review

Live review: Richie Sambora – The Tivoli, Brisbane – 20/2/14

/ Paul McBride / 7 Comments

Richie Sambora

IF YOU BELIEVE EVERYTHING that you’ve read in the majority of music press, it would seem that the past week has been a turbulent one for Soundwave. Bands pulling out of the festival, a multitude of timetable changes and a flurry of what promoter AJ Maddah has referred to as “pissing contests” between bands have all contributed to an impression of a festival in trouble. If you look past the melodrama, however, you’ll realise that there remains a festival of almost a hundred bands of such impressive diversity and talent to make any such trivialities irrelevant, and with more rock credentials than any music fan could spend a day shaking several sticks at.

A pleasant bonus to having Soundwave roll through town is of course sideshows, and tonight’s gig from ex-Bon Jovi member Richie Sambora would be a more than pleasant addition to that roster.

With a set beginning at the early time of 8pm and with no support bands on a stiflingly humid Brisbane evening, it could be suggested that Sambora might have his work cut out to make the gig work, but this is one rock stalwart who has played more stadium gigs than some of the fans here tonight have had hot dinners, so it’s no surprise that the old master works the audience into a frenzy with a series of classic rock tracks and plenty of between-song banter. The only question remains is how much Bon Jovi material will he play, and will he mention his old song-writing (and latter day sparring) partner?

At around 8:30 the lights dim and AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ comes over the PA, announcing the arrival of the healthy looking Sambora and Australian guitarist Orianthi among a six-piece setup. Starting off with the first two tracks from his most recent album Aftermath Of The Lowdown, ‘Burn The Candle Down’ and ‘Every Road Leads Home To You’, he directs his audience to “wave your hands motherfuckers,” and said motherfuckers respond in the appropriate fashion. Explaining that his last album was a cathartic one for him to write and record, and receiving an amiable ribbing from a few people in the crowd for drinking water instead of alcohol, the 54 year-old says that “there’s too much shit around music now; people just want to hear people communicate music and jam out,” in reference to over-production and adding too many electronic elements.

Working through ‘Taking A Chance On The Wind’ followed by an excerpt from ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, Sambora leads the first huge sing-along of the evening for Bon Jovi number ‘I’ll Be There For You’, although there’s no mention of Jon as yet. Platinum-blonde guitarist Orianthi is a hard-rocking delight throughout; trading riffs and owning large sections of songs, while not stealing the limelight at any point. Its easy to see why she has been voted one of the top female guitarists in the world by several guitar magazines.

A cover of INXS’s ‘Don’t Change’ is wedged appropriately into the show at this point, before ‘Sugar Daddy’ and ‘Weathering The Storm’ provide rocking riffs and a spot of cheese-rock balladry respectively.

“I wrote this song about my fucking ex-wife,” says Sambora, to ridiculous levels of cheering, before playing the opening chords of ‘Learning How To Fly With A Broken Wing’ and finally the first reference to Jon Bon Jovi comes as he introduces ‘These Days’. “This is the title track of our 1995 album,” he says. “I know which songs are mine, and which were his.” Cue more cheering. “When he coughs up some dough I’ll probably go back.”

By now, everyone can feel that a big number is coming, and as Sambora dons a hat that looks like it was picked due its resemblance to that of Crocodile Dundee, the band kick into ‘Beds Are Burning’ by Midnight Oil, which after a couple of verses becomes ‘Living On A Prayer’. Like a time-bomb going off, the release of energy is inescapable, and for three or four minutes it feels like a stadium gig circa 1987, or every bad birthday party you’ve ever been to.

An obligatory encore including ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ is enough to finish off this audience, and if tonight’s gig reinforced anything, it’s that Soundwave is going to be special. Oh, and Richie Sambora doesn’t need the help of any old ‘friends’ to put on a kick-ass rock show.

RICHIE SAMBORA APPEARS AT SOUNDWAVE FESTIVAL STARTING IN BRISBANE FEB 22.

