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This week's albums reviewed - Tiscali Music News
This week's albums reviewed
2003-02-03
Read on for this week's albums. For reviews of all the singles of note out this week, click here
Kelly Rowland - Simply Deep (pictured left)
As founder member and one third of the biggest all-female troupe on the planet right now, Kelly Rowland is more then adept at giving the world what they want when it comes to high-energy, highly-charged pop and R'n'B. However, as her time out on her Kelly'n'Nelly duet for the 'Dilemma' single illustrated, Ms Rowland can also flourish outside the Destinys Child bubble. Her solo debut, then, is her chance to let loose with the kind of music that really drives her.
In kind of the same way as third Destiny girl Michelle Williams' solo set veered towards the spiritual side of things, the 'Simply Deep' album is an exploration into soul.
Less sass and more class is the order of the day as Kelly proves that there's far more to her than booty and man-dissing.
The album includes three songs written by Beyonce's sister Solange Knowles and well as the Nelly collaboration.
Buy this album here
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
'Nocturama' is Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' twelfth studio album, and is the eagerly-awaited follow up to 2001's brilliant 'No More Shall We Part'. Recorded in early 2002 at SingSing studios in Melbourne by The Bad Seeds line-up of Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld, Thomas Wydler, Martyn Casey, Conway Savage, Jim Sclavunos and Warren Ellis, the new album was produced by Nick Launay (PiL, Talking Heads, Gang Of Four, The Slits) and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds,and mixed at Olympic Studios in London. Featuring 10 tracks, 'Nocturama' spans emotional surrender to venomous black humour and engages in a wide range of themes.
There is a tender sunset song of hope; an elegant piano song of longing; a yawing, dark violin waltz; a swaggering pledge of love; a raucous abominable tale; a sorrowful evocation of loss; a nostalgic meditation; a fragrant love epiphany; and one final, lustful demonic epic.
Some of the loveliest, most compelling songsare the gentle ones, like the opening 'Wonderful Life', or the simple rendering of nostalgia in 'There Is A Town'.
Forthcoming single 'Bring It On' sees the band hitting a bold, superfly noir groove and features an outstanding duetted vocal from Chris Bailey, formerly the singer with Brisbane's glorious pre-punk nihilists, The Saints.
'Dead Man in My Bed' further raises noise levels as Cave takes the perspective of a woman afflicted with a useless partner.
The album's most spectacular song is saved until the end when The Bad Seeds unleash the flaming, fifteen minute epic, 'Babe, I'm On Fire'.
Watch Nick Cave's new video way before its release, and check out our special here
Buy this album here
Tom Mcrae - Just Like Blood
'Dislocation and dissatisfaction' figure heavily on 'Just Like Blood' (the album's title comes from a poem by Simon Armitage - 'Come clean, come good, repeat with me the punchline 'just like blood' when those at the back rush forward to say how a little love goes a long long long way'), singer-songwriter Tom McRae's follow-up to his Mercury-nominated debut.
Sticking to the same subtly electronic folkie vibe that gave 'Tom McRae' its crossover wings, 'Just Like Blood' is another wild and tender, eclectic, inventive, richly realised and hauntingly evocative piece of work.
Dark, lovelorn, melancholic, and oblique, standout tracks include the lush, atmospheric 'A Day Like Today', the world-weary 'You Only Disappear', and the rich, almost-hymnal 'Walking2Hawaii'.
Check out our Tom Mcrae special here
Buy this album here
Asian Dub Foundation - Enemy of the Enemy
It's all well and good presenting yourselves as politically-active urban warriors but if your music isn't half as good as your philosophies then you'll only reach half of your intended audience.
Luckily, for every cause that Asian Dub Foundation have championed they've backed their arguments with a truly astonishing arsenal of music.
Vintage ADF, the 'Enemy of the Enemy' set is another squalling collection of battle-cries and sonic charges that reveal that this collective have lostnone of their powers of musical persuasion.
The album includes the 'La Haine' track that ADF composed as a soundtrack to the French film of the same name and executive production on the album comes from Adrian Sherwood.
Get an exclusive download of an Asian Dub Foundation album track
Buy this album here
Hell is for Heroes - The Neon Handshake
With the release of 'The Neon Handshake', perceived wisdom has it that Hell Is For Heroes - Justin Schlosberg (vocals), Will McGonagle (guitar), Joe Birch (drums), Tom O'Donohue (guitar), James 'Fin' Findlay (bass) - are at last on the verge of something big.
