2008 Music Chart - May

New albums from Death Cab For Cutie, The Ting Tings, Elliot Minor and Portishead this month plus Gemma Hayes and another release this year from Nine Inch Nails. Also added the new Charlatans album You Cross My Path, now out after free download.

1. Ghosts I-IV - Nine Inch Nails
2. I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope - I Was A Cub Scout
3. Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4. Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp
5. Third - Portishead
6. Consolers Of The Lonely - The Raconteurs
7. Accelerate - R.E.M.
8. We Started Nothing - The Ting Tings
9. Narrow Stairs - Death Cab For Cutie
10. The Age Of The Understatement - The Last Shadow Puppets
11. In Rainbows - Radiohead
12. Alas, I Cannot Swim - Laura Marling
13. Do You Like Rock Music - British Sea Power
14. Midnight Boom - The Kills
15. Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings - Counting Crows
16. Elliot Minor - Elliot Minor
    
17. You Cross My Path - The Charlatans
    
18. The Slip - Nine Inch Nails
    
19. The Hollow Of Morning - Gemma Hayes
    
20. Saturnalia - The Gutter Twins
    
21. Neptune - The Duke Spirit
22. This Gift - Sons & Daughters

LATER...with Jools Holland (23/05/2008 - Series 32, Show 8)

The last show in the series and a real disappointment because it should have ended on a high. Ultimately it was rather dull musically, made up for by some good and relevant interviews.

Tuesday 20/5

• Paul Weller - 22 Dreams
• Martha Wainwright - You Cheated Me
• Jimmy Cliff (Chat with JH)
• Tricky - C’mon Baby
• Jimmy Cliff - Many Rivers To Cross
• Paul Weller (Chat with JH)
• White Lies - Unfinished Business
• Martha Wainwright - Bleeding All Over You
• Paul Weller - Push It Along

Friday 23/5

• Paul Weller - Have You Made Up Your Mind
• Martha Wainwright - You Cheated Me
• Tricky - Council Estate
• Jimmy Cliff (Chat with JH)
• White Lies - Unfinished Business
• Jimmy Cliff - Many Rivers To Cross
• Paul Weller - Invisible
• Martha Wainwright - So Many Friends
• Paul Weller (Chat with JH)
• Yoav - Club Thing
• Tricky - Puppy Toy
• Martha Wainwright (Chat with JH)
• White Lies - Death
• Martha Wainwright - Bleeding All Over You
• Paul Weller - Push It Along

Whether you like him, love him or loathe him you cannot deny that Paul Weller is an incredible talent and institution. That is no reason alone to love his music at the moment which fails to hit the heights of his previous incarnations in The Jam, Style Council and solo highlight of Wild Wood and Changing Man. For now his music just is not very good. Weller opened and closed both shows, performed four songs and enduring two interviews (basically the same). Recent single Have You Made Up Your Mind is good, as is 22 Dreams but the piano led Invisible sounded like a SC rejected b-side and rockier number Push It Along is terrible. He also makes an uncomfortable interviewee, nervous and fidgeting constantly.

Martha Wainwright is always a great performer and her material is better live than recorded. Like Weller she had two songs on the Tuesday, repeated on Friday in addition to All My Friends. Her vocals are excellent as are her band (including new husband ‘the bass player’) but it was all a bit predictable. And you know she is showcasing the best songs on the album which isn’t a great advert. She also got to talk to Jools and was a mad but engaging subject, genuinely emotional seeing footage of her mother performing.

A surprise this week is Tricky. He has been away for years and it showed, although his vocal delivery is still engaging. Accompanied on the weak C’mon Baby and the bitter Puppy Toy by female singer Alex, it was compelling but essentially difficult to take in. The manic Council Estate attempted to make a statement and shake things up but if you look at the new material from fellow stalwarts Portishead, there is no comparison.

Jools’ special guest was Jimmy Cliff, talking about the new musical version of The Harder They Come - the only thing he seems to be known for these days, and performed Many Rivers To Cross with Jools on the piano. This voice is suffering slightly in his advanced years but it was still a good rendition.

Of the remaining two acts, White Lies did a passable impression of Editors - all drama and no tune. Sadly the best artist on the show and the most interesting musician, Yoav, only got to perform one song on the Friday show. He was amazing. A one man band, playing every part of the guitar, reaching every vocal range and changing the backing program with his bare feet via peddles. Excellent stuff that left me wanting more.

So not a great finale but a decent show. Jools consistently gets great guests, a mix of the old and the new, the relevant and the interesting. Without competition it frequently gets self-indulgent but we can bear this as long as there is great music. More more more.

New Nine Inch Nails Album! (Yes, another one!)

Trent Reznor has been busy making a new album. Not content with the massive instrumental Ghosts out a few months ago, he now gives us The Slip. And again it's free from http://theslip.nin.com/

Let the downloading commence...

LATER...with Jools Holland (16/05/2008 - Series 32, Show 7)

A really good Friday show this week which saw the return of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and a great set from The Raconteurs.

Tuesday 13/5

• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!
• Sharleen Spiteri - All The Times I Cried
• The Raconteurs - Salute Your Solution
• Mary Wilson (Chat with JH)
• Chatham County Line - Country Boy City Boy
• Mick Hucknall (Chat with JH)
• Glasvegas - Geraldine
• Mick Hucknall with Jools - Farther Up The Road
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Today’s Lesson

Friday 16/5

• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!
• The Raconteurs - Consoler Of The Lonely
• Sharleen Spiteri - All The Times I Cried
• Mary Wilson (Chat with JH)
• Glasvegas - Geraldine
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Jesus Of The Moon
• Bon Iver - Skinny Love
• The Raconteurs - Old Enough
• Sharleen Spiteri (Chat with JH)
• Chatham County Line - The Carolinian
• Mick Hucknall (Chat with JH)
• Glasvegas - Daddy’s Gone
• Mick Hucknall with Jools - Farther Up The Road
• The Raconteurs - Salute Your Solution
• Sharleen Spiteri - It Was You
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Midnight Man

A strange line-up this week with an extra chat and only two acts performing at least three songs and lots of repetition from the live Tuesday show. The big artist was definitely Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds who played four songs from the latest album Dig, Lazarus, Dig! Kicking off both days with the title track. The ‘live’ version was much more rough and ready and Cave seemed to rise to the occasion much more. It was much calmer and controlled on the Friday, as was the gorgeous Jesus Of The Moon and closer Midnight Man. Cave’s voice is even more commanding when he is in ‘ballad’ mode. They closed Tuesday with the more provocative Today’s Lesson. Excellent stuff.

Also excellent are The Raconteurs. Jack White and Brendan Benson have created a wonderful musical machine in this band and their new stuff is better than the debut album. The intense Salute Your Solution lead by White and his guitar was the high point. As was Consoler Of The Lonely with Benson taking lead vocals before JW mixes it up. They also performed the weaker but equally engaging Old Enough with a great vocal arrangement at the end.

Sharleen Spiteri, still of Texas (we are informed on the show) but solo currently, had a chat with Jools about rediscovering being scared and wanting to make her fantasy album. Influenced by Nancy Sinatra, you can hear what she is trying to do and good luck to her. In the days of prominent female singers like Winehouse, Duffy and Adele, the timing is not good and the competition is as strong as ever. She performs the soulful All The Times I Tried and the more seductive It Was You, complete with brass section. It sort of works if you like her voice.

A great new band continued the Scottish influence, Glasvegas. They performed Geraldine (both shows) and Daddy’s Gone, new tracks from their debut album. The sound the band produce is amazing, augmented by simple drums and wall-of-sound guitars, and very distinct vocals.

Jools’ special guest this week was Mary Wilson from The Supremes, just in for a chat and to tell us about a new exhibition. They even played some Supremes songs and got the audience to sing along. Instead we are treated to Mick Hucknall (of Simply Red fame) who is on a one man mission to tell the world about Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland. Ok, it’s easy to be cynical here but I think he has genuine affection for the music and good intentions, even if he is plugging an album (like everyone else who appears). Farther Up The Road was typical Jools and guest fare but entertaining enough.

