13 Manic Street Preachers - Send Away The Tigers (8) Metacritic Rating: 69

 

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Perhaps the strange, erratic, yet interesting career of Manic Street Preachers makes sense after all, as a life in fast forward. They exploded on the scene with the teenage tantrums and gusto of "Generation Terrorists" as a Welsh indie version of Guns N Roses, before hitting the brick wall of adult disillusionment on their nihilistic creative high "The Holy Bible". After the storm of Richey's disappearance came the calm and maturity of the thirtysomething "Everything Must Go" before the gradual decline towards the confused, cold, middle aged ramblings of "Lifeblood".

 

Which makes "Send Away The Tigers" the old age album, and thank God for that. Not the sound of exhaustion and apathy, but the kind of old age when you shake off duty and indulge eccentricities, caring less what people think. The Manics sounded more exuberant here than they have in years, perhaps ever. Usually so weighed down by their heavy past, they suddenly sounded as raw, fresh and playful as if they'd met a week ago.

 

It's clear in the beefed-up, boisterous sound of the opening title track, as meaty guitars wipe-out the anaemic synths of "Lifeblood". Then there's the hit "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough", with its shamelessly dumb repetitions and revving guitars, and the Cramps-like scuzziness of "Imperial Bodybags". This is back to basics stomp rock, aimed at gut and foot over brain, with only "Autumnsong" slipping back into maudlin mid-pace, albeit with a more than decent effort.

 

If there is a downside to this what-the-hell approach, it's in the lyrics. While still capable of the occasional brilliant flash - "Good God, I feel like a liberal" on "Rendition" - a lot of this album finds Nicky Wire on lacklustre form. The dumb sloganeering of the single is one thing, but the excruciating Manics-go-emo of "Underdogs" ("This one's for the freaks / For the lost and the weak / For the butterflies and devotees") is another. That isn't eccentric old age, that's senility.

 

Still, foolish mis-steps aside, "Send Away The Tigers" is not only the most enjoyable Manics record in years, it's the most consistent, from the grandiose, classic sound of "The Second Great Depression" to the surging strings of "Indian Summer". Their best work may be in the past (there's nothing here to match the majestic "If You Tolerate This…" or "No Surface All Feeling") but so, thankfully, is their worst.

 

Due to it's success this is now not looking like the case: If this proves to be the end of the life and times of the Manic Street Preachers - and there is certainly the feel of a last hurrah to proceedings (after their solo albums they got together with the intention of making an unpretentious no nonsense "final" album a la The Beatles' Abbey Road - it's been a hell of a journey. Thanks for most of the memories, boys.

 

Fav track (bar Your Love Alone Is Not Enough):

 

Send Away The Tigers (live)

12 Enemy - We Live & Die In These Towns (8) Metacritic Rating: 61

 

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At first, it's hard to get excited about the Enemy. We've all been to the off- licence, and we all know what the off-licence is like. Real life is boring (that is why we spend hours typing to strangers we have never met on the internet :lol:), and most of us will live and die in places just as mundane as the Enemy's hometown of Coventry. Do we really need pop music to rub our noses in it?

 

So here's what's brilliant about this band the 11 songs here offer no solution, no way out and very little hope, making We'll Live and Die in These Towns as bleak in its own way as the Manic Street Preachers' The Holy Bible (although not quite as good). The songs are by and large brilliant, too, cut from the Brit-indie heritage scattered behind them - chiefly the Jam - but delivered with a spring-loaded tightness usually associated with American bands. Also, the Enemy know that no one likes a show-off, and so don't unleash their world-class anthems until we're halfway through the set, in contrast to the majority of albums I seem to have bought this year.

 

That run kicks in on the heartbreaking title track which reimagines 'Going Underground' as the soundtrack to a dole queue in 2007, while 'Technodanceaphobic' is a thudding punk trailblazer about little more than 'banging on the back seat all night long'. Best of all, though, is 'It's Not Okay', which sneers at office boys who think they're better than their peers, and is spat out in the kind of fashion that suggests they find this kind of thing as easy as Noel Gallagher once did.

