THIS WEEK’S NEW ALBUMS REVIEWED | FEATURE
CMFT (Roadrunner)
If you’re a little unsure of the name, where have you been for nigh on twenty years? Best known as frontman of Slipknot and Stone Sour, this is the long-awaited debut solo album by Corey Taylor, aka C-motherfucking-T. If in doubt, use your nickname as the album title…
The 13 tracks included here bolster the wide spectrum of musical talent Taylor offers on his other material. Many an untrained ear would automatically pigeonhole his voice in the ‘shouting’ category, but beneath it all lies a layered, diverse vocal suited to most musical genres. This is clear throughout the album as Taylor tips his cap to numerous lifelong influences: hard rock, punk and classic rock all feature, as well as hip-hop.
Black Eyes Blue has a late 90s-into-early 00s throwback feel, while Culture Head lets Taylor open up his chest. Silverfish exposes Taylor’s vocal to the greatest extent of anything here, but his songwriting abilities and acoustic sound rings through perfectly, causing no bother.
words OWEN SCOURFIELD
Deep And Rolling Green (self-released)
This talented Norwegian trio [top – photo credit Marieke Macklon], now living on the Pembrokeshire coast, have broken away from their early folkier EPs on this, their first long player. But, frustratingly, it’s nowhere near long enough. Deep And Rolling Green feels like a collection of ideas, expertly rendered and intimately moving. But, with only one of the 16 tracks clocking in at over three-and-a-half minutes, there is a frustrating lack of permanence or impact to the songs.
At times the entrancing harmonies are reminiscent of Clannad, and the instrumentation and melodic lines remind me of Joanna Newsom. But, where Enya’s early work was focused and Newsom’s sprawling, Deep And Rolling Green is vague and fleeting. There could well be a perfect mood to listen to this album of briefly beautiful vignettes, but I couldn’t find it, in time.
words JOHN-PAUL DAVIES
You’ve Always Been Here (Helium-3)
What does a covers band supergroup sound like when they start to take themselves seriously? You’ve Always Been Here, the first studio album from The Jaded Hearts Club, is as close an answer as you’re going to get, but somehow, it still leaves you wondering.
The combination of musicians is impressive: Matt Bellamy of Muse is on bass, making way for Nic Cester (Jet) and Miles Kane (The Last Shadow Puppets) to front up on vocals while Graham Coxon (Blur) slings the six-string. Opening tracks We’ll Meet Again and Reach Out hint at a collection of songs for our time. But the rest of the numbers are a pretty random selection from the floor filling Motown songbook – Money, This Love Starved Heart Of Mine – the sort of music that goes down well at a wedding but also hits the solid-gold songwriting highs.
The arrangements are heavy and played hard, but only occasionally do they sound like a band really enjoying themselves. The band name fits – like they’ve spent the last 20 years schlepping these songs around the circuit. Jaded? A little. All it needs now is a bit more heart.
words JOHN-PAUL DAVIES
Shiver (Krunk)
It’s solo album number three and the first in a decade from Jónsi, still best known as the vocalist in Sigur Rós. If you’re expecting the huge, joyous (don’t say ethereal, don’t say ethereal) wall of noise that’s the signature sound of that band, and most nature documentaries since the turn of the millennium, then stop right there. A.G. Cook, head of PC Music, is the co-producer.
And Cook’s touch is all over Shiver, as lurid hyper-pop scrapes against harsh electronics before Jónsi brings his otherworldly falsetto and brooding strings. It’s a fascinating mix, though at times there feels like a disdain for prettiness. Sweet melodies surface and swirl before glitches and swathes of noise smother them, reminding us we can’t have nice things. That’s despite the presence of stellar guest vocalists: Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser on Cannibal, and the ever-fabulous Robyn on Salt Licorice, which is the album’s clear highlight and a proper pop banger.
So will Shiver make your spine tingle (sorry not sorry)? Let’s just say it is interesting.
words SAM EASTERBROOK
The Blues (Cleopatra)
As if his Ben Folds-produced cover of Pulp’s Common People (from 2004’s Has Been) wasn’t remarkable enough, William Shatner has since released a Christmas album called Shatner Claus featuring a punk rock version of Jingle Bells, on which he duets with Henry Rollins and sounds like a drunk granddad staggering about the living room about to spew eggnog all over the tree. The Blues is further proof that even at the age of 89, Star Trek’s Captain Kirk has no interest whatsoever in growing old gracefully.
Accompanied by a host of celebrated guitarists, Shatner mines rock’s ur-genre for opportunities to indulge in tongue-in-cheek melodrama, shouting his vocals like a man who’s got the heating turned up and his TV on too loud. He sobs, wails and howls his way through Smokestack Lightning, turns I Can’t Quit You, Baby into a harrowing serenade, delivers the sinister threat “My love will follow you till the day I die” on The Thrill Is Gone and plays the part of a disturbingly priapic pensioner on a deranged version of Muddy Waters’ Mannish Boy.
words BEN WOOLHEAD