The remaining two spaces were taken up by bluegrass quartet Chatham County Line and the little known Bon Iver. Chatham County Line, playing and singing around a single microphone, are very good even if they lack excitement. They got a song on each show, the old-worldly Country Boy City Boy and The Carolinian. It was great watching them as they moved back and forth to get the right sound. Bon Iver was less than impressive with his falsetto bog-standard Skinny Love. It was nothing new.

So a good show but again an interview which had nothing to do with the music. It was good to hear from Spiteri and Hucknall. There is still too much repetition across the two shows - not the music, you expect that, but the stuff in-between. Anyway the music was great and that is the main thing…

Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs Album Review (2008)

What does a cult band do when they have major commercial success with an album and are danger of revealing their secret to the masses? They come back with something different of course. Not quite but Death Cab For Cutie have got to that R.E.M. stage which could see them playing their unique blend of emo and indie rock in huge stadia around the world. But success is what you make it. The band’s last album Plans got them noticed and before that, the wonderful Transatlanticism was lauded by fans and critics as a huge leap forward from the promising doldrums of the first few albums. But ultimately Plans was a bit of let down. It is a great album but at times it settles into a cruising gear and goes through the motions. Death Cab For Cutie are in danger of getting boring. Narrow Stairs avoids this premonition by fusing trademark lyrics and vocals, typical melody and depth, with a subtly different approach.

Opener Bixby Canyon Bridge has all the elements of a great DCFC song. A soft quiet start brings in Ben Gibbard’s statesmanlike vocals, an instrument in its own right. Followed by a simple guitar loop melody, there are echoes of Marching Bands Of Manhattan but the song gets heavier, the vocals more distorted. It is clear from this that the music will take a different approach. At nearly three minutes the song disintegrates completely into a repetitive mess of fuzzy guitars and crashing drums. This fills the remaining two minutes and is clearly overlong self-indulgence. The last thirty seconds, with Gibbard back for an encore, is horrible.

After a dodgy start, something very interesting happens. At eight and a half minutes I Will Possess Your Heart starts with a massive instrumental. Talk about alienating your audience. Lead by delicious bass, the piano and guitars echo each other as if starting a conversation, the music building into a wondrous atmospheric soundtrack. Four and a half minutes in and Gibbard appears, clear and direct: ’How I wish you could see the potential, the potential of you and me. It’s like a book elegantly bound but in a language that you can’t read. You gotta spend some time, love. You gotta spend some time with me. And I know that you’ll find love. I will possess your heart’. Like all great DCFC songs - and this is right up there with the best - it sounds effortless and simple, as piano and guitar blend with Gibbard’s vocals. What makes it so effecting is the lack of defined verse-verse-chorus structure. The effect is horribly uneasy, part devoted lover and part creepy stalker homing in on the prey. It is important to note that there are two versions of I Will Possess Your Heart, one with and one without the instrumental start. This makes sense as eight minute songs rarely get played on radio, but you can help feeling cynical. The single version feels a lot more like a complete song and not just a concept but the effect is the same.

No Sunlight is equally dark (metaphorically not literally) in tone but musically upbeat - more of formulaic pop song. Again Gibbard is magnificent, but the music has immense depth. Consistently you get the impression that everything DCFC create is finely crafted and arranged and this is no exception. Gibbard’s lyrics are sparse as he talks about the innocent and naivety of youth, but goes on to shatter the illusion: ‘And it disappeared at the same speed. As the idealistic things I believed. When the optimist died inside of me’. It then gets vague and contrived: ‘With a man who hides from all that binds in a mess of fading lines. With a tangled thread inside his head with nothing on either end’. Unlike the music, it sounds like any old lyric has been thrown in.

Cath… recounts the story of a women succumbing to an ill-fated marriage, driven along by lifting guitars and Gibbard’s voice, softening for. ‘But you said your vows and you closed the door . On so many men who would’ve loved you more’. But the line: ‘When your heart was dying fast and you didn’t know what to do’ is a bit of a mouthful, not quite fitting into the musical gap. Talking Bird is desperately slow, a plodding dirge empty of any discernable melody. But the words make the song: ‘It’s hard to see your way out when you live in a house in a house. ‘Cause you don’t realize that the windows were open the whole time’ and ‘And it’s all here for you as long as you chose to stay. It’s all here for you as long as you don’t fly away’ are genius. You Can Do Better Than Me has a bizarre musical arrangement but in a brief two minutes, is a very recognisable DCFC song. There are some neat touches like the harmonies at the end of ’And I have to face the truth that no one could ever look at me like you do. Like I’m something worth holding on to’. The very end puts an interesting twist on the song title: ‘…you can do better than me but I can’t do better than you’. Again the effect is a bit creepy.

This leads quickly into Grapevine Fires, another great song, with some wonderful harmonies, about a very specific moment in time and how it effects specific people. It is another song of contrast - sweet delicate music and vocals but a harsh subject. The line: ‘The news reports on the radio said it was getting worse as the ocean air fanned the flames. But I couldn't think of anywhere I would have rather been to watch it all burn away’ is dripping with arrogance and selfishness. It ends in shocking style with ‘The firemen worked in double shifts with prayers for rain on their lips and they knew it was only a matter if time’ as the story never gets fully resolved.

One thing that DCFC can do is transform a melodrama into an epic story, usually around a single object or person. This might be dissecting things a bit to much but it works for Fountains Of Wayne, albeit from a different angle. Your New Twin Sized Bed is simply brilliant. The way that pictures form as Gibbard recalls the desperate abandonment of a double bed for a smaller one as, in his words, ‘I guess you decided that that old queen was more space than you would need’ and ‘….what’s the point of holding on to what never gets used’ and then graphically ‘Other than a sick desire for self abuse‘. The end of the song doesn’t really fit with the rest but makes it more personal.

Long Division attempts to glide along with fast guitars but it could be accused of being a bit too much of the formula that washed through much of Plans. Unlike the start of the album, this is a bit too safe and polished. But there is a catchy well sung chorus - of just one word and a great last minute. Pity And Fear is completely different, an opening of tribal drums and sinister guitars. Gibbard does some surprising things with his voice but it never lifts the mood. This is weak and empty. Again like Bixby Canyon Bridge there is a stupidly long outro which, this time, ends suddenly - the band bored enough to pull the plug.

The album closes with The Ice Is Getting Thinner. It pushes all the music buttons but again Gibbard’s usually reliable voice veers off at times. The lyrics are also uninspired: ‘We buried our love in a wintry grave. A lump in the snow was all that remained’ continues the ‘cold’ metaphor but is not up there with the best. A soft guitar solo breaks the tedium.

Narrow Stairs is a very inconsistent album. On one hand it tries to do what Transatlanticism and then Plans did very well - there are some brilliantly crafted songs, but whether the band is striving for individuality or deliberately trying to alienate the hangers on, only they will know. Gibbard is, as always, brilliant, with few stumbles and the entire band sound coherent and proficient. Plans expanded the DCFC audience and had the potential to propel the band into major high-profile success and those people joining them for the first time will be sorely disappointed. There is enough on Narrow Stairs to keep hardened fans happy, including some of their best work, and maybe that is what the band want. No more fans please, we’re a huge secret and we want to stay that way…

-- CS

LATER...with Jools Holland (09/05/2008 - Series 32, Show 6)

A very good show (or shows) this week with some real legends of music performing.

