Semisonic: Feeling Strangely Fine (MCA)
With Closing Time being nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song, MCA have decided it's a good time to re-release last year's album by the Minneapolis trio. Feeling Strangely Fine walks a fine line between heavenly pop and Hootie-rock, almost reaching the former on Singing In My Sleep and Never You Mind, and almost stumbling into the latter on DND and She Spreads Her Wings. Those who fell for the quirky charms of The New Radicals will embrace this collection, and might even be drawn to the dark, disturbing undertones of the new single, Secret Smile. However, by the album's closer, Gone To The Movies, it's still the Grammy-nominated opening track which stays in the mind.
Kevin Courtney
Grandaddy: The Broken Down Comforter Collection (Big Cat/V2)
This is not a new album by the Modesto, California beardies, but a catch-up collection of their early EPs, Machines Are Not She and A Pretty Mess By This One Band. Recorded between 1994 and 1997, these songs show Grandaddy's strange Neil Young-on-hooch sound taking shape via Gentle Spike Resort, Wretched Songs and For The Dishwasher. Previously unavailable in Ireland, the material has been re-mastered and repackaged with new artwork (featuring a very nice yellow duckling), so now obsessive fans of the band can complete their Grandaddy collection. The rest of us, however, won't find much to distinguish this from the debut album, Under The Western Freeway, apart from its unrefined weirdness.
Kevin Courtney
MC Solaar: Le Tour De La Question (East West)
When we praise the France which has given us Daft Punk, Air, Cassius and a whole new way of shaking on the dance floor, let's not forget the original Gallic beatmasters. MC Solaar's emergence in the early 1990s with a clutch of remarkable tunes like Bouge De La on Talkin' Loud signalled the dawn of the funky republic, and an acceptance by those beyond Calais that there was more to French pop than Johnny Halliday. This live double album combines Solaar's big boom tunes with a fine showing by the rapper of some new ways of getting things done. His jazz-funk moving and shaking may be somewhat old hat, but a sophisticated swampy blues touch lifts tracks like Dakota and Victime De La Mode on to higher ground.
Jim Carroll