 

Their unwavering self-belief forces cracks of light through the gloomy subject matter. This record wears its hardships proudly: it's the sound of three Coventry lads who have experienced the lows life has thrown at them and are making the most of their chance to break out. They know they believe in nothing, but it's their nothing. And it sounds inspirational.

 

A lot of critics may not have enjoyed this album, due to it being a bit of a one trick pony. But when that one trick is this good who cares what they think?

 

Fav track:

 

It's Not Okay

11 Amy Macdonald - This Is The Life (8) Metacritic Rating: NA

 

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The current music scene isn't short of new female singer-songwriters, which should make it hard for Amy Macdonald to stand out from the crowd, but she manages it admirably. In fact, the more times you spin her debut disc, the more you'll come to love her like the casual mate who was never top of your party invite list but who you've gradually come to notice is the one who's always there when you really need her.

 

This Is The Life isn't a dramatic record, but herein lies its charm. Behind the faux Seventies cover, faux dog-eared around the edges, is a voice that sounds resignedly worldweary as Macdonald shimmies through lyrics such as the title track's chorus question of "where you gonna go/where you gonna sleep tonight?" and the futile dreams of A Wish For Something More.

 

There's an Americana tinge to her melodies that gives the album a hint of melancholy blues, faintly reminiscent of Jack White at his most sentimental (Mr Rock & Roll in particular has parallels with We're Going To Be Friends), of Johnny Cash if he'd been a pretty Glaswegian girl rather than the Man In Black. If you want to look to UK influences, listen for the ghost of Kirsty MacColl beneath a voice that's deeper than any teenager's has a right to be.

 

This Is The Life is an insanely accomplished album for a girl barely out of school. The music is rich, full and dark. The lyrics are infused with a dark heart that pulls them back from the brink of twee naivety in such a wonderfully black way that you can't help but imagine what music she'll be capable of making when she's older, more jaded and has really had a her heart broken a few times.

 

The critics who've slammed her for the simplicity of lines such as Let's Start A Band's "When there's nothing left to do/Let's start a band" are missing the point - taking it too literally and reading the words without hearing the gut wrenching sadness in the song behind them. This is about the break-up of The Libertines, and if you've forgotten how that felt, there's a song here that will remind you. It felt like the end of the world, even for those of us who'd been there at the break-up of special bands time and time again. Like us, she knows that someone else will rise to take their place, but eventually they'll fall as well, won't they? She's putting herself into the firing line, standing up to be shot down.

 

It is in this approach that MacDonald's real skill lies. There's heartbreak in her tunes, but coupled with a shrug of the shoulders and an attempt to pick her self up even though life will knock her down again. She knows this. You know this. Music won't save the world, but it might just carry you through the night.

 

Fav track (bar Mr Rock & Roll):

 

Barrowland Ballroom

10 Girls Aloud - Tangled Up (8) Metacritic Rating: NA

 

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Girls Aloud remain a manufactured pop band like no other, they have attained a remarkable blanket approval. Only the cloth-eared and inoperably snobbish seem immune to their charms. Tiny children scream at them; OK! and Heat magazine pursue them; the Arctic Monkeys declared them "the best"; Franz Ferdinand have borrowed their production team, Xenomania, to work on their next album.

 

There is no talk of guilty pleasures or so-bad-it's-good about their records. True, Sexy No No No was an underwhelming first single, a rubbish rehash of their best song Biology. But Call The Shots was much better as it had a chorus that only anterograde amnesia could wipe from your brain Matched with a verse that belonged to a long lost Bananarama track. Girl Overboard and Close to Love's conjunction of rock guitar and thumping house beat seems familiar, and previous Girls Aloud albums have dealt in the un- expected.

