entering the dictionary. she may soon unwittingly find herself as cockney rhyming slang for the detritus that litters the top end of the charts. Three years in the making Who /Am may not contain the kind of ballbusting tracks she exhibited in her gold selling album Prodigal Sista but there are some great tunes here. The opener ‘Get Up‘ cranks things up into the perfect forum for Knight's beautiful powerful voice With its reggae overtones. Then things fall away for a bit until the funk flecked ‘Hurricane Jane'. ‘Same (As It Ever Was)’ and the gorgeously orchestrated ‘Whatever's Clever'.
(Paul Dale)
BREAKS." TRANCE TIMO MAAS
Loud
(Perfecto) 0000 German hard trance overlord Timo Maas is on the verge of making that big crossover into the mainstream a la Fatboy Slim. and with a debut this juicy it looks ineVitable. Toning down his trademark ‘wet 'n‘ hard' style he has delivered a gloriously organic sci-fi stomper.
Opener ‘Help Me (featuring Kelis) is the funkiest episode of The Twi/ight Zone ever made; ‘Hash Driven' is the sound of sex on the Starship Enterprise: MC Chickaboo's collaboration (Shifter) feels like the Death Star warming up on a frosty morning With Grace Jones at the controls and that's before even mentioning Current rocked-out floor-filler “To Get Down'.
(Henry NOrthmore)
JAZZ
TOWN AND COUNTRY C‘mon
(Thrill Jockey) COO
Thankfully. the title refers less to that full-blooded cock-out rock-out roar and more to that mysterious enticement you get from DaVid Lynch films. which draws
you into weird ways of looking at the world. Certainly. a lot of Town And Opuntry’s fully acoustic jazz — the edgy. almost creepy stillness of opener “Going To Kamakura'. the disorientating loop of ‘l'm Appealing', and the occasional unsettling dischord throughout - wouldn't be out of place tucked subconsciously into one of Lynch's scenes. Although generally it's contented. sedative Sunday afternoon fare. there's always a nagging doubt in the back of your mind. like dozing off in an abandoned toy factory. (Jan F Zeschky)
INDIE
LOG
Every Time a Bell Rings An Angel Gets His Wings
(Bad Taste) 0000
Will those pesky Scandinavians ever leave us alone? I certainly hope not. because the one- time purveyors of double-bitted axes and dodgy death metal have produced some lovely tunes in recent years. Log play eerie. finely formed lo-fi with a passion bordering on genius. Any song that recalls both REM and dEUS can't be all bad and tracks like 'The Bastards Have Landed' and ‘Off the Ground' are good enough to make time stand still for a few precious seconds and send coffee mugs spinning from newly limp fingers. This is one great debut. (James Smart)
INDIE," ROCK SAHARA HOTNIGHTS
Jennie Bomb (RCA) 0...
You can't listen to Sahara Hotnights and not think of Elastica. They may be part of the Swedish rock revolution that has seen the Hives and Soundtrack Of Our Lives become Our latest idols, but they have more links to the Camden- bred band than they might like to admit. Jennie Bomb is Simply
crammed with Frischmann-esque SCrawling pop gems. sexy swagger and attitude a-plenty; 'With Or Without Control‘ boasts vocals similar to the glorious Polly Jean Harvey backed by a guitar crunch reminiscent of early Suede and
‘Whirlwind Reaper' is
Spiky songwriting with substance. These are exquisite riot anthems. r0ugh and ready to conquer where others failed. (Camilla Pia)
POP-METAL A
Hi-Fi Serious (London) 00
A just don't know which side of the pond to sit on. The British five-piece play a mix of nu metal and pop-punk and in one instance ('six o'clock on a tube stop waiting for a subway train') actually change nationality mid-sentence. IneVitany it often sounds a bit silly. but A seem to take themselves pretty seriously, rifting furiously and shouting loudly above the pounding beats of effective opener 'Nothing'. while the title track drifts into almost contemplative instrumental territory. Elsewhere. they moan about Starbucks and 'trying to keep it punk'. and end up sounding like spoilt skatekids with no ax(l)e to grind. (James Smart)
ALSO RELEASED Big Wreck The Pleasure And The Greed (At/antic)‘ Big-assed ger-unge act from over the pond. Najma Vivid (Last Minute) Reknowned Indian songstrel Najma Akhtar blends trance and strings with tabla beats. Richard Hell Time (Matador) NY punk veteran gets excellent two CD retrospective of live and rare work. Various Artists Within This Infinite Ocean . . . (PrO/ekt) An introduction to the mysterious world of dark ambient and neo-folk from Nerth America.
PC
COMMAND AND CONQUER: RENEGADE (Electronic Arts) £29.99 0000
A spin-off worth a spin
Spin-offs are rare in gaming-land. Not as rare perhaps as cinema but compared to television, with its Angels, Mork And Mindys, Frasiers and Ali Gs, gaming’s cupboard is bare. Which is strange considering the wealth of characters and ideas that are churned out. And even when a spin-off is attempted, it is often such a stinker that it cannot be swept under the carpet fast enough. The Resident Evil first person shooters
anyone?
Which makes C&C: Renegade a real breath of fresh air. Set in the very familiar world of Command And Conquer, with the goodie-goodie GDI still trying to defeat the evil minions of Nod, this is a mission based FPS that allows you to take control of one of those little soldiers you have been creating all these years.
All the C80 staples are here. As a crack commando for the GDI, you storm Hand of Nod barracks, blow up Tiberium harvesters and take out no small amount of pesky flamethrower units while following an ever changing set of mission directives. OK, the battles are hardly on the scale of the strategy games, but the familiarity never fails to bring a smile to the face. The presentation is great, the graphics are neat and, minor glitches aside, it is a fair amount of fun.
The multiplayer deserves special mention as it follows the strategy game more closely. Each side collects Tiberium to gain credits, which are then spent on better units, vehicles etc, with which to take out the opposition base. Teamwork is essential and requires a small amount of intelligence to play, something the online community rarely encounters.
It isn’t perfect, with a few missions lacking any structure or logical goals, not to mention some poor A.l. but overall, there is a lot enjoyment to be had here. Finally, a game that makes the spin- off cupboard a little less bare. (lain Davidson)
pc GOTHIC (Xicat) £29.99 000
Since Ba/dur's Gate. the poor old role playing game has taken a bit of a hammering. BG's glorious heights seem to have drawn all the innovation and imagination from a genre that desperately needs
the next new thing. Unfortunately Gothic is far from this revelation. However. it is very playable and could learl the way to something; nice in the future.
It is playerl in the third person, packed \Vllll the usual RPG cliches. Will) a worlrl so large that you feel very insignificant
Games
wandering its planes. mountains and forests. The graphics may not be very impressive but the little Side plots draw you In, IlTllllGTSng you SO much I". the i.'.'or|(‘i that guests can easily be forgotten. Gothic may not have Ba/riur's Gate quaking in its shoes but it certainly fills I." the time until that next new Iii-cg; comes EllOl‘tl. REAXIMO
(Capcom) £39.99 .0
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.’ THE LIST 113