The National - Trouble Will Find Me

Six albums in The National are at a crossroads. Alligator and Boxer firmly cemented the path of indie darlings and cult favourites years ago, while their last release High Violet opened up the unlikely possibility of headline slots, stadiums and mainstream glory.

After several listens however, just which path Trouble Will Find Me will lead them down remains unclear. It was hard to imagine them ever ‘selling out’, after all just last weekend (5 May) they soundtracked an art exhibition in New York by playing one song over and over for six hours. But whether this set of songs will inspire a mainstream frenzy is equally hard to predict.

For the initiated though, the key question is does this record live up to its shadow-casting predecessors. And the answer is a resounding yes.

On mood-building opener I Should Live In Salt, Matt Berninger is almost immediately reassuring us that it’s business as usual with the refrain ‘You should know me better than that’.



And, after moody first single Demons, that familiar tempo change and the driving drums that made Lit Up, Brainy and Bloodbuzz Ohio so exciting soon come in again on track three Don’t Swallow The Cap, and again later on the mesmerising Graceless. The contrast of the fervent beat and the droning vocals makes for their most affecting sound, and these two songs are utterly compelling. Similarly, Sea of Love, whose lyrics provide the album title, sees them at their most soaring and mourning in its brief three minutes.



Lyrically there are too many dark and wonderful lines to pick out. On Fireproof, the line ‘Needle in the hay’ and Berninger’s delivery brings to mind Elliott Smith, while on Humiliation he croons ‘She wore blue velvet’. By closer Hard To Find, he wearily quotes the Violent Femmes, not an obvious National influence.

With music always becoming more fractured and disposable, this is an album in every sense of the word. While its dark, melancholy nature may limit its mainstream appeal, this album simply provides further evidence that there are few better bands than The National in the world right now. 

The Knife - Shaking The Habitual

To fully digest a record takes multiple listens. An ambitious and complex 100-minute album complicates this to no end.

And, with 13 tracks – ranging from the 37 second Onyx to the 19 minute ambient centrepiece Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized – the fourth album from Swedish electronic duo The Knife is a bold statement, and one that deserves more than snap judgements. Unfortunately, with its complicity and its intimidating length, it will live or die by such first impressions. So here we go.

First single Full of Fire is a good place to start, as it is the album at its best. A nine minute storm of beats, bangs and bleeps; not a second of it feels overbearing or unnecessary.

Almost inevitably though, that can’t be said of the whole record. Songs such as A Cherry on Top and the aforementioned Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized disturb and linger with their chilling mood and brooding tones, but they also test the patience, the latter becoming something of an anchor threatening to drown the whole listening experience.

However, the relentless jungle percussion of Without You My Life Would Be Boring and the slow stomp of Wrap Your Arms Around Me, as well as the glitchy twitch of Networking and the punchy buzz of Stay Out Here in the record’s second half, are more than enough to drag the listener through and leave them at the other end smiling.

Lyrically the album comes and goes, with some lines intentionally obscured and others brought to the fore, but when they land, they are provocative and indicative of the intellectual background of the band.

Despite its length, this isn’t a record that outstays its welcome, even if a few tracks may have you reaching for the next button. However, as confounding as it all sounds at first, the multiple listens which at once seemed daunting will soon become compulsory, as this compelling beast infects and controls. Give its near 100 minutes a chance, and Shaking The Habitual just might take you too.

Johnny Marr - The Messenger

As an amateur at this music writing lark, it’s not often I get a CD in advance of its release. I do have some friends though, and joyfully accepted a copy of Johnny Marr’s debut solo album The Messenger when it was offered to me this week.



Having read a few reviews of the record already, I don’t want to spend my piece talking about The Smiths and Morrissey, but it’s hard to start anywhere else, or to fail to note the differing trajectories they have been on since they parted ways in 1987.

They were always different, with Marr’s jangly guitars taking the edge off Morrissey’s bitter acidity, providing their trademark ‘sweet and sour’ sound and bringing the balance that the group's success was founded on.

Morrissey dived straight into solo work and has had varying levels of success ever since, but he is perhaps more infamous than famous these days, with constant tour cancellations and spewing a river of bile to the press seemingly his main activities.

Meanwhile, Marr’s reputation has been in the ascendancy, steadily growing over a number of years thanks to session work for a variety of artists (Paul McCartney, Oasis, Talking Heads) and time spent as a full member in several more (The Pretenders, Modest Mouse, The Cribs). And 2013 will see him potentially eclipse his former bandmate, with his upcoming Godlike Genius Award from NME, and the release of this record.

