On the record

Mar 16 2009 By Andy Welch

What's hot and what's not in this week's new releases.

Peter Doherty - Grace/Wastelands: More than all the substance abuse, band break-ups, and discarded supermodels, what really proves young Doherty is still in his rock'n'roll prime is that he has yet to make a bad album. His strong new LP is a solo affair, largely acoustic (Graham Coxon contributes guitar) with successful genre forays into folky rural blues (Arcadie) and even Dixieland jazz (Sweet By And By). Meanwhile, low-key single Last Of English Roses adds melodica dub touches, coming off like Augustus Pablo meets Blur. Mostly, however, PD sticks to his knitting. The Kinksy-Pulpy Britpop of tracks like 1939 Returning shows the blood in his veins remains as English (and as toxic) as the Thames.

Rating: 8/10

(Review by Steve Kerr)

Marianne Faithfull - Easy Come Easy Go: Marianne Faithfull is largely remembered as Mick Jagger's girlfriend, but this is her 22nd album. She makes a virtue of her ravaged voice, which is now unrecognisable from the innocent schoolgirl who brought us As Tears Go By. Each of the 18 cover versions (some better known than others) has been carefully chosen to reflect on Marianne's eventful life. Dolly Parton's Down From Dover talks of being used by a lover, while her reworking of Merle Haggard's Sing Me Back Home pays tribute to Keith Richards, who guests on the track. There are also cameos from Jarvis Cocker, Nick Cave and Chan Marshall. Maybe it's time we forgot about her infamous youth and celebrated her unique talent.

Rating: 8/10

(Review by Andy Welch)

Barry Manilow - Greatest Songs Of The 80s: You can only presume this album was made purely with the aim of selling it for Mother's Day. It's a bizarre mixture of tunes including Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, Phil Collins' Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now) and George Michael's hit Careless Whisper. Take away the fact it's Barry Manilow and it just sounds like a cruise singer who you'd be equally drawn to and horrified by. Fans will be impressed but Manilow would have to go some way to release something they weren't keen on.

Rating: 5/10

(Review by Polly Weeks)

Bell X1 - Blue Lights On The Runway: Having gained some renown stateside, with appearances on painfully hip American TV shows like The OC and Grey's Anatomy, Irish rockers Bell X1 have conspicuously failed to do much business in the British market. With a famous former bandmate (Damien Rice) and the kind of swooning choruses that have given Snow Patrol a late-career upsurge, they look like perfect candidates for commercial radio success. But there is something wrong with the recipe - slightly bland arrangements, a tendency to drag songs out for no tangible reason, general lyrical clumsiness. Either way, this is stadium rock destined to be played to pub crowds.

Rating: 5/10

(Review by Rory Dollard)

Doom - Born Like This: The enigmatic MF Doom returns with a new alias for his first album in five years. One of hip-hop's most bizarre characters, once releasing an album in character as a three-headed monster from space, the MC's latest opus is relatively coherent and clocks in at a lean 45 minutes. Nothing here really outstays its welcome, but despite a list of contributors including De La Soul's Posdnuos and Wu Tang luminaries Ghostface and Raekwon, not a lot stands out either. The J Dilla-produced Lightworks excepted, Born Like This rarely kicks into high gear until a double whammy of That's That and Supervillainz, which combine the introspection, off-the-wall humour and deft rhymes that mark out Doom at his best - but it proves too little too late.

Rating: 6/10

(Review by Simon Harker)

Black Lips - 200MillionThousand: Black Lips are a garage-rock four-piece from Atlanta, Georgia, whose excellent fourth album Good Bad Not Evil brought them an audience reaching far beyond their state border. It rattled along at breakneck pace, and it hardly mattered that their sound was borrowed from artists perhaps old enough to be their grandparents. Riotous, occasionally depraved, live shows have followed. This new release might bring in the Nuggets crowd, plus admirers of the New York underground punk scene of the early 1970s. Echoes of Wayne County can be frequently heard, and one track, Old Man, is a close cousin of the Velvet Underground's Venus In Furs. The album requires patience from the listener though. The pace has been slowed down, it is hard to detect a radio-friendly buzz track, and they have plunged deep into an ocean of psychedelia. Likeable, all the same.

