THIS WEEK’S NEW ALBUMS REVIEWED | FEATURE
Access Denied (X-Ray Production)
Back in the late 90s, Asian Dub Foundation’s live show made the press-hogging Beatles copyists of the time look like drunk Morris dancers trying to get their act together at a village fete, or like comparing Mathieu Kassovitz’s masterpiece La Haine to Four Weddings And A Funeral. Before gaining recognition on these shores, ADF [above – photo by Umberto Lopez] were going down a storm in France, selling out venues and albums in equal measure with their innovative cacophony of jungle, dub, post-punk guitar and conscious lyrics. Probably the closest the UK have ever had to Public Enemy or Rage Against The Machine, ADF don’t do empty posturing or compromise, and with Access Denied – their first new album since 2015’s More Signal More Noise – they have lost none of their bite.
Access Denied does not just simply sigh about Brexit, hostile border policies and climate change, it takes a sledgehammer to each issue. On Youthquake Pt 1, Greta Thunberg’s UN speech is sampled, while Swarm, Stealing The Future and Can’t Pay Won’t Pay are equally as striking. A sonically charged album with an empowering message.
words DAVID NOBAKHT
Fun City (YSKWN!)
Neath-born Rod Thomas, aka Bright Light Bright Light, is a firm favourite of dance-pop fans. His vibrant electronic sensibilities and butter-like vocals have entranced listeners across the globe, with Cher and Elton John just two of his acolytes.
Forged in the roots of the New York gay scene and evoking the fast-paced vitality of disco, Fun City is a love letter to the LGBTQ+ community and an ode to the resilience and creativity of the marginalised. Infused with hypnotic drumbeats and dizzying synths, this album oozes infectious feel-good vibes. With vocals recorded on the empty dancefloor of an East Village gay club, Fun City is reminiscent of 80s floor-fillers: horn-charged, anthemic and bursting with a veritable feast of collaborators including Jake Shears, Erasure’s Andy Bell and Sam Sparro.
Part early Madonna, part Sylvester, part Pet Shop Boys, Fun City depicts a message of hope, pride and invincibility – a tribute to the strength of the underrepresented. A fat slice of joy in these tumultuous times.
words BECKY ADDIS
Vredesvävd (Century Media)
After seven years since the last Finntroll release, these folk-metal, quasi-mythological Finnish trolls are back. Neither the early tragedies of losing founding members nor subsequent lineup changes has dulled the edge of their genre splitting axe-wielding sound. Coming straight out of the Mines Of Moria, cinematic, instrumental opener Väktaren is followed by two black metal screamers; thereafter, the album opens up into the quiet-loud style-splicing of traditional Finnish folk rhythms and extreme metal shredding. It works brilliantly at times and the riffs in Forsen are more catchy than you’d ever expect – there’s something about insane double bass drum beats and accordion melodies that just works, I guess.
To say the band is tight is an understatement and keyboardist/composer Trollhorn’s production brilliantly blends the different sounds of traditional instruments with the orchestral accompaniment while keeping the metal band at its centre. Unique and innovative, Finntroll are far more than your average band of novelty trolls.
words JOHN-PAUL DAVIES
Protean Threat (Castle Face)
Lockdown shmockdown – it’s time once again for the annual report from the West Coast Bob Pollard, John Dwyer of Osees. This time amid the usual smatterings of garage chug and psych whimsy we have tectonic thrash metal, chrome-plated cyberpunk and what sounds curiously like the theme to telly’s Roobarb And Custard. In fact, given their genre-hopping wonts, Protean Threat might be the perfect description for what Dwyer and co now do, as they flit from guise to guise – never forgetting the head-nodding chug (thanks in particular to their twin-drum attack) but sometimes forgetting the earworm choruses we’ve grown to expect.
Much like latter-day Melvins, the double-drum Man Rock thing can get wearisome, and as such the less aggro cuts offer nice pacing, particularly on later tracks like Canopnr 74 and the goblin surf-rock of If I Had My Way. Business as usual, ultimately, but to the already-converted this album has arrived just in time I’m sure.
words ADAM JONES
Door To The Cosmos (On The Corner)
This label comp has plundered the beats of the multiverse, and while it may not have gone interstellar it has definitely explored the outer reaches of tribal beats, nu-jazz and electronica. If you were into labels like Nuphonic and Paper back in dem days, or acts like the Ballistic Brothers, then strap on your jetpack and orbit to this.
Sirius bangers include the tricky disco of Planet Battagon, with their wonky Detroit tech house, and an infectious number from Batida, on the lam from Soundway Records. There’s also the atmospheric exotica of Azu Tiwaline’s Violet Curves, the slinky cop chase breakbeat of BKCLX, and Ariwo’s saxy throwback.
Worth filing is the classy house of the cheekily named Clive From Accounts, the steady pounding of Babani Soundsystem, and DNG DNG DNG’s pan pipes on Semillero – if you’re wondering where that crew went from Cardiff’s Queen Street. Tamar Collocutor does a good Miles Davis vs Thundercat jam on Everywhere Live… and drops some fluttering jazz flute behind Tenesha The Wordsmith’s poetry to finish, with an ode to Mother Earth.
words CHRIS SEAL