Review Corner

Tag: Congleton Chronicle

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    My First Christmas Album

    If you’re looking for a Christmas album that the kids will like but won’t drive you up the wall, try this. It’s one of a series of Naxos CDs that try and introduce children to classical music, My First Complete Ring Cycle and My First Foray into Schoenberg’s Free Atonality being others. (OK, we made…

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    Jeremy Loops: Trading Change

    Mr Loops is somewhere between Ed Sheeran, as in acoustic-based pop, and he uses loops a lot (as one would expect), and the dreaded Mumfords — it’s the kiss of death to use the M word in a review now — but it’s banjo-centric and has the bouncy feel of the Mumfords at their best.…

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    Septura: Christmas with Septura

    Seven-piece Septura have played a blinder with this album, which presents classic Christmas music played on brass. Septura, a group that brings together London’s leading players “to redefine brass chamber music”, manages to sound both non-brass band-y and non-Christmas-y on an album that offers a brass band playing Christmas music. It’s a Christmas miracle. By…

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    Stevie Nicks: Bella Donna / The Wild Heart

    Stevie Nicks is the bonkers but brilliant singer with Fleetwood Mac, whose ethereal, scratchy voice is famous. You know the sound, so you know what these two remastered CDs contain. Bella Donna was her first solo release and is the better of these two, presumably because she had a batch of songs written over the…

  • This Wild Life: Low Tides

    We occasionally compare an album of sumptuous pop/rock to Manchester band Longview. Their debut (and only) album Mercury was released in 2003 and it was great. They wrote soaring pop tunes about lurrrve, and had some success on television soundtracks, but never did as well as they should, and split. With song titles such as…

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    Michael Wollny and Vincent Peirani: Tandem

    Opening piece Song Yet Untitled is something of a surprise: the pairing of German pianist Michael Wollny and French accordionist Vincent Peirani produces a sound you’re not expecting. There’s jazz/classical piano and accordion, with an overall sound like Last Of The Summer Wine if not on steroids at least some strong coffee and a Gauloise.…

  • Recreations: Baby Boomers 2

    We listened to this half a dozen times before reading the Press notes. The singer has got a bit of the “awight squire” Essex voice you expect to deliver jokey lyrics but doesn’t (in other places he sounds a bit Albarn so banish thoughts of Chas ‘n’ Davian antics). He sounds about 12, so when…

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    ZZ Top: Tonite at Midnight

    Some live albums undergo more than a little studio engineering before hitting the shops; as one might hope with ZZ Top, they seem to have pressed “record” and what they played is what you get. The mix on opener Got Me Under Pressure sounds a bit raw and if a drum fill starts a fraction…

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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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    Frøkedal: Hold On Dreamer

      We’ve played this over and over and can’t get a handle on it. It’s her voice, which seems to suck out any excitement. Harsh, very harsh, we know, but it has to be said. The sign of where it fails comes on The Sign, a cheery indie pop tune with nice drums; if the…