CDs/DVDs
Nick Hasted
Lincoln was intended by Daniel Day-Lewis to reincarnate the face on Mount Rushmore: to give him sinew, sound and breath. This DVD’s extras show the film-makers’ efforts to help that process: real 19th-century clothing, accurate White House wallpaper and a jacket that hangs just right on Abe’s weary shoulders. “The words are the living part of him,” Day-Lewis explains, and the reedy voice he gives the folksy yet formal cadences in Tony Kushner’s screenplay sounds wryly resilient, and thin enough to snap in the buffeting winds of the Civil War’s climax. A yearning to relax, as he settles and Read more ...
joe.muggs
The easy thing would have been for Omar to come back trading on nostalgia, made his seventh album a nice smooth jazz-funk set and reminded everyone what made them fall for his biggest hit, "There's Nothing Like This" from 1991. Indeed you might even think that's what he's doing, with a new recording of that song appearing here. The moment you put the album on, though, there is no question at all of a man resting on his laurels.OK, "Simplify" is kind of smooth in its way, but as Omar's voice cruises in on a cloud of harps and strings, it sounds rather a lot more like the rich and strange Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It’s the cross Lloyd Cole has to bear more than any songwriter of his vintage. His first album landed squarely in the record collections of sensitive young brainiacs in the Eighties and, at least to that constituency, nothing has ever quite matched up. To anyone who’d had their fill of chaps in eyeliner plinking on synths and was seeking a Dylan for the Thatcher age, Rattlesnakes - with its jingle-jangle cod-philosophical noodlings fed through Cole’s gorgeously cracked larynx - was profoundly seductive.Funnily enough, Standards is the product of a commission to review the septuagenarian Dylan Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
All this beauty in continuum is almost an overdose. Terrence Malick’s remarkable The Tree of Life brought this controversial American filmmaker’s skills to the forefront so much so that he didn’t follow his past form and wait five or six years to make his next film: To The Wonder came hard on the heels of the winning Tree of Life and seems aimed to capitalize on the previous film’s popularity.Starring Ben Affleck as Neil, a man caught between two alluring women (Olga Kurylenko from Quantum of Solace and Oblivion, and Rachel McAdams, recently seen in Midnight in Paris), the story loosely Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
For starters, Middle Class Rut is a great name for a band. It sounds irritated, punky, full of fighting spirit. Happily the duo from Sacramento California, live up to it. Their second album is an impassioned roar, occasionally a howl of disgust, grounded somewhere between punk and heavy rock, but smeared with distortion and MCR’s own take on the wall of sound.What really sets them apart are their drums. Sean Stockham attacks his kit with ferocity but also precise rhythmic bite. At least half the songs recall the Beastie Boys’ use of Led Zeppelin’s “When The Levee Breaks”. They’re not hip hop Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Dr. Feelgood: Taking No Prisoners (with Gypie 1977-1981)The departure of Wilko Johnson in April 1977 ought to have finished Dr. Feelgood. More than their guitarist and songwriter, he was vital to their stage persona and as much frontman as singer Lee Brilleaux. Yet after roping in temporary fill-ins for already scheduled live dates, by the end of April they had new guitarist John Cawthra on board. Quickly rechristened Gypie Mayo, he was on the road in May and soon forced to become a songwriter. This handsome box set is the full story on the Mayo-era Feelgoods.Spread across four CDs is Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Kveikur is really the first new album from Sigur Rós since 2008’s Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. Their last, 2012’s Valtari, only had two fresh tracks and was otherwise redone offcuts or previously shelved material. The creative process leading to the appearance of Kveikur further differs from its predecessor as the band are now a three-piece, after the departure of keyboard player Kjartan Sveinsson. Thankfully, they have not plugged the gap by using an outside producer, a choice which made Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust so unsatisfactory.By belatedly serving up entirely new Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Blackmore’s Night was once described as “the most ridiculous real-life Spinal Tap situation ever”. It's easy to see why. The band play in medieval costumes, their musical style owes a debt to Clannad, and they came into existence as the result of guitar-god Ritchie Blackmore's romantic involvement with a blonde with a penchant for New Age. Yet, if Blackmore’s whimsy is a little ludicrous, it’s still surely more interesting than anything his former band mates in Deep Purple are currently doing.If you are not familiar with Blackmore’s Night’s oeuvre, it helps to start with what they’re not. The Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Returning from Germany to her native Romania, Alina is reunited with her childhood friend Voichita, now resident in a convent. The pair return to Voichita’s orthodox sanctuary but Alina changes. Aggressive, hearing voices and seemingly suicidal, she disrupts the convent. Eventually, she is exorcised. The tragic consequences result in the nuns, including Voichita, and their priest being taken away by police who think Alina may have been crucified.Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills is based on a real case. Like his 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, it’s long and unfolds slowly – almost glacially Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Katie Stelmanis of Austra has a voice that will send many listeners running to the hills. It is at once precocious and pretentious, running the gamut from quavering through a mouthful of marbles to operatic to cutesy, like the mutant offspring of La Roux, Paloma Faith and Knife/Fever Ray front woman Karin Dreijer Andersson. However, although it might take a moment or 10, once the ear has adjusted to her warbling theatrical style, there’s much to enjoy in Austra’s music.The Toronto six-piece is Stelmanis’s vehicle, and includes her longterm band-mate, percussionist Mary Postepski, as well as Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
News that Tunng were releasing a fifth album came as a bit of a surprise, given band founder and frontman Mike Lindsay’s recent relocation to Iceland (and subsequent reinvention as Cheek Mountain Thief). Of course nobody ever said that the band was splitting up, but in their decade together their work has remained so undeservedly underground the message may never have gotten out.It’s tempting to describe Turbines as Tunng’s most accessible album to date, given that its nine tracks see them dialling back some of the more obvious experimental flourishes which have set apart their sound even Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
In a two-decade ripple effect typical of pop culture, there’s been a recent spate of interest in 1990s jungle. This was frantic bass-led breakbeat club music that led to the more media-friendly term “drum'n'bass” which, in turn, led indirectly to UK garage, grime and globe-conquering dubstep. DJs such as Shy FX and DJ Hype have maintained their careers and the spotlight is now creeping back towards them. Another player from those days is London’s Rebel MC, AKA Michael West, AKA Conquering Lion, AKA Congo Natty.The Rebel MC’s career was woven deep into Nineties rave, starting with a series of Read more ...