Reviews

Leonard Cohen knows that’s a very sneaky title to use at this stage of his career. Offering us the knife and showing us where best to stab him in the back, you might expect most who hear this album to proffer an embarrassed “Oh no, not at all Len, it’s dynamic and exciting, what are you talking about?”

He chose the title. He knows what kind of music he’s made, and beating us to saying it aloud doesn’t make it any less true. So do not expect dynamic or exciting ideas here. Now you know that, the next few paragraphs should go a little easier. Actually, this is only his twelfth studio album. Strange to realise that of a singer/songwriter who’s been doing this since the mid ‘60s.

Less strange is the realisation that these songs tip Cohen’s singer/poet persona very much in the latter’s favour. He’s not singing so much as he is speaking lyrically. Like Dylan or Waits, a lifetime of smoking and hard living has eroded the man’s voice away into a sort of rumbling, raspy croak. Cohen never pretended to be a star vocalist, but that’s just fine by us. He’s 78 years old, and there’s more character and depth in his crackly whisper than half the warbly singers sitting at the toppermost of the poppermost.

Mark Lanegan is like a liquor-soaked deity, down in the silt, keeping celestial and scrambling for faith.

He sees you, me, himself and reunites us all in song; a great big melting pot of angels, souls intertwining as blithely as smoke moves through the air. His voice, the bruised communicator, relays contempt and corruption consistently, bearing a rare romance that can be compared to few other artists. Similarly to have dragged their heels through the primordial gravels of distinction, have been Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits. Lanegan, Cohen and Waits share a distilled sort of depth, sing about the Lord and bask on their despair with melancholy grace.

It should only seem fitting that upon venturing within ear-shot of Melbourne’s Festival Hall – a venue famous for housing the Fab Four a half century ago – the mighty guitar racket of none-other than NME indie-rock flag-bearers The Vaccines could be heard blaring through the doors at full volume; their ragged guitar anthems cosily nestling against the gritty working-class surroundings that form the landscape around the arena.

The Vaccines were here to precede the mighty Kasabian, whom they would soon no doubt be trying to dethrone as Britain’s premier rock band of the current era.

This band doesn’t die easily. They’ve been surviving line-up changes for 40 odd years, and it’s kept them sounding fresh and alive and dangerous. Now the immortal Scott Gorham returns with Thin Lizzy, Mark-God-Knows-What-Number-We’re-Up-To, and you’d hardly know they’d been away.

It’s not hard to guess there’s a classic rock act on tonight; some purely unscientific statistics (gathered by turning around in a 360 degree circle in the middle of the stalls) reveal that this audience is comprised of 50% middle-aged original fans, 50% young bucks brought up on Greatest Hits CDs, and 90% male manly men.

Tribes have risen through the ranks of the crowded Camden music scene and emerged as contenders for the title of debut album of the year.

Formed a little over a year ago, they’ve propelled themselves into the mainstream after winning over last year’s festival crowds to make them one of the most promising bands of 2012.

The post Libertines meltdown in 2004 left a void which for a frustrating amount of time was filled with copycats and second rate rip offs. The city had been overrun with bands all clinging on desperately to the glory of those coat tails and a once promising time in music has now almost sunk without trace. Tribes are not the new Libertines, nor do they share much in common musically, but the parallels in their dramatic rise to stardom and strong links with Camden’s gig circuit will no doubt draw comparisons.

The Big Pink are perhaps every guitar band’s worst nightmare.

Belonging to a select group of electro-pop artists that have recently found success through pragmatic, business like methods of networking as opposed to the more traditional rock n roll rite of passage (starting at the very bottom, playing the most vile clubs imaginable and getting ‘discovered’ at some mythical venue), they write huge, super catchy pop songs at ease whilst maintaining experimental progression in a strangely affecting way, peculiarly refusing to nestle into the context of any single genre.

And as they pull the curtain down on the ever fading ‘indie landfill’ phenomenon along with the likes of Cut Copy and Foster the People, you can’t help but wonder if this is where music is inevitably headed, relying not on the pluck of a string, but on the push of a button.

You don’t need to be told why this is important. If you know this man, you’ve probably already got the shakes just clicking ‘play’ on the video link.

The Boss is back, and not in a “flogging a 30 year old album with bonus out-takes” kind of way. Yes, ‘The Promise‘ was a wonderful little goodie bag, yes, it tided us over another year without a new album, but it didn’t have anything to knock the stuffing out of us quite like ‘We Take Care Of Our Own‘.

In The Guardian’s review of The Maccabees‘ third LP ‘Given to the Wild‘, Alex Petridis entertained a peculiar notion; that despite the simmering success that The Maccabees have had over the past five years, they remain somewhat anonymous and faceless amongst their more outspoken peers in the modern indie landscape.

Lock, Stock, and Three Smokin’ Barrels…

Well, it’s that time of year again when everyone starts telling you who is going to break through and become the biggest thing since The Beatles.

Usually, such predictions fall short and never fulfill the grand expectations that are bestowed upon those special chosen ones. Brother were once hailed by some as the next Oasis but, in the end, they didn’t even scratch the surface. So what about 2012? We’re not going to insist on telling you who is definitely going to tilt the world on its axis, but a bit of gentle guidance never hurt anyone.

And so to the third and final part of Live4ever’s 2011 retrospective. A year packed with some genuinely outstanding releases, 2011 has enjoyed some of the most unanimously acclaimed records of recent years; PJ Harvey has won seemingly every award up for grabs thanks to ‘Let England Shake’, Kate Bush has wowed everyone with her first record of the decade, while the likes of The Boxer Rebellion, FIGO and The Minutes have come to the party with equally impressive, under-the-radar efforts just as deserving of your precious time and attention.

To celebrate another year of great music, the Live4ever Ezine is offering two readers the opportunity to win a pair of Boom earphones; a prize packed with both style and sound quality. So to be in with a chance of winning, when you’ve been through the pick of the LPs which have been taking up our space throughout the year, leave a comment below telling us your own Top 5 Albums of 2011 to be automatically entered into our giveaway. Good luck!