THIS WEEK’S NEW ALBUMS REVIEWED | FEATURE
The Art Of Losing (Kscope)
After enduring an intensely difficult few years rife with personal loss, Catherine Anne Davies’ follow-up to Confessions Of A Romance Novelist, her debut as The Anchoress, positively bristles with a nervous, brooding energy. These 12 songs contain dark depths: oceans of feeling marred by trauma and pain.
Recorded in 2019 but delayed due to the events of the last year, The Art Of Losing sets Davies on a surefooted course for highbrow pop stardom. From the captivating swing ballad My Confessor to the synthpop kineticism of Show Your Face, each track is accessible and immediate, yet the literary intelligence of Let It Hurt and the harrowing highlight 5am reveal the album’s true depth of broken feeling.
Inviting comparisons to David Bowie and Kate Bush as well as contemporary stalwarts St. Vincent and Father John Misty, The Art Of Losing is a dark and contemplative album, yet one that possesses great variety and colour. Though it draws on a rich vein of influences, it’s rooted in experiences that belong to no-one but its creator, giving it an emotional honesty that cuts deep even as it dazzles with its formal brilliance.
words TOM MORGAN
Dancing Tunes (Cadiz Music)
This collection of traditional calypso songs feels like the album Edward II have always been destined to make. Following on from 2015’s Manchester’s Improving Daily, Dancing Tunes sees the roots music collective give voice to the working man through singalongs that tell the stories behind turn-of-the-(last)-century struggles.
With this latest release, the shift from the smog of Manchester to the blazing sun of the Caribbean perfectly suits Glenford Latouche’s vocal delivery, while the lilting calypso rhythms are beautifully rendered by a band steeped in traditional music. What pushes this album beyond a ‘best of the Caribbean’ type collection is the feeling that the music means something to the band. The level of research displayed in the CD liner notes, referencing everything from the original gathering of these slave and work songs to the emergence of patois in popular culture, is stellar.
For the uninitiated, it sheds light on the music of Jamaica and Trinidad, and the background to classic 1950s hits like Banana Boat Song and Yellow Bird, which could otherwise get lost amongst the more intriguing stories of My Donkey Want Water and Linstead Market whose subjects are close to ruin, despite the uplifting music that accompanies their plight. Dancing Tunes, but for dying days.
words JOHN-PAUL DAVIES
A History Of Nomadic Behavior (Century Media)
Is my pleasant surprise at how much this new album by sludge metal rotters Eyehategod rips one of those backhanded compliments no band really wants? Or a tawdry indictment of my own misjudgement? Why not both? Seriously, though, these freaks have been going (if frequently stopping) since the late 80s, their only post-millennial albums released in 2000 and 2014. Joey LaCaze, drummer on the last one, died before it came out; Mike Williams, vocalist on all of them, has lived a life where his death has, for some decades, appeared fairly imminent. He says as much in the bio for this album, and all.
Now scaled down to a four-piece, guitarist Jimmy Bower the other founder member, A History Of Nomadic Behavior was stitched together in slightly piecemeal, social distancing-forced form, but you wouldn’t know it. The riffs are huge and blown out on pretty much every song, with an unruly aura that betrays EHG’s hardcore punk grounding (something that has always marked them out from most sludge bands, even ones they notionally inspired). Williams’ lyrics – histrionic barrages of dystopian imagery, a kind of heavy metal beatnik vibe – have always blurred the line between brilliant and terrible, and that’s part of the fun here too, but “Another funeral ends in a fight / The undertaker tells jokes / A comedian he is not” (The Trial Of Johnny Cancer) particularly tickled me. Album closer Every Thing, Every Day, meanwhile, is an especially potent zero-hope stagger for a band of this vintage and history.
words NOEL GARDNER
Pandora’s Playhouse (Treehouse)
If you’ve ever wondered what happened to Terence Trent D’Arby since his breakthrough 1987 hits, then this 28-song double album may not have the answers you’re looking for. Unless the answer is everything or maybe nothing. Following an epiphany and a name change to Sananda Maitreya [pictured, top – photo credit Manuel Scrima for Treehouse Publishing], his albums have become increasingly long and sprawling. There’s no denying that the artist formerly seen as fashionable still has the pipes – vocally, there’s nothing he can’t do. But Pandora’s Playhouse is self-indulgent in the extreme.
If the charge usually levelled at good double albums is that there’s a great single album fighting to get out, the same could be said of the better songs on this one. Glasshouse and Cool Breeze stand out for their, mainly acoustic, clarity. But too many songs suffer from genre-hopping, confusing philosophies and busy backings. Mr Skeleton and The Kings Of Avalon are full of promise, but there simply isn’t enough focus to bring the best out.
Amongst all the disparate ideas, true standouts are Don’t Break My Balls and One Horse Town. Hearing those lyrics sung in Maitreya’s rich, melodious tone is as surprising as the very existence of this baffling album.
words JOHN-PAUL DAVIES
Blame It On Da Youts (Alacran)
Slated for a 2019 release at one point, then 2020 – hey, you know how it’s been – the debut album proper from multi-skilled Londoner Tiggs Da Author isn’t a case of a delay caused by fussy embellishment, its 11 songs not extending much beyond half an hour. This, for clarity, is to its credit: Blame It On Da Youts plays out like a classic-Motown era soul LP, a salvo of three-minute pop numbers with chipper, brassy arrangements and organic-sounding production values.
Tiggs, real name Adam Muhabwa, definitely comes off like a primetime entertainer in waiting here, but has risen through the ranks via connections to a few underground scenes. Inspired to make music after discovering grime, and initially mentored by Sway (remember Sway?), his Tanzanian heritage also points to Afrobeat influences old and new on his style. Album opener Enough is blessed with groovy 70s-style horns, while the buoyant Thank You is a standout example of the modern cross-continental Afro sound.
The album’s one guest spot, for Harlesden rapper Nines on Fly ‘Em High, maintains Blame It…’s connection to the street, which listeners might find a shade hard to pinpoint otherwise. Elsewhere, there’s borderline novelty songs about being better than someone’s crap boyfriend (Brand New), being a crap boyfriend yourself (Hands Up) and the general feeling that Tiggs could reach a pop audience which has generally eluded his peers.
words NOEL GARDNER
