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Queens Of The Stone
Age - Era Vulgaris
It's been a long,
strange trip for Queens Of The Stone Age
in their career so far, rattling through
band members and guest members like most
of us go through socks, and that strange
trip has taken a psychedelic twist on Era
Vulgaris. The first QOTSA album to be conceived
and born without any assistance from former
bassist/vocalist Nick Olivieri, this is
entirely Josh Homme's baby, and it shows.
The general sound of Era Vulgaris is much
woozier even than their previous output,
and that's saying something. If it isn't
a contradiction in terms, it is also much
more focused and cohesive without Olivieri's
contributions, without losing too much of
the edge that he undoubtedly provided. From
the sludgey opening riffs of Turning On
The Screw, it's clear that while Homme is
adding some extra colours to the QOTSA palette,
he isn't doing so without remembering what
has made them so popular, or what made his
old band Kyuss one of the best of the 90s.
The guitars sound they were recorded whilst
sinking in a steamy swamp somewhere, with
crunching feedback swirling around them,
while Homme's twisted melodies are spot
on. The same can be said for Sick Sick Sick,
which apparently features Julian Casablancas
from The Strokes (though quite where is
difficult to distinguish in the overall
noise of the tune) and is a fairly simple
track, but a hugely effective one. I'm Designer
is one of the quirkier tunes on the album,
both in the lyrical content and also the
way it's structured, while Make It Wit Chu
is as funky as the name makes it sound.
Elsewhere, Into The Hollow is quite probably
the prettiest and most psychedelic song
Homme has ever written, and certainly one
of the more mellow, which may or may not
please some of the hairier members of their
fanbase. The contrast with the rollicking
Sick Sick Sick or recent single 3s and 7s
is remarkable, just highlighting what makes
Queens of The Stone Age one of the best
rock bands in the world today.
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The Who - Then And Now
Does the world really need yet another compilation album by The Who? Well, to be fair, this is a re-release of one that first came out a couple of years ago. Then And Now was notable for having two new tracks at the end, quite something for a band who hadn't recorded a new album in decades, but it was also fatally flawed by some strange song selections, most notably the omission of Baba O'Reilly, one of The Who's most famous, popular and great songs. Thankfully, that has been corrected now, and Baba is back, mainly to cash in on its new lease of life from being used as the theme tune to CSI: New York (meaning that this CD now has all three CSI themes, along with Who Are You and Won't Get Fooled Again). Also good news is that Old Red Wine, the lesser of the two new songs, has been dispensed with and replaced with It's Not Enough, the best of the songs from last year's Endless Wire album, bringing the set right up to date. So, does that make this the essential Who compilation album, out at a time when they'll be rocking Glastonbury and the Knowsley Hall festivals this summer and winning over lots of young converts? Well, maybe, but purists would probably still go for the delightfully-named Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy, while the suitably-titled Ultimate Collection probably has the best coverage of their hits across two discs, but Then And Now is still a fantastic collection of music, from I Can't Explain through Substitute, Pinball Wizard, Behind Blue Eyes and Love Reign O'er Me, and if you do get wowed at a festival this summer, you could certainly do a lot worse than nipping out to the shops and picking this up...
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Ghosts - The World Is Outside
Ghosts will be supporting The Feeling at Delamere Forest this month, and it's fans of Dan Gillespie-Sells and Co who will be most keen on this indie-pop band from London. Like The Feeling, they know their way around a melody and aren't afraid to risk being classed as 'guilty pleasures' by throwing in cheesy synth hooks where they feel it will work right, and like The Feeling, their main strength is also their main weakness. The songs on The World Is Outside that work well are sugary sweet; the songs that don't work well are sickly sugary sweet. When it does work, like on the last two singles Stay The Night and the title track, the results are pure pop genius, and both are as infectious as laughter and twice as fun. Debut single Musical Chairs is equally great, and after these first three tracks, you wonder if Ghosts can do no wrong. However, it doesn't quite work out that way, with Ghosts (the song) falling rather flat with some clunky lyrics and melodies that are awkward rather than catchy. On Mind Games, they go for the slow-burning ballad approach, which does go better with glossy production that overshadows the slight lack of a decent chorus, while the production again works a treat on the Keane-mees-Pet Shop Boys electro-pop of Stop. However, that can't always save songs that don't have enough in them to stand up on their own, and as the album goes on, there are a few too many of those for The World Is Outside to be a classic debut album. There's still plenty of great pop tunes in here though, so it's difficult to foresee them not following The Feeling into the charts.