 

Enter Can't Speak French, a prime example of Xenomania's ability to throw wildly disparate musical elements together, an ability they seem to reserve for Girls Aloud, possibly because it fits so perfectly with Cole and co: these ideas shouldn't work but they do, just like the notion of a reality TV-birthed band making thrilling and ground-breaking albums. Here, you get a peculiar, loping rhythm that can't decide whether it's swing shuffle or glitter stomp, topped off with an ungainly synthesised bassline and intricate jazzy guitar. As ever, you get the distinct impression that lyricist Miranda Cooper may require surgery to get her tongue out of her cheek: "I'll let the funky music do the talking," runs the chorus, over a beat that couldn't be more cumbersome and unfunky if it tried.

 

From then on, Tangled Up is a riot. The melodies are uniformly fantastic and there's something relentless about the way it pelts you with audacious creativity and improbable juxtapositions: Black Jack's cocktail of glorious Northern soul-inspired chorus and belligerent terrace chant ("come and get stuck in!"); What You Crying For's unlikely debt to techstep drum'n'bass; the clattering rave breakbeat and sampled scrape of fingers down guitar fretboard that powers I'm Falling. Fling - on which a Girl Aloud divertingly announces her Chuck Berry-esque desire for "a bit of ding-a-ling" - offers a kind of nuclear-powered punk-funk that leaves virtually every NME-sponsored early 80s revivalist looking hopelessly pallid.

 

You're left pondering an album that by any standards seems pretty irresistible. It's witty, diverse, experimental and viscerally thrilling: what more do you want pop music to be? Frankly, the sort of person who claims they find nothing to love here is like the sort of person who claims to hate the Beatles: they're either posturing or they're an idiot. Either way, you should pay them no mind.

 

Fav track:

 

Fling

 

 

9 Bats For Lashes - Fur & Gold (8) Metacritic Rating: 81

 

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Bat For Lashes, the musical alter-ego of one Natasha Khan, has attracted much (inevitable) comparison to Björk, Cat Power and Kate Bush, and to some extent this holds water. There’s the same maverick female singer-songwriter thing going on, and Bat For Lashes has the same love of wrapping raw emotion in surprising sounds and arrangements so that the impact jumps out at you from several different angles at once.

 

However, Fur and Gold is far from an influence-hugging act of mimicry: the sound couldn’t possibly be stolen goods when it’s so exactly sculpted to fit Khan’s voice. Her vocal, whether in soft/atmospheric or bold and striking mode, always fits perfectly into the fabric of the music, adding to and becoming part of the atmosphere rather than superimposing itself over it. Around and between the vocals, seemingly delicate instrumentation is woven together in such a way as to lend it a complex, layered strength. Fur and Gold doesn’t so much use hooks as suggest them: whispering hints of melody, shared out between the violin, harpsichord and oddly mechanical sounding handclaps, provide enough of a tune to let the song worm its way firmly into your mind without ever overwhelming the atmospheric complexity of the whole.

 

And that coherent atmosphere is the root of Fur and Gold’s power. By welding the mysticism, dream imagery and fairytale quality of the lyrical content to the ethereal yet powerful music, an emotional rawness is balanced by a sense of distance and mystery which persists through repeated listens without feeling tired or spent. Although occasional slips into a more conventional or less complex sound sometimes loosen the album’s grip on the listener, it’s never long before the spell re-establishes itself. An entrancing, wonderfully surprising record which manages to feel both refreshing new and strangely timeless. Little wonder it was the bookies favourite to win the Mercury Music Awards.

 

Fav track:

 

Horse & I (live)

8 Alison Moyet - The Turn (8) Metacritic Rating: NA

 

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Taking in influences she's picked up from appearing on stage in Chicago, it draws a perfect convergent evolution to a moment in time that was destined for this album and vice versa.

 

The Turn certainly delivers this, from the promise of the opening track and preceding single One More Time, which soars through the octaves on the wings of a rather beautiful guitar riff, to the sombre last act Smaller (the title of the recent play in which she appeared with Dawn French).