Record review: Drowners – Drowners (2014, LP)

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drowners

Named after Suede’s 1992 debut single, Drowners is a New York quartet fronted by a 25 year-old male model with all the pop pretentiousness of Morrissey circa 1985 and the unashamed retro-leanings of The Strokes on their 2001 debut; but don’t let that put you off. Being so obviously indebted to certain bands (including Camden likely lads The Libertines, and thus – to a lesser extent – The Clash) could either be a blessing or a curse (it worked for Casablancas & Co. after all), but Drowners have just enough chops to pull it off on this self-titled debut. Frontman Matthew Hitt moved stateside from his home in Wales while on the hunt for modelling work, but ended up forming a garage-rock quartet, releasing a little-known EP and supporting the likes of Foals and The Vaccines on their North American tours – as you do. Despite being three-quarters American, the band’s sound sits much more comfortably in that sweet spot directly between ramshackle and tight that so many groups of underfed and over-posh groups of London lads have done in the past couple of years. Spurts of Smiths-esque self-loathing, longing and alienation come from the likes of ‘Watch You Change’ and ‘A Button On Your Blouse’, while opener ‘Ways To Phrase A Rejection’ and single ‘Luv, Hold Me Down’ get amongst the angular guitar lines with alternating Johnny Marr-like control and Pete Doherty urgency. While sounding like a microcosm of garage-rock isn’t going to be enough for Drowners to build a career on, this is a pretty good starting point. (Frenchkiss)

Record review: Elizabeth Rose – Elizabeth Rose (2014, EP)

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Sydney producer, singer and synth-twiddler Elizabeth Maniscalco – a.k.a. Elizabeth Rose – has had a pretty stellar last twelve months. With a debut EP, performances at festivals across Australia and North America, and collaborations with the likes of Sinden and Flight Facilities under her diminutive belt, it’s time for the traditionally difficult second record. Luckily it’s something the twenty-three year-old takes in her stride, as this five-track EP is a fine collection of dreamy, layered electro-pop, warm synths, and flashes of R&B and dance spread over a cool twenty-one minutes. In many ways her voice is the most appealing aspect of Maniscalco’s music, as on opener and lead single ‘The Good Life’, which has had plenty of airplay and critical acclaim thus far. Smooth, clean vocals wash over edgy and angular synth sounds on second track ‘Out of Step’, with plenty of echo and reverb thrown in for good measure, before third track ‘Is It Love?’ presents a lighter, more airy vibe. ‘Sensibility’ continues in a similar vein, and final track ‘Only Me’ features Sydney R&B vocalist VCS in a strong finish. This EP – Maniscalco’s second – puts her in a similar bracket to a small group of young Aussie producers and performers (think Flume, Chet Faker etc.) doing plenty of great things with electronic music. Based on this evidence, 2014 should be a pretty good year for Elizabeth Rose. (Inertia)

Live review: Misfits + Graveyard Rockstars + The Wrath – The Zoo, Brisbane – 16/1/14

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New Jersey horror-punk legends the Misfits may have had more line-up changes than Kiss, Thin Lizzy and The Ramones put together (possibly), but with founding bass player and vocalist Jerry Only still at the helm of the iconic band, they seem to be in just as good a shape as ever.

Brisbane’s The Zoo is packed and humid as a sell-out audience takes position to catch the make-up toting trio, with almost as many skulls on T-shirts as tattoos and chains hanging from a variety of facial features. First up is Sydney quintet The Wrath, who put in a strong opening set as the venue fills, followed by fellow Sydney-siders Graveyard Rockstars, whose performance is a mashing together of white horror-punk make-up, head-banging dreadlocks and foreboding tales about death and what might be lurking “six feet under the floor”. “This next song is a doomsday anthem,” says frontman Ash Rothschild. “You can take it how you will. That sounds a bit gay, doesn’t it?”

With a stripped-down stage show for their Australian jaunt, the Misfits themselves don’t take long before lowering the lights and appearing before an audience now collectively losing its marbles. Almost from the second Jerry, Dez and Eric take to the stage a mess of frenzied moshing breaks out front-and-centre, and the energy doesn’t let up for ninety minutes. Jerry Only is the focal point throughout; his trademark devilock hairstyle hasn’t changed a bit since 1977, and his spiked shoulders and skull-encrusted bass head reflect spotlights and drip sweat in tandem.

