Latest CD releases reviewed
JOSS STONE
Mind, Body & Soul Relentless/EMI
***
Whatever else Devon boasts, it certainly had little reason to parade any soul appeal until 17-year-old Joss Stone came along with her masterful Soul Sessions album of smart cover versions. Two million sales later, Stone returns with a clutch of originals to sing and a whole lot of expectations to overcome. Teamed with the same production crew who worked wonders on Soul Sessions, including "Clean-Up Woman" Betty Wright, there's nothing amiss with the warm, sultry, sticky funk, but the songs lack a certain resonance. Stone's voice still soars higher than the sun throughout, especially on the Philly stomper You Had Me and the emotional Killing Time, yet the remainder of the album never quite finds the same range. There's nothing wrong with the voice; it's the songs which strangely lack any magical soul. www.jossstone.com
Jim Carroll
THE DELGADOS
Universal Audio Chemikal Underground
****
The Delgados founded Glasgow's Chemikal Underground label, whose roster includes Mogwai and Arab Strap. This melodic quartet, named after a famous cyclist, have played a pivotal role in Scotland's music scene over the past 10 years, but remained relative outsiders in the wider world. For their fifth album, The Delgados have moved away from the lush, majestic miserablism of The Great Eastern and Hate and gone for a direct, intimate shot of stripped-down pop-rock. The straight edge proves a wise route: songs such as I Fought the Angels, Everybody Come Down and Sink or Swim have instant impact, thanks mainly to the utterly addictive vocals of singer and guitarist Emma Pollock. As usual, lead vocal duties are divided between her and singer/guitarist Alun Woodward. But while his voice isn't so sweetly seductive, the songwriting follows all the right rules of musical attraction, as laid down by The Beatles and Elvis Costello. To quote one of their fine previous singles, time for The Delgados to come in from the cold. www.delgados.co.uk
Kevin Courtney
THE REDNECK MANIFESTO
I Am Brazil Trust Me I'm a Thief Records
***
With a profile in Ireland as low as a dachshund's belly, it's a wonder that Dublin band Redneck Manifesto have managed to survive the past two-year pogrom of inventiveness and lightness of touch. Yet here they are with their third album, another mostly instrumental work of calm, violence and ingenuity. It won't be to everyone's tastes, but gathered here are the spirits of Can, Kraftwerk, Black Flag, Brian Eno and Stereolab; occasionally obtuse, infrequently frustrating and strategically on the money, Redneck Manifesto have fashioned a good-cop/bad-cop soundtrack for an unmade movie by David Fincher, the title of which can be cogged from their own track listing: Good With Tempos. www.theredneckmanifesto.com
Tony Clayton-Lea
SALTHOUSE
Dream By Day Hook Records
****
Salthouse's second album drifts between gothic bliss and narcoleptic despair. It's a tentative proposition, haunted by its own ambiguities. For all the sleepy grace of its melodies and the treacly charm of Liam Colfer's vocals, hints of the sinister flutter beneath the surface. Baleful epics such as One Eye Open and An Even Keel prove the Wexford four-piece know their way around a lo-fi dirge, but what is most heartening is the way the record conjures up the spirit of '70s California rock without suggesting the work of indiscriminate magpies. When (if?) The Thrills ever grow up, they might dream about crafting songs as nuanced as these. www.salthousetheband.com
Ed Power
SANDI SHAW
Pourvu que ca dure EMI
***
Strange but true: Sandie Shaw was more popular on the continent than she ever was in Britain. Unlike her contemporaries, Shaw didn't just overdub her hits and sing phonetically for European countries, she re-recorded each and every song. What's interesting about this French-language roundup of her best moments is that you get all the classic Shaw hits as well as some songs that were hits in France but never released elsewhere. In that regard, the highlight here must be her French cover of Paul McCartney's Maybe I'm Amazed. There's something about these familiar songs delivered in a different language that appeals. Always Something There to Remind Me gets a new urgency, while on other tracks Shaw significantly reinterprets the lyric so that you get something more like an alternative version rather than a cover version in a different language. As a tribute to her wide-ranging appeal, this same album is also available in Spanish, Italian and German-language versions.
Brian Boyd
WILLIAM SHATNER
Has Been Shout Factory
**
Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Captain Kirk famously covered Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, declaiming the lyrics like King Lear on a bad acid trip. It remains a kitsch classic, up there with The Shaggs and The Legendary Stardust Cowboy. Centuries later, Kirk is back, and this time he's got a heavyweight crew that includes Joe Jackson, Aimee Mann, Lemon Jelly and Henry Rollins, who collaborate with him on such self-penned soliloquys as It Hasn't Happened Yet, That's Me Trying, Familiar Love and Together. Ben Folds plays Spock, respectfully steering the production, and lovingly wrapping the jazz-cabaret-rock sounds around Shatner's rich, deep-space voice. The vocal vignettes are filled with T.J. Hooker-style homespun philosophy, as Shatner muses on life, fatherhood, fame, old age and death, and though it's warped factor 10 all the way on such tunes as Ideal Woman, I Can't Get Behind That and his version of Pulp's Common People, there are still some poignant, poetic moments of reflection. Now, let's have Leonard Nimoy with I Believe in a Thing Called Love.
Kevin Courtney
FREDDIE WHITE
Four Days in May Little Don Records
****
He's back. The rangy guy with the guitar and the low-down growl returns after his 2002 two-CD set, Lost and Found. Long credited for his superior-than-the-original covers, White's still sampling the superb songs of Randy Newman and Warren Zevon, but his taste buds have been tickled by Gillian Welch (his cover of her One Monkey, a brooding, sultry affair), and better still, he's airing more of his own songs. White's a writer who keeps a cool distance from his material, but it's a space that's sparsely filled by Brian Connor's pitch-perfect production, and bolstered by the finest guitar lines of Albert Niland. Spare and lean, Four Days in May evokes a place most of us yearn to wallow in - for the long haul. www.freddiewhite.com
Siobhán Long
