Review Corner

Tag: Congleton Chronicle

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    John McCullagh: New Born Cry

    We’d expect the popular Press to pretty well go bonkers over this, and for it to figure in “best of” lists at the end of the year. His debut in 2013 was the first on Alan McGee’s 359 Music label, so he’s cool, he sounds Beatlesesque and his full name is John Lennon McCullagh, and…

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    Mounties: Thrash Rock Legacy

    Two albums of the year are reviewed this week — this one will be one of ours, John McClaughlin will, we suspect, be other people’s. We were expecting little of this, so were very impressed. Mounties are made up of Hawksley Workman and Steve Bays, whose previous band Hot Hot Heat got a bit famous…

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    Gallows: Desolation Sounds

    We never liked Gallows much. They were a punk band that decided to be the most punk band ever, like Steve Irwin deciding being the Ozziest Australian. The music Press loved front man Frank Carter but now he’s gone, leaving to form an ill-fated venture that was “destined to change music” but disappeared without trace.…

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    Emerson Lake and Palmer Emerson: Trilogy

    There was a conversation about punk on the Review Corner Facebook page this week and we were praising the DIY ethos of that movement, where people who were frankly not very good could still make music. ELP and Yes were the very bands punk set out to destroy, with their self-indulgent three-day long keyboard solos…

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    Copenhagen Piano Quartet: Kuhlau: Piano Quartets 1&2

    Unlike Henze (see above) Kuhlau seems to have been more workmanlike in his output, writing cosmopolitan pieces to entertain, and these two piano quartets are major works from the composer’s most productive decade. They’re both easy to listen to and evidence of Kuhlau’s skills as a pianist. Part of the attraction of this CD is…

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    Henze: Violin Concerto No. 2

    This seems to us to be a very personal album: violinist Peter Sheppard Skaeved knew the composer and talked to him about what he was thinking when he wrote the music. The opening piece Il Vitalino raddoppiato, looks back to the work of Tomaso Vitali (1663-1745), an Italian composer and violinist from Bologna. The sleeve…

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    Joel Rafael: Baladista

    Rafael is the real deal if you want folk: born in 1949, he’s known in the States as an interpreter of Woody Guthrie’s lyrics and music, though despite a long life he’s released only eight albums (two of which were Guthrie: both called Woodyboye: Songs Of Woody Guthrie). Musically: it’s mostly Rafael and his acoustic…

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    They Might Be Giants: Glean

    They Might Be Giants remind us in spirit of Chumbawumba, who could write mindlessly catchy pop tunes if they so wanted: we heard that the Chumbas, a political group, wrote their biggest hit Tubthumping just to prove they could. Chumbawumba were political but They Might Be Giants are simply intellectual, and churn out clever tunes…

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    Ant Law: Zero Sum World

    We’ve had this a few weeks, but it’s proved difficult to review: on one level it’s fairly mainstream, relaxed jazz, on the other we feel Ant Law’s prodigious talent needs more to be said. It’s partly his fault: despite the obviously talents of all the players (three of whom featured on Law’s debut Entanglement), it’s…

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    Lucia Micallef: Bach, Keyboard Concertos

    Just as the opera Pomona (elsewhere) is a good way to ease into that genre, this album is a good introduction to classical music itself, though for a different reason: it’s top quality. If you feel you want to buy a classical CD, this is an excellent first investment (after which, Peter Sheppard Skaerved’s Beethoven…