Tuesday 6/5

• Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)
• The Fratellis - Mistress Mabel
• Santogold - Les Artiste
• Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (Chat with JH)
• Emmylou Harris - Gold
• Chris Difford (Chat with JH)
• Spiritualized - Soul On Fire
• The Fratellis - My Friend John
• Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - One Woman Man

Friday 9/5

• Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)
• The Fratellis - Mistress Mabel
• Spiritualized - Soul On Fire
• Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with T-Bone Burnett (Chat with JH)
• Chris Difford - Battersea Boys
• Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Killing The Blues
• Santogold - Les Artiste
• Spiritualized - Sweet Talk
• Emmylou Harris (Chat with JH)
• The Fratellis - A Heady Tale
• Emmylou Harris with Buddy Miller - How She Could Sing The Wildwood Flower
• Spiritualized - You Cheat You Lie
• Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Rich Women
• The Fratellis - My Friend John

A deceptive Tuesday show which implied a three song set from Santogold. Thankfully this did not happen on Friday, the mighty Spiritualized performing three songs instead. But the headline act, and rightfully so, is Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with their ‘Raiding Sand’ band including musician/producer T-Bone Burnett. They performed the bluesy rock of Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On), the bluesy Killing The Blues and the…er…bluesy Rich Women. They closed the Friday show with One Woman Man which was a bit too country. Both Krauss and Plant were superb and the vocal balance was perfect. The Tuesday interview about touring and the chemistry between them was repeated on Friday when the duo was joined by T-Bone Burnett. He got to talk about touring and then Plant, who did not seem interested in anything about Led Zeppelin, professed that the duo are in fact a band and there is a lot of history in their music. Plant did reveal that the only instrument he plays LZ songs on now is the handcuffs. Hmmm.

The Fratellis are a great live band even if they do lack decent song writing ability. They previewed three new tracks from their new album, the best being Mistress Mabel. The energy and dynamic they create from a live show is incredible. Even more engaging are Spiritualized - Jay Spaceman and friends, including two other guitarists, a string quartet and four piece gospel choir, are back with a new album and doing the rounds on just about everything. It all sounds great including the messy guitar ending of the noisy You Cheat You Lie. Soul On Fire and Sweet Talk bring together the trail vocals and huge orchestra sound JS is well known for.

So Santogold only had one song, performed on each show. Les Artist seems to be the only decent song showcased at the moment. It would have been good to see more of her but in a show were even Emmylou Harris only got to perform two songs, the competition was tough. Alos relegated to the sidelines was Chris Difford. He is such an engaging storyteller who continues to write amazing songs but there is clearly still some tension between him and ex-Squeeze band member JH, who now has the upper hand.

Some great music this week. Not much variation in the music with too much guitar on show but much better performances than last week.

Portishead - Third Album Review (2008)

Portishead once defined the sound of a generation. In 1994 Bristol was the epicentre of the trip-hop electronic sound. Contemporaries Massive Attack had released Blues Lines and in the same year that gave the world Protection, which saw Tricky break from the band to go solo, Portishead made Dummy. It still is a spectacularly good album. The self-titled follow-up, after a three year gap, was a subtly different sound, expelling the thick electronic sampling and opting for a more organic sound. A year later Massive Attack’s Mezzanine arguably defined the end of the genre and Portishead disappeared. As the 1990s came to a close, a new chapter of music was beginning. It has taken nearly ten years for Portishead to make a third album. Imaginatively called Third, it is the result of three years work, of soul searching and of trying to rediscover a sound that has moved on like the world around it.

Third starts in very atypical style with Silence - a sampled voice (in Portuguese talking about ’the rules of the three’) leads into a very out-of-time collection of beats. It is only when strings emerge that the whole things starts to hold together. The most defining part of Porishead is Beth Gibbons. Her ghostly vocals appear after the two minute intro like a frail wounded animal trying to find a safe place to hide. The lyrics are suitably vague and melancholy: ’Empty in our hearts. Crying out in silence. Wandered out of reach’ etc, summing up the band lost in a vast wilderness for nearly a decade. Beyond this, the beats and strings trudge on and then stop suddenly.

Hunter sounds like the Portishead of old, with echoing vocals and ambient-industrial music, light and uplifting one minute then harsh and weird, like being thrust into a dark empty forest, the next. In essence it is a love song: ’I stand on the edge of a broken sky. And I will come down; don’t know why. And if I should fall, would you hold me? Would you pass me by?’. Gibbons’ vocals are sublime but Barrow and Utley add some perverse backing which breaks the joyous flow.

Nylon Smile follows with more of the same, this time with a more consistent musical flow. When Gibbons sings ‘Cos I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you’ and then ‘And I don’t know what I’ll do without you‘, it sounds as if she has never been away. There is a wonderful interlude of strange guitars and tribal drums, the space before filled with soft eerie waling. As the music stops, Gibbons has the last word: ‘I never had the chance to explain exactly what I meant‘.

The Rip is probably the first sign that Portishead still has something really great to offer. Gibbons is accompanied by simple looped guitar and sparse bass, allowing her voice to tell the story. Then the layered electronics take over and she is drowned out, all except for the waling again, by heavy fuzzy keyboards. When she returns, it is a different sound but equally great.

Plastic, like Hunter, is annoyingly disjointed and fragmented, turning dramatic and overblown. The helicopter-esque programming and drums create an uneasy backdrop so a song trying to emerge. Despite Gibbon’s best efforts, it never really does. A shame as the lyrics are frank and revealing as she talks about isolation and control: ‘On your stage a show that you create all by yourself. I am nowhere. You never notice. You are so sure’.

We Carry On is another master class. Unlike The Rip, the music is harder and takes the forefront over Gibbons’ echo. After the first verse, bells then drums appear - again fragments but more effective. The line: ‘oh can't you see? Holding on to my heart, I plead the taste of life’ is a real high point as the music comes back. This leads to even more dramatic looped guitars. When Gibbons returns she sounds even more determined for what is a subtly different reworking of the first verse and chorus. The effect is just as chilling and wonderful.

Deep Water provides a respite. It is absurdly different, like the band are sitting around a campfire someone in Arizona with nothing better to do. Again the lyrics, especially ‘Alone with my self-doubting, again’ could be a metaphor for the difficulties the band had getting to this point but it is all lost in the comedic delivery, particularly the backing vocals.

Fortunately this leads to one of the best tracks on the album. Machine Gun is another perfect example of the exploded genre, the pieces laid out and then reassembled. Barrow and Utley, this time, deliver a backing of electronic drums and guitars - another simple but effective arrangement with subtle depth, while Gibbons takes centre stage to assume a character. ’Here in my reflecting, what more can I say? For I am guilty for the voice that I obey. Too scared to sacrifice a choice, chosen for me’. Nothing sums up the futility of war and the current times better. In the second half of the song, the musical tone changes completely: the drums harder, more distorted leading to a short burst of Brad Fiedel soundtrack-esque keyboards.

Small does very little in its six and a half minutes. Two and a half of those minutes are taken up by light ambient gothic reminiscing ‘If I remember the night that we met. Tasted a wine that I’ll never forget’. The vocals are fragile and haunting with several voices at once, slightly out of time. Then the tone changes into some interesting old-worldly instrumental electronica. It is a bizarrely underwhelming five minutes. Even when Gibbons returns before the final dramatic minute of pounding keyboards and drums, it never quite works.

Magic Doors is another familiar sounding song. It has great structure and Gibbons shows incredible range in her vocals. Dramatic piano leads into the sublime ‘All the muse in myself
My desire I can't hide’. After a very promising opening, someone decides to add in a tuneless trumpet, again, breaking the flow.

Third closes with Threads, another haunting vocal performance and some great music but all a bit too flat and listless. The song descends into a series of over layered howling vocals, wonderfully atmospheric but very unnerving. The last minute of instrumentation is a strange series of echoing foghorns. Not quite the big finish.

Portishead has created its own unique brand of uneasy listening. The high points of the album are among the best songs the band has created and it is clear that Gibbons, Barrow and Utley are as determined and as interested in music as ever. There is real craft at work on this album. Occasionally the flow of a song is broken but some strange instrumentation or things get a little predictable, but at least the sound has moved on - an album full of rehashed sampling and scratching was not what anyone needed. The overall result is more like the eponymous second album. At times, this new form of modern electronic new-goth starts to drag but Gibbons delivers consistently great vocals through obscure retrospective lyrics that give the songs character and depth. Trip hop may be dead by Portishead lives on.