 

Several of the tracks deserve special mention, from the beautiful piano ballad of The Man In The Wings, through which you can almost smell the dry ice and stage smoke, to the Brechtian World Without End.

 

Some of this is inevitably down to the contribution of Peter Gleinster, her collaborator on songs for the play Smaller and who would clearly rather write a soundtrack for a Broadway extravaganza of feather boas and fishnets than a pretend cruise ship entertainer. On this performance, he should definitely be allowed to.

 

There are nods to the past - as well as having one of the best titles this year, It's Not The Thing Henry could be a grown-up Yazoo - and plenty more of the development last evidenced on her 2004 covers album Voice.

 

The only flaw this album has for me is that it sounds like a set of tracks recorded, not a coherant album, especially with what sounds like an attempt at having a hit single A Guy Like You stuck on the end of the album, but that is perhaps nit picking.

 

One thing is certain, there is more character, personality and emotion on any one of these tracks then you'll find on a Leona Lewis album, and musically she is in a far, far better place in 2007 than her one time 1980s rival female singer in a synth-pop duo - Annie Lennox.

 

Fav track:

 

One More Time

7 Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare (8) Metacritic Rating: 82

 

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Arctic Monkeys have moved from their alarmingly evolved infancy into rock toddlerhood with glibness, swagger, and whip-smart songs intact. "Brianstorm," the lead single and opening track, is a hard, arch spy theme. While the drummer beats us to a pulp (Matt Helders has taken up boxing and it shows), Jamie Cook surfs his guitar's neck with rancor. Singer Alex Turner -- with signature economy -- sketches a weird fan they met in Japan: "We can't take our eyes off the T-shirt and tie combination/ See you later innovator."

 

For all its charms, the song doesn't reach out and hurl you into the mosh pit like "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" did. In fact the whole album is less instantly exhilarating, less succinct, than its predecessor. Snide beats and stiff licks redolent of the Jam and the Clash resurface on "D Is for Dangerous," "Balaclava," "The Bad Thing," and "Old Yellow Bricks." But on the whole the record is heavier, and the Sheffield foursome (bassist Nick O'Malley replaced an officially "fatigued" Andy Nicholson last year) wears it well.

 

Monster riffs crush the sharp angles and jaunty mood on "This House Is a Circus," and "If You Were There, Beware" flirts with thrash-metal and prog. Tightly coiled "Do Me a Favour" splits open at the midpoint and spills its insides. The darkness feels like a natural extension -- it's been a challenging year for the young, media-shy musicians -- and leavens the band's disaffected narratives with newfound depth.

 

That new weightiness extends to Turner's lyrics. He's outgrown the acutely observed portraits of hook - ups and underage drinking that filled the band's debut. Now 21, and no less skilled a storyteller, Turner turns his attention to the elusiveness of true romance on the shimmering "Only Ones Who Know," and the disappointment of watching a former "Fluorescent Adolescent" settle into a certain sort of adulthood: "You used to get it in your fishnets/ Now you only get it in your nightdress/ Discarded all the naughty nights for niceness/ L anded in a very common crisis."

 

The sprawling album closer, "505," begins as an impressionist journey to a hotel room, picks up speed in anticipation of a lover's wrath, and erupts into fuzz and chime when it's time, Turner yowls, "to greet me with goodbye." Touring plays havoc with one's love life, but it makes bands better.

 

Fav track (bar the first two singles):

 

505 (live)

 

 

 

 

6 Radiohead - In Rainbows (8) Metacritic Rating: 88

 

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Ever since Radiohead secured its fanbase with the searing guitar rock of The Bends and OK Computer, the band has fled rockist trappings at all costs. But after indulging its experimental urges on Kid A and Amnesiac, Radiohead thought it might be safe for Jonny Greenwood to set aside his ondes Martenot and amplified transistor radio to sling his Telecaster over his shoulder once more. Unfortunately, the resulting album, Hail to the Thief, revealed the band to be too conflicted to reconcile with that blue-collar instrument, the guitar, thereby splitting the difference between electronic excursions and equally benign rock. It was the band’s first misstep since Pablo Honey’s false start. For those expecting Radiohead to slip into a “no alarms and no surprises” phase of steady downward trajectory, In Rainbows, its first new album in four years, is a gorgeous, if understated return to form.

