Cotton Mather: (Rainbow Quartz)
"The best album The Beatles never made", is the verdict of critics who have come across the latest album from this obscure Austin, Texas trio led by Lennon soundalike Robert Harrison. Amazingly, though Kontiki does indeed sound Beatles-esque, it never once sounds copyist; Harrison's songwriting may be rooted in 1960s UK pop, but it meanders around the same paths which have been trodden by REM, Flaming Lips, Let's Active and Wilco. There's no way you'd mistake songs such as Camp Hill Rail Operator or My Before And After for Britpop, and no chance of shaking off the infectious appeal of Spin My Wheels and Vegetable Row. Written in Dun Laoghaire while Harrison was on an Irish sojourn, and recorded on a four-track machine, Kontiki is a genuine uncovered treasure, but it would be unwise to get too carried away and call it this year's Deserter's Songs.
By Kevin Courtney
The Frank & Walters: Beauty Becomes More Than Life (Setanta)
Cork's quirky trio have grown up a bit and realised that pop music is not all sunshine, flowers and happy busmen, but they still seem unable to fully adjust to a more mature musical regimen. The Franks have done a bit of an Ash and recruited a new female member, keyboard player Sarah De Courcey, and also added loops, beats and vocal effects to songs such as Woman, 7.30 and Today, but even with the beefed-up sound and extra gravitas, they can't quite achieve lift-off from the flat field they've been daisychained to since 1993. The band can still pen a good pop tune, though, and some of the better songs - Plenty Times and Something Happened To Me to name but two - manage to rise above the Franks' usual jangle; Until The End provides a fine finale, but in the end there lingers a suspicion that the Frank & Walters' bloom is beginning to wilt.
By Kevin Courtney
Emilia: Big Big World (Rodeo Records)
Try imagining B*witched as one women who is Swedish and writes her own songs. Or rather, co-writes them with a guy named Yogi. Does that sound like musical hell to you? Welcome to the world of Emilia. Harmless pop, some might say. It is that: but only if your brain is immune to the kind of deadening effect that results from repetitive rhyme schemes, predictable dance beats and lyrics which, if you described them as "pretty basic", would be way over-hyped. As in the opening track A Good Sign with lines such as "Yes it is a good sign/You're my king/And I'm your queen/And everything will be alright." Multiply that by 10; add, say, a "swing style" mix of Maybe, Baby; and you've got the album. If you want it.
By Joe Jackson