-- CS

LATER...with Jools Holland (02/05/2008 - Series 32, Show 5)

Not sure about this week. A real mixed bag of the great and the not so great with some awful vocals at times. I’m not sure if the mix was all wrong for some of the bands. Anyway here goes:

Tuesday live

• James - Waterfall
• Pentangle - Let No Man Steal Your Thyme
• Operator Please - Just A Song About Ping Pong
• Eddie Grant (Chat with JH)
• Melody Gardot - Worrisome Heart
• Humphrey Lyttelton tribute
• The Gutter Twins - Idle Hands
• Mable John with Jools - No Matter How She Done It
• James - Laid

Friday

• James - Hey Ma
• Operator Please - Get What You Want
• Pentangle - Light Flight
• Mable John (Chat with JH)
• The Gutter Twins - Idle Hands
• Mable John with Jools - No Matter How She Done It
• Liam Finn - Second Chance
• James - Upside
• Laurie Anderson (Chat with JH)
• Melody Gardot - Sweet Memory
• Operator Please - Just A Song About Ping Pong
• Eddie Grant (Chat with JH)
• Pentangle - I’ve Got A Feeling
• The Gutter Twins - God’s Children
• James - Waterfall

This week belongs to James. In every way the band was the best thing on both shows and rightfully got top billing. Tim Booth may look different, now with shaven head and beard but his vocals are still there. The band, even if they are the same who scaled Britpop in the early 1990s, are also brilliant. Three new tracks plus a spirited rendition of Laid to end the Tuesday show. Only Upside was a bit too long.

An exciting prospect was Operator Please, a new young band from Australia. They looked, and played, like kids too. The Tuesday version of Just A Song About Ping Pong is a glorious mess with the violinist way out of tune. They seemed to hold it together though and the Friday version was much better. The wonderful Get What You Want started badly, again the violinist sounding off but she pulled it back and the last half was good. They are a great prospect and are obviously having fun.

In contrast, 1960s folk outfit Pentangle have reformed. They are all accomplished musicians and yes the vocalist is a bit shaky these days but it was all sooooo dull. I’m a huge folk fan and whereas I don’t want to hear sexed up new-wave folk-pop, I like good songs. Let No Man Steal Your Thyme was a strain and classic Light Flight sounded far too outdated after Operator Please on Friday. As for I’ve Got A Feeling, it is horrible folk-jazz with agonisingly bad vocals.

Speaking of bad vocals, I was really looking forward to The Gutter Twins. The band were too loud on Idle Hands and Lanegan’s trustworthy growl sounded strained and flat. On God’s Children everything was a mess - Dulli was ok in parts but the harmonies didn’t work and by the end Lanegan, who never smiles anyway, did not look happy. There looked like some real tension between them a the end. Maybe it was just me?

Jools’ special guest this week, in a repeat of the Eartha Kitt format, was Mable John. They had a chat about a new film she is in and then the duo performed No Matter How She Done It. Like the Kitt performance, Tuesday was spontaneous and fun and a bit shambolic in the middle. Friday was better timing but not as good, like a rework. Again, the same as before.

The other interviews, again were not will performers. For some reason Eddie Grant was on to plug his ‘best of’, upcoming tour and Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday in Hyde Park. I suppose that is worth talking about but I wanted to hear from James and Operator Please. What made this worse was JH showed Top Of The Tops footage of Grant obviously miming. Not a great advert for live shows. Jools also talked to Laurie Anderson - again I don’t know why other than she was in town doing some show and she’s recently married Lou Reed.

The last two acts were actually quite good - Melody Gardot (that has to be a stage name, right?), a kind of smoky jazz singer, performed Worrisome Heart on Tuesday and Sweet Memory on Friday. Liam Finn was a real talking point. The first half of Second Chance was horrible falsetto and his female singing partner provided nothing. Then it all goes a bit insane, he stops singing and she bangs some blocks for a bit, then he gets onto a drum kit, perversely while the guitars still play from somewhere and she wails like a banshee. At the end it looked like they were both going to collapse. Stunning.

On the Tuesday live show, Jools paid tribute to Humphrey Lyttelton which was a nice touch. He showed some archive footage of Humph playing with Big Joe Turner. He really was a great trumpet player.

So, some good, some bad. The Gutter Twins were a real disappointment - the live sound just wasn’t good. Operator Please are exciting but need some polish. I’m sure JH meant well getting Pentangle in but it all seemed a bit pointless. Only James proved that sometimes it is worth trying again…

2008 Music Chart - April 2008

Only two new reviews this month but four albums to add - new stuff from REM, The Last Shadow Puppets, The Raconteurs and The Gutter Twins (reviews to come on the last two).

1. Ghosts I-IV - Nine Inch Nails
2. I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope - I Was A Cub Scout
3. The Age Of The Understatement - The Last Shadow Puppets
   
4. Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
5. Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp
6. Accelerate - R.E.M.
7. In Rainbows - Radiohead
8. Alas, I Cannot Swim - Laura Marling
9. Midnight Boom - The Kills
   
10. Do You Like Rock Music - British Sea Power
11. Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings - Counting Crows
12. Consolers Of The Lonely - The Raconteurs
    
13. Saturnalia - The Gutter Twins
    
14. Neptune - The Duke Spirit
15. This Gift - Sons & Daughters

LATER...with Jools Holland (25/04/2008 - Series 32, Show 4)

Another great and interesting week in the world of Jools…an eclectic mix of artists with everything from British guitar music to Japanese drummers to Eartha Kitt.

Tuesday live set

• The Charlatans - The Misbegotten
• Was (Not Was) - Semi-Interesting Week
• The Pigeon Detectives - This Is An Emergency
• Eartha Kitt (Chat with JH)
• Yamato - Yakura
• Eartha Kitt with Jools - Ain’t Misbehavin’
• Brandi Carlile - The Story
• Was (Not Was) - Walk The Dinosaur

Friday set

• The Charlatans - You Cross My Path
• Was (Not Was) - Your Luck Won’t Last
• The Pigeon Detectives - This is An Emergency
• Eartha Kitt (Chat with JH)
• Brandi Carlile - The Story
• Eartha Kitt with Jools - Ain’t Misbehavin’
• Was (Not Was) - Where Did Your Heart Go?
• Yamato - Rakuda
• The Charlatans - The Misbegotten
• Don and David Was (Chat with JH)
• Lykke Li - Little Bit
• The Pigeon Detectives - Say It Like You Mean It
• Yamato - Cymbals
• Brandi Carlile - Turpentine
• Was (Not Was) - Semi-Interesting Week
• The Charlatans - Oh! Vanity

This week sees a huge return from the legendary Charlatans who are promoting their new album, previously given away for free on the internet. The live performances capture them at their best, newly invigorated and dynamic, living up to the top billing. They performed You Cross My Path, the very New Order-esque The Misbegotten and probably the best song the band has produced in years Oh! Vanity to close the show. Unfortunately this pushed another promising new band The Pigeon Detectives who only got two songs, both showing the band’s energy and chemistry. This Is An Emergency is a bit shouty, the overall sound not to dissimilar to, say, Bloc Party. It is a tried and tested, if a little stale, formula. Say It Like You Mean It is a much better live song but there wasn’t enough of them for my liking.

Was (Not Was) has an new album out after decades away and performed two new tracks Semi Interesting Week and Your Luck Won’t Last. In between on the Friday show they gave a spirited rendition of Where Did Your Heart Go? The Tuesday live show closed with Walk The Dinosaur. They still have a lot to offer and even though the vocals are a bit shaky these days, their support musicians are excellent, particularly the guitarist and saxophone players. Another older musician, now 86, is Eartha Kitt. She had the honorary main interview, looking very guarded on the Tuesday but much more at ease on Friday when she knew what was going on. Friday was a bit more flirtatious. She performed the same song with Jools, the best version on the Tuesday which was much more spontaneous and fun as she tried to put JH off by sidling up to him on the piano stool. Very entertaining and a genuine transformation when she performs.

World music is represented this week by Yamato (The Drummers Of Japan) who are as much a visual experience as an audio one. One piece for each show, including the biggest drum ever to appear on the show, plus a wonderful little cymbal interlude (at the risk of being patronising). They looked like they were having a lot of fun, even when not performing as they bounced to The Pigeon Detectives and clapped along to Was (Not Was).