 

If Radiohead once again denies listeners the catharsis of Greenwood’s sumptuous guitar squalls, the band conspicuously teases such climaxes throughout the album. Numerous songs are propelled by Phil Selway’s insistent 4/4 drumming. The swift, quasi-krautrock clips on “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” simmer with the promise of an eruption, but instead evaporate into silence. Only “Bodysnatchers” approaches an explosive finale, as Greenwood’s fragmentary stabs punctuate the gnarling crunch of Ed O’Brien’s guitar. But what these songs lack in exhilarating dynamics is made up for in salient drama.

 

As ever, the band sinks its teeth deepest into the material that showcases Thom Yorke’s mournful vocals. “Nude,” a hypothermic soul song the band has been trying to perfect for nearly a decade, is its most emotionally leveling ballad since Kid A’s “How to Disappear Completely.” Yorke’s icicle-cool vocals float airily through textured guitar, slow motion strings, and Selway’s precisely understated drumming. “Reckoner,” another older, road-tested song, builds a foundation of echoing rhythms over which Yorke tests the upper ranges of his falsetto to stunning effect. And while Radiohead can always be trusted for a last song that haunts long after the music ends, the repetitive piano dirge, “Videotape,” is among its best. As Yorke sings, “You are my center when I spin away,” the stark piano chord progression pushes on without wavering, even as stuttering rhythms, electronic treatments, and layered harmonies send it into unpredictable spiraling.

 

Radiohead has reached a point of superlative democracy: Each band member contributes restrained parts that tastefully compliment the whole, rather than usurp the spotlight. While it will undoubtedly disappoint fans still pining for OK Computer’s flashes of unhinged chaos, it is a mature statement that shows the band as capable of penning lush and affecting music as ever. It’s a shame, though, that this record could not have followed the Kid A/Amnesiac dynamo. Its similar arc and atmosphere would have made for a more logical sequel than the overlong, scattershot Hail to the Thief. Void of experimental filler, tautly constructed, and consistent in its cool tone, In Rainbows would have completed a nearly flawless post-rock trilogy for the band.

 

Fav track:

 

Nude

 

5 Britney Spears - Blackout (9) Metacritic Rating: 64

 

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Firstly, I should mention that I'm not a big fan of Britney, I have always been in the "Team Xtina camp" and the only previous album of her's that I own is My Prerogative : The Greatest Hits. However, I used to manage an evening shift at work and a colleague was a Britney fan so I have heard all of her albums which have been IMHO patchy affairs.....

 

If ever there was an album that had bad omens then Blackout was surely it. With Britney's personal life appearing to be in an ever increasing meltdown, then the odds of this late 1990s Pop Princess making a great comeback album appeared to be reducing by the week.

 

The bad news: If you are a hardcore Britney fan, then I can imagine this being a major disappointment, because at times Britney sounds like a guest vocalist on her own album. Probably as her song writing credits consist on just 2 of the 12 main tracks. Also listening to various tracks I can very easily imagine different artists singing these songs, due to their productions & soundscapes which at times make Britney sound like a computerised robot. Also there is absolutely nothing resembling a moody ballad like Everytime. (But in retrospect Britney was right to reject the Justin Timberlake/Duran Duran written track Falling Down as it would have killed the vibe of this album)

 

The good news: If you thought Madonna's Confessions on a Dancefloor was a great album, then think again as this album blows it away. As Britney is the Executive Producer then it is safe to assume that it was her concept to make a dance album that sounds like a soundtrack to sleazy nightclubs. But thanks to the fantastic up to the minute productions of Timbaland's prodigy Nate "Danja" Hills, Sweden's Bloodshy & Avant and Kara DioGuardi with a strong set of songs to match this album easily meets its target.

