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Bob Marley & The Wailers
- Exodus 30th Anniversary Edition
Is Exodus the best
reggae album of all time? Certainly it's
one of the most famous, and while purists
and snobs would probably baulk at such an
accolade being given to Bob Marley rather
than one of the more hip and less well-known
stars of the genre, when you actually listen
this album, it's hard to disagree. How many
other records have a run of songs as good
as Exodus-Jamming-Waiting In Vain-Turn Your
Lights Down Low-Three Little Birds-One Love/People
Get Ready? It's definitely very difficult
to think of any other album of any genre
that finishes as strongly as this, while
the first four tracks are no slouches either.
No skipping to the hits here. But why are
we writing about Exodus again? It's because
it's 30 years since Marley and his Wailers
released it, a defining moment in his career
and in reggae in general, because while
he was already a massive international star,
this was the album that made him a legend,
coming as it did after he survived an assasination
attempt in Jamaica, travelling to London
to record many of the songs that define
his career. To commemorate the anniversary,
Exodus is being re-released in several formats,
including a standard CD (which comes in
a sleeve and has nothing else to make it
worth purchasing again), a deluxe CD (same
as above, but with a live DVD), an LP (how
retro) and then GROUNDBREAKING formats USB
memory stick and Micro SD Memory Card. We
pride ourselves on being fairly in touch
with the modern world, but the idea of buying
an album on a memory stick or a fingernail-sized
flash memory card does seem quite bizarre.
But it's fitting that such a classic album
is the first (apparently) major release
to come out on all these new formats. Exodus
may or may not be the best reggae album
ever released, but it's certainly one of
those that deserves to be passed down for
each new generation to discover and if the
kids can learn that there's more to Bob
Marley than just posters of him smoking
dope, then this latest re-release will have
been a success.
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Marc Almond -
Stardom Road
Hear the name
Marc Almond and you can instantly
hear the familiar synth beats of Tainted
Love. It doesn't matter what else
he has done in his career after Soft
Cell, he'll always be known for that
song, which isn't a bad thing necessarily,
but does rather overlook some of the
great work he has done since then.
Stardom Road is probably his highest-profile
release in some time though, so maybe
it is time for Almond to get back
to getting the acclaim he deserves.
The reason it will get more attention
than usual is that it's his first
release since that near-fatal motorbike
crash in October 2004, and the public
love nothing better than triumph over
adversity. The effects on Almond of
that accident are pretty scant here,
aside from a reliance on covers rather
than original tracks and the overall
theme of reflection and looking back
upon his life through the music. Anyone
expecting to hear Soft Cell style
electro-pop will certainly be slightly
confused, though not disappointed,
as torch songs are the order of the
day on Stardom Road, with even a bit
of Sinatra thrown in with the inclusion
of Strangers In The Night, though
obviously Almond manages to make it
all sound a little bit more seedy
than Ol' Blue Eyes ever could. There's
plenty of campness on display too,
like the melodramatic Kitsch, though
even that is a slightly sarcastic
and disaffected comment on 'the business'
by an artist reflecting on his career.
"Don't miss the me I used to be,"
he sings on the one track he wrote
himself, Redeem Me, and this album
shows that he is ready to move on
from what he has achieved so far,
and with the help of friends like
Antony Hegarty and Sarah Cracknell,
he's made a classy step forward as
well as a triumphant return.
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Paul Hartnoll - The Ideal Condition
Paul Hartnoll is best known as one half of dance pioneers Orbital, but listening to the first track on his debut solo release, you'd think that he was famous for creating movie soundtracks, because Haven't We Met Before could come from almost any Danny Elfman score you can think of, with sweeping strings and atmospheric choral sections all swirling together wonderfully. It's a debt that Hartnoll has admitted to: "This album's got a lot of film influences on it, all the old favourites, the Michael Nymans, the John Barrys, Ennio Morricone and you can hear a lot more of Danny Elfman on this one." Of course, Orbital always had a bit of that about them when they were moving away from straightforward dance-floor bangers, and Hartnoll has definitely taken a quantum leap in that direction on his own. The Ideal Condition is a mixture of instrumental and vocal tracks, with the likes of Robert Smith and Joseph Arthur making guest appearances, while Hartnoll explores all kinds of styles including a kind of waltz on, erm, The Unsteady Waltz. That one goes on a bit, but there's plenty of quality here, not least the Smith-sung Please and his debut solo single Patchwork Guilt. Orbital had their highs and lows, but The Ideal Condition is a consistently impressive release and a bold step for a talented artist.