With Ramones-like speed the songs are reeled off, from ‘Land of the Dead’, ‘Scream’, ‘Attitude’, ‘Angel Fuck’ and ‘She’; the latter written when Only was seventeen, and seemingly about a hundred others. The inevitable crowd-surfing breaks out during ’20 Eyes’, and the band continue unperturbed as a sea of elbows, knees and beer bottles bubbles and boils beneath them.

Almost as quickly as it started the set is over, and I’m left with a feeling that despite the horror-punk label the band is given, there is so much more in their arsenal; from punk, speed-metal, rockabilly, and good old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll. They just don’t make ’em like this any more.

Record review: Bruce Springsteen – High Hopes (2014, LP)

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While the arrival of a new year brings new hopes and changes to many, some facts of life remain satisfyingly steadfast; and one of those is that The Boss never disappoints. Forty-five years and eighteen studio albums into a monumental career, the sixty-four year old New Jersey native shows no sign of slowing down; the fact that the majority of this album was recorded on the road, before being completed with covers, out-takes and reworked versions of songs that didn’t make the cut on previous releases is testament to that. The plundering of unpolished gems begins with the title track, a song originally recorded by The Havalinas in 1990 before appearing on the 1996 Blood Brothers EP. Aussie fans will notice a faithful cover of The Saints’ 1986 classic ‘Just Like Fire Would’, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound like it came straight from the mind and fingers of the man himself, but it’s originals like ‘American Skin (41 Shots)’ and ‘Hunter of Invisible Game’ that really pick you up by the lapels, and set you down again with a soulful bump. The E-Street band is in fine form throughout, and given that the material is taken from a time period as long as ten years, recently-deceased members Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici both feature, as well as Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello on the excellent ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’. While the coherence of previous Springsteen records is somewhat lacking and there’s a definite thrown-together feel to the record, the song-writing and execution are as masterful as ever, making this another fine addition to an already legendary catalogue. (Columbia)

Live review: Pond + Doctopus + Peter Bibby – The Zoo, Brisbane – 14/12/13

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Pond

In the future, when I think back to the time I saw Pond just before Christmas 2013, the main memories I’ll have – besides the outstanding performance of the bands themselves – will be ones of sweat, perspiration, humidity, and even more sweat. That’s what happens when Brisbane’s aircon-less The Zoo is sold out in summer, but what the hell; it’s Saturday night, the cold beers are flowing, and everyone’s getting loose in preparation for Pond.

After a set of folky, charismatic songs by Peter Bibby, the ramshackle trio of Doctopus take to the stage and batter their way through a fantastic collection of sweaty, lairy and hairy tunes, complete with sometimes unintelligible banter between. Theirs is a straight-up, fire-’em-off approach that is both exciting and catchy at once; a coarse but finely-executed set of rough-at-the-edges garage rock. Any band with an instrumental song called ‘QI/Stephen Fry’ and who fly-kick each other in the middle of songs is okay by me. (TIP: their album Buddies is free on Bandcamp – get on that thang).

The Zoo is heaving long before Pond is due to take the stage, and it’s refreshing to see that the crowd is seemingly entirely full of good vibes and enthusiasm for the head-liners, and there’s a generally great atmosphere despite the amount of perspiration going on. The Perth six-piece are in fine form, as they power through ‘Whatever Happened To The Million Head Collide’ and ‘Xanman’ early on, before moving through a set heavy with Hobo Rocket numbers. I’d seen Pond previously (at Laneway Festival last year) and while they put on a good show on that occasion, something about being enclosed on the smaller stage makes frontman Nick Allbrook a more engaging and entertaining mix of rabid posturing, banshee-like wailing, and clear enthusiasm for everything the band is doing.

‘Fantastic Explosion of Time’ is an obvious highlight, but it’s the pulsating juggernauts of extended jams throughout and a manic finish (including the expected level of crowd-surfing) that make the gig – and the band – such a unique one.

