from one of the best songwriters of recent times: thoroughly pleasant and easy to listen to, full of instant hooks, catchy tunes and the usual assemblage of cleverly crafted lyrics.…

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    Billie Joe and Norah – Foreverly

    Our opinion of Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong changed after watching the documentary that came with the re-issue of Tres! just before Christmas. He might be a tattooed punk with an addiction problem but he came over as a talented and hard-working musician. Plenty of musicians do projects away from their day jobs and this…

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    Manu Chao – Sibérie M’était Contée

    You can’t beat a bit of world music, says the Review Corner (ignoring the fact the Daniel O’Donnell lives in the world and makes music), so when this dropped just before Christmas, we registered high on the delight scale. José-Manuel Thomas Arthur “Manu” Chao sings in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Galician, Arabic, and Portuguese, and…

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    Parov Stelar – The Art of Sampling

    We’ve never heard of Mr Stelar (his mum, Mrs Furender, knows him as Marcus) but he sounds like the European equivalent of Mr Scruff. This is his ninth solo set since 2004. It’s a decent dance/pop album with lots of danceable tunes on it, without going too far into any one genre. Disc one is…

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    Polly Scattergood – Arrows

    We saw Polly Scattergood at the Latitude festival a few years back. Her mum and dad were in the audience (it was a small stage in the woods) and it was all very nice. Despite us making the effort to walk all the way over to see her, we could also see why she’s not…

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    Turner – This Is Turner

    Turner — she has no first name as far as this goes — is a talented singer who’s sung with Elbow, toured with DC Fontana and is in demand as a session singer. And now she’s probably finding out how hard it is to be the main act on your own merits. All credit to…

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    Neil Young – Live At The Cellar Door

    Young is gradually to be releasing every recording he ever made, and this one is almost a sister album to Live at Massey Hall 1971, recorded in a larger venue just after Live At The Cellar Door. There’s a newspaper cutting in the sleeve that contains the headline “Two sides of Neil Young” and this…