music reviews


BELLE AND SEBASTIAN A Bit Of Previous (Matador) AAA


One of Scotland’s fin- est are nearly into dou- ble figures with their first proper album in seven years, after delv- ing into the past with a live LP and looking to the future with various collaborative projects. This is B&S’ first LP to be recorded in


position. Shoulders and Beautiful Losers are deeply melodious yet bear an eye for detail that makes them intriguing. Even if the more acces- sible approach to songcraft may alienate some, Vaxis II: A Window Of The Waking Mind is one of the most emotionally intriguing and musically diverse works in the band’s winding, and com- plex catalogue.


ALEX SWIFT


DÄLEK Precipice (Ipecac) AAAA


Glasgow in more than two decades, and they’ve evolved into a slicker outfit over time, moving away from campfire songs and heading into se- quin camp. A Bit… has polished pop at its core, Reclaim The Night a prime example; disco is again explored with the Abba meets Rock Your Baby rhumba Prophets On Hold, and howling harmonica blazes away atop a powerpop tune during Unnecessary Drama. B&S are most win- some on the acoustic Do It For Your Country, and the toe-tapping soul of Come On Home, where Stuart Murdoch sings “give a chance to the old / Set the record straight for the wel- fare state,” although this LP may not earn them enough universal credit.


CHRIS SEAL


BLOC PARTY Alpha Games (Infectious) AAA


Alpha Games is album number six from Bloc Party, one of the breakout indie bands of the 00s post-Britpop bubble. Always preferring to de- fine themselves as indefinable, the group moved fairly seamlessly from indie rock to a more dance-friendly sound between albums one and three. Since then, they’ve flip-flopped between returning to their roots and pushing into new territory, with this release falling more into the former camp. First single Traps and opener Day Drinker, which rattle along at a head-bopping rate, are Bloc Party at their most ‘old school’ – possibly influenced by reviving their critical- ly-acclaimed debut Silent Alarm for a series of pre-pandemic live shows – while punchy The Girls Are Fighting reminds you of their story- telling abilities, a la earlier hit I Still Re- member. Altogeth- er, there’s brooding, brawling and bruis- ing, but the hits aren’t quite hard enough to leave a lasting impact, nor soft enough to seep under the skin.


HANNAH COLLINS


COHEED & CAMBRIA Vaxis II: A Window Of The Waking


Mind (Roadrunner) AAAA


Claudio Sanchez, the frontman of futurist alt-prog project Co- heed & Cambria, has a knack for shrouding personal


hind ambitious science fiction concepts. The aspiring Vaxi story, envisioned to be told across five albums,


stories be-


This alternative rap troupe have been shouting into the volcano since 1998 and are currently a duo: MC Dälek and co-producer Mike Mare forging the beats from the extremes of sound. Alternating between hide-behind-the-sofa noise and corroded beauty, Dälek’s collage of Public Enemy’s militant noise and 4AD shoegaze ex- perimentalism makes Shabazz Palaces sound like The Fat Boys. Waves of shimmering feedback roll across instrumental opener Lest We Forget, and as Dälek spits rhymes Decimation (Dis Na- tion)’s sheets of metallic guitar explode in the sky as. The angst of A Heretic’s Inheritance is a room 101 on Massive Attack’s Mezzanine and Devotion (When I Cry The Wind Disappears) sounds like an urban Cocteau Twins slowed down to the point of oblivion. Dälek is the malevolence of your guilty conscience, the righteous anger of a mob on the brink of anarchy, and noise ter- rorists with complete faith in their cause.


CHRIS SEAL EVERYTHING EVERYTHING


Raw Data Feel (PIAS) AAAA


How does one rev- olutionise modern pop music? This was something Everything Everything wanted to combat on this, their sixth studio album, after 2020’s songwrit- ing-focused Re-An- imator. Never ones to shy away from the


sively boasts a catchy descending melodic gui- tar riff, with fingertapping solo to boot. Terrible Things puts the brakes on, bringing a deft drop in tempo and somewhat haunting feel amongst the 100mph rock’n’roll: just three and a half minutes of calm, until you’re thrown back in to the drum-thumping, guitar-shredding rock show. With Bombshell and Psycho Crazy the pick of the closing tracks, Halestorm remain a band who sound as good on re- cord as they do live – a group of four musical- ly gifted individuals, album closer Raise Your Horns confirms Lzzy Hale as one of the best female vocal- ists currently active.


OWEN SCOURFIELD PATRICK WATSON


Now moving into his third decade of music making, Patrick Wat- son returns with anoth- er beautifully crafted album that pushes his soft piano, light vocal, ambient electronic style further leftfield. With tracks that can be found on countless playlists


Better In The Shade (Secret City) AAAA


and adorning the soundtracks of shows from Grey’s Anatomy to The Walking Dead, Watson has carved out a respectable niche in the highly emotional yet easily transferable, not too specific but widely relatable, world of sync music. The title Better In The Shade may imply that Wat- son is happy to make music that doesn’t hit the spotlight in the way his previous albums have, and this is definitely an album of music made by musicians who care about the sounds and words they are creating. But I have a feeling that with a formula as bulletproof as Watson’s, we’ll be hearing the truly beautiful theme from Ode To Vivian on a closing credit before too long.


JOHN-PAUL DAVIES


intertwining complexities of odd-timed drums, knotted harmonies and soaring falsetto vocals, the Manchester band have always been a few steps ahead and Raw Data Feel is just another example of that. Creating an AI programme to do some of the lyric grafting, Everything Everything have produced an unsettled record held together by flickering impulses and industrial instrumen- tation. Teletype’s transgressive, choppy electron- ic cuts precede more roughly sliced synthesizers in Metroland Is Burning, frontman Jonathan Higgs’ soaring vocal calling to a reoccurring character, one “Kevin”, throughout. Even with the harshness of certain electronic sounds and at- tention-inducing elements, HEX and Pizza Boy’s killer bass hooks notable among them, Higgs commands every track almost effortlessly.


EMMA WAY HALESTORM


deals in experiences of parenthood. A song like Blood Or Rise, Nainasha will in one sense be about cross-planetary wars yet will simultane- ously deal in stories of estranged fatherhood and responsibility. It’s a fascinating collision of ideas, that’s complimented by the multifaceted com-


Back From The Dead (Atlantic) AAAA


US rockers Halestorm’s fifth studio album fol- lows 2018’s Vicious, a deserved number eight in the UK charts. These 11 songs should follow suit, or thereabouts. Back From The Dead’s title track and Wicked Ways smash open this album, fast, heavy and loud, while The Steeple impres-


WATAIN The Agony & Ecstasy Of… (Nuclear Blast) AAA


Swedish black metal band Watain are perhaps members of the genre’s noble caste, as opposed to its royalty, but they’ve long been one of the more prominent names in the scene. This is thanks to a series of reliably swaggering, classic metal-infused albums, an infamous stage show replete with blood and pyro, and an approach to Satanism that goes beyond entry-level teen bonehead rebellion but stops short of anything that might make you chinscratch when you could headbang. No hectic workers, The Agony & Ec- stasy Of Watain is their first album for four years and debut for Nuclear Blast. Midpaced by black metal standards and using clean guitar parts to good effect, Erik Danielsson has matured as a lyricist,


mantic poet’s cadence to some of his lines. A more varied attack would have made a good album great, though, Farida Lem- ouchi’s guest vocal on We Remain a taste of that potential.


with a Ro- NOEL GARDNER 37


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