Record review: Leona Lewis – Christmas, With Love (2013, LP)

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Leona Lewis

Wow, Noddy Holder must really be quaking in his boots. The Slade frontman has more and more competition every year for the title of most-played Christmas song, with close to a dozen major artists taking a stab at the dying art this year. Leona Lewis isn’t going to trouble the ’70s legend with this substance-light ten-song collection of festive standards though, and you have to wonder why one of the most successful former X-Factor winners is lowering herself to make such a crappy record. Then you realise which record company she’s signed to, and the unmistakable whiff of Simon Cowell becomes as clear as day (Lewis is signed to the mogul’s Syco label); it’s easy to imagine him looking at the Christmas charts with glowing dollar signs in his eyes. Lewis has a strong and soulful voice, but listening to the cheesy schmaltz on this album made me want to tear down the tree, set fire to the tinsel, drop-kick the turkey off the balcony and cancel Christmas forever. Opener ‘One More Sleep’ is a dire start and probably the low point of the album, while ‘Winter Wonderland’ and ‘White Christmas’ are almost as painful but at least allow Lewis to flaunt her impressive vocal range. ‘O Holy Night’ makes a slight improvement, but then the horror of ‘Ave Maria’ drags the record back into the gutter. Perhaps Christmas albums shouldn’t be taken seriously, but this one is just another piece of evidence in the case against television talent shows. (Syco/RCA)

Record review: Papa Pilko And The Binrats – Third Time Lucky (2013, EP)

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Sydney septet Papa Pilko And The Binrats describe their music as wild blues and slick swingin’ country rock ‘n’ roll with horns. Add to that a uniquely Australian approach to sleazy, boozy song-writing and a charismatic frontman not afraid to make a fool of himself and you have a band that tick all the right boxes for entertainment value alone. This four-track EP is the band’s third in barely eighteen months, and sees the hard-drinkin’, bar-room brawlin’ bunch get loose and lewd over the course of a short fourteen minutes. The baritone sax gives the start of opener ‘Poor Boy’ a beat-down, depression-era feel before the full horn section kicks in and the song takes off in swinging fashion. Singer and head Binrat Cyrus ‘Papa’ Pilko must have been hitting the sarsaparilla pretty hard lately, as he’s sounding much more throatily gruff than on the band’s two previous efforts, but it all adds to the downright dirty tone of the record. “I come home at 10am and I open up the door. We start out in the bedroom and then down on the bathroom floor,” he cheekily sings on ‘Woman In Black’, and you can tell he probably means it. The only bad point about this EP is that it doesn’t quite do the band justice; you have to catch them live to fully appreciate their raucously loose act and the spectacle of Pilko acting like an amiable madman. That being said, these songs swing and roll with infectious vigour. (Independent)

Live review: Steel Panther + Buckcherry + Fozzy – Riverstage, Brisbane – 6/12/13

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It’s pitch black and the humidity is thick. I can’t see two metres in front of my face, and unseen creatures slither and skulk in the bushes and trees around me. Bewildered by the black summer night, I try to work out which way is best to go, and my eyes strain to pick out shapes of branches and hulking tree roots ahead of me. A sense of dark foreboding shakes my very soul, my ears prick up, and the hairs on my arms stand on end as a heavy rustling approaches from my right. As I tense up and close my eyes to await my fate at the hands/claws/teeth of unknown beasts, a nearby streetlight clicks on and the scene before me becomes clear. It’s a middle-aged guy with a mullet in a Steel Panther T-shirt taking a piss with one hand while slurping from a can of Jack Daniels and Coke with the other. Brisbane’s Botanic Gardens really needs to be better lit after dark.

After my heart rate has returned to normal and a quick set by the Chris Jericho-fronted Fozzy in front of a small but increasing crowd, Los Angeles hard rockers Buckcherry take to the stage. “We’re fucking jet-lagged but we’re here,” announces frontman Josh Todd, before using his fantastic rock ‘n’ roll voice in numbers like ‘Everything’, ‘Sorry’ (dedicated to “all the hot chicks on this continent”) and Icona Pop’s fucking horrible ‘I Love It’. A short blast of AC/DC’s Bon Scott-era ‘Big Balls’ is much more welcome despite an obvious lack of rehearsal on that particular number, as is some of The Rolling Stones’s ‘Miss You’ before the band’s own classic ‘Crazy Bitch’. It’s easy to see why they are often compared to classic hard rock bands like Aerosmith and Guns ‘N’ Roses; they are a classy, tight, straight-up rock band capable of playing big rock songs in style. And Todd’s shirtless abs seem to be a big hit with the ladies and probably a fair percentage of the blokes.