Recorded in LA's Sound City Studios - home of 'Nevermind and Rage Against The Machine - by Hives/Refused producers Pelle Henricsson and Eskil Lovstrom, it's a phenomenal account of a band riding the thin line between post-hardcore angst and melodic rock dynamics.
Marked by simple rhythms and melodies that casually diversify from song to song, HIFH combine elements of grunge and emo with a precocious flair for songwriting, resulting in an album that's both fresh and fully formed.
Includes the singles 'Sick/Happy', 'I Can Climb Mountains', 'You Drove Me To It' and 'Night Vision'.
Check out Hell is for Heroes recent video
Buy this album here
Johnny Marr and the Healers - Boomslang
Johnny Marr is a man who needs no introduction; the man is simply a guitar legend. Now, after more than a decade as a hired gun for the likes of Beth Orton, Neil Finn, TheThe, Electronic, the Pretenders and Bryan Ferry, Marr again steps forward into the spotlight with his long-awaited debut solo album. Recorded with his band the Healers - Alonza Bevan (ex-Kula Shaker), Zak Starkey (son of Ringo Starr) - 'Boomslang' delivers eleven tracks of pure British guitar-pop. Standouts include the dreamy 'The Last Ride', the punchy, eastern-flavoured 'Caught Up' and 'Need It', a track where Marr's plaintive vocal delivery is faintly similar to that of his former cohort Morrissey. Includes the single 'Bangin' On'.
Buy this album here
Clearlake - Cedars (album cover pictured previous on page)
Conceived by the band in France and Brighton, and produced with former Cocteau Twin, Simon Raymonde, 'Cedars' finds Clearlake building on the pastoral instrumentation, lush harmonies and gentle melodies present on their highly acclaimed debut album, 'Lido' ('...in terms of sheer charm and lustre Clearlake leave their contemporaries out in the cold with nothing but a threadbare balaclava' -9/10 NME).
Awash in woozily-arranged strings, chiming antique pianos and rich, layered vocal harmonies, Jason Pegg's incisive songs explore subjects rarely visited articulately in pop since peak-period Smiths - madness, death, loss, self-loathing and self-healing among them.
The outlook may occasionally be overcast, but here it's offset by the tremendous therapeutic clout of gorgeous melody and forensically observed lyrics.
"We're constantly trying to find the exact mid-point between raw chaos and Tin Pan Alley,' says Jason. 'We want to offer the opportunity within everysong to go somewhere special. We always aim really high. Even if we occasionally miss our target, we always land somewhere interesting".
Buy this album here
Aaliyah - I Care For You
Usually this sort of thing only happens in books.
A young, beautiful and talented artist is deprived of their life just as their true worth is becoming apparent.
Sadly, this is exactly what happened to Aaliyah when she was tragically killed in a plane crash as her self-titled album was beginning to capture imaginations across the globe.
The 'I Care 4 U' album is a posthumous collection of Aaliyah's greatest hits that also includes six previously unreleased tracks. This limited DVD edition also comes with video footage.
Buy this album here
Robin Gibb - Magnet
Robin Gibb has a very simple reason for his new solo record: as he told Mojo magazine recently, "It's something I've wanted to do, for fun...I mean, you can't always do the Bee Gees. It's not a desire to be a solo artist, so much as to offset some of that creative energy".
Recorded in Los Angeles and London with noted R&B producer Deacon Smith (K-Ci, JoJo, Mary J Blige, Keith Sweat), 'Magnet' features a stunning mix of new and old Gibb tracks, coupled with some very personal songs Robin wanted to do - like 'Love Hurts', a tribute to Roy Orbison, and 'Wish You Were Here', a track originally written (with brothers Barry and Maurice) for his brother Andy.
In addition, the album features some re-workings of some earlier Robin songs, which he has always felt would benefit from a more contemporary groove and also suit the R&B flavour of the album. Includes the single 'Please'.
Buy this album here
Richard Thompson - Old Kit Bag
What's perhaps most remarkable about this album - by one reckoning, his twenty-fifth, without even counting the six he recorded as a member of Fairport Convention - is its distillation of all that precedes it in his catalogue.
For more than thirty years Thompson has grown as an artist by carefully paring his work down to its essence.
As a culmination of this process, 'Kit Bag', recorded in spare trio format with minimal overdubs, is a textbook lesson on how to convey layers of meaning with minimal gestures.
