Latest releases reviewed
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE Lullabyes to Paralyze Interscope ****
"Naked" Nick Oliveiri has left the band, but fans needn't fret about QOTSA's future. Leader Josh Homme still has his mojo, and he's charged fearlessly into the further reaches of pop metal to bring back some glittering, grungy gems. Lullabyes to Paralyze is a headspinning brew of psychedelic heavy metal that blends titanium-plated rock with dirt-encrusted blues, keeping a tight grip on your solar plexus all the way. Honorary band member Mark Lanegan takes over lead vocals on the opening track, and Homme's girlfriend Brody Dalle and Garbage singer Shirley Manson guest on You Got a Killer Scene There, Man. But this is Homme's baby all the way, from the reflective rock of I Never Came and Long Slow Goodbye to the entrails-out excess of Burn the Witch, Someone's in the Wolf and Everybody Knows You're Insane. The guitars are so scimitar-sharp you don't feel them slicing your head off, and the tunes are so deceptively crafty you don't notice them worming their way into your synapses. A total trip. www.qotsa.com
Kevin Courtney
SEU JORGE Cru Beleza/Favela Chic ****
You may recognise Seu Jorge from his big-screen appearances in City of God and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, but it's this album of dramatic favela-folk that is really set to steal the limelight. Before roles as Knockout Ned or appearances alongside Bill Murray pushed him and his Afro to the fore, Jorge was performing in pop-samba bands such as Farofa Carioca; a debut album, Carolina, produced by Beastie Boys collaborator Mario Caldato, appeared three years ago. Crunchy and spiky, Cru is a wonderful blend of old styles and new twists, an album that would sound good alongside those old school Brazilian giants who pointed the way forward during the 1960s and 70s. Jorge's voice soars and dives throughout, its pitch perfectly tuned to every nuance and twist of the song. In addition to sublime versions of Serge Gainsbourg's Chatterton and Elvis's Don't, the gritty, soulful passion of his own tracks make a big splash. www.favelachic.com
Jim Carroll
STEREOPHONICS Language. Sex. Violence. Other? V2 **
What is it with Kelly Jones? First the Stereophonics' lead singer-songwriter shows his petulant contempt towards music journalists with the less than vituperative Mr Writer. Now, on this somewhat autocratic new album, he vents his spleen on door security personnel (Doorman), referring to the species as monkeys, and inviting them (as a collective, presumably and worryingly) to "suck my banana, suck it with cream". And these are the words of someone who wants to be taken seriously? Musically, the album fares better. While by no means harking back to the band's late 1990s heyday of Word Gets Around and Performance and Cocktails, this does have the benefit of several cracking songs: Girl is a shockingly good rocker - less than three minutes of MC5 style and substance abuse; Devil is erotic rock taken to XXXtremes; Deadhead is Primal Scream on a bender. The remainder mix U2-lite stadia rock with ineffectual bombast - they're either too much or too little. Or rather, much like the album as a whole, just not enough.www.stereophonics.com
Tony Clayton-Lea
ANDY FITZPATRICK Early Days Little Old Lady Records ***
A dusky tenor can't disguise Andy Fitzpatrick's reinforced Dublin accent; its edges are hardened by more than a decade spent in New York. Yet Fitzpatrick's debut album, a short collection of songs that relies solely on that voice and his piano, is not a singer-songwriter's diasporic lament. It is the sound of a lounge pianist, long after closing time, with a husky whisper of soft regret and warm nostalgia. Written with Will Merriman (Fitzpatrick has made several guest appearances with The Harvest Ministers), songs such as Ungrateful Lover or the bittersweet It's Been a Long Time sound old beyond their years, accompanied by sympathetic creaks from the instrument. Little variety in tone or tempo can render it indistinct at first, but on both Dancin' and Fifth Avenue the stretch of Fitzpatrick's imagination and his sharp way with a lyric reveals more with each listen. www.andyfitzpatrick.com
Peter Crawley
TADHG COOKE Wax & Seal Ivy Court Records ****
Comparisons can be odious, but think Badly Drawn Boy crossed with Gallagher & Lyle, with a tincture of John Lennon tossed in for good measure, and permit yourself the wryest of smiles. Tadhg Cooke's solo debut crisscrosses so many terrains that your musical compass may quiver with the sheer magnetic challenge of Wax & Seal. It's the sleight of hand in his wordplay that charms. A computational linguist, Cooke gets his kicks by applying a distinctly poetic sensibility to the music: placing the right words in the right order. George's St Arcade is the stuff of magical maudlin bedsitland; Sparks is drawn from the same word well as Arthur Riordan's Improbable Frequency. Eminently likeable, utterly enviable. www.tadhgcooke.com
Siobhán Long
CYANN & BEN Happy Like an Autumn Tree Gooom Disques ***
In contemporary music there can be few terms more toe-curling than "neo-psychedelic indie prog-rock". But, rest assured, so scurrilous a charge will not be levelled here against Cyann & Ben and their adventurous, slow-burning second album. Picking delicately through layers of ambience, dissonance and harmony, the French quartet flit from laptop experiments to the all encompassing fuzz of analogue tools, while mercifully restraining their more heedless impulses. You can't dabble in post-rock without being labelled cinematic, but the unpredictable melodic twists of driving opener Circles, the coiled and shimmering tone of Gone to Waste and the upgraded space-rock of A Moment Nowhere point more to high drama. A tad overwrought, perhaps, (and when you've heard one backwards loop of womb-like undulations, you've heard them all), but Cyann & Ben create floaty, melancholy soundscapes with rare consideration. www.cyannandben.com
Peter Crawley
AMBULANCE LTD Ambulance Ltd TVT ****
At the end of this lush, bluesy, poppy and charming debut, you'll have to check the sleeve again to make sure this four-piece really are from New York. It's just that songs such as Stay Where You Are, Ophelia and Sugar Pill sound too freshly innocent and irony-free for NY's notoriously knowing music scene. If there's any influence from the 1980s, it's probably in the spiritualised shoegazing of instrumental opener Yoga Means Union, or the breezy, bluebell-strewn pop of Anecdote. Singer Marcus Congleton and guitarist Benji Lysaght share none of Interpol's arch aloofness or DFA's disco-existentialism, but thankfully they have no Hootie-rock leanings or Barenaked Ladies cheek, either. What Ambulance LTD do share is a love of both classic and alt.guitar rock, from Beatles to Velvet Underground right up to - gasp! - Ride. There's a niggling familiarity emanating from Michigan, Stay Tuned and Primitive (The Way I Treat You), but also an addictive, poptastic edge. www.ambulancenyc.com
Kevin Courtney