Once the stage is set and the lights are dimmed, it only takes someone backstage to hit the play button on Iron Maiden’s ‘Run To The Hills’ to get the majority of this audience frothing at the mouth for Steel Panther. After a short video of the band playing ‘strip battleship’ backstage, the spandex-clad quartet appear and kick into ‘Eyes of a Panther’.

Now, it’s no secret that Michael Starr, Satchel, Lexxi Foxx and Stix Zadinia (as they call themselves) can really play, as all four members are seasoned musicians and have been parts of various ‘genuine’ metal and rock bands going back decades. In many ways they are more successful than the bands they are taking off, and while some of their music and on-stage banter at first appears to be fun, it’s only when you realise that there’s a large amount of people in this audience taking this shit seriously that things get uncomfortable.

By third song ‘Asian Hooker’, the act is no longer funny. In fact, it’s just plain fucking boring. Steel Panther are often compared to original rock piss-takers Spinal Tap, but the thing about Spinal Tap is that their jokes were well-constructed and smart, and the laugh was always on them. A Steel Panther set is basically the same two or three dick jokes repeated with increasing levels of crudeness, punctuated with calls to the most brazen girls in the crowd to “show us your vagina”. You’d need to be a brain-dead moron to continue to find this shit funny for an hour and a half. Add overt sexism, jokes about paedophilia, and clear racism, and you have one of the low points of live music this reviewer has witnessed this year. Slagging off the likes of Hoobastank and the Goo Goo Dolls I welcome with open arms, but for fuck sake, this band needs to get some new material in the banter department. New songs from their upcoming album like ‘Gloryhole’ and ‘Party Like Tomorrow is the End of the World’ suggest that the themes won’t be changing any time soon.

It’d be fair to ask what the fuck did I expect from a Steel Panther show exactly. The answer would be that the band be far less enthusiastic about the darker parts of their act, and much more satirical with their comedy, instead of relying on the lowest common denominator with which to get laughs. Also, not to be so bored and underwhelmed by long stretches of the so-called ‘banter’, which seemed to exist solely to fill time in many instances. It’s telling to see that the majority of the audience laughing so hard are white males with beer guts, with a large amount of them probably old enough to have seen Motley Crue in their heyday.

After pulling a group of girls out of the crowd and encouraging them to flash their chests at the audience, the band is forced to cut their encore-free set short by the strict 10pm curfew at the Riverstage. ‘Death To All But Metal’ is a strong song on which to finish, but as I make for the exit gates, the crowd bellows “bullshit, bullshit” to a by-now empty stage, and behind my pained expression I’m thinking that I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Record review: D.D. Dumbo – D.D. Dumbo (2013, EP)

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DD DUMBO

This debut EP from Castlemaine, Victoria producer and all-round talented guy Oliver Hugh Perry – a.k.a. D.D. Dumbo – is completely captivating from the off. Genre-bouncing between bluesy psychedelic jams, ambient electronica, experimental indie-folk and earthy African rhythms, yet somehow retaining a composed coherence throughout, this five-track, nineteen-minute EP showcases an intriguing and original new Australian talent worth getting excited about.

While Perry makes his music in his house 120 kilometres north of Melbourne in the gold fields of rural Victoria, opening song and lead single ‘Tropical Oceans’ is a classy summer-y beach song if there ever was one, evoking images of crashing waves and a blinding glare; you can almost smell the warm salty breeze as the smooth harmonies and crisp guitar lines break from the speakers. “My eyes blew out, I can finally see, warm magical tropical oceans,” he sings in an almost slacker drawl, followed by the ridiculous “I opened my skull and you were looking at me, oh you and your cousins chihuahua,” before the EP highlight: a chiming and cascading guitar riff that is both simple and engaging in its execution.