"The idea was to keep it small", Thompson explains. "I did do a few overdubs - second guitar, dulcimer, single-finger keyboard parts, all the easy stuff -- but other than that, everything was pretty much a live performance". The result is an intimate, smoky quality from which each story slowly unfolds.
Producer John Chelew (John Hiatt, Five Blind Boys of Alabama), a master of bringing out the narrative in excellent songs, found the balance between clarity and atmosphere on these tracks, making 'Kit Bag' a standout even in Thompson's imposing discography.
Buy this album here
Nivea - Nivea
It's hard top believe that, on the release of here debut album, Nivea is just nineteen years old. She's already established herself as the 'Don't Mess' queen, whether she's protecting her radio or her man and her self-titled set bristles and purrs with the kind of radio-friendly pop R'n'B that is as entertaining as it is funky.
The production team on the album reads like a litany of contemporary R'n'B guiding lights with The Neptunes leading the charge alongside thelikes of Organized Noise, Brian Cox, R Kelly and more.
Buy this album here
Josh Groban - Josh Groban
Having been discovered by the famous modern composer David Foster, Josh Groban soon racked up major interest in the US with a guest appearance in the Ally McBeal tv show, as well as appearances with the artists such as Charlotte Church and KD Lang. Josh Groban's debut album is a sublime recording from an extremely talented young artist.
Among songs written by David Foster, are songs penned by the likes of Linda Thompson, Ennio Morricone, Don McClean, and JS Bach, and there's guest appearances too from The Corrs, Charlotte Church and the renowned violinist Lill Haydn.
Rarely does a talent as precocious as Groban emerge, we can confidently predict he'll be a household name in the UK before the year is out.
Buy this album here
Barry White - Love Songs
Recommended to anyone with either a half or a full compliment of ears, the work of Barry White is an internationally-recognised emotional balm as well as a well-respected oyster substitute.
'Love Songs' is a selection of the Walrus' most love-orientated work (hang on, isn't that pretty much everything he's ever done???) that includes four extended versions of Bazza classics.
Buy this album here
Biondi (Vln): Europa Galante - Vivaldi: Four Seasons
You may feel that you've heard 'The Four Seasons' too many times before but this is the best rendition to have been recorded for many years. Fabio Biondi's playing is electrifying and the support provided by Europa Galante is extraordinary. When this was originally released in 2001 as part of the complete set of concertos that make up the 'Il Cimento Dell'Armonia And Dell'Inventione' it topped many polls for classical disc of the year. Better still, this edition comes with arenowned recording of the 'Concerto In E Flat Major RV253' and comes at a pretty generous price. Tremendous stuff.
Buy this album here
Read on for this week's albums. For reviews of all the singles of note out this week, click here
Kelly Rowland - Simply Deep (pictured left)
As founder member and one third of the biggest all-female troupe on the planet right now, Kelly Rowland is more then adept at giving the world what they want when it comes to high-energy, highly-charged pop and R'n'B. However, as her time out on her Kelly'n'Nelly duet for the 'Dilemma' single illustrated, Ms Rowland can also flourish outside the Destinys Child bubble. Her solo debut, then, is her chance to let loose with the kind of music that really drives her.
In kind of the same way as third Destiny girl Michelle Williams' solo set veered towards the spiritual side of things, the 'Simply Deep' album is an exploration into soul.
Less sass and more class is the order of the day as Kelly proves that there's far more to her than booty and man-dissing.
The album includes three songs written by Beyonce's sister Solange Knowles and well as the Nelly collaboration.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
'Nocturama' is Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' twelfth studio album, and is the eagerly-awaited follow up to 2001's brilliant 'No More Shall We Part'. Recorded in early 2002 at SingSing studios in Melbourne by The Bad Seeds line-up of Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld, Thomas Wydler, Martyn Casey, Conway Savage, Jim Sclavunos and Warren Ellis, the new album was produced by Nick Launay (PiL, Talking Heads, Gang Of Four, The Slits) and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds,and mixed at Olympic Studios in London. Featuring 10 tracks, 'Nocturama' spans emotional surrender to venomous black humour and engages in a wide range of themes.
There is a tender sunset song of hope; an elegant piano song of longing; a yawing, dark violin waltz; a swaggering pledge of love; a raucous abominable tale; a sorrowful evocation of loss; a nostalgic meditation; a fragrant love epiphany; and one final, lustful demonic epic.
Some of the loveliest, most compelling songsare the gentle ones, like the opening 'Wonderful Life', or the simple rendering of nostalgia in 'There Is A Town'.
