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SINGLES & DOWNLOADS
he's continued on for Dig Out Your Soul.
standard. and the quality of the playing never slips.
(Columbia) 00
Nothing draws a groan of predictably quite like finding a new Oasis shortplayer on top of the singles pile. so we‘ll keep this brief. ‘Shock of the Lightning' (Big Brother) 00 drony fluff Noel Gallagher probably found down the back of the sofa while looking for his long lost mojo. Surprised? No? We'll move on then.
088 have frustratingly lost all the quirks that made them such fun first time round. but judged on its own merit ‘Move’ (Warners) m decent enough wad of electro dance-pop. Having released almost all of the half decent first ten minutes of their album. The Ting Tings are now rifling its anaemic back end for singles, amongst which new-wavey snooze ‘Be the One’
is a particularly pallid offender. For colour. try M.I.A’s dreamy, kaleidoscopic rap collage ‘Paper Planes“ (XL) 00” samples gunshots. cash registers and The Clash (‘Straight to Hell“) to dazzling effect. Controversial ex-CIA operative ‘Valerie Plame' (Rough Trade)
is the subject of The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy’s latest grandiloquent folk strum and history essay in one. Does anybody else think that he sounds uncomfonably like Professor Frink off The Simpsons? No? We’ll move on then.
It‘s all about the locals from hereon in, right up the proverbial jewel in this half-month’s short-playing crown. Stonehaven’s Copy Haho twang and jangle joyfully (is there any other way?) on ‘You Are My Coalmine' (Teenage Lust) 0» ‘You're Really Quite The Catch’ (Fence) OOO finds Edinburgh ‘bleep-hop' experimentalists Found rattling like a pure shandied-up King Creosote. and ‘Wendy' (Island) OOO Glasgow’s Attic Lights harmonise epically over a long lost love in a breezy west coast pop style. And so to Single of the Fortnight: crashing post-hardcore Glasgow sextet Oananananaykroyd's face-slappineg catchy ‘Pink Sabbath’ (Best Before) no». If early ldlewild were “the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs”. the ‘naykroyds must be the sound of a flight of stairs falling up a flight of stairs, knocking over Henry Rollins. Ian MacKaye and Steve Albini in the process before chucking itself out of an 11th storey window into a skip full of broken crockery. Yes: that good. (Malcolm Jack)
is another bit of
isa
which
while
sees
ROCK
OASIS
Dig Out Your Soul (Big Brother) 0..
Liking a new Oasis album nowadays has less to do with the actual songs and more to do with how you feel about them. They. like their fellow indie spods turned megastars Coldplay and Razorlight. provoke wrath and rapture in equal measure in our fine nation. What 2005's Don't Believe the Truth did however was show
that Noel Gallagher was unwilling to simply repeat the formula of the first
two albums. opting instead to head down (for him at least) more
psychedelic. adventurous ‘
routes. and it’s a route
At its worst. this means rifling through the pockets of Revolver once again in search of scraps and at its best. it means almost hazy acid trips (‘Falling Down‘). huffy marching band truculence (‘Bag it Up’) and winsome Doors-isms (‘Waiting for the Rapture') that. for the most part. are pretty great.
On the downside. Liam's waggishness has been tempered. and there's too much bombast and not enough hooks. but you get the feeling that Oasis not trying to be Oasis is infinitely more appealing than someone graSping for old glories.
(Mark Robertson)
INDIE
BEN FOLDS Way To Normal (Epic) 000
Divorce is a bitch. But instead of languishing in his underpants. all beardy and beer-soaked following a much publicised split from his wife. Ben Folds jumped straight back into the studio and has come up with these 12 energy- packed tracks for his third solo release. In many ways it‘s business as usual from him throughout — the pianos are playful and the lyrics oh-so-smart and sensitive — except when he gets Regina Spektor in for a sing-song on ‘You Don‘t Know Me'; the King and Queen of American emo-kook joining forces for a pretty. rhythmic ditty. It's one of the highlights of an album that feels as cathartic for its maker as it is accomplished. (Camilla Pia)
INDIE
TRAVIS
Ode To J Smith (Red Telephone Box) 0..