‘I Woke Up Covered In Sand’ continues the beach-themed titles, yet its lyrics read like they came from a book of Jim Morrison’s poetry. “I run as fast as I can, couldn’t scream, coughed out milk and a man,” being one cryptic example. The inclusion of a sparsely-done cover of Roy Orbison classic ‘Crying’ only serves to highlight the quality of Perry’s voice and the strength of the vocal harmonies he puts together, while the punchier ‘Dinghy’ is much more lo-fi, and closer ‘Alihukwe’ thumps and stomps to tribal drums and spiky melodies.

For less than twenty minutes of music, there’s a generous wealth of ideas here and this EP sounds like nothing else being made in Australia right now, making D.D. Dumbo one of the most promising ones-to-watch of recent months.

D.D. DUMBO’S SELF-TITLED EP IS OUT NOW.

Live review: British India + Lunatics on Pogosticks – The Zoo, Brisbane – 22/11/13

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British India

In town to play a brace of dates in support of their ‘Blinded’ single launch from their successful fourth album Controller, Melbourne quartet British India – like the rest of us – would endure the stifling humidity of Fortitude Valley’s The Zoo to once again prove they are still one of the best young rock bands in the country.

With multitudes of scantily-clad young punters sinking Smirnoff Blacks and playing pool at the back of the sweaty venue, up-and-coming Triple J Unearthed High winners Lunatics on Pogosticks get the crowd up front even more warmed up with a set of noisy and energetic pop-punk tracks with hints of the more raucous side of Sonic Youth.

British India waste very little time in getting right into the action; starting their set with the always-excellent ‘March Into The Ocean’, before running through a near-perfect mix of songs from Controller, classics like ‘Tied Up My Hands’, ‘Run The Red Light’, and a cover of Blink-182’s ‘Dammit’. While there is plenty of energy, suitable amounts of jumping around on-stage, and a decent level of audience banter via frontman Declan Melia, the best thing about British India is that they can really play; there is proper musicianship under their appropriately gimmick-free exterior.

Finishing up with the rousing ‘This Ain’t No Fucking Disco’ in front of an audience by now losing their collective marbles, British India prove they have lost none of the strengths that have been their trademarks for nearly ten years.

Live review: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club + Immigrant Union – The Hi-Fi, Brisbane – 17/11/13

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It’s hard to believe that Californian rock band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club has been in existence since 1998. For me, their near-perfect blend of neo-psychedelia and barely-restrained garage-rock aggression transcends time and trends, owing to the fact that throughout their seven album, fifteen year career they haven’t ever tried to be anyone but themselves. Originally on the line-up of the now deceased Harvest Festival, the band delighted their Australian fans by swiftly responding to the cancellation of their festival shows and announcing a headlining tour of their own. Tonight’s result is that Brisbane gets to experience Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in West End’s The Hi-Fi. Game on.

An already quite full venue greets support act Immigrant Union; a band of mish-mashed styles (both musically and hair-wise), featuring Dandy Warhols’ drummer Brent DeBoer on frontman duties. Written descriptions of their music often feature the word ‘folk’, but tonight’s performance is a quite exhilarating mix of bluesy roots and country, with extended jams only being beaten in length by the awesome hair of singer-guitarist Bob Harrow.

Lighting in a now packed Hi-Fi is sparse and ominous as the effortlessly cool trio of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club walk onto the stage, amid reverberating roars of welcome and gasps of shock (come on, people) at guitarist/vocalist Peter Hayes having a solitary cigarette perched on his guitar neck, the light trail of smoke heading ceiling-wards from the red-hot tip while reflecting the light and adding to his already smooth exterior.

Starting with the grand ‘Hate The Taste’, the trio build a monumental sound from their respective instruments, before heading into ‘Beat The Devil’s Tattoo’ and a cover of ‘Let The Day Begin’ by bassist Robert Been’s father’s band The Call. Switching styles, instruments, pace, and groove comes easy to the three-piece throughout, as an ecstatic crowd are treated to the likes of ‘Ain’t No Easy Way’, ‘Screaming Gun’ and ‘Conscience Killer’, before a final blast of scathing, fiercely powerful guitar rock with ‘Spread Your Love’.