Forthcoming single 'Bring It On' sees the band hitting a bold, superfly noir groove and features an outstanding duetted vocal from Chris Bailey, formerly the singer with Brisbane's glorious pre-punk nihilists, The Saints.
'Dead Man in My Bed' further raises noise levels as Cave takes the perspective of a woman afflicted with a useless partner.
The album's most spectacular song is saved until the end when The Bad Seeds unleash the flaming, fifteen minute epic, 'Babe, I'm On Fire'.
Tom Mcrae - Just Like Blood
'Dislocation and dissatisfaction' figure heavily on 'Just Like Blood' (the album's title comes from a poem by Simon Armitage - 'Come clean, come good, repeat with me the punchline 'just like blood' when those at the back rush forward to say how a little love goes a long long long way'), singer-songwriter Tom McRae's follow-up to his Mercury-nominated debut.
Sticking to the same subtly electronic folkie vibe that gave 'Tom McRae' its crossover wings, 'Just Like Blood' is another wild and tender, eclectic, inventive, richly realised and hauntingly evocative piece of work.
Dark, lovelorn, melancholic, and oblique, standout tracks include the lush, atmospheric 'A Day Like Today', the world-weary 'You Only Disappear', and the rich, almost-hymnal 'Walking2Hawaii'.
Asian Dub Foundation - Enemy of the Enemy
It's all well and good presenting yourselves as politically-active urban warriors but if your music isn't half as good as your philosophies then you'll only reach half of your intended audience.
Luckily, for every cause that Asian Dub Foundation have championed they've backed their arguments with a truly astonishing arsenal of music.
Vintage ADF, the 'Enemy of the Enemy' set is another squalling collection of battle-cries and sonic charges that reveal that this collective have lostnone of their powers of musical persuasion.
The album includes the 'La Haine' track that ADF composed as a soundtrack to the French film of the same name and executive production on the album comes from Adrian Sherwood.
Hell is for Heroes - The Neon Handshake
With the release of 'The Neon Handshake', perceived wisdom has it that Hell Is For Heroes - Justin Schlosberg (vocals), Will McGonagle (guitar), Joe Birch (drums), Tom O'Donohue (guitar), James 'Fin' Findlay (bass) - are at last on the verge of something big.
Recorded in LA's Sound City Studios - home of 'Nevermind and Rage Against The Machine - by Hives/Refused producers Pelle Henricsson and Eskil Lovstrom, it's a phenomenal account of a band riding the thin line between post-hardcore angst and melodic rock dynamics.
Marked by simple rhythms and melodies that casually diversify from song to song, HIFH combine elements of grunge and emo with a precocious flair for songwriting, resulting in an album that's both fresh and fully formed.
Includes the singles 'Sick/Happy', 'I Can Climb Mountains', 'You Drove Me To It' and 'Night Vision'.
Johnny Marr and the Healers - Boomslang
Johnny Marr is a man who needs no introduction; the man is simply a guitar legend. Now, after more than a decade as a hired gun for the likes of Beth Orton, Neil Finn, TheThe, Electronic, the Pretenders and Bryan Ferry, Marr again steps forward into the spotlight with his long-awaited debut solo album. Recorded with his band the Healers - Alonza Bevan (ex-Kula Shaker), Zak Starkey (son of Ringo Starr) - 'Boomslang' delivers eleven tracks of pure British guitar-pop. Standouts include the dreamy 'The Last Ride', the punchy, eastern-flavoured 'Caught Up' and 'Need It', a track where Marr's plaintive vocal delivery is faintly similar to that of his former cohort Morrissey. Includes the single 'Bangin' On'.
Clearlake - Cedars (album cover pictured previous on page)
Conceived by the band in France and Brighton, and produced with former Cocteau Twin, Simon Raymonde, 'Cedars' finds Clearlake building on the pastoral instrumentation, lush harmonies and gentle melodies present on their highly acclaimed debut album, 'Lido' ('...in terms of sheer charm and lustre Clearlake leave their contemporaries out in the cold with nothing but a threadbare balaclava' -9/10 NME).
Awash in woozily-arranged strings, chiming antique pianos and rich, layered vocal harmonies, Jason Pegg's incisive songs explore subjects rarely visited articulately in pop since peak-period Smiths - madness, death, loss, self-loathing and self-healing among them.
The outlook may occasionally be overcast, but here it's offset by the tremendous therapeutic clout of gorgeous melody and forensically observed lyrics.