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Biffy Clyro -
Puzzle
How ambitious
are Biffy Clyro? Well, that is answered
in the first minute and a bit of this
album's opening track Living Is A
Problem Because Everything Dies. With
Hollywood arranger Graeme Revell (The
Crow, From Dusk Till Dawn) providing
a dramatic string arrangement that
shudders and builds up to the start
of the song, they are clearly aiming
high, although it does go on far too
long and is is only impressive the
first time you hear it. By the third
time, you are just wishing it would
end sooner. It's a shame, because
it's a great single and Revell's choral
arrangements work so much better,
bringing it all to a wonderful climax.
And that's just the first song. Clearly
Biffy Clyro intended much more drama
and spectacle in Puzzle than they
did with breakthrough second album
The Vertigo of Bliss, which was made
in just one day. With veteran producer
Garth Richardson and Andy Wallace
on mixing duties, they are living
up to frontman Simon Neil's stated
ambition of wanting Biffy Clyro to
be 'an important band'. Cracking single
Saturday Superhouse took them into
the Top 15, and while you can't really
see any of these tracks getting any
higher than that in the mainstream
(Get Fucked Stud, anyone?), Puzzle
is a an album that shows them continuing
to soar higher and higher as part
of their mission to become Britain's
best rock band. They are well on the
way...
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Grace - Detours
Everyone loves a nice dramatic indie rock band don't they? Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Keane, Grace... Wait, who? Soon you may not have to ask that, because Grace are a band who seem to have come straight from the factory where those other bands were assembled and are a fully-formed BIG band, ready for filling stadia across the globe with their anthemic tracks. There's slow-building guitar riffs, explosive drums, lyrics that are vaguely about nothing at all and hooks that you could catch fish... well, you can see where we're going with this. Wonderful is a perfect example of their fare, sounding like something U2 would probably release as a single these days, while Grace's own current single Slowly is made of similiarly stirring stuff. However, it somehow doesn't quit all knit together to make for pop perfection. Quite often when they seem set to burst into life, they take a wrong turn somewhere and mislay the kind of chorus that would really take them into the big league. This means that a lot of the tracks sound they could come from the last Snow Patrol album, which isn't a compliment. While Grace are clearly hoping to get up in the big league along with the million sellers, they could easily end up the likes of Longview as a band who seemed to have all of the ingredients to be big anthemic stadium rockers, only to end up fading quickly into obscurity. There's some good stuff here, like the subtle Keane-esque Sink Like A Stone, but only time will tell whether Grace can avoid that song summing up their career, because Detours doesn't sound like the album that will make them huge.
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Mims - Music Is My Savior
Sometimes you really do despair. Mims is a big star because he's sold more than 2 million ring-tones. Sigh... He is a rapper from New York who has rapidly become a major mover and shaker in the hip-hip world with single This Is Why I'm Hot reaching number 1 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Why has he become so successful? It's difficult to tell really, because Music Is My Savior is a very dull and tedious record, full of all the tired macho bravado (basically summed up on that single) and beats that are just nothing to get excited about. His vocals make him sound like a bored Jay-Z and the guest appearances from the likes of Cham, J Holiday, Purple Popcorn (great name) and Letoya Luckett fail to liven things up. Music might be his savior, but who will save music from him?
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Martin Grech
- March Of The Lonely
Not many artists
can have had such a varied and singular
career across just three albums as
Martin Grech. He burst onto the scene
five years ago with Open Heart Zoo
and its Sigur Ros-esque title track,
which was used for a car commercial
and made him briefly famous enough
to be invited by Jeff Buckley's mum
to play at a tribute concert for her
son. However, when people bought the
album, they found that there weren't
many songs like that one, so interest
in him swiftly vanished. 2005's Unholy
probably alienated any of those fans
who stuck with him, with Grech turning
to a very dark and Gothic sound that
was a world away from Open Heart Zoo
and demanded a lot of listening to
get the most out of. With his third
release, March Of The Lonely, Grech
has taken another left-turn and gone
back to a much quieter and more subtle
sound, inspired by the soundtrack
to The Wicker Man (not quite as scary
though) and Simon and Garfunkel. The
result is certainly the most cohesive
and accessible release of his career
so far, and with his voice still as
haunting as ever and finally put to
really good use on tracks like The
Heritage and the title track, this
is the album that should put Grech
on the map. Hopefully it won't be
too late.
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