THIS WEEK’S NEW ALBUMS REVIEWED | FEATURE
Divine Accidents (Make)
This is the second imaginary soundtrack album from the trio of Nirvana production guru Butch Vig, composer Andy Jenks and DJ James Grillo, directing a reunited cast of fringe players to construct an album that’s big picture in scope, borrowing from genres in a Tarantino magpie fashion.
The title track, a reference to an Orson Welles quote on divine accidents in filmmaking, sees Ebbot Lundberg of The Soundtrack Of Our Lives singing the vapid yet earwormy chorus “What goes around comes around / When you’re leaving for a higher ground” over jangly powerpop which shies close to Johnny Marr or Noel Gallagher’s recent stuff. Into Your Symphony has the propulsion of early 00s New Order and Let It Get Away sprinkles the Motown glitter of the Manics’ Everything Must Go. Smidgens of Grandaddy linger with the synth line on The Unknown and the “Inside you forever / We will always be together / We’ve been purified” chorus of the Cardigans-esque Formaldehyde.
Props to Helen White of Alpha on the breathy 60s psychepop of I Colour You In, supping a Goldfrappuccino under the Seventh Tree while gazing at Moonraker, and Hurt No More, which starts like a mediaeval madrigal with harp and flute and progresses to an electronic climax. With the cinematic closer Dive In Me to bask in, this album is worth stumbling into.
words CHRIS SEAL
Shadow Of Fear (Mute)
Cabaret Voltaire are back with their first new album in over 20 years. Shadow Of Fear is also the band’s first release with Richard H Kirk as the only remaining member, following his 2014 solo performance at Berlin’s Atonal festival.
The new record echoes the distinctive sounds of Cabaret Voltaire’s earlier work, from the late 1970s up until the 90s. Influences from Krautrock, sci-fi, and dance culture are coupled with obscure vocal samples and layered across a vast multiverse of house, dub and techno rhythms. However, Shadow Of Fear still feels eerily relevant to current times: Cabaret Voltaire have always embraced dystopia and the last few months have certainly been full of that. “The album was finished just as all the weirdness was starting to kick in,” Kirk has said; “Shadow Of Fear feels like a strangely appropriate title.”
Indeed it is, and the album builds upon this dark sense of surrealism, moving from the minimalistic drum patterns of opening track Be Free, through the apocalyptic elements of Microscopic Flesh Fragment, right up to the unrelenting pulse of Universal Energy. It’s everything you would expect from a new Cabaret Voltaire release – reincarnated and reimaged for a new (dystopian) world.
words FRANCESCA GARDNER
Power On (Alcopop!)
These Welsh bubblegum-punk cult heroes’ latest album professes to hark back to frontwoman Helen’s roots – recalling her love for punk bands of her youth, Power On is influenced by the likes of X-Ray Spex and Girls At Our Best. The result amounts to a worthy followup album to Helen Love’s 2016 album Smash Hits, and embodies the spirit of trying new ideas and giving things a go, just because.
With the lyrics coming through loud and clear, and a vibrant energy as standard – don’t expect much if any slowing down across these 12 songs – Helen Love’s position in the indie demographic belies their pop influence, yet here they crank up the fuzz and keep you on your toes. For a band who have now been in the game for close on three decades, with a whopping 31 singles to date, their enthusiasm has not dwindled, and of late they’ve been rewarded with a revived interest in their music, appearing at festivals from Primavera to Indietracks.
words EMILY EDWARDS
Infinite Things (RCA)
The title of Paloma Faith’s fifth album is inspired by a character in Jorge Luis Borges’ short story The Aleph, who experiences all aspects of human emotion in a single moment. Infinite Things itself covers many emotions too, with its heartfelt songs about keeping relationships together, loss, and the state of the nation.
Faith could have probably knocked out another album in the same vein as her last one without even blinking, but when lockdown was first enforced this year, she binned the songs that she had previously written, started from scratch and hooked up with songwriter Ed Harcourt and producers Patrick Wimberly, Detonate and various other collaborators. The result is undeniably Faith’s most consistent album yet, with each track having future hit potential.
Better Than This could be the song that best depicts the global pain of 2020, without forgetting its emotional, powerful video – while uplifting electropop gospel belter Gold is a strong contender for pop song of the year.
words DAVID NOBAKHT
Mirror Man (Rekids)
A proper cross-section of the good stuff from Robert Hood [pictured], an old master of the techno genre. Hard, cold and paranoid, as the city of Detroit does so imbue itself in all of its electronic music, this winter release will have to settle for being the soundtrack to the cracking psyches of the housebound rave community instead of the sweaty converted bank vaults of the world, where it thoroughly belongs.
Mirror Man is a tense coil of an album, straining and tightening in the stomach of the listener and never letting them snap. Perhaps it is just the track titles, but I could have sworn that there was something else in the mix, warm and unexpected. The defiant Nothing Stops Detroit and the coursing Fear Not that pounds like the hooves of reinforcements riding in over the hill ridge – and then perhaps most on the nose to close the album out: The Cure. Let’s hope so.
words JASON MACHLAB