Another great surprise was Brandi Carlile, who I must confess I have never heard of. She was fantastic, like a one-woman Coldplay infused with the spirit of Kurt Cobain. She performed two songs: The Story and Turpentine, the former showing her incredible range and including a guitar change midway through. Also on the show - again contributing to only two songs from The Pigeon Detectives - was Sweden’s latest export Lykke Li. She was a beguiling figure without a visible microphone and armed with tambourine and finger cymbals. The performance of Little Bit was a bit striped down, even for her, and just about worked.

So, a good show (again!) with lots of variety and high points. More please!

Humphrey Lyttelton

1921-2008

It has just been announced that Humphrey Lyttelton has died. A sad day. Known by most as chairman of the Radio 4 comedy 'antidote to panel games' I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, Humph was a wonderful jazz musician and broadcaster. I had the pleasure of seeing ISIHAC being recorded and it was one of the most enjoyable evenings I have ever had. I have never laughed so much and so hard since.

RIP Humph. You will be missed.

The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatment Album Review (2008)

Alex Turner is full of ideas. So much so that he has to form a new band just to stop himself exploding. In a similar move to Jack White and Brendan Benson creating The Raconteurs, Arctic Monkeys front man Turner has formed a side project with The Rascals Miles Kane. The Last Shadow Puppets is not a band in the conventional sense, more two lead singers/guitarists set to a swathe of orchestral accompaniment. The effect sounds like they have been listening to too many Andy Williams and John Barry albums.

The Age Of The Understatement opens with the title track and sets the tone for the rest of the album’s sound and style. The mix of Turner’s semi-acoustic barrage and Kane’s electronic chords forms a relentless charge akin to Kaiser Chiefs' I Predict A Riot. Turner and Kane take dual vocal duties, forming a new single voice. The orchestral arrangement pulls you in immediately. Standing Next To Me is more melodic and light - again with wonderful vocals from both singers and a great orchestral/guitar break. Into the last 30 seconds, the strings threaten to take over but there is just enough without overwhelming the mix. Calm Like You stomps in before settling into Turner's vocals. He is the dominating force here so for that reason it sounds the most like a AM track with added instrumentation. This is probably why it doesn’t work - stuck between two sounds and ideas.

Separate And Ever Deadly is much more stylist and menacing with huge rolling drums. The two vocalists oscillate and intertwine, separate in parts and together when required. As their voices are very similar it all gets confused. Kane opens with "When we walk the streets together, all the faces seem to smile back. And now the pavements have nothing to offer, and all the faces seem to need a slap". It shows that an old-fashioned sound has been brought right up to date with modern observations - of a jaded twenty first century Britain. The Chamber continues the slightly uneasy listening, in spite of softer vocals with Kane providing, this time, a distant backing. This only lasts just under two minutes before the descending into a delicate spooky instrumental.

Only The Truth is probably the most upbeat song. You expect the two singers to break into a rousing rendition of Conquest at any moment. The orchestra provide the same urgency and energy, adding a third voice. But the effect is empty and vacuous as the song doesn’t really go anywhere. It is saved, however, by an inspired last fifty second instrumental and brief moment of self-indulgent chaos.

My Mistakes Were Made For You sets the album back on track. A fantastic song which uses all elements - vocals, orchestra, guitars - perfectly. "Coz we're just following the flock round and in between before we’re smashed to smithereens, like they were, and we scrambled from the blame" is a strange line trying to sum up the perils and pitfalls of being a ‘rock star’. It’s only half explained by "and it's the fame that put words in her mouth; she couldn’t help but spit them out. Around your crooked conscious she will wind". It is the right mix of obscurity and well-learned observation. Great stuff.

Black Plant is another cracking song with all components expertly arranged. If anything, the orchestral pieces are a bit pick-n-mix, like samples thrown into the empty spaces. But the overall sound is dense and complex and feels crafted and not forced. The lyrics weave a sorry tale of lost love and longing, again with a menacing edge. "When it's just one of many bullets you will bite, while waiting for a ray of light" have a typically venomous tilt. The constant slowing of the vocals is a neat touch, fading after three minutes into another instrumental interlude. Continuing the theme, but with none of the quality, I Don’t Like You Any More is another faster rant, slowing and accelerating again but ultimately ending up in no man's land - too convoluted, messy and unhinged. The weakest track by far.

In My Room is another great example of why this collaboration exists - like a modern day take on an old formula Bond Theme. The vocal arrangement is excellent, as is the arrangement, full of suspense and fervour. The last thirty seconds threatens to build up to a frenzy but backs off. Meeting Place is an interesting contradiction of sound and subject - another love story told from each perspective with excellent lyrics: "He's worried she's waiting in his dreams, to drag him back to the meeting place. His love had left him there, where the voice still echoes". All this set to another great arrangement.

The album closes with the intriguing The Time Has Come Again, softly sung with simple acoustic guitar and light strings. It is pleasant enough but not the big finish that is expected.

The Age Of The Understatement is not a masterpiece but it is just too good to be a side project. A more mature sound than either of the bands it was formed from and some great observational song writing hold it all together. At times a few clichés are thrown into the mix for good measure - obvious orchestral arrangements aside - and it lapses into Walker Brothers doing Bond Themes. But it is clear that time and effort has been spent on each song and this isn't just two guys with nothing better to do. They have braved a different direction and challenged themselves. And just for good measure, it works.

-- CS

The Last Shadow Puppets

LATER...with Jools Holland (18/04/2008 - Series 32, Show 3)

Two great shows this week - more guests performing on the live Tuesday show and a more eclectic line-up.

Tuesday live set

• The Last Shadow Puppets - Age Of The Understatement
• Sharon Jones And The Dap Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights
• Lonnie & Eric from War - JH Chat
• Toumani Diabate - Ala Lake
• Devotchka - The Clockwise Witness
• Phil Campbell - Maps
• The Last Shadow Puppets - In My Room
• Portishead - Machine Gun

Friday set

• The Last Shadow Puppets - Age Of The Understatement
• Sharon Jones And The Dap Kings - Keep On Looking
• Portishead - Machine Gun
• Marshall Chess from Chess Records - JH Chat
• Devotchka - Head Honcho
• Toumani Diabate - Elyne Road
• The Last Shadow Puppets - My Mistakes Were Made For You
• Portishead - The Rip
• Lonnie & Eric from War - JH Chat
• Sharon Jones And The Dap Kings - I’m Not Gonna Cry
• Phil Campbell - Maps
• Devotchka - The Clockwise Witness
• The Last Shadow Puppets - In My Room
• Portishead - We Carry On

The Tuesday set has everyone on the main show as a preview with The Last Shadow Puppets getting two slots. They are certainly band of the moment - the formation of Alex from Arctic Monkeys and Miles from The Rascals works incredibly well. Both play not as a band but as two lead singers, each taking turns in some wonderful vocal arrangements. The instrumentation is provided by electric (Alex) and acoustic (Miles) guitars and backed by the Metropolitan Orchestra. The music is definitely more mature than the singers’ bands and My Mistakes Were Made For You, in particular, plays like a modern Bond theme. I hope the album captures the vibrancy of the live sound.

Also impressive are Sharon Jones And The Dap Kings, who get three songs across both shows. The best - 100 days, 100 nights - is on the Tuesday show. I’m Not Gonna Cry is overwhelmed by too much brass but Jones’ voice and style is amazing.

To complete a great lead trio of artists is the best of the three - Portishead. Back with a new album after ten years away they are eager to showcase it and JH was only too happy to oblige. They close both the Tuesday set (we are teased right until the very end) and start the Friday show with the new single Machine Gun, all pounding drums and Beth Gibbons’ haunting vocals. The Rip and We Carry On are following the same formula - the band has learned how to end songs, typically with long(ish) instrumental pieces. It’s like all they have been listening to since 1998 is Radiohead albums. Again they steal the glory from The Last Shadow Puppets and end the show - after Gibbons has finished her vocal duty on We Carry On, she walks off set leaving her band to finish up. As the credits begin, only an empty microphone and stand remain. Chilling.