This. Travis’ fifth studio album, is both their finest since 1999’s The Man Who and just. y'know. alright. The fact is. after making a glistening
splash with Good Feeling and then predictably repeating the winning formula hit on with The Man Who a couple more times in the last decade. none but those who see their name as a dependable brand will be expecting very much these days.
So ‘Chinese Blues' opening with a guitar riff which echoes ‘Sympathy for the Devil' and then nods to glam rock and Pink Floyd on 'Long Way Down‘ and 'Broken Mirrors'. respectively. will wrong-foot many. Yet such a notably jolly band may not find it so easy to segue into the Ray Davies or Damon Albarn school of everyman blues. (David Pollock)
JAZZ DAVID SANBORN
Here & Gone (Decca) 000
Saxophonist David Sanborn takes on the staple blues and R&B repertoire in a disc that many will doubtless see as just another commercial gambit from a very successful musician. The stacking up of guest artists — Derek Trucks on ‘Brother Ray'. Eric Clapton on ‘I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town‘. Joss Stone on ‘I Believe to My Soul“ and Sam Moore on ‘I've Got News For You' — will only serve to sharpen that impression. That said. Sanborn is on great form. Always a magnificent technician on the horn. he invests the music with a genuine soulfulness — nowhere more so than on his Cannonball Adderley-like assault on ‘St Louis Blues'. a glorious opening track that is never quite matched. lnevitably, his musicians
‘ are all of the highest
Nothing new here. but hard to fault the execution if you like this music. (Kenny Mathieson)
ROCK
DES O
Moog orsoner
(Rock Antenna» The fringes of rock music are littered with bad intentions. Bands of grunts that wish to thrill us. disorient us. frighten us and make us feel mildly queasy. Glasgow's own Desalvo achieve all of this in one long-coming, fast burning debut album; a furious. complex beast that crams in more ideas in one song than most bands struggle to spin out for one album.
This is the kind of record for anyone who understands the visceral joys of a big noise grabbing you by the throat and going ‘BLEAURGHI' at you. Gutteral guitars churn and slash. drums brutalise and tenderise. while some poor bastard with a microphone is run through with a crate of Black and Decker's finest. But this is no random noise splatter fest. this is precision drilling Abel Ferrera would be proud of.
Up until now, the bewildering adrenaline of the Desalvo live experience has threatened to overshadow the quality of their songs. Now there’s something on record to do them justice. Tight. cruel and ingenious.
(Mark Robertson)
ROCK
KINGS OF LEON Only By The Night (RCA) u
DanNIn’s theOry of convergent evolution states that disparate. unrelated organisms evolve similar traits
' when adapting to similar
environments. and it's clearly in evidence
amongst stadium rock
bands. Using the
blustery. overblown U2
blueprint. the likes of
3 Coldplay. Snow Patrol.
The Killers and now Kings of Leon all abandonedthew distinctiveness and
_ originality in order to
reach the back of
festival fields and
arenas.
This fourth album is virtually indistinguishable from the Kings'
7 contemporaries. Caleb
Followill's Southern yelp
aside. tracks like
‘Notion’ and ‘Use
Somebody’ are full of
echoey guitars. epic drums, obvious piano lines and truly banal lyrics. Not out-and-out bad. just depressingly convenhonaland predictable.
(Doug Johnstone)
WORLD LOUNGE
THIEV CORPORATION
Radio Retaliation
(ESL) use.
Leaders of the
horizontal protest
Thievery Corporation remain resolutely political in their approach and there is
. really no mistaking who ' programmed this set of
sophisticate dub lounge. The breadth of styles treated to their signature sound is impressive here. perhaps in reverence for their roster of guest contributors. afro-beat with Femi Kuti sidles up to Latin with
Seu Jorge. defined soul
numbers. dreamy female vocals and the customary stepping sitar dub. Yes. the Corps is a staggering talent for easing a world of ethnic influence through the desk and chroming them all into seemingly natural bedfellows.
9 (Mark Edmundson)
2—16 Oct 2008 THE LIS‘I’ 65