New Music Reviews - Sept' 2020

Khruangbin
Mordechai   DEAD OCEANS  NIGHT TIME STORIES
Third album by the American trio from Houston, Texas

EVERY NOW and then along comes a band that is a bit different, that doesn't take the novel approach, perhaps even breaks new ground. Enter Khruangbin. They are a trio, consisting of guitarist and songwriter Mark Speer, bassist Laura Lee, who met Speer through friends and drummer Donald "DJ" Johnson who was subsequently recruited from the ashes of Yppah. They named themselves Khruangbin after, in the rush to get a name before their first gig, Lee suggested 'Khruangbin' - which literally translates as flying engine or aeroplane - her favourite word in Thai, a language she was studying at the time. Though in hindsight they have admitted they perhaps would have chosen an easier name to say now they are quite famous, the name signifies the international array of influences, not just playing psychedelia, surf rock, funk and dub but also the sounds of Afghanistan, Spain and other countries.

      Whilst their debut was primarily psychedelic and surf rock, their sophomore effort took in middle eastern and Spanish influences as their largely instrumental pieces became more nuanced. Now on their third album, this time they have focused more on vocals whilst combining many of their influences they have learnt to date - all in all they have made their most accessible album to date.

      Admittedly the album starts off on a relative low-key note with First Class, where words are blurted out, "Champagne", "First class" etc. What is it about? Who knows, it is about feeling and creating an ambience and groove as they certainly do that and before you know it you'll be hooked. Next song is lead single Time (You and I) which is perhaps their most mainstream song to feature their own vocals. It carefree African funk and female vocals both remind me of Tom Tom Club:

      Connaissais de Face shows their penchant for different languages but also for paying homage to those that helped them along the way - in this case a bartender called Stacey who probably only knew them by face - whilst Father Bird, Mother Bird is dedicated to a family of love birds who they watched as they courted, had offspring and then nurtured them as they learnt to fly. If There is No Question continues the groove with a lovely lilting guitar lick whilst Pelota ups the pace and showcases their love of Spanish Rumba and Flamenco music. One to Remember is pure dub, from its pressed drum fills to its Gregory Isaacs' guitar licks. Dearest Alfred recalls a letter received by Lee's grandfather and the thoughtfulness of letter writing in general; indeed it shows the thoughtfulness of the band to think about how communication has changed over time and how they perhaps have become less personal. So We Won't Forget is perhaps the most beautiful track on the album - in an album full of them - is a sister track to One to Remember but with a one take vocal part from Lee and lovely use of the snare by DJ Johnson.

      The album ends on a celebratory note with a final instrumental which effectively sounds like one big chorus, with just the whisper of the "Shida", the name of a woman they met and an ode to her bravery, adventure and love. Overall this is an album to get lost in, to soundtrack your summer and autumn, to explore your musical palette and perspective. Laid back, groovy, clever, brilliant stuff.

Rating 8

James Dean Bradfield

EVEN IN EXILE   DELWARE LTD

Second solo album from the Manic lead singer and guitarist

DID THE point become the issue? As lead singer and guitarist of Welsh rockers Manic Street Preachers, Bradfield was used to being given a set of lyrics by fellow members Richey Edwards or Nicky Wire and singing about society's ills, history's leaders and life's general strife. However after the initial highs and lows of their first few years, they became one of Britain's most popular and critically revered rock bands at which point in the back of your mind you can't help this - so what is left to achieve?
     With unpublished poetry and lyrics by Patrick Jones - brother of Manic Nicky Wire - Bradfield has found such a topic, the Victor Jara, the Chilean activist and singer and poet. Seemingly with his creative juices reignited, Bradfield has created a brilliant concept album and one where he hasn't sounded so vital since 2009's Journal For Plague Lovers:


Over the course of 11 tracks, Bradfield showcases his beautiful acoustic guitar playing that he has become known for with the Manics as well as broadening his pallet with the sounds of Chilean folk. Lead single The Boy From The Plantation typifies the sound throughout the rest of the album. Indeed this is probably the best album by any Manic since Everything Must Go, their great return in 1996 and undoubtedly the most surprising. A fantastic return to form.

Rating 8

Low Steppa

Boiling Point   ARMADA MUSIC
Third album from one of the most vital house music artists today
ONE OF House music's great living and active music artists has delivered a non-stop house set. Much like Duke Dumont, Low Steppa has had huge hits in recent years with tracks such as Runnin' but the album beats Duke Dumont by being more unrelenting in its objective to make you want to dance, surely the objective of any Dance outfit, whether it's House, Garage or some other sub-genre.

      It's 14 tracks are over in little more than 40 minutes and is brilliantly paced with terse intros and outros and both older and more recent singles scattered carefully throughout the album to act as re-energisers just as the pace is about to slow. Duke Dumont's debut felt over-thought through and abit, well lacking in energy, such is the drawback with EDM and a lot of House music in recent years. But Low Steppa has in colloquial terms 'smashed it!' - the Dance album of the year!

