Review Corner

Tag: Congleton Chronicle

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    Fred Abbott: Serious Poke

    My favourite pop albums of the year are all of a kind, slightly quirky, alt indie pop but this awesome album is of a different hue altogether — ambitious, catchy, radio friendly, more than a touch of American heartland rock about it. Fred Abbott is best known as the lead guitarist and keyboard player for…

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    Cattle and Cane: Skies / Hyde and Beast: Hard Times Good Times

    Cattle and Cane: Skies Taken from the new album Home, this is a jolly while at the same time slightly downbeat country/pop tune. It’s both modern sounding and harking back to the generic sound of many a folk/rock hit of the seventies with its slightly anthemic singalong chorus. It’s a perky tune, though it didn’t…

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    Villa-Lobos: Guitar Manuscripts Vol 3

    Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as “the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music,” at least by Wikipedia, our go-to guide for classical advice. A prolific composer, he wrote numerous orchestral, chamber and instrumental works and often infused his music with the sounds of Brazilian folk or street music. Originally…

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    Alan Doyle: Where I Belong (Book)

    After reviewing Bill Nelson’s book last week, despite not being familiar with his work from De Bop Deluxe onwards, this week it’s Alan Doyle. Not only did I not know who he was, but I’ve never heard of his band either. Doyle is the singer and guitarist with Canadian folk supergroup Great Big Sea and…

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    Aero Flynn: Aero Flynn

    Something to do with flying and an alcoholic who swung from chandeliers: we weren’t expecting much from this. In fact — stunning. It’s vying with Mounties and Malpas as our album of the year. Flying swashbuckler Aero Flynn is really Josh Scott, and he’s a mate of Justin Vernon, whose own alias, Bon Iver, is…

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    Ratatat: Magnifique

    This is definitely a grower; one play is not enough to start to appreciate its charms, and for several plays we were planning to dismiss it as a little bit annoying (a feature of their earlier work, apparently). As a rough guide, it’s quirky electronic dance/pop that sounds like it should be on French label…

  • Lindemann: Skills in Pills

    This is a side-project of Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann, together with Peter Tägtgren (Hypocrisy and Pain – us neither). The sound is Rammstein in their mellower dance moments (Mutter sprang to mind), so it’s industrial rock but with less guitar, and more synth and melody. On the whole, it’s got a softer sound. The major…

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    Neil Young: The Monsanto Years

    Reviews of this are mixed and we’d guess are split by age: people who know enough to understand how the Great Vampire Squid of Goldman Sachs infiltrates government on both sides of the Atlantic will find it much more satisfying than people who don’t know as much, and think it all a little far-fetched. (Doubters:…

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    Accademia Daniel: Graupner – Concerti e Musica di tavola

    There’s nothing more to say about this album other than it’s a delight. It’s not an album that’s intellectually challenging and the music doesn’t seem to operate on a deep level, it is just pleasurable. It’s music for festivities and pleasure, and 300 years or so after it was written, it’s as pleasurable now as…

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    Restorations: LP3

    Restorations might not be ambitious when it comes to album titles (the last one was LP2) but they’ve got much bigger ideas when it comes to music. They’re on SideOneDummy records and we remember the last album has being very Gas-light Anthem / Springsteen / heartland rock in sound. Workman-like, more than anything. This new…