Latest CD releases reviewed
THE POSIES
Every Kind of Light Rykodisc
***
Every kind of band is reforming these days, from cult acts (The La's) to bona fide chart successes (Duran Duran). So why not give it up for a treasured power pop act like The Posies? This is their first record since 1998's swan song, Success, and it's not so much a case of picking up from where they left off as seamlessly continuing and forging ahead. With the band's cards marked in more recent times by the likes of Brendan Benson and Fountains of Wayne, Every Kind of Light is inevitably crammed with the kind of exclamatory rainbow melody lines that reference everyone from The Monkees (It's Great to Be Here Again!), The Who (I Finally Found a Jungle I Like!!!), and a countrified REM (the punning Sweethearts of Rodeo Drive). The Posies play Irish gigs from July 21st-24th; start a sedate queue for tickets right now. www.theposies.net
Tony Clayton-Lea
THE DEPARTURE
Dirty Words Parlophone
***
If early U2, Echo & The Bunnymen and Psychedelic Furs pop into your head while listening to this debut from the Northampton quintet, then it's intended. These guys make no bones about their debt to classic post-punk, but where Franz are louche and The Futureheads flippant, The Departure go for a direct, between-the-eyes approach, and their striker is singer David Jones, a man who not only shares a name with a certain Thin White Duke, but has a wide-boy vocal style that marks him out as a distinctly English frontman. Just Like TV, Talk Show and Only Human fly by like bullets missing their targets, but, from the staccato shimmer of All Mapped Out, the band's sound broadens out nicely through such shredded guitar tunes as Lump in My Throat, Don't Come Any Closer and Be My Enemy. Sounds like The Departure have arrived. www.thedeparture.com
Kevin Courtney
VARIOUS
Faction One Faction Records
****
If you thought "new Irish music" was nothing but prosaic pullovers with rhyming dictionaries, Faction Records could just save your life. With its Factory-like imagery and Fierce Panda ethics, this new label aims to promote fresh graduates from the nation's thriving and often exhilarating underground scene. This first release is an eclectic, perfectly selected compilation that places established trailblazers (Cathy Davey, Republic of Loose) alongside a string of tantalizing newcomers. The best-crafted offerings come from articulate auteurs Director, swaggering art-rockers The Immediate and - the album's highlight - Tough as Old Boots by addictive blues-rock deities-in-waiting The Marshal Stars. While nothing here is necessarily groundbreaking, it suggests that the burgeoning Irish rock scene compares more than favourably with the UK's. Moreover, this is just the beginning. The future looks bright; start embracing it now. www.factionrecords.ie
Johnnie Craig
THE MUTTS
Life in Dirt Fatcat
**
Dirty-assed rock'n' rollers are 10 a penny these days, and the moshpit is overloaded with Datsuns, Blues Explosions and Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disasters. Here's another bunch to add to your collection, but it's a debut you can be loud and proud about owning. The Mutts are from Brighton, and they most certainly wanna be your dog. Fronted by the psychotic preacherman howl of Chris Murtagh, The Mutts have traversed the country like stray mongrels, and supported everyone from The Futureheads to - probably - Dumpy's Rusty Nuts. Like others of their ilk, they've only got one amp setting - down'n'dirty - but they milk their solitary trick for all it's worth. You probably won't bother listening to Blood from a Stone, Incest City, No Luck, My Town and Immaculate Tramp at home over a glass of chablis, but you'll definitely spill your beer to them the next time they play in your local toilet. www.themutts.com
Kevin Courtney
ODD NOSDAM
Burner Anticon Records
***
cLOUDDEAD's beatmaster extraordinaire returns with this innovative and challenging concept album, a radical departure from his past productions. Burner is a carefully sculpted and artfully cinematic body of sounds, beats and samples, the result of seven years' painstaking work. Nosdam's unique creative process is to first compose his sonic concept mentally, before making a Womble-like search for exactly the song fragments, voices, instrumentation, street noise and sundry sounds required to realise his design. The result is, by degrees, startling, illuminating, terrifying and beautiful, and certainly defies all genre pigeonholing. This may initially seem a niche album in a suitably alienating collage sleeve, but it's one that rewards curiosity and repeated listening. And while Soho boutique staff will love it and daytime radio listeners will hate it, record shop assistants may, alas, be unable to locate it. www.anticon.com
Johnnie Craig
ABSENTEE
Donkey Stock Memphis Industries
***
There is much to like about this donkey derby from new indie innocents Absentee. Unlike previous release Hawaiian Disco, any lingering, obtrusive lo-fi edges have been lightly sandpapered away without taking unduly from Absentee's main attractions. Once you get over the fact that singer Dan Michaelson's drawl sounds uncannily akin to Serge Gainsbourg imitating Stuart "Tindersticks" Stapes, you'll relish these twisted, mumbled tales of love and life gone wrong and bad. Hints of Velvet Underground and Lloyd Cole abound in Michaelson's witty, erudite, wordy, sometimes playful couplets, but enough of their own identity comes through, particularly on the energetic Something to Bang and Dead Wife (the latter throwing a glancing header at Grease old reliable You're the One That I Want). www.absenteemusic.co.uk
Jim Carroll
