Black Tide - Light From Above
Times have been lean for head bangers lately, but Black Tide - who despite their dark preoccupations (killing, blood, revenge etc) come from sunny Florida - are the most exciting thing to happen in metal for years. It's not just the fact that they're so young - singer Gabriel Garcia was 14 when the album was recorded - or that they so unashamedly combine leather, studs, cap-sleeve T-shirts and long hair. It's the fact that they sound exactly how a heavy metal band should: squealing guitars, bloody-knuckled riffs, thundering drums, tight-trousered screaming - but all without sounding overly retro. They're savvy enough to throw in a few big choruses in Shockwave, Shout and Black Abyss, while the flamenco rock opera of Warriors of Time demonstrates both their musical chops and their taste for pomp. Metal is well and truly back.
Light From Above is out on Interscope
Morrissey - Greatest Hits
That Stephen Patrick Morrissey is an awkward cove. So when it comes to releasing that most obligatory of albums, the hits collection, it should come as no surprise that he's strayed from the script. There are so many great singles missing from this album – all of which were major hits – and so many half-hits making it into the crucial 15 that it seems like a strange and pointless exercise. There is still much to admire of course – First Of The Gang To Die and Let Me Kiss You represent the two corners of Mozworld – witty and warm versus maudlin and majestic, and The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get is the man at his arsey, self-referential best, rubbing out his enemies via the songwriter's poisoned pen. It's great; the problem is, it could have been far greater.
Greatest Hits is released on Decca
One Night Only - We Started A Fire
There's not much in Helmsley (where One Night Only hail from) except a post office, some ruins and a tea shop. Battenberg Cake, one imagines, is easy to acquire – crack cocaine less so. There is, however, a great big chunk of open countryside in the shape of the North Yorkshire Moors on their doorstep, and like Keane, U2 and Snow Patrol before them, there's a romantic, windswept feeling about this band. It's a sound that finds them teetering somewhere between awe-inspiring grandeur and over-reaching bombast, and for the most part they fall into the latter. With seeming ease, though, these tykes are responsible for two genuine indie epics - Just For Tonight and It's About Time – both cunning combinations of yodeling choruses and crashing guitars that make them equally at home sung from a hilltop or a football terrace. Little else can match that pair unfortunately. As a band they're solid, but not yet spectacular.
We Started A Fire is out on Vertigo
Laura Marling - Alas, I Cannot Swim
It's hard to believe that Laura Marling is a new artist who's just 18 years old - her voice is fresh and full of youthful vigour, yet it sounds as if it's been with us for decades. Warm folk arrangements of guitar, trumpets and brushed drums compliment songs that are beautifully measured, quirky but not overly so, smart but accessible - and all nodding towards a love of life with all its eccentricities. Highlights are Ghosts, Night Terror and the magnificent Failure, a track that takes in everything from the futility of organised religion to fading fame. It's a lovely, special album.
Alas, I Cannot Swim is out on Virgin
The Feeling - Join With Us
Much like their debut, only bigger, brighter and ever so slightly bolder, this album plays to The Feeling's strengths and overflows with hook-filled singalongs, swelling tearjerkers, ersatz rock stylings and a clean smooth sound from an age when Elton had real hair and gatefold album sleeves were the cutting edge of design. The romping title track is like The Scissor Sisters attempting a sober cover of Sgt. Pepper, Turn It Up a mighty, multi-layered anthem with a festival-friendly chorus and Don't Make Me Sad a carnival full of Brian May guitar solos and woozy fifties camp. Indeed, every track is so precise and finely tuned that it's all relentlessly good.
Join With Us is out on February 18 on Universal
Jack Johnson - Sleep Through the Static
Hawaiian-born Jack Johnson has two speeds – slow and slower. In the opening line of Hope - the most upbeat track here – he gets it pretty much right when he sings "Your shadow walks faster than you". Not that this matters when his albums are as delightful and life-enhancing as this. Deviating slightly from his winning acoustic-folk with a reggae-lilt formula, the title track muses on the trials and tribulations of fatherhood amid the troubled backdrop of America's foreign conflicts. Throughout, there's a more grown-up, world-weary feel to the lyrics and arrangements that's reminiscent of Paul Simon. Still chilled then - but now with added substance.