Obviously an encore is called for, and BRMC oblige with a further four-song outing, including ‘Whatever Happened To My Rock ‘n’ Roll (Punk Song)’. With pounded ears, a sense of dark elation, and the foreboding doom of the working week ahead, we make for home. What a bloody great gig.

Record review: Billie Joe + Norah – Foreverly (2013 LP)

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Wow. I mean holy crap. I mean huh? Take a quick look at the basic ingredients of this album and something doesn’t seem to add up from the off. A somewhat off-colour-of-late pop-punk legend teams up with a jazz-pop Grammy-magnet to record an album of lesser-known Everly Brothers tunes; surely this has got to be a total stinker? Not even close; this unlikeliest of albums works a treat and the most amazing thing here is that it’s Green Day frontman Armstrong’s vocal performance that makes it work. The execution of the rootsy ballads and country numbers from 1958’s Songs Our Daddy Taught Us isn’t as major a departure for Norah Jones as it is for the perennial punk brat, and it’s hard to connect the smooth and intimate vocals Armstrong displays here with the same voice that sang songs about going blind from too much masturbation on 1994’s ‘Longview’. “I am a roving gambler, I’ve gambled all around, whenever I meet with a deck of cards, I lay my money down,” they sing in perfect unison on opener ‘Roving Gambler’, and I’ll be damned if they don’t make it sound entirely believable, and not unlike a latter day Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris number. While Armstrong is a revelation throughout, Jones is an understated triumph, and apparently masterminded the intimate feel by making Armstrong sing facing her so they could synchronise their vocals perfectly. While it’s more likely to appeal to Norah Jones fans than the average punk bonehead, there’s something more than decent going on here that’s well worth checking out. (Reprise)

Record review: Robbie Williams – Swings Both Ways (2013 LP)

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Eyebrows were raised in 2006 when Robbie Williams split from his long-term song-writing partner Guy Chambers and uncharacteristically started rapping on his polarising Rudebox album. Since then his career has been somewhat unsteady, with a Take That reunion and a Greatest Hits release showing no real musical progression by a man who has sold over 70 million albums world-wide and still packs out stadiums across the globe. Swings Both Ways could be seen as another sideways step, given it’s a return to a genre he first visited with 2001’s Swing When You’re Winning, but Williams seems so naturally suited to this sort of stuff that it should only be seen as another ace move by the 39 year-old. The quality of writing is undoubtedly improved by the return of Chambers, and big name contributors like Lily Allen, Michael Bublé, Kelly Clarkson and tour buddy Olly Murs make this a smooth and varied collection originals and covers. Renditions of Cab Calloway’s ‘Minnie The Moocher’ and 1930s classic ‘Dream A Little Dream of Me’ sit well next to the Williams/Chambers-penned ‘Shine My Shoes’ and ‘Snowblind’, and a Rufus Wainwright collaboration on the cheekily-suggestive title track. The inclusion of crooning muppet Bublé certainly wasn’t a good move, but will no doubt help the album find an audience in the North American market. He has built almost his entire career on his endlessly boyish charm and ability to endure, and Williams will no doubt nail the Christmas market with this release. (Universal)

Record review: Future of the Left – How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident (2013, LP)

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FOTL

If you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention, or so the saying goes, and by that standard, Future of the Left frontman Andy Falkous could never be accused of lacking focus. Album four from the Cardiff alt-rock quartet sees the former Mclusky man angrier than ever, and – given it’s a fan-funded, self-released effort – free to heap vitriol on all manner of subjects and people. Amid sludgy, demented bass-lines and angular guitar riffs he takes aim at record companies, consumerism, television, and property prices, before saving a special mention for a certain Razorlight singer on ‘Johnny Borrell Afterlife’. While it’s pretty much business as usual in terms of lyrical content, there’s experimentation in the form of country-rock closer ‘Why Aren’t I Going To Hell?’ and more than a hint of new-wave pop on ‘The Real Meaning of Christmas’, while ‘The Male Gaze’ could even be called catchy. Listening to song after song of an angry man ranting can wear thin, but How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident is the perfect antidote to manufactured pop.