Review Corner

Tag: Congleton Chronicle

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    Reinhard Keiser: Pomona

    If you’re looking to get into opera, this fairly simple piece is a good place to start. We suspect opera buffs would dismiss it as lightweight froth; the Review Corner doesn’t particularly warm to opera yet we’ve enjoyed it. It’s a gateway CD: get into this and heavier opera will seem more palatable. The plot…

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    Balthazar: Thin Walls

    This Belgian band produced one of our albums of the year not long back. We’d guess they’re quite big in their native land, but didn’t do so well over here, which is a shame because they play distinctive indie pop with a sound that’s very much their own. It’s a bit hard to describe but…

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    Justin Townes Earle: Absent Fathers

    Justin is the son of the legendary Steve. The first time we heard Earle’s debut, Guitar Town we realised he was a major talent, but the son bares his talent more subtly. This is not his first album, but it is the first we’ve heard and the title suggests he’s wringing material from his troubled…

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    Django Django: Born Under Saturn

    This lot were critically adored for their debut album, although we’re not sure that translated into sales (we think we read they sold about 50,000 copies). If you missed them then, they play a distinctive style of indie pop, distinctive because it’s very percussive, the band being led by a drummer. The new album opens…

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    Various: Synth Pop

    This triple CD made us realise how much times have changed. It’s not that the tunes are bad — far from it, it’s an excellent compilation — but we remembered the first time we heard Oh Yeah by Yello. It’s a catchy little tune and one you’d want to hear over and over, but back…

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    Lord Huron: Strange Trails

    We were a little surprised at how country this album was, though we shouldn’t have been, as the first album, Lonesome Dreams, was equally so. Dreams did lean more to a spaced-out sound and we’d mentally bundled it up with Bon Iver’s For Emma Forever Ago, for some reason. Americans living in huts or something.…

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    Mew: + –

    It’s a week of bands we don’t know much about, Death Cab aside. Mew have apparently released a number of albums, though we’ve never come across them before. Plus Minus is an odd mix of sounds: it’s prog but on the subtle side, with none of the thundering complexity so beloved of some bands in…

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    Andrew Montgomery: Ruled By Dreams

    Montgomery was in a brit pop band called the Geneva, who we’ve not heard of. Sometime reviewer CNM, who has the memory of an elephant after intensive memory training on Memory Island, doesn’t remember them either, so it’s safe to assume they weren’t big. What he’s been doing since then is a mystery — he’s…

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    Meadowlark: Dual EP

    Anyone who listens to new music on a regular basis will know that feeling when you play a track and know it’s going to be your must-play record for the next week. It doesn’t happen very often but was the case with the first track on this lovely EP from Meadowlark, which we’ve been playing…

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    Ghostpoet: Shedding Skin

    He hit fame and fortune (well moderate fame and probably not much fortune) after being Mercury nominated a couple of years back. His signature sound is gloomily spoken lyrics over equally gloomy electronic music, though it’s quite pleasant to listen to. We’re missing out a whole layer of intellectual input with that thumbnail. On this…