Reviews
Music round up
Jude Mason
So many good albums around at the moment, lets get to it. If
it's rock you're after then grab yourself a copy of …Like
Clockwork from Queens Of The Stone Age. Josh
Homme's great turn of melody continues to make QOTSA one of the
most-listenable rock bands around, but this time there is lyrical
substance and soul behind the swagger. Oh, and a piano cameo from
Elton John (who insisted the band needed a real queen to justify
their name) and exquisite drums from Dave Grohl.
Magnificent.
Trouble Will Find Me from The National
is a much more laid-back affair. Even when they're rocking
out, Matt Berninger's semi mumbled vocals are more to be driven to
than jumped about with. As ever there is a darkness to the
music but, far from being depressing, great beauty bubbles up
throughout, like the gorgeous guitar line in the sweet 'I Need My
Girl'.
You could do a
lot worse than shell out for Laura Marling's
Once I Was An Eagle. The prolific queen of the
nu-folk movement (you know, the real one, not just the Mumford
shouty bit) echoes Joni Mitchell most keenly this time around, and
that is much to her credit. At 23 she is clearly still
becoming an artist, but she has a control over her voice, melody,
lyrical ability and guitar playing that are way beyond her
years.
The Electronica section is bursting at the seems at the moment.
Scotland's least prolific outfit Boards of Canada
surprised and excited everyone with the lovely Tomorrow's
Harvest, while Jon Hopkins' Immunity
provides aural soundscapes of gorgeousness. Tricky
has returned with False Idols, which feels like the
natural follow-up (18 years later) to Maxinquaye, and
The Orb and Lee Scratch Perry provide us with
More Tales From The Observatory which I bet would sound
awesome at 4am in a field in Hampshire.