CD REVIEWS
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday October 16, 2009
Philadelphia grand jury HOPE IS FOR HOPERS (Boomtown/Shock)4/5 Philadelphia Grand Jury can€™t help themselves.They love the noise, the thrill of sending that fuzzed-up guitar into overdrive, the kick when the voice all but rips through the throat, the sheer bloody excitement of everything going at once and racing out of the garage (rock) at full tilt.Many bands would stop there and do pretty well. But PGJ have tunes. Proper tunes, too; the kind you sing along to, not just shout with when the fi fth beer kicks in. There are sweet tunes, which do dreamy and hazy; there are punkish tunes that grin wildly; there are Who and Stones tunes that have brains, not just groins.And then, in case you€™d forgotten, they come on like our own Missing Links: nasty, cheap, squally and excellent.Bernard Zuel editors IN THIS LIGHT AND ON THIS EVENING (Sony) 3.5/5A line from a New York Times story about Thom Yorke€™s recent sideband show could easily be applied to the third album from Editors: €˜€˜It was excellent,€™€™ said one audience member. €˜€˜It was the most depressing dance music I€™ve ever heard.€™€™ With Tom Smith€™s deep voice even deeper and even more a harbinger of gloom, the Birmingham group€™s tendency towards dramatic tales howled at the wind has a heavier dose of electronic sounds and propulsive near-dance rhythms this time. You can still feel like you are on a windswept moor howling at the wind in driving rain but now the chances are you€™re then on your way inside to dance with heavy boots and a heavy heart. Joy Division walked this way and no one will miss the influence. I can€™t help but like it, though.Bernard Zuel richard hawley TRUE LOVE€™S GUTTER (EMI) 3.5/5With a voice and delivery pitched somewhere between a pre-rock crooner and a deeper Roy Orbison and songs Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra would have loved to sing, Sheffi eld€™s fi nest, Richard Hawley, can do graceful melancholic better than just about anyone at the moment.There€™s a languid but potent emotional kick in his heartbreak and sweet hooks in his melodies.Where this mostly satisfying album slips up compared with its immediate two predecessors is a little too much homogeneity of tone. Bernard Zuel otis taylor PENTATONIC WARS AND LOVE SONGS (Telarc/Fuse) 4.5/5If it seemed improbable that blues-rock guitarist Gary Moore and jazz pianist Jason Moran would ever work together, the music of Otis Taylor makes their collusion seem as natural as a head on a beer. But then, Taylor, whose brilliant last opus was virtually an all-banjo affair, specialises in making the blues live anew via sonic surprises and shifts in perspective. This time he eradicates the imaginary lines between blues, folk, soul and jazz, singing with the raw honesty of a man with nothing to prove and much to say, while the breathy voice of his daughter, Cassie, differentiates some songs from his own brooding. This is the pinnacle of modern blues.John Shand the national living treasures THE NATIONAL LIVING TREASURES (Remedy Music) 4/5This Melbourne act label themselves €˜€˜bourgeois rock€™€™ but style-wise, their music is really all over the place. The fact this is a doublealbum release makes it, well, doubly so. This could be a case of the band€™s core, Simon Starr, wanting to show off exactly how eclectic he can be or just trying to maximise the pleasure for those who like to be kept on their listening toes.Rock-wise, there are songs with elements of grunge, pop, glam and blues, while elsewhere he shifts with ease through jazz and funk. All of the tracks stand up incredibly well on their own, though, particularly the delightful, reggaeinspired I Really Love You. You just need the patience to stick with the constant changes.Paul Smith rowland s. howard POP CRIMES (Liberation) 3/5In a career that includes stints as a Boy Next Door (he wrote Shivers) and as a member of art-rock nihilists the Birthday Party, it€™s not often the word €˜€˜pop€™€™ is mentioned in the same dark breath as Melburnian survivor Rowland S. Howard. Bleak, certainly, but pop?Judging by the fuzzed-out, Scott Walkermeets- the-Mary-Chain drone of (I Know a Girl Called) Johnny, not much has changed for the man since about 1980. The moody blues of Howard (ably assisted by Mick Harvey) stumble and lurch groggily but there€™s a certain narcotic allure to his grizzled, half-spoken narratives and dark-side obsessions.Jeff Apter
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