Latest releases reviewed
It's obvious what records you'd find around Toby Prinz and Suzi Horn's studio, which overlooks Portsmouth harbour. There'd be a few Fall albums, a well-worn copy of Young Marble Giants' Colossal Youth, ESG's South Bronx Tale, and perhaps some gems from the Gang of Four back catalogue. The effects of such listening material is apparent in the duo's own sparse yelps, bare-bones structures, deliberately disjointed lyrical discourse, and jerky, angular anti-pop sounds. You can see why the DFA boys fell for them - this is indie music as it once sounded when you went to worship at the church of Peel. Yet the Prinzhorns do more than merely pay tribute to their influences. Tracks such as the atonal funk of Up! Up! Up!, the hypnotic Soviet thud of Worker and the blaring Hamworthy Sports and Leisure Centre demonstrate their own robust attributes. www.prinzhorn-dance-school.com JIM CARROLL
Download tracks:Up! Up! Up!, Hamworthy Sports and Leisure Centre
Like Tom McRae, Findlay Brown and Scott Williams, Stephen Fretwell is a British singer-songwriter who has followed in the wake of David Gray and James Blunt. Fretwell is far earthier than those two; his north- of-England demeanour is writ large over this, his second album. His priorities appear to be twofold: to blend the fragility of his voice and the tone of his lyrics with the strength of his melodies. The consequences could be dire in lesser hands, but Fretwell just about manages to get away with it, his voice becoming more tensile as the tunes gather pace, his words making sense out of turmoil. At 14 tracks, Man on the Roof overstays its welcome a tad. But with songs of the character and bite of Funny Hat, Darlin' Don't, San Francisco Blues and William Shatner's Dog, it's forgivable. www.stephenfretwell.com TONY CLAYTON-LEA
Download tracks:Darlin' Don't, San Francisco Blues
With guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones opting out of live work, The Coral have been taken a break and reassessed their place in the pop world. Having come to a crossroads in their career, it sounds like James Skelly and the lads have decided to take the safe road: Roots & Echoes is a collection of silky-smooth Scouse-pop tunes, replete with British Beat motifs, which amount to little more than a retro easy-listening session. If Skelly and the band were trying to lovingly recreate the balladic pop of the early to mid-1960s, they've certainly done it with skill, but Roots & Echoes is missing that maverick spark and laddish, devil-may-care attitude that marked their 2002 debut and their last album, The Invisible Invasion. What's replaced it is a crushingly unadventurous sense of comfort and conformity. The album might make the crossover to Radio 2 and Parky-land, but it's hard to see it clicking with the young indie guns who once looked up to this band. www.thecoral.co.uk KEVIN COURTNEY
Download tracks:Who's Gonna Find Me, In the Rain
Ito are an Irish outfit whose ranks include an American and a Brazilian, and they take a suitably international approach to rock songwriting - you can't really tell from the songs which side of the Atlantic they come from. The band followed the Thrills' trail to San Diego and made a foray into the LA rock scene, which might explain the Doors-style pretentiousness of Electric Tornado and the 1980s synth-pop moves of Neurotic. Supernow conjures up the spirit of Manic Street Preachers, while Higher Than the Sun borrows the refrain from The Jam's That's Entertainment, which guarantees a singalong chorus. But it's hard to sing along to Ito's not-so-super lyrics, some of which they proudly display on the CD booklet, and it's hard to swallow their rather self-important claim that Standby is some sort of emotional journey. Still, there's no doubting their ability to create slick, contemporary indie rock. www.itoband.com KEVIN COURTNEY
Download tracks:Higher Than the Sun, Vermilion