The support this week is provided by Devotchka, Toumani Diabate and Phil Campbell. Devotchka are a strange beast, from Denver in the US and fronted by Italian-American Nick Urata, the sound is an acquired taste. They owe a lot of their success to the sound of Gogol Bordello and the film Little Miss Sunshine. The best of the two songs The Clockwise Witness is very reminiscent of Arcade Fire and comes complete with sousaphone. Toumani Diabate is an African musician who plays a kara - a 21 string West African harp. It is a delightful sound adding some much needed ethnicity to the typical guitars, piano and big band sound. Phil Campbell, a singer songwriter who was poised for enormous success ten years ago before an attempt to live the rock lifestyle nearly ended it before it had begun, is back with a new album. It’s strange that he gets just one song and lead single Maps, performed on both shows. He clearly has much more to offer.

The only disappointment this week is the infamous ’Chat with Jools’ (usually across a table filled with glasses, or own-branded bottles, of beer). For some reason, none of the artists are interviewed. It would be great to hear from Portishead and Alex Turner to give us some truth amongst the wild speculation in the press but instead Jools interviews Marshall Chess from Chess Rcords and Lonnie & Eric from the reformed War. Rather than be informative and interesting the show has opted for a shameless plug of a Chess compilation CD (and new film) and announcement of an another old band reforming when they probably shouldn’t bother.

New Portishead Album

It's been a while - about 15 years - since Dummy was made, an amazing album from Portishead with such masterpieces as Sour Times, Numb and Glory Box. But now the band is back with a new album Third and a harder sound, if the new single Machine Gun is anything to go by. They closed the latest Later...with Jools live Tuesday show with some style, leaving everyone slightly bemused but eager for more. Hopefully there will be more on Friday night.

You can hear the whole of Machine Gun on the band's MySpace page here.

LATER...with Jools Holland (11/04/2008 - Series 32, Show 2)

A much better show (or shows) this week mainly due to the sensible choice of artists and the great performances. Also the dual show thing worked well this time.

Tuesday Live Set

• The Kooks - Always Where I Need To Be
• Goldfrapp - Happiness
• Yeasayer - 2080
• Luke Pritchard from The Kooks (Chat with JH)
• Natty - Cold Town
• Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova - Falling Slowly
• Goldfrapp - A&E
• The Kooks - Mr. Maker

Friday Show

• Goldfrapp - Happiness
• The Kooks - Always Where I Need To Be
• Yeasayer - 2080
• Luke & Paul from The Kooks (Chat with JH)
• Dawn Kinnard - One Little Step Away
• Natty - Coloured Souls
• Goldfrapp - Caravan Girl
• Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (Chat with JH)
• The Kooks - Sway
• Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova - Falling Slowly
• Yeasayer - Sunrise
• Dawn Kinnard with Ed Harcourt - Clear The Way
• Goldfrapp - A&E
• Natty - July
• The Kooks - Do You Wanna

A much better line-up of artists with Goldfrapp and Yeasayer leading the way this week. Goldfrapp began the Friday show with current single Happiness (stealing the mantle from The Kooks), one of the more straightforward songs from new album Seventh Tree. Underneath the swathe of vocal production, Allison Goldfrapp’s voice is superb and she is a vision of beauty. Caravan Girl was even better, cumulating with a wonderful choral ending enhanced by the backing singers. A&E is also great but worked better on the Tuesday when it followed Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.

Yeasayer, who were declared by The Kooks as their new favourite band, are amazing live. The manic lead singer is like a man possessed delivering a fantastic vocal range. They stomped through 2080 and Sunrise, both full of tribal rhythms, bass and electronica. The Kooks themselves were a bit of a disappointment in the full show. They seemed to relish the ’live’ experience much more, and the two Friday songs Sway and Do You Wanna pushed the band too far into sleazy rock, the former is a bit too Coldplay with heavy guitars. Always Where I Need To Be and Mr. Maker are better examples of their sound and style. This doesn’t bode well for the new album. They (singer Luke on the Tuesday then with Paul on Friday) chatted uneasily with JH about their influences and The Rolling Stones. The tobacco packet in Luke’s top pocket was either a bold pro-choice political statement or a lame attempt to look cool. You decide.

Glen Hansard (ex-The Frames) and Marketa Irglova joined Jools to perform their Oscar winning song Falling Slowly from the film Once. It is a great performance and a good song. If you are new to the pair, you only understand the full extent of the achievement on the Friday show, discovering that they also starred in the film as the two main characters.

The line-up was completed by three songs by London singer Natty and Dawn Kinnard from the US. For Natty, Cold Town on Tuesday’s show worked better than Coloured Souls and July. He sounds like Marley singing Jack Johnson covers. Kinnard delivered he unique folk-goth minimalism and was joined by Ed Harcourt for Clear The Way which is much better than the disjointed One Little Step Away.

The arrangement in the Tuesday show of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova followed by A&E by Goldfrapp is inspired and sadly missing from the Friday show. It is a real highpoint as the two songs blend together which doesn’t happen in the full set. Also for the first time, the same band or artist hasn’t started and ended the show - a strange move.

One other point of note is how ‘slack’ Jools is getting in terms of his presenting - messing up his lines, mispronouncing names, etc. He has a unique charm and style but it gets very annoying when he looks unprofessional and a bit bemused all the time. It’s a shame. Maybe he just had an off night which is more than can be said about the musicians who were largely on top form. Superb stuff.

R.E.M. - Accelerate Album Review (2008)

1994 was a defining year for R.E.M. Following the enormous musical success of the glorious ‘big label’ debut Green, the band enjoyed huge commercial success with Out Of Time and Automatic For The People - which are, thankfully, also very good albums. Extensive touring and living in the public eye for two years took it’s toll, both physically and musically, as Monster was a unmitigated disaster. R.E.M. came to the UK, never a happy hunting ground, cancelled tours and lost Bill Berry - not just a drummer but the heart and soul of the band. Given that the idea was to inject some vibrant energy into the band and deliver sexy rock n roll, the album fell flat on it’s arse. Things would never be the same again, in spite of comments by enigmatic front man Michael Stipe declaring that a three legged dog is still a dog. Putting things in perspective for a moment, R.E.M. were never going to explode or fade away. They simply are too good. And when you set a high standard, as was set in the mid-nineties, it takes time and something special to get back to your best.

Since Monster, R.E.M. have been inconsistent at best. And they always were even in the I.R.S years, from the wonderful Life’s Rich Pageant to the lows of Fables Of The Reconstruction (Of The Fables) - the last time they had troubles in the UK - so this wasn’t entirely unexpected. Perversely New Adventures In Hi-Fi is one of the best R.E.M. albums and Up contains some of the best songs from the last ten years. In between Reveal and Around The Sun, both defining horrible low points in the current musical lull, the band decided (with the help of record executives) to release a third ‘best of’ compilation. The two CD version of this attempt to appease old fans and also reign in the new, is a massive disappointment. Again, after Around The Sun, the band release yet another ‘best of’, this time the early hits, and an uninspired live album. This did nothing to help the three legged dog.

So now it is 2008, fourteen years after Monster nearly destroyed R.E.M. The band is back in the UK with a high profile gig at the Royal Albert Hall to promote new album Accelerate, a fast paced, short, sexy slice of indie rock. It all sounds horribly familiar. Thankfully it isn’t.
From the opening guitar of Living Well Is The Best Revenge you know this will not be just another lacklustre mid-tempo R.E.M. album. When Stipe comes in, he spits in the vocals at frenetic unstructured pace, only adding some melody with the flat chorus ‘All you sad and lost apostles, hum my name and flare their nostrils, choking on the bones you throw to them’. The song is full of religious reference and a reaction to being old and dated - Stipe goes on to declare ‘…history will set me free, the future’s ours…’, a stab at critics and cynics alike. The song speeds through it’s three minutes, fuelled by Stipe/Mills and Buck and Rieflin’s Dave Grohl drums.

