Reviews

There’s a certain air of nostalgia to The Cribs‘ fifth album ‘In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull’; an echo of the 1990s resonates throughout its production and the songwriting.

It should come as no surprise then to learn that production credits belong to Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Jane’s Addiction, Weezer, Mercury Rev) with Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies, Manic Street Preachers) chipping in his recording services for one track.

The funeral cortège moved slowly, with probably more respect than was due; the thousands of those lining the streets were smiling, but the feeling in the air wasn’t particularly sad, or triumphant, more one of relief.

As the long, winding column of not really mourners, more seeing offers came to an abrupt halt beneath the tall building, anticipation rose. A song was playing. It ebbed and flowed, melodies shimmering to match the sun reflecting back through the eddys of the water below. The song was called ‘Guaratuba‘. A breeze sprung up and the singer’s words, seeming to come from out of the ether themselves, bathed the good natured throng in sweetness and humility.

To be perfectly honest, this is the best part of writing about music.

It’s like leading your grandad down to the bottom of the garden to show him where you saw the goblins disappear. Arthur Rigby and the Baskervylles do not live at the bottom of your garden (more’s the pity) but their music, full of lush imagery and sudden blasts of melodic fantasy, inspire that same child-like excitement you used to get from leaping between rocks at the beach or shimmying up a tree trunk on the first sunny day of the year.

Damon Albarn is the British version of Jack White.

His endless indulgence in random musical enterprises seems to suggest that he is still – twenty years on from fronting Brtipop legends Blur - searching for the ultimate musical calling in life.

Unlike the former White Stripes frontman however, Albarn is yet to lose our attention, and ‘Dr Dee‘, the soundtrack to the English Opera of the same name, is the newest addition to his eclectic repertoire.

It wouldn’t have been so ironic if it hadn’t been a struggle.

Unerringly left field, Pulp – or to that point awkwardly charismatic front man Jarvis Cocker‘s succession of backing bands – had been left in splendid anonymity by the UK’s uncaring record buying public for over a decade.

Caught in the scrum of desperate majors signing anybody patently ‘British’ as the country’s sense of national self worth reasserted itself, they were almost a twelve year old overnight sensation by the time ‘His N Hers‘ clipped suburban acidity looked up the nations’ skirt in mid-1994.

It’s strange. No matter how many times his name comes up, no matter how many words get crammed into Beatles essays trying to sum his work up, it seems impossible to over-rate George Harrison.

As a songwriter, as a singer, as a guitarist – even as a film producer, making the likes of Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Withnail & I possible – he remains a beacon of compassion and innovation.

The accomplishments of his Beatle days go without saying. This release deals with his early solo career, from the dam-burst of creativity that was ‘All Things Must Pass’ to the unapologetically spiritual ‘Living In The Material World’ and the breezy, bluesy ‘Thirty Three & 1/3’. Harrison fans will recognise the bare, close-miked sound of these demos from similar bonus tracks on the 30^th Anniversary edition of ‘All Things Must Pass’.

When Jack White announced a few months back that he would be releasing a solo album, the declaration didn’t come as much of a shock.

Even at the height of the White Stripes’ success, he seemed to possess the strange mixture of enigmatic persona and obsessive focus that often lends itself to such endeavors, so following the band’s official breakup it appeared to be a foregone conclusion that White would eventually set himself free from the self-imposed restraints that he may have already outgrown anyway.

There’s a line of thinking that says you’re not really a fan of any band until you’ve heard them play live. That doesn’t say much for this generation of Beatles fans, but if you have any kind of love for folk or rock music, then one particular band’s madly beautiful fusion of the two is apt to start you down the path to dedicated fandom.

One breezy evening in Manchester, Ellen and the Escapades are assembling at one end of a back room of the Castle Hotel, all but nose to nose with their audience. A guy’s leaning his elbow on the keyboards at one side of the room; on the other, a girl sits against a radiator to avoid a clout from the bass guitar. ‘Intimate venue’ doesn’t quite cover it.

Fans and critics alike will forever consider Spritualized to be one of those bands whose every release comes off as if it was its own momentous occasion.

Ever since the career-defining latitude he attained with 1997’s epic ‘Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space‘, group mastermind and former Spaceman 3 alum Jason Pierce has continued to chase a decidedly widescreen vision in terms of both sound and ambition. Each record since arrived like a statement of purpose, from the one hundred-plus musicians that contributed to ‘Let It Come Down‘ to Pierce’s near-fatal bout of double pneumonia which helped form the conceptual template behind ‘Songs In A & E‘.

Perhaps it was the highly lauded reception that met with the Blur reunion that inspired Graham Coxon to regress to his musical origins.

Perhaps it was the influence of being around the band mates that collectively became a household name that reminded him why he picked up a guitar in the first instance.