Rating 8

Zara McFarlane

Songs of an Unknown Tongue   Brownswood Recordings

Fourth album from British contemporary jazz/soul singer/songwriter

ZARA'S VOICE instantly grabs you, it might be one of the great British female soul voices of the last 30 years, reminding me of Shara Nelson's work with Massive Attack and Diane Charlemagne's work with Goldie. Though principally a contemporary jazz artist, the music here recalls the minimalism sounds of Bjőrk as beats are slowly chopped up and layered over the tracks, sometimes with a regular 4/4, sometimes mixed up á la Drum n Bass with collapsing breaks.

      Zara is given a lovely foundation on which to sing or lay down interesting vocal patterns, sometimes straightforward singing as on opener and single Everything Is Connected. Roots of Freedom is the pick of the bunch, a dark brooding track with jazzy soundscapes and slow pulsating bass and beats that become staccato as the momentum gathers pace before the lilting chorus, it sounds like the perfect follow up to Massive Attack's Mezzanine; it's musically exciting and exceptionally lyrically .

Rating 8

Rose City Band

Summerlong   THRILL JOCKEY RECORDS
Quick follow up to last year's debut from Ripley Johnson's band
AT THE same time as rockers Bob Dylan dropped a new album and Neil Young dropped a supposed 'lost' classic, Rose City Band released their sophomore LP, an album of glorious and effortless Americana that will raise spirits of fans of Country, Bluegrass, Folk - indeed Americana as a whole. Through eight quickfire songs, we are treated to a contemporary classic update of recent bands such as Whiskeytown.

      Vocally it reminds me a bit of Mercury Rev; Johnson's voice is a gentle thing and he largely lets the music glide us through, the shimmering guitars, the swaying pedal steel guitar. As the title attests, this music is here to give you a lift, that feeling of going for a walk in the sun, having a BBQ or watching the sunset, all summer long.

Rating 8

Fontaines D.C.

A Hero's Death

Swift follow up to their debut

IRELAND'S PREMIER rock band return with their follow up to last year's very good debut Dogrel and the new album picks up where its predecessor left off, starting off with I Don’t Belong and the same post-punk sound that painted much of their debut. Lead single Televised Mind follows and it’s one of the strongest songs here and is particularly memorable.  As the first half/side A/the middle draws to a close I am starting to think that these are good songs but nothing more and then out of nowhere Oh Such A Spring plays and wow! Song of the year? Quite possibly. It's arguably the best song they've ever written. In a little over 2mins it ends and a 1 2 hit of the guitar and drums come in for the title track for perhaps the segue of the year.

      The second half continues at a similar pace and sound as the first. However, perhaps the tempo and the post-punk sound is a tad samey after awhile with a lack of variety? Overall it’ll be enjoyed by fans although I found it doesn't quite match the greatness of their debut, which was full of singles and slightly stronger song-writing. With Oh Such A Spring however they may have written the song of the year.

Rating 7

Lianne La Havas
Lianne La Havas   WARNER  NONESUCH
Third self-titled album from British Soul-stress and first in five years
ARTISTS TYPICALLY self-title albums when wanting to show a new front, one that wipes away the noise and hyperbole surrounding them. Particularly common for rock artists, for example The Beatles (who's self-titled album became famously known as 'The White Album'), Metallica (conversely 'The Black Album') and Blur. However it is less common among solo artists and La Havas has chosen to do it after a lot of soul searching. Developing her sound by moving beyond modern R&B and adding instruments to create a more atmosphere, with interwoven melodies wrapping up many of the 11 songs on showcase here.

      In the words of lead single Bittersweet, "no more hanging around...I am born again". This is La Havas' soul album and a shows her maturing ways now she's found herself. The first half of the album centres around relationships once the opening Bittersweet lays her soul bare. It's beautiful track after beautiful track but so measured that at first many of the finer points passed me by. Slowly however they take hold and your hooked: Green Papaya's sultry come on, Paper Thin's vulnerability, Read My Mind's humour as she facetiously sings "make a baby tonight, throw my life away". All these lead up to Wierd Fishes, her showstopping Radiohead cover which I definitely didn't miss on first listen.

      The second half which starts with said Wierd Fishes is where La Havas moves from discussing the wider facets of relationships to singing about its effects on her, about how emotionally draining they are, "when you feel you're losing your mind" as she sings on the funky Seven Times, before concluding that courage is needed as penultimate track plays. None are more soul baring though than closer Sour Flower where her voice sours to Alicia and Lauryn heights - a soul album indeed.