Man-Sized Wreath starts with the same energy wrapped up in a different swagger. ’Turn on the TV, what do I see? A pageantry of empty gestures all lined up for me, wow!’. Mills adds some great bass under messy guitars. It is in danger of sounding like an aging rock band still trying to be sexy but the band pulls it off wonderfully. Stipe adds his own talkie backing vocals to the second chorus, under Mills, showing that there is a plethora of ideas being used in a very small space. If anything the ending falls a bit flat.

Supernatural Superserious should be the lead track - with more polished clear production and a great structure. It sounds like an ‘old’ R.E.M. song with new life. Buck provides a great guitar riff and again the drum arrangement is outstanding. As the song unfolds, Stipe is telling the story of how it’s easy to get lost in the crowd and suffer for it. Leading into the last thirty seconds we get some of the most intriguing lyrics: ’Now there's nothing dark and there's nothing weird. Don't be afraid I will hold you near. From the séance where you first portrayed an open heart on a darkened stage. Celebration of your teenage station’. The end of the song is amazing, a nod towards to end of Bad by U2.

Hollow Man is a respite from the pace and sees Stipe in calm reflective mood. The chorus adds the tempo: ’Believe in me, believe in nothing. Corner me and make me something. I've become the hollow man. Have I become the hollow man I see?’. He is inviting criticism and pleading for ideas. It is by no means a classic but certainly defines the mood and theme of the conception of the album. At just over two minutes, Houston is a short menacing political statement. Stipe starts in venomous mood: ‘If the storm doesn't kill me the government will. I've got to get that out of my head…’, eluding to the recent state of unrest in the US, political or otherwise, currently inspiring him. He goes on: ‘So a man's put to task and challenges. I was taught to hold my head high; collect what is mine; make the best of what today has’. Conversely the chorus is uplifting against the dark overtones and grinding distortion of guitars, but Stipe is weary and deflated by the end.

The album’s title track sounds like a reworking of The Great Beyond, with Stipe’s metaphoric musing: ’Where is the ripcord, the trapdoor, the key? Where is the cartoon escape-hatch for me?’. But the approach is much more frantic rant, less philosophical waffle. Into the last thirty seconds, the big ending again collapses.

If there is one truly outstanding song on Accelerate it is Until The Day Is Done. Like a cross between Final Straw and Swan Swan H, it is the brightest and most obvious anti-government, anti-capitalism (always a bitter pill to swallow given the money ’rock stars’ have) and anti-war song since Turn You Inside Out. Starting with a Country Feedback countdown then ‘The battle’s been lost, the war is not won’, the approach is controlled and measured. The mood lifts in the chorus which is timeless and distinctively R.E.M. Musically, the whole arrangement of guitars, piano and vocals has hidden depth. Stipe continues the sentiment with anti-Bush and anti-religion in the same line: ‘Forgive us our trespasses, father and son’. On an album full of high-tempo songs, this is a revelation and a sign that R.E.M. can still produce.

As Accelerate closes, there are a couple of divisive tracks. Mr. Richards sounds like a reworked Monkeys song with the space-aged vocal mix and the constant drone of guitars. The subject matter is clear but who it is about is not. Sing For The Submarine says very little and rather ironically takes far too long to do it. Curiously, in the first two verses Stipe namedrops two songs: Electron Blue and Feeling Gravity’s Pull (he goes on to mention two more: High Speed Train and partially ‘World As We Know It‘). The guitars on the chorus are great but generally the music is laboured and oppressive. Maybe that’s the point. Towards the end he starts to ramble: ‘Tyrel and his mechanical owl, a moth disguised as a leaf…’.

Horse To Water gets things back on track, a punchy two minute pop song with a wonderful chorus. Stipe is spitting lyrics again and what seems vacuous it very clever. He even finds time to slip in the album’s only expletive. Conversely the album closer I’m Gonna DJ just feels…wrong. Like Wanderlust on Around The Sun it is sexing up the unsexy. Annoying at the song has some great musical moments, particularly when Stipe declares ‘It’s on my mind, it’s in my mind. It’s what I found, it’s what I find’. Simple but effective. That said, the whole song never really works but ends the album with a great line: ‘Music will provide the light you cannot resist’.

Accelerate is not Monster. The first difference is Peter Buck who has never sounded better - at least not since Out Of Time. All memories of the woeful mess of a guitar solo on What’s The Frequency Kenneth? have been expelled. Mike Mills, ever dependable bass player, delivers some great backing vocals, like he used to do. And the iconic Michael Stipe is energised and inspired. It would be easy to say the reason for this new found exuberance is drummer Bill Rieflin. He was present on Around The Sun and that never revived the mood. It takes more than a new drummer to suddenly change a band but he does bring back some much needed ‘life’ into the core organic sound. Whatever has happened in the last four years, and we may never know exactly what that is, R.E.M. is sounding alive and real. Sometimes it takes a critical kicking to get a band focused but there is more to it than that. There is a distinct lack of polish, a good thing made up for by smart editing, and the inability to finish is frustrating at times. Very little of the album drags, also due to the only obvious criticism of being too short. The approach of Monster is perfectly executed on Accelerate, with proper songs and brilliant musicianship. It is a great mix of pop and political statement, not so much a reinvention as a reworking of old ideals sounding relevant and modern. Every band endures peaks and troughs, this finally sounds like the start of a peak. More please.

-- CS

LATER...with Jools Holland (04/04/2008 - Series 32, Show 1)

After a few weeks break, Jools is back with series 32 and a new format and two shows - a live preview show on Tuesday night and the main show on Friday. I’m not sure the extra half hour on Tuesday adds a great deal as it plays out like a ‘best of’ after watching the Friday show, with a couple of special additions. I have decided to review both shows together as one with main focus on the Friday line-up.

Tuesday live set

• Estelle (ft. Kano) - American Boy
• Adele - Chasing Pavements
• James Taylor (Chat with JH)
• The Only Ones - Another Girl, Another Planet
• James Taylor - Sweet Baby James
• Black Kids - I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You
• Adele and Jools - Make You Feel My Love
• Estelle - No Substitute Love

Friday set

• Estelle (ft. Kano) - American Boy
• The Only Ones - Another Girl, Another PlanetAdele - Right As Rain
• James Taylor (Chat with JH)
• Black Kids - I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You
• James Taylor - Copperline
• Estelle - No Substitute Love
• Adele (Chat With JH)
• The Neil Cowley Trio - His Nibs
• Adele - Hometown Glory
• The Only Ones - Black Operations
• James Taylor - Sweet Baby James
• Black Kids - Hurricane Jane
• Estelle - Wait A Minute (Just A Touch)

A very weak show this week for a number of reasons. Estelle, standing in for Gnarls Barkley, looked very uneasy and clunky rattling through recent hit American Boy. No Kanye West (surprise) but instead Kano who added a limp rap to what should have been a great performance. All the smiles and softness of the original song are not present here which is a great shame. The other problem with the ‘live’ arrangement from Estelle and her band was the constant use of scratching from the DJ. It’s annoying and adds nothing useful. This is evident on the dull No Substitute Love and closer Wait A Minute (Just A Touch), the latter looking even more awkward than the opener.

Much better was new British singer Adele, like Duffy in the last series adding much needed quality. She got the best of Tuesday live show performing two songs not included on Friday: Chasing Pavements and with Jools for Make You Feel My Love. Excellent performances on Friday and a great interview, cutting past the Kate Nash sound and demeanour telling JH about her inspiring Brit School upbringing and future aspirations to produce and write and promote new musicians. Anyone who thinks Adele is just another Winehouse is very much mistaken - she is level headed and talented.

The Only Ones, who probably should have given up a long time ago, gave a spirited rendition of the classic Another Girl, Another Planet while looking older than The Rolling Stones. Their second attempt, Black Operations was shaky and boring. The ‘new music’ was provided by Black Kids - a great new shambles of a group from Florida with two female keyboard players who also sing backing vocals. They look great and sound terrible - just what you need to offset the blandness. I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You gets a bit shouty and Hurricane Jane is just a bit dull.