Sleep Through the Static is out on Bushfire Records
Adele - 19
Fame school grad Adele Adkins has one of those luminous, languid voices that belies her tender years and can transport any lightweight song to some magical new territory. That's a good thing really, for although her much-hyped debut has several tracks to treasure (such as the magnificent single Chasing Pavements and the fabulously mournful ballad to suburbia Hometown Glory), it's really only her vocal that carries you through. All too often, she dispenses with a song's melody to go on an indulgent jazz detour that might impress the goatee brigade but is pretty boring after a couple of spins. Because of her age and MySpace hype, it’s tempting to bracket Adele alongside her friends Kate Nash and Jamie T as a precocious teen talent, but she's a far classier and more mature proposition who's closer to Alison Moyet than Amy Winehouse.
19 is out now on XL
See the video for Chasing Pavements on youtube.com
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Those who have picked up on the fact that this hotly-tipped band is from New York would be forgiven for expecting some wired punks in the mould of The Strokes or Interpol. The truth is much more exciting. By fusing African guitar sounds, dub, US college rock bands such as 10,000 Maniacs and The Feelies, baroque strings and 80s world-pop, Vampire Weekend have arrived somewhere completely new and charming. There's a bookish, suburban, Ivy-League sense to the lyrics that adds to the jaunty, infectious atmosphere, and tracks such as Oxford Comma, A-Punk and Walcott are all fantastically uplifting, whizzing around like roller coasters between the ears. Their eclecticism won't be to everyone's taste of course, but it's a pleasure to discover a group who are ready to fool around with ideas and not take themselves too seriously.
Vampire Weekend is out on Beggars Banquet
Hot Chip - Made in the Dark
Hot Chip’s third album succeeds where their 80s electronica predecessors failed – it’s avant-garde in places and there are some moments that sound like the devil’s ring tone, but, like a striker who instinctively knows where the net is, the band never stray far from a killer melody or wondrous blast of retro-digital heaven. The opening trio of Out at the Pictures, Shake a Fist and Ready for the Floor are all wonky pop wonders that ease you into the experimentation that follows and, as ever, the voices of Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard work brilliantly together. It’s tempting to call off the Mercury judges right now because Made in the Dark has everything you’d want from a modern pop album – it’s fun, cool, occasionally terrifying and full of tunes and charm.
Made in the Dark is out on EMI
Mary J Blige - Growing Pains
There is one word that everyone associates with Mary J, and that's diva. It’s over-used shorthand for any black woman in the soul genre, but Blige truly does belong next to Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross with the pipes, attitude and emotions to match them. Better still, 'the first lady of R&B' is not resting on her laurels. Growing Pains is a fantastic album that neatly mixes state of the art riffs, handclaps and production trickery on excellent tracks like Work That, Just Fine and Till The Morning with a handful of elegant and powerful ballads. An absolute joy and a career high – she wears the crown.
Growing Pains is out on Geffen
Does It Offend You, Yeah? - We Are Rockstars
In reality, the only offensive thing about this day-glo, hoodie-wearing trio is their name - but then it's quite possible that they enjoy chip fights and talking loudly into their mobiles on public transport. Until that vital information comes through, though, we are delighted to report that We Are Rockstars is a ferociously good, all-action, techno-punk single with quite possibly the best stop-start noises since Blur's Song 2. It's a belter.
We Are Rockstars is out on Virgin
Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg returns with his first studio album in six years next month. Mr Love & Justice sees him return to that mix of politics and romance that marked out his early albums. Live, he's always a pleasure - as much for the stories and jokes he tells in between tracks as for classics like New England and Great Leap Forward.
Tour starts at Bristol Colston Hall on April 24 and continues. All dates and ticket information from billybragg.co.uk
Amy Winehouse at the Grammy Awards
Fantastic scenes as a shocked Amy Winehouse wins Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards - "This is for London 'cause Camden Town ain't burning down".
Tags: 50th Annual Grammy Amy London
Martina Topley-Bird
We have experienced Martina Topley-Bird before – both as a solo artist and as a singer on Tricky's 1995 trip-hop classic Maxinquaye and the Gorillaz's All Alone. Now, after a lengthy absence, she's back with new collaborator/producer Danger Mouse (the studio genius behind Gnarls Barkley). From her forthcoming album, one track, Carnies, is up on her MySpace page and it's an absolute wonder. With so many female singers being touted as "this year's Amy", Topley-Bird – her sultry tones given a fresh lease of life by the deft touch of the mouse man – has snuck in under the radar.
See more of Martina at myspace.com/
martinatopleybird
Reviews by Johnny Dee
FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 15, 2008