It’s fair to say his reputation didn’t really need any work, but neither did Noel Gallagher or Jack White’s previously, and as Jack would surely agree, successful solo artist is a better tag than journeyman guitarist.



And this album is a success. His guitar prowess was never in doubt, but his vocals are also impressive and flexible, often bringing to mind Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch. His lyrics are also solid, while none stand out as amazing, he does avoid any stinkers, which is easier said than done.

It is the guitars that rightly sit at the centre of the album though and, of course, the trademark jangly sound features, but he isn’t limited to it. Incendiary guitars pepper second track ‘I Want The Heartbeat’, opener ‘The Right Thing Right’ and ‘Lockdown’ are stompers featuring fuller 'big' guitar sounds, and ‘New Town Velocity’ mixes acoustic and electric in the vein of New Order.

Particular high points include the title track, with soft vocals recalling early Ian Brown surrounded by layered guitars and synths, and ‘Say Demesne’, which builds across its five minutes into something the aforementioned Echo would have been proud of in their heyday.

His experience as a producer also shines through. It is a well-rounded album, with a great flow through the faster and slower songs which makes the whole thing fly by.

Overall, it’s a solid, enjoyable album of indie pop/rock. It isn’t The Smiths, but nothing is. I doubt anyone would want to shoot this Messenger.

Lucy Rose - Like I Used To

I first heard Lucy Rose on the title track of Bombay Bicycle Club’s sophomore, acoustic-folk album Flaws. Her delicate backing vocal, and how perfectly it intertwined with that of Bombay’s Jack Steadman, made it the album’s standout song, and I immediately wanted to know who this lingering and evocative voice belonged to.

Two years later, Lucy Rose has come a long way. The release and success of debut album Like I Used To last week is another landmark for her, and a testament to patience and hard work.

At a young age she moved to London from my own Warwickshire, a brave first step in making a name for herself. And, while others may have rushed into releasing something based on the exposure her part-time role as a part of Bombay has brought over the last two years, Lucy has taken it one song at a time, maturing and honing her solo craft at intimate venues across the country whilst also gracing arena and festival stages with the band. All the while building her back catalogue and growing, both lyrically and musically.

This measured approach has given the album an accessibility, with five singles already released and two early tracks included. Middle of The Bed, Night Bus and Bikes were three of the first songs of hers I loved back in 2010, and they are here pretty much as they were, avoiding the fate of so many demos that are tampered with too much by the time they make it onto an album.

But alongside the familiar, there are also nine new songs to make up a thorough and confident debut. Other singles Scar, Red Face and Lines are joined by standout tracks Shiver, Don’t You Worry and Be Alright.

Across the album, her guitar work is delightful, with intricate and delicate picking mixed with bigger and bolder sounds. And her songs aren’t restricted by typically acoustic structures, with tempo and volume changes throughout giving her room to manoeuvre and keeping things lively and stimulating.

It is her vocals however that are the heart and soul of the record, with her tender voice bringing the stories she sings to life. She tells tales of broken relationships and dark souls, but her voice is uplifting enough to ensure they never become too heavy or difficult.

While many reviews of Lucy focus on the tea and the jam – which no doubt add to the charm factor - this is an album worthy of attention for the music alone. Appropriately released in autumn, this lovely album will no doubt warm and soothe during the winter months ahead.

The xx - Coexist

What did you exxpect?

 

 

The xx do not owe us anything. That is something to keep in mind when listening to Coexist, their long-awaited second long player.

The strange, often complex relationship between band and fan is not one based on the owing or paying of debts. Expectation is the problem of the listener, not the band. But, when you wait three years after releasing a masterpiece, you may be asking for trouble.

That being said, as a single, standalone piece of art, Coexist is another mesmerising collection of songs, easily up there with their debut, maybe even surpassing it.

The building blocks that made that debut so special are all laid out once again, while experience has enabled producer and band member Jamie Smith to bring them together more seemlessly than ever. The trippy beats that slip in and out, the subtle and enchanting sounds that rise and fall and shift and morph with each listen, the juxtaposition of the cold, sparse arrangements with the warm, intimate lyrical content. The breathy and wondrous dual vocals. Atmospheric, hypnotic, elusive, lush - it’s all here.

This is in many ways an album that no other band could make. Sunset is up there with anything on xx and possibly the best ever combination of everything they do so well, Angels is a Romy laying herself truly bare for the first time in devastating fashion, while Oliver gets his chance on Fiction. And Jamie Smith brings in those delightful steel pans from his solo work on Reunion. After five back-to-back listens (which in no way seems a chore), a flaw is yet to be found in its 37 minutes.

And is that what causes the slight niggling feeling that comes with this album? Have they played it safe?