Rating 7

Another Sky

I Slept On The Floor   MISSING PIECE RECORDS

Exciting debut from one of London's best new bands

THE LATE great Mark Hollis, singer and leader of Talk Talk once said "I like silence, I get on great with silence". Another Sky, one of the hottest new bands from London, know this too and use it, along with an exciting array of influences to full effect.

      The album starts slowly with some gentle acoustic Smashing Pumpkin-esque chords before bouncing into recent single I Fell In Love With A City which it's anthemic chorus recalling the early days of The 1975, underpinned with a Kate Bush type drum beat. Brave Face's shimmering guitar and vulnerability echoes early Coldplay whilst The Cracks mildly claustrophobia recalls Thom Yorke's tentative storytelling. Both the title track and the following track contain the use of a vocoder which reminds me of the above quote by Mark Hollis and of similar recent music by Bon Iver.

      Throughout the album the one constant is lead singer Catrin Vincent's voice which is spellbinding, it's beauty and androgony recalling both the aforementioned Thom Yorke and Jeff Buckley. You keep on being captivated by it: it's beguiling, unique perhaps, definitely hard to ignore - the sign of a great voice. Which bolds well for Another Sky, given the scarcity of great voices in Rock right now - it is an impressive debut overall and you feel like they're just getting start and have the potential to go onto even loftier things.

Rating 7

The Streets
None Of Us Are Getting Out Of This Life Alive   ISLAND RECORDS
The Streets aka Mike Skinner's 6th album and first mixtape, after a nine year hiatus
MARKETED AS a mixtape, The Streets are back with a 2020 update on the views of Mike Skinner and this time he's brought some friends from the world of rock, rap and pop. From Tame Impala to IDLES appear making for an entertaining and enjoyable, albeit uneven listen. Where it works such as on the recent single I Wished You Loved You As Much As You Loved Him it updates us with the UK Garage sound for the modern day and yearns for repeated listens. However despite tackling some interesting topics - the subject of mobile phones appears twice alone - too many tracks lack hooks to really entice the listener in. No doubt a good background party record but will you go back to it once the party's over? 

Rating 6

Bananagun
The True Story of Bananagun   FULL TIME HOBBY
Debut from new Aussie polymath band
EARNESTY IN pop has always been important to particular artists and Bananagun, a new Aussie rock group, certainly want to, as the name implies, show who they truely are on this their debut album. First impressions are that it sounds very D.I.Y., reminding me of the exciting Noughties band The Go! Team, crossing multiple genres as they go. The opening salvo of Bang Go the Bongos and The Master are pure swinging sixties, right up Austin Powers street. Then we have the first of a few curveballs with the afrobeat of album standout People Talk Too Much. To someone like me who likes afrobeat but is a relative newcomer, this is a real treat although perhaps Fela Kuti could spot the nuances and tell whether it was really authentic (or not)? For the rest of us, it's a real head turner and great stuff, complete with David Byrne-esque title.

      Freak Out returns to more familiar sixties funk then Bird Up!, another curve ball, is perhaps their mission statement in 60 seconds: a menage of birdsong that shows out out there they are. Thereafter it's familiar sixties pop all the way. If there's one criticism of this groovy album is that a few of the songs are just not quite distinctive enough to be differentiated from others and by the end of the album it does sound a bit samey. There is fun to be had on this debut however, with bright ideas, a promising debut.

Rating 6

Taylor Swift
folklore   REPUBLIC RECORDS
Quickly dispatched surprise album from the current Queen of Pop
THIS IS Swift's lockdown album and apparently the indie kids with cred are now taking credit for how she's finally come round to their ways. Almost any change from 'the narrative' nowadays is met with either derision or confusion, but don't forget, Swift was always a country singer at heart and this supposed change is not as drastic as first appears; many things remain though, the same chords, the piano, the stylish album cover, hey even the frustratingly long album length. So is it really as good as Metacritic will make it out? In short, it is collection of 16 okay songs which rarely hit previous heights. Yes ostensibly they sound more mature, more measured but bar This Is Me Trying and The Last Great American Tragedy, none of the songs here are that good and many pass the time. As a Radio 1 DJ said recently on air after playing Cardigan: "let's be honest, it's not Shake It Off".

      The album length too is a real problem, with it neither being a succinct single album nor an expansive double. The question must be: why not cut it down to the best ten or eleven songs? What exacerbates things is that virtually all the songs are the same mid to slow tempo which means the pace never changes, there are few joyful moments or moments of abandon. Indeed what initially was thought to be mature, starts to come across as winy, abit lazy almost.

      Perhaps this is what we need in lockdown: it mirrors the monotony we've experienced, pedestrian in lockdown. Regardless, it means we have an album of its time which makes sense to some now - world famous pop start stuck in lockdown releases surprise new album - but will surely age, as its songs get largely forgotten in the midst of time.

Rating 5