Reviews of Queen & Paul Rodgers, The Cure, Brian Hebert & Friends, Alessi's Ark

Queen and Paul Rodgers - The Cosmos Rocks By Rikki Wright

Any album blending the incredible voice of Paul Rodgers - simply the best singer of his generation - and the music of those lovely Queen fellas, should be amazing, but with the ghosts of absent friends crowding in, could this set-up ever really work? Well, yes, it could and does, but it's more Bad Company or Free than Queen, though the Queenly touches, such as Brian May's guitar standing out a mile, will please the Queen fans as much as Paul Rodgers' loyal legions. 4/5

Brian Hebert & Friends - Any Time At All By Rikki Wright

Surprisingly gutsy album of instrumental Beatles songs done in a raw and edgy Celtic folk style. Crammed full of wild bodrans, duelling mandolins, and skirling Irish pipes, reminding of Planxty, de Danaan and The Chieftains, with a taste of Bert Jansche's Pentangle, it's a radical reinvention of the great Lennon and McCartney songs that brings a whole new dimension to something we thought we already knew everything there was to know about. 4/5

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Alessi's Ark - The Horse EP By Rikki Wright
Lovely ethereal psychedelic folk with a very British atmosphere. Gorgeously sweet and breathy, slightly childish vocal reminds a little of the classic White Horses theme music, with perhaps a little of the spirit of Bjork, Kate Bush, and Syd Barrett. 4/5

The Cure - 4:13 By Rikki Wright
'Seventeen Seconds' was a seminal album, dark, bleak and inventive, with tracks like 'A Forest' making it an angst ridden, gloomy masterpiece. Sadly, this album is much more in the vein of 'Love Cat's' or 'Friday I'm in Love', which is some people's favorite Cure stuff, but not mine - I like my Cure stripped down and miserable, and this is just too cheery by half, like Joy Division doing the Cheeky Girls, and that is just not right. 3/5