That is one of a number of interesting questions that this album raises. Second album this and that, the fact their Mercury win came a whole year after the first album’s release, for better or worse, gave them time, whilst simultaneously removing one pressure - finding success - and replacing it with another - replicating it.

Sure, they have had things to deal with. Coming to terms with the mainstream success and excessive touring, losing a band member. But, they still sound like the same amazing band that made that album in 2009. So why has this album, a consolidation rather than a progression, taken three years to produce?

A Kid A-style game-changer on only their second release would be too much to expect some might say. And they’ve created a sound that has brought the oh-so-rare combination of being unique, credible and popular, so why walk away from it?

But the feeling remains of what could have been? What more are they capable of? What can we expect from them next?

After waiting three years, the niggling lingers long after listening, like a soaring xx guitar. Angels was such a brave first single that it hinted at a complete disregard for expectation. Maybe by album three, they will follow through. Till then, we have a consistently beautiful piece to sooth and satiate us. What more could we expect?

Nevermind.

Twenty years ago today, Nirvana’s seminal Nevermind was released, I was three years old.

By the time I discovered it properly, Nevermind was 13 years old and Kurt Cobain had been dead for ten years. I was aware of Nirvana before then, in particular Smells Like Teen Spirit, which was, and still is, on heavy rotation across my choice of music channels.

But it was MTV’s flurry of documentaries, countdowns and interviews around the ten year anniversary of his death in April 2004 that really caught my attention. Within weeks, I had bought every album they released, along with DVDs and biographies of Nirvana, Kurt, Dave Grohl and Kurt’s diaries. On a trip to purchase my first guitar not long after, I trekked to the other side of London to hold Kurt’s guitar and wear his sunglasses at the Hard Rock Café. It would be fair to say I became fairly obsessed with Nirvana, they were my first musical love, and at the heart of that was Nevermind, their complexly simple masterpiece.

When I got to uni and started knocking out reviews and making magazines to amuse myself, Nevermind was the first classic album I reviewed. I thought about reusing my review for this blog, but having reviewed my own review now, it isn’t good enough to see the light of day again.

So what can I say about this album that hasn’t been said thousands of times since its release now twenty years ago? Probably not a lot. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t say anything. It’s a cliché, but Nirvana mean a lot to me, and millions of others, because they taught us nothing if not that everyone has a voice and can use it.

Simply, Nevermind deserves to have sold every one of the 30 million copies it has to date. While hipsters and snobs say that In Utero is a better album, there would be no In Utero without Nevermind, as the whole rock scene even today would be different without it. It was a game changer, a breakthrough, and not just for music.

Musically, it is a strong album from start to finish. Every song is a blast of noise, distortion and power, yet always anchored with melody, hooks and catchy turns of phrase. The singles are legendary, from the obvious punch of Smells Like Teen Spirit, to the watery, chill of Come As You Are, to the bounce of Lithium. Drain You, Breed and On A Plain rank amongst the best album tracks ever recorded. Polly and Something In The Way showed they weren’t hiding behind the distortion, displaying quiet composure and depth that few of their peers managed.

The rhythm section of Grohl’s pounding drums and Krist Novoselic’s fuzzy, lively basslines keep the songs moving throughout the 40 minute runtime, counterbalancing the chaos of Kurt’s incendiary vocals and guitar. While many questioned the meaning of his lyrics, his ability to craft a memorable line or rhyme was never in doubt. And his delivery could knock you over or break your heart.

Technically speaking, while he may not have been the most gifted guitarist, he wrote some of the most famously catchy riffs in rock history, that a thousand kids could learn, and learn from. For a three piece, the guitar is solid throughout, always packing a punch and complementing his lyrics.

Sure, it’s a commercial alt-rock album, the songs follow a quiet/loud pattern that Cobain admitted he worried was too much like the Pixies, but so what, without Nirvana, the Pixies and hundreds of other bands would not be so well known today, which is a great thing. This album brought heavy rock back into the mainstream, and launched Grunge as a genre worthy of attention.

Away from the music itself and the effect this album has had on other music, it put Seattle on the map as a genuine hub for alternative music, which it remains to this day. It made heroes of the outcasts. And it spawned a thousand other bands, inspiring slackers around the world and giving them a real belief that they could become the biggest band in the world.

In many ways, it’s the sort of album, and the sort of band, that hard rock is crying out for as much in 2011 as it was twenty years ago.

For more from the players involved, hear an excellent 6 Music special here, featuring Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and producer Butch Vig.

For the final words, as Kurt sang, ‘Our little group has always been and always will until the end.’ I’m in the group, and this album is the group’s treasure.