New music
Thomas H. Green
Hurts first appeared half a decade ago, a duo from Manchester who aspired to Depeche Mode but sounded vaguely like OneRepublic and similar. Which is to say they dealt in stadium sized, studio-orchestrated melodrama that veered towards the ostentatious and hand-wringing. In mainland Europe, they’re big news and at home their previous two albums have been Top Ten.With this third outing, Hurts have drifted into the realms of the preposterous. Most of Surrender consists of hysterical hi-NRG stomping delivered with po-faced bombast, like a cross between pop-prog megastars Muse and the 2005 Euro- Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It has been three years since The Lemonheads, Evan Dando’s slacker kings, last toured the UK and six years since they released Varshons, a covers album. So it was a pleasant surprise when they recently announced a return to these shores to play some shows with no particular product to push, especially given that anyone might imagine that they had since long disappeared. Power pop with the odd dash of country and punk rock never goes out of fashion though, and in front of a room full of 30- and 40-somethings, the band dished out an evening of nostalgia that was enough to cast minds back Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Sir Tom Jones’ recording career has enjoyed an Indian summer for the first two releases of this trilogy, 2010’s Praise & Blame and 2012’s Spirit In The Room. This concluding album, another collaboration with producer Ethan Johns, returns to a similar heritage hinterland of folk, country and Sixties rock, though with more explicitly personal overtones: it accompanies an autobiography, Over The Top And Back (a “self-penned” autobiography, it’s promised), published next week. Sir Tom is still in fine voice, that baritone as firm and dark as seasoned mahogany, but in a rather Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Light in You, Mercury Rev’s eighth studio album, is issued at the end of this week. It is their first for seven years, following 2008’s Snowflake Midnight. In the run up to its release, main-men and constants Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper (born Sean Mackowiak) took time to reflect on the new album, their attitudes to Mercury Rev's longevity – their debut album, Yerself Is Steam came out in 1991 – and their feelings about how music is heard and recorded.The Mercury Rev of 2015 is different to that of 2008. Although their sound is as affecting and ethereal as ever, and their songs as Read more ...
Russ Coffey
It’s sometimes suggested that few things in music are as ridiculous as Christian metal. The point, however, is moot. The band Stryper, for instance, play with such inspired fury any sermonising seems entirely organic. Then there are the likes of Alice Cooper; so low-key about his faith you might not even know he had one. Most surprising of all is Cooper lookalike Blackie Lawless. For those who haven’t followed his career closely, the W.A.S.P. lead singer – famous for “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” – is also born again. He has been for some years.The title Golgotha here, of course, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
From its title-track opening cut to the final moments of its closer “Sova”, Allas Sak is recognisably a Dungen album. The musical dynamic between the Swedish quartet’s members and their collective sound is so distinctive that they effectively constitute a one-band genre. Allas Sak does not have as many dives into a jazz-informed inner space as its predecessor 2010’s Skit I Allt, and is also not as pastoral.The new album is, instead, more minimally arranged and balances melody with interrelated instrumental passages with a greater fluidity than previously. As ever, the lyrics are in Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Bert Jansch: It Don't Bother Me, Jack Orion / Bert Jansch & John Renbourn: Bert and JohnWhen theartsdesk last caught up with Bert Jansch, it was April 1965 and he had just issued his eponymous debut album – a set which now, as it was then, is a benchmark take on what acoustic folk and blues would be if a singular, all-embracing vision was applied. As much singer-songwriter album as template for the future of boundary-breaking British folk, Bert Jansch was as influential as it was remarkable.Jansch did not stand still after April 1965. His follow-up album It Don't Bother Me was released in Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The album of the sitcom. You don’t get a lot of those, and technically – beyond the title song – you don’t get one here either. “Cradle to the Grave” is the theme tune for Danny Baker’s autobiographical comedy currently on BBC Two, based on his memoir of growing up in south London in the same vicinity as Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook. In fact, the song came first. Squeeze’s 14th studio album, their first since 1998, has been several years in the brewing: they resumed touring in 2007 and pondered writing new material four years ago. The result is that rock’n’roll collectors’ item, an album Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Composer, pianist, producer… Max Richter (b. 1966) is nothing if not prolific, not to mention unique. His traditional training, which included Edinburgh University, the Royal Academy as well as Florence, under composer Luciano Berio sits alongside a fascination with the otherwordly sounds of German electronica and American minimalism. As well as his solo work, which blends emotional depth and power with a refreshingly direct approach, he has collaborated on operas, ballets, theatre, film and television scores.In 2012, Richter released Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Laurent Garnier, 49, is a key figure in the development of French electronic dance music. A DJ at the Haçienda in Manchester just as house music began to explode in 1987, he went on to helm nights at the Rex Club in Paris in the Nineties. These became a vital hub around which French dance music coalesced. Garnier went on to be a successful producer and live performer, releasing multiple albums, many for his own F Communications label. He regularly drew links between jazz and techno, most famously with his millennial anthem “The Man With The Red Face”. A new, significantly updated edition of Read more ...
Thomas Rees
Loose Tubes go hand in hand with Ronnie Scott’s. This was the setting for their fabled residencies back in the Eighties, the scene of their farewell gig in 1990 and of their comeback last year (both of which feature on new live album Arriving). The venue’s location gets a name check on 2010 release Dancing on Frith Street (featuring more live material from that 1990 gig) and it got another mention on Thursday night, with Tubes trombonist and irreverent MC Ashley Slater declaring it the band’s "spiritual home".I saw them play the 1600-seat Hall One at Gateshead International Jazz Festival back Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
This is Yppah’s fouth album. It’s being reviewed here today because Janet Jackson won’t let us listen to her album yet. theartsdesk heard yesterday that it’s still under wraps, fearful of piracy. This is a regular occurrence, especially with big US stars. It is also fortuitous because Yppah makes the sort of delicious off-radar music that deserves wider exposure. In the Autumn, when so many big names are releasing music, he and multitudes boasting a similarly low profile are shunted aside so you can read about the usual deluge of glossy everyday normalcy.Yppah, on the other hand, a guy called Read more ...