We've got the best and worst releases of the week. Click below and leave your views...
Lisa Marie Glover - Tea in the Sky 4/5
Reviewed by Rick Underwood
Wow! What a voice! Lisa-Marie is something special. Really special.
Her voice effortlessly swoops from the highest to the lowest, with the honey sweet tone and an emotional quality that gently draws you under her melodious spell.
Lisa-Marie Glover is simply spectacular. She should be the one people are compared to, but if we want comparisons, she sounds a little like Joni Mitchell, a little like KD Lang, and the complex clever harmonies remind me a little of The Roches.
She is folky, bluesy, and jazzy, but most of all, she is herself, and that is pretty marvellous!
You can’t help but listen closely to the thoughtful, heartfelt words of her beautifully constructed songs on ‘Tea in the Sky’. There’s nothing safe or wishy washy in there. She tells it how it is, with a light touch that warms and cheers, as her lovely music enchants. Particularly good are ‘Somewhere by the Sea’ and ‘Poor Baby.’
How fortunate we are to have her right here on our doorstep!
Do yourself a huge favour, and get out to her local gigs, before she is inevitably whisked away into her life as a global superstar!
Lisa-Marie Glover is pure gold, and ‘Tea in the Sky’ simply shines with her special brand of magic.
http://www.myspace.com/lisamarieglover
Erasure 'Light at the end of the World' Album Minotaur Music 3/5
Reviewed by Jessie Alison
From the word go, this is Erasure, doing the Erasure thing, and doing it very well.
These are some of the masters of dancey, frothy electropop, and the years have not diminished them…
Don't bother listening for anything too deep or meaningful on this album, it's just top quality inventive sophisticated urban Synthipop, lovingly made for you to dance yourself dizzy to.
It's beautifully crafted, marvellously produced, and is not spoilt by the fact that the sound hasn't moved on much at all from Erasure's early days.
http://www.myspace.com/erasureofficial
Queens of the Stone Age '3s and 7s' Single Interscope Records 3/5
Reviewed by Mouse
Slightly Nirvana guitar sound and a vintage Ozzy vocal, this song thumps along
howling melodiously as it goes. Good simple rock'n'roll, from some fairly deranged characters, judging by their weird little cartoon on their MySpace site, and the artwork on the CD.
http://www.myspace.com/queensofthestoneage
The Chemical Brothers – 'We Are The Night' Album Virgin Records 4/5
Reviewed by Josh Green
Always so interesting to listen to, The Chemical Brothers are a bit of an enigma.
Their music is not really what people expect it to be. It's a lot more creative and intense, and accomplished.
This music grips you from the very first listen and drags you headfirst into it's own
astounding vortex of dancey, chanty, swirling whirly, bangy thumpy sound. You get caught up in it, like it or not, and once it's got you mesmerized, you can't break away. You don't even want to. It's not catchy, it's viral…
This is electonica, but it's about as far from Erasure and Jean Michel Jarre as it's possible to get. It's got shades of White Noise, Kraftwerk, Orbital, Ozric Tentacles, Talking Heads, Faust, a sort of Will Smith Rap, and lot of those annoying little video game tunes, all macramed into a string bag to put over your head. Heaven knows what's going on…it's crazy stuff, but marvellous too! You know that saying about 'You don't have to be mad to work here – but it helps'? Well I don't think you need to be mad to love this album either, but if you weren't exactly in your right mind, I expect it would blow your little head off!
http://www.myspace.com/thechemicalbrothers
In a rare twist, we have two Chemical Brothers reviews this week - one positive, one negative - read both and take your pick...
Bin It
The Chemical Brothers - We Are The Night 1/5
Reviewed by Jeremy Mumpsy
I listened to this album in the car and found it difficult to hold my
attention on it. I had to keep remembering that I had to listen to it
to review it. It had no saving graces and no new sounds that it surely
must have been trying to summon in the absence of songs. Recycled but
not reworked snare sounds gave memories of a greater moment when the
first album came out and weak samples suggest a life too flabby with
no need to strive for anything new. It may cut a mindless alcohol
fuelled rug in Ibiza but it just doesn't cut the mustard in the halls
of the heroes. It is a good example of a great band having a low
period and if someone doesn't tell them straight then they may never
have the come-back that we really wish them.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Trip The Light Fantastic
Reviewed by Jade Wright
It sounds as though Sophie’s dalliance with The Feeling (and marriage to the bassist) has done nothing to get her out of that tired old groove. In fact, they seem to be fighting to be crowned pop’s most predictable act. Opening on the album’s two hit singles, Catch You and Me & My Imagination, it’s just more of the same bland electro-pop.
1/5