More quality was added by veteran singer and guitarist James Taylor. A couple of interviews with the slightly uncomfortable interviewee on each show and couple of country feeling songs: the statesmanlike Springsteen-eque Copperline and Sweet Baby James. As always it is the unknown artists who seem to make an impact and this week it was the turn of The Neil Cowley Trio, lead by the ex-Zero 7 keyboardist. They stomped through His Nibs, a jazz piano instrumental which got a bit repetitive even with the drum solo and messy ending.

A weak line-up with Adele and James Taylor lifting the standard. Black Kids were ok but Estele and The Only Ones let things down. I would have liked more from The Neil Cowley Trio. Having watching both shows, I’m still not convinced that the format works. If Tuesday was completely different from Friday in terms of the performances - keep the same artists obviously - then it might be better.

2008 Music Chart - March 2008

Some big hitters this month in the chart as the year starts to get going: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Counting Crows and Nine Inch Nails.

1. Ghosts I-IV - Nine Inch Nails
2. I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope - I Was A Cub Scout
3. Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4. Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp
5. Alas, I Cannot Swim - Laura Marling
6. Do You Like Rock Music - British Sea Power
7. Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings - Counting Crows
8. Midnight Boom - The Kills
   
9. In Rainbows - Radiohead
10. Neptune - The Duke Spirit
11. This Gift - Sons & Daughters

Counting Crows - Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings Album Review (2008)

Counting Crows have never been the hippest band in the world. When their debut August And Everything After was released in the early nineties, everyone was still listening to Nirvana or enveloped in Britpop. Listening to a sensitive US indie rock band, back when it simply wasn’t cool, was never a popular choice. But back before emo took over punk and bands got younger, Adam Duritz was churning out the type of emotional Americana most of us can only dream about. Mix in some great songs, delicious piano and excellent crafting and it is a winning formula. Or it was. Since the wonderful debut, Counting Crows have only come close a few times: most of Recovering The Satellites, some of Hard Candy and This Desert Life. In between, a few live albums remind us of how great an event a Crows gig can be, but the single version of Big Yellow Taxi does little to win many new fans. Then bring out a ‘Best Of’ and re-release the debut - not a smart move as this often signals not only a lack of new ideas but the end of the road. So, fifteen or so years later, Counting Crows return with a new album curiously titled Saturday Nights And Sunday Mornings.

The album opens with 1492, and one of the least Crows sounding songs. Duritz immediately starts a garbled rant before setting the tone of the album against a Columbus metaphor. It is fairly unstructured stuff but messy and in-your-face rock, something the band do not usually do well. When Duritz comes in with his ‘history’ lesson, there are echoes of Nick Cave, reeling off modern day anecdotes within a fable-like context, his voice less controlled and more frantic, vibrant and alive. He is genuinely venomous when talking about ‘these people who impersonate our friends’.

Hanging Tree is also a little rough around the edges but a glorious no-nonsense pop song. A great guitar lick sets things up for the rest of the band, underpinned by piano. Duritz declares ‘I am a child of fire, I am a lion, I have desires and I was born inside the Sun this morning…’, before probably the best chorus on the album. Despite the ever present desperation in the vocals, it sounds like a band having fun. Similarly Los Angeles is the same, this time a mid-tempo bluesy rock piece full of an orchestra of guitars and piano. ’So if you see that movie star and me. If you should see my picture in a magazine…’ sings Duritz, a man born of frustration, searching for a soul in the city. Again his vocals are magnificently wayward. The final minute settles down like a drunken night out before he finally concludes that LA is a great place for a taco. Sublime…

Sundays is a great song suffering from two things: hopelessly simple lyrics and a noticeable contrast between the verses, which are fantastic, and choruses that are flat - the harmonies are good though. Again it’s a melting pot of instrumentation with plenty of time for guitar break. ’Give me a reason or I might stop breathing. Give me a reason why I’m soaking wet. Gonna stop breathing coz the sky is falling. I might go out and watch the moon explode. Give me direction to the highway crossing; I’ll go lie down in the middle of the road’ is a rare moment of Mark Everett genius, all bittersweet delivery. As Duritz declares triumphantly ’I don’t believe in anything’, he has never sounded so good.

Insignificant is just that (without wanting to be herded together with all those who have made the same clichéd comparison), mainly because it sounds like it’s too easy. It owes much of the great guitar melody to Far by Longpigs, probably the only standout ingredient in the characterless soup. Cowboys on the other hand is a perfect example of why Counting Crows are where they are. Despite the slightly unimaginative chorus, the song is a standout showcase of pure musical talent with more ideas in one song than in most new albums these days. Duritz is controlled and measured, back to his energetic and spine tingling best. The last minute goes completely off the rails which is more a surprise than a disappointment as the climactic ending leaves you wanting more.

The big ballad of the album is Washington Square and marks the point where the album changes slightly. The arrangement appears simple but a complex network of guitars creates the foundations for more subtle piano, over which Duritz delivers another great vocal and Springsteen-esque harmonica break. From here, On Almost Any Sunday Morning sounds like an off-cut from the previous track, like the band indulged in a jam session afterwards. Duritz attempts to make his voice do something different - sustained notes are never his strong point - which is admirable but misjudged. The song serves as breathing space and nothing more.
When I Dream Of Michelangelo continues the delicate approach. Duritz is typically inwardly reflective: ‘I can’t see why you want to talk to me, when your vision of America is crystalline and clean’. It is safe, inoffensive and utterly brilliant.

Anyone But You is another unfortunate lull and a song which in its five minute odyssey never really gets going. Again Duritz’s attempts at harmonic melody almost works but feels uncomfortable and awkward particularly at the end when it all goes a bit Beach Boys with horrible effect. One that maybe should have hit the editing room floor, given the quantity and quality of what else is on offer. It’s all as frustrating as Mr. Duritz sounds when You Can’t Count On Me brings the album back in style - a near perfectly crafted mid-temp rock anthem with a great lyrical construct. And then comes the really big surprise. Instead of more of the same, and a set of predictable formulaic Counting Crows ‘play it safe’ moments, Ballet d‘Or happens. For five minutes, the band are possessed by the spirit of Led Zeppelin in their more controlled psychedelic phases. For a band who are all too often criticised for being too safe, this is an experiment that works. The song is a dark brooding, yet un threatening, fragment of building vocals. Extended to seven minutes with an added guitar break ending, it would make a great album closer.

On a Tuesday In Amsterdam Long Ago has Duritz returning to more reflective mood. Not that the band is easy to read but this is the big piano number and with the vocals the two create a brilliant song unfettered by constraining structure or direction. In complete contrast Come Around is polished rock formula akin to You Can’t Count On Me and previously Murder Of One. Returning to a point of safety is probably a wise move. In the mid section the backing vocals are outstanding. At the end, they form a second vocal - another album highlight.

The album closes with the mammoth Sunday Morning L.A. which has Duritz pushing his vocals again. This creates a strange beguiling effect as the band return to psychedelic rock blues for a rousing conclusion. As the vocals build, Duritz sings ‘I have just realised that it’s all fun. Get off on life, endure this sun’, continuing the theme of west coast American life. ‘We never get away…these stupid sinners; the angels all have guns…‘. It doesn’t all work but it shows an interesting direction. The last minute and a half gets southern rock - Duritz hollering like Jimmy Page over squealing guitars. Almost the closer Ballet d‘Or could have been.

Saturday Nights And Sunday Mornings constantly reminds you how great Counting Crows are. It does, however, fall too easily onto the safe ground with songs that are barely there, existing only as Duritz’s vocals without flow or melody. All too often in the past, Duritz is doing his own thing, drowning out the other six members of the band. Thankfully this is less evident here with plenty of ideas, lots of instrumentation and some great up-tempo songs sounding live and earthy rather than sculpted and edited. And the slower songs typically sound as good as ever. At an hour, the album is overlong with a few lulls along the way but you can’t criticise too much material - there is a great 50 minute, 12 song album in their somewhere. Counting Crows may not be the coolest band, or the most direct, but the music is still relevant and Adam Duritz still has plenty to be angst-ridden and frustrated about. Long may he and his band continue to share it with us.

-- CS