Rating: 7/10

(Review by John Skilbeck)

Steve Cropper & Felix Cavaliere - Nudge It Up A Notch: As sideman to Otis Redding and Booker T, and a key figure at Memphis-based Stax Records, Steve Cropper is a bona fide soul legend. Here he collaborates on an album of new material with Felix Cavaliere, lead singer of 60s soulsters The Rascals. The result is a mixed bag. The classic Stax vibe is still in evidence in the muscular guitar instrumental Full Moon Tonight, and in the dry, funky drum sound of To Make it Right. But the vintage spark isn't quite there, and it's not just the squeaky clean production that's at fault. Blame also the ill-judged exercises in faux rap (Make The Time Go Faster) and Vandross-esque funk pop (Still Be Loving You).

Rating: 6/10

(Review by Steve Kerr)

Filthy Dukes - Nonsense In The Dark: Well known as the hip young gunslingers of the DJ world, Filthy Dukes have also been building something of a name for themselves on the dance scene in the build-up to the release of this album. Radio One's playlisting of their recent single This Rhythm, and the banger Tupac Robot Club Rock, have further boosted their cause, as have impressive vocal contributions of such indie luminaries as Late of the Pier's Samuel Dust and Brandon Curtis from Secret Machines. Filthy is certainly the appropriate word here, as retro synths and squelchy bass deftly conjure an aura of zeitgesty urban euphoria.

Rating: 7/10

(Review by Patrick Gates)

The Score - Opus: R&B is booming at the moment with solo stars like Rihanna, Ne-Yo and Justin Timberlake all cluttering up playlists around the world, but there seems to be a dearth of group talent (a-la Blackstreet, or Boyz II Men) which made the genre so popular in the first place. Step forward Anglo-American five-piece The Source. Their sound is a fusion of soul, jazz and hip-hop with layers of top-class production (from the likes of Will.I.Am) adding to create their lush, chilled-out sound. Imagine Lemar (with whom the group are currently touring with) and four buddies huddled around a mic kicking out the jams. Highlights include the up-tempo Flash, and their cover of The Police's Roxanne, but the album is a veritable groove-fest from beginning to end.

Rating: 7/10

(Review by Nick Howes)

The Who - The Who Sell Out (Deluxe Edition): When it was first released in 1967 this album was an ambitious precursor of more elaborate concept albums. It was based as it was around advertisements for products real and imagined, then broadcast on the pirate radio stations flourishing in an era when many of the old rules were being rewritten. Now re-released in an enhanced deluxe version, the double album seems a whimsical time capsule of mid-to-late 60s sonic ephemera. The group's second mini-opera, Rael (1 and 2) can clearly be viewed as an antecedent of later, lengthier ventures and I Can See For Miles certainly ranks highly in their canon.

Rating: 7/10

(Review by Patrick Gates)

SINGLES By Andy Welch

Pet Shop Boys - Love etc

Having recently won a Brit award for lifetime achievement, all eyes have been on PSB's illustrious past. This new single, a collaboration with Girls Aloud hitmakers Xenomania, proves the band still have one eye on the future.

Lionel Richie - Just Go

Chances of Lionel's new single having you dancing on the ceiling are very slim. It's all a bit bland really, even the addition of hip hopper Akon can't elevate this above the mediocre.

Keane - Better Than This

Keane's distinctive piano-led sound has disappeared for this latest single, and in comes more than a little inspiration from David Bowie's Ashes To Ashes. And by inspiration, we mean total rip off. It's still good though.

ON THE ROAD

UPCOMING TOURS

U2 have announced a world tour to support their latest album, No Line On The Horizon. They'll play Croke Park Dublin on July 24, London's Wembley Stadium on August 14, Glasgow Hampden Park on August 18, Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on August 20 and the Millennium Stadium Cardiff on August 22. For more details, go to www.U2.com

As well as supporting Oasis at their outdoor shows this summer, Reverend And The Makers have announced a handful of dates ahead of their second album's release. They kick off in Birmingham on July 14, calling at Manchester, Glasgow and finally Sheffield on July 18. For information, visit www.gigsandtours.com.