"We're constantly trying to find the exact mid-point between raw chaos and Tin Pan Alley,' says Jason. 'We want to offer the opportunity within everysong to go somewhere special. We always aim really high. Even if we occasionally miss our target, we always land somewhere interesting".
Aaliyah - I Care For You
Usually this sort of thing only happens in books.
A young, beautiful and talented artist is deprived of their life just as their true worth is becoming apparent.
Sadly, this is exactly what happened to Aaliyah when she was tragically killed in a plane crash as her self-titled album was beginning to capture imaginations across the globe.
The 'I Care 4 U' album is a posthumous collection of Aaliyah's greatest hits that also includes six previously unreleased tracks. This limited DVD edition also comes with video footage.
Robin Gibb - Magnet
Robin Gibb has a very simple reason for his new solo record: as he told Mojo magazine recently, "It's something I've wanted to do, for fun...I mean, you can't always do the Bee Gees. It's not a desire to be a solo artist, so much as to offset some of that creative energy".
Recorded in Los Angeles and London with noted R&B producer Deacon Smith (K-Ci, JoJo, Mary J Blige, Keith Sweat), 'Magnet' features a stunning mix of new and old Gibb tracks, coupled with some very personal songs Robin wanted to do - like 'Love Hurts', a tribute to Roy Orbison, and 'Wish You Were Here', a track originally written (with brothers Barry and Maurice) for his brother Andy.
In addition, the album features some re-workings of some earlier Robin songs, which he has always felt would benefit from a more contemporary groove and also suit the R&B flavour of the album. Includes the single 'Please'.
Richard Thompson - Old Kit Bag
What's perhaps most remarkable about this album - by one reckoning, his twenty-fifth, without even counting the six he recorded as a member of Fairport Convention - is its distillation of all that precedes it in his catalogue.
For more than thirty years Thompson has grown as an artist by carefully paring his work down to its essence.
As a culmination of this process, 'Kit Bag', recorded in spare trio format with minimal overdubs, is a textbook lesson on how to convey layers of meaning with minimal gestures.
"The idea was to keep it small", Thompson explains. "I did do a few overdubs - second guitar, dulcimer, single-finger keyboard parts, all the easy stuff -- but other than that, everything was pretty much a live performance". The result is an intimate, smoky quality from which each story slowly unfolds.
Producer John Chelew (John Hiatt, Five Blind Boys of Alabama), a master of bringing out the narrative in excellent songs, found the balance between clarity and atmosphere on these tracks, making 'Kit Bag' a standout even in Thompson's imposing discography.
Nivea - Nivea
It's hard top believe that, on the release of here debut album, Nivea is just nineteen years old. She's already established herself as the 'Don't Mess' queen, whether she's protecting her radio or her man and her self-titled set bristles and purrs with the kind of radio-friendly pop R'n'B that is as entertaining as it is funky.
The production team on the album reads like a litany of contemporary R'n'B guiding lights with The Neptunes leading the charge alongside thelikes of Organized Noise, Brian Cox, R Kelly and more.
Josh Groban - Josh Groban
Having been discovered by the famous modern composer David Foster, Josh Groban soon racked up major interest in the US with a guest appearance in the Ally McBeal tv show, as well as appearances with the artists such as Charlotte Church and KD Lang. Josh Groban's debut album is a sublime recording from an extremely talented young artist.
Among songs written by David Foster, are songs penned by the likes of Linda Thompson, Ennio Morricone, Don McClean, and JS Bach, and there's guest appearances too from The Corrs, Charlotte Church and the renowned violinist Lill Haydn.
Rarely does a talent as precocious as Groban emerge, we can confidently predict he'll be a household name in the UK before the year is out.
Barry White - Love Songs
Recommended to anyone with either a half or a full compliment of ears, the work of Barry White is an internationally-recognised emotional balm as well as a well-respected oyster substitute.
'Love Songs' is a selection of the Walrus' most love-orientated work (hang on, isn't that pretty much everything he's ever done???) that includes four extended versions of Bazza classics.
Biondi (Vln): Europa Galante - Vivaldi: Four Seasons
You may feel that you've heard 'The Four Seasons' too many times before but this is the best rendition to have been recorded for many years. Fabio Biondi's playing is electrifying and the support provided by Europa Galante is extraordinary. When this was originally released in 2001 as part of the complete set of concertos that make up the 'Il Cimento Dell'Armonia And Dell'Inventione' it topped many polls for classical disc of the year. Better still, this edition comes with arenowned recording of the 'Concerto In E Flat Major RV253' and comes at a pretty generous price. Tremendous stuff.
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