CDs/DVDs
Thomas H. Green
Let’s face it, well over 50 years into Alice Cooper’s career, you probably already know whether his umpteen-billionth album is for you. Over the last decade, he’s revitalised things by taking a meta look at himself, but, whether harking back to his proto-punk Detroit roots or creating sequels to classic albums, his genial schlock-rock has settled to a calculable pattern.Nothing wrong with that. Worked for Motörhead and The Ramones. As with the later career of those bands, if the listener is inclined, Road has its moments. It's a concept album about being on tour. This is an environment where Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Any surprises which Jump for Joy brings aren’t about the nature of the music or the unfailingly open lyrics recounting Hiss Golden Messenger main-man M.C. Taylor’s outlook on his life, but an intermittent undertone suggesting he’s been considering the rhythmic foundations of The War On Drugs. In the sixth song, “Jesus is Bored” there’s a hint of WOD’s fondness for a chugging, insistent tempo. It’s more to the fore on eighth track “Feeling Eternal.”In essence though, Jump for Joy adroitly showcases the mélange the North Carolina-based Taylor has perfected. In the studio here with his touring Read more ...
Saskia Baron
Thieves Like Us, Robert Altman’s 1974 evocation of 1930s Mississippi, wasn’t a commercial hit on its original release, even though Pauline Kael called it a masterpiece.This Depression-era tale of a trio of hapless bank-robbers was shot on location with no star names. Keith Carradine plays Bowie, the youngest of the thieves who have just escaped from a chain gang. In jail since he was 16, he has a naiveté that Carradine captures beautifully.Holed up in a small town, the loose-limbed Bowie falls for a local girl, Keechie, played by Shelley Duvall in her first major role. Struck by Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Ratboys have been around since 2010, knocking out their guitar-powered indie fare over three albums in their home city of Chicago. However, with album number four, they have decided to branch out and pay homage to the US alt-rock scene of the early 90s with a grunge-pop-athon that wears its influences heavily.The ghosts of Veruca Salt, the Breeders, the Stooges and Neil Young and Crazy Horse all stalk the grooves of The Window. There’s even an occasional sniff of 4 Non-Blondes’ pop sensibilities on the more commercial tunes, like “It’s Alive!”. In fact, this album is an indication of how Read more ...
joe.muggs
A little remarked fact of modern music is just how lush the sound of modern R&B and adjacent music is. A decade ago, the relative harshness of trap beats and EDM synths seemed to dominate sonically, or on the more bohemian fringes there was a meandering haziness derived from the UK influence of James Blake and Burial. But now, in the work of artists like Kehlani and Tinashe – and filtering outwards into pop from Billie Elish to Ariana Grande – all of this is folded together, the electronics smoothed into more traditional musicality, and with production that is sometimes as Read more ...
Tom Carr
Only a few artists can be said to have exploded on to the scene like Hozier. The solo, Irish musician – full name Andrew John Hozier-Byrne – shot to stardom with the omnipresent hit “Take Me To Church” back in 2014. Although his work since hasn’t taken over the pop culture zeitgeist in the same way, he has nonetheless gone on to be very successful.Unafraid to tackle weighty, thoughtful themes, such as LGBT rights, religion, or economic strife, married to his powerful vocals and heavy folk influences, Hozier has marked himself out as a poignant artist. He returns with his latest album and Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There’s been a sense of anticipation around Ghanaian-Australian Genesis Owusu ever since his ebullient 2021 debut album Smiling with No Teeth. He won a bunch of Arias, Australia’s Grammys, but could he break internationally? He’s toured the US with Paramore and is due to hit Europe in the Autumn, including a stop at Berghain.His new album is a match for its predecessor, in terms of eclecticism and bravado, and has a higher quantity of immediately hooky songs, so it shouldn't be a hindrance in taking things next level. Owusu has said that it was partially inspired by Waiting for Godot and Read more ...
Justine Elias
Even more than David Lynch, to whom her work has been compared, director Lucile Hadžihalilović is a strange agent between this world and the dreamworld.From her debut feature, Innocence, an adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s symbolist novel about pre-adolescent girls who undergo rigorous training to prepare them for (or protect them from) the perils of womanhood, Lucile Hadžihalilović forged a daring path into the unknown. With her first English-language feature, she journeys even further. Told this time from the perspective of an adult, Earwig – based on the experimental novel by B Catling Read more ...
joe.muggs
On the face of it, this is an extremely simple record. It is big, stomping, party-monster neanderthal synth-rock.There’s no new sounds here: the structures are classic garage punk, the synthesisers’ growl and squeal sounds like some jerry-rigged setup from the 1970s, and the double drum kits and John Dwyer’s growls and yelps are downright primal. Aside from the equally retro-sounding big synth pop ballad finale “Always at Night”, it’s music to fling yourself around and get loose to, and in a sense that’s all you need to know. But the more you live with it, the more complex and perplexing Read more ...
Liz Thomson
In late 2019, BC, another age, Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi stepped on to a Southbank Centre stage and gave one of those mesmerising performances that forever stays in the memory.In the three years or so since, Giddens has been given a clutch of awards, most recently a Pulitzer for her opera Omar. A musical seeker, her career is a journey of exploration through the highways and byways of American music and its intersections. All attempts at categorisation are rejected, Giddens seeing them – largely correctly – as a marketing tool. No doubt that’s why she remains at Nonesuch, an Read more ...
Tim Cumming
A curious and rather marvellous sonic chimera manifests in the twilight of the rock gods, an album from 1977 finding its physical release 46 years after it was committed to acetate, and then abandoned, reasons unknown. Neil Young’s Chrome Dreams comprises 12 songs, including early versions of "Powderfinger" and "Like a Hurricane", among others, and was recorded at various sessions and stage shows between 1974 and 1976, including at Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch with his band Crazy Horse.Sixteen years ago, Neil Young decided to release Chrome Dreams II, while the original, unissued album Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Sky at Night” begins Radio Red. Its brooding atmosphere is shared with Saint Etienne’s “Hobart Paving.” Also, a sinuous sense of melody is at one with Todd Rundgren’s finest ballads. Melodic filigrees suggest Laura Nyro or Brighton band The Mummers. It’s some album opener.Subsequently, the Shipley-born, London-dwelling Laura Groves’ first album under her own name takes in gently soulful reflections and floating creations – mostly built around an electric piano and her multi-tracked voice – which are hard to pin down. Perhaps she’s been listening to The Carpenters, maybe Tin Drum-era Read more ...