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Tiga - Sexor:
The Collector's Edition
Nevermind Hot
Chip, Tiga's Sexor was the best commercial
electro album of last year, and now
it's back with a DVD-style Collector's
Edition, featuring a bonus disc of
remixes and extra tracks as well as
videos for the singles (Far From)
Home and You Gonna Want Me. The album
itself is well worth checking out
if you haven't sampled its charms
yet, with the Canadian DJ's mixture
of camp electro-pop and slightly more
gritty material, like covers of songs
by Public Enemy and Nine Inch Nails,
for example. The two most accessible
tracks are those found in video and
remix form on the bonus disc, with
You Gonna Want Me featuring Jake Shears
from Scissor Sisters on guest vocals,
but the whole of Sexor is great fun
and well recommended. If you already
have it, there's certainly not much
point going out and buying it all
over again, because you can download
the bonus disc on its own. Is is worth
it? Well, as you'd expect, it's a
mixed bag, with some remixes working
better than others. The Tocadisco
Emergency Exit version of You Gonna
Want Me is very good, while the Joakim
Edit of the DFA 1979 remix (getting
a bit complicated now) of (Far From)
Home is less so. The new tracks aren't
really anything special either, certainly
you can see how they didn't get on
the album proper, so we'd say you'd
need to be pretty keen to want to
bother with the bonus disc on its
own. That doesn't stop Sexor from being a great album though.
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Goldspot - Tally Of The Yes Men
Goldspot gave
this album away for free earlier this
year as a download, while it's been
available digitally (to buy) for a
while since then, and now it has made
it onto CD as well. The Tally Of The
Yes Men is a really very likeable
US alt.rock album with a twist, being
that it is the brainchild of lead
singer Siddartha Khosla, who was raised
surrounded by his family's Indian
culture before discovering Western
indie rock bands like The Smiths and
REM when he was a teenager. It is
that kind of music that clearly dominates
here, but every now and then, Khosla's
childhood memories of Bollywood soundtracks
sneak through, with the cinematic
opening to Friday an example of this
blend. There's not been many modern
bands who have used Asian influences
in their music, but it is worth pointing
out at this stage that Goldspot sound
nothing like either Kula Shaker or
Cornershop, and Khosla's accent is
decidedly American, with echoes of
Rivers Cuomo in his vocals and of
Weezer and Nada Surf in Goldspot's
music. At a time when so many new bands from America all sound pretty much the same, it's certainly refreshing to get a debut album that has a different approach, with the very low-key melodies and lo-fi guitar riffs blending together to make a perfect album for those lazy summer days.
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The Lodger - Grown-Ups
It seems that all
you need to get a record deal at the moment
is a Yorkshire accent, but thankfully The
Lodger are much better than just another
bunch of chancers jumping on the Leeds bandwagon.
For a start, they don't sound like any of
their local contemporaries, harking back
instead to the shoegazing days of 80s indie,
put together in a bedsit flat (on a PC,
but we'll overlook such modern technological
advances) by lead singer Ben Sidall, who
wears his Morrissey inspirations on his
sleeve but manages to prevent The Lodger
from sounding simply like Smiths clones.
For one thing, their music is much more
upbeat-sounding, even if the lyrics are
as acid-tongued as anything Mozza could
come up with. From opening track Many Thanks
For Your Honest Opinion to closing track
Let's Make A Pact, Grown-Ups is full of
great little indie tracks with a hearty
sense of dissatisfaction and bucketloads
of cracking catchy tunes. Getting Special
even rips off New Order with its chorus
and gets away with it. The Lodger are nothing
new or unique, but their debut album is
an understated slice of indie loveliness.
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