 

The highlights include the two singles: the throbbing and seedy Gimme More, the fantastically sarcastic self mythologising Piece Of Me. But most of the rest of the albums tracks could easily be singles: the vocodered & electronic sounding Radar; the Nelly Furtado-esque Break The Ice; the futuristic Giorgio Moroder European disco sounding Heaven On Earth - a song that is sorely missing from Kylie's latest album; Get Naked (I Got A Plan) which heavily features Danja; her musical homage to Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl - Toy Soldier with lyrics that demand a video to go one up on Xtina's Candy Man; and the catchy Rihanna sounding Hot As Ice.

 

Forget recent albums by P!nk, Madonna, Christina, Nelly F, etc. This beats the lot of them. The best Pop album in years....

 

Fav track:

 

Heaven On Earth

4 The Go! Team - Proof Of Youth (9) Metacritic Rating: 76

 

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Putting this album on for the first time is like entering a four-year-old's birthday party, so relentless is its onslaught of sugar-high mayhem. Although Go! Team linchpin Ian Parton has denied it, childhood is all over this album, melodies and memories from Parton's late-1970s/early 1980s youth. There are tunes that sound like themes to TV shows (one, My World, actually is a lovingly covered theme to a TV show), tunes that pay homage to 1980s pop-hip-hop (on Grip Like a Vice, lead singer Ninja sounds just like Neneh Cherry) and fuzzy tunes that call to mind C86 indie at its cutest. My favourite track the fantastic Fake ID sounds like New Order backing the Pipettes produced by Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim). Except when Public Enemy's Chuck D shows up, and things turn momentarily fierce.

 

Approached in the wrong mood, Proof of Youth is exhausting; otherwise its sweetness is irresistible. It is criminal that this Brighton based six-piece who are making such joyous, imaginative, uplifting records still fail to receive adequate support from Radio 1.....

 

Fav track:

Fake ID

 

 

 

 

 

3 Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full (9) Metacritic Rating: 79

 

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Throughout his post-Beatles solo career, Paul has had a knack of knocking out his best material when his life is in turmoil, whether 1971's Ram when the media & the other three Beatles hated him for dissolving the Beatles' partnership and his association with manager Allan Klein (History was to show that Paul was right, as he was eventually jailed for fraud); 1973's Band On The Run when two members of Wings quit on the eve to record the album in Nigeria, where Paul & Linda were held robbed by bandits at gunpoint; 1982's Tug Of War - the first Paul album post to dissolution of Wings and the murder of his one time best mate John Lennon (the later event caused the former); 1997's Flaming Pie - Paul movingly coming to terms with his wife's (Linda's) fight with cancer..... so with Paul been involved with a rather public divorce battle, it is of little surprise that Paul has got his focus back to the music, especially as two album's previously he released the creatively & musically bankrupt Driving Rain album (otherwise known as "Drivel Rain" amongst Beatles fans).

 

Allusion to the digital world though it may be, there's a sweet, elegiac undercurrent to the title of Paul McCartney's Memory Almost Full, an acknowledgement that it was written and recorded when McCartney was 64, the age he mythologized on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released almost exactly 40 years before Memory. Certainly, McCartney has mortality on the mind, but this isn't an entirely unusual occurrence for him in this third act of his solo career. Ever since his wife Linda's death from cancer in 1998, he's been dancing around the subject, peppering Flaming Pie with longing looks back, grieving by throwing himself into the past on the covers album Run Devil Run, slowly coming to terms with his status as the old guard on the carefully ruminative Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. But if that previous record was precise, bearing all the hallmarks of meticulous producer Nigel Godrich wish to produce a John Lennon album, Memory Almost Full is startlingly bright and frequently lively, an album that embraces McCartney's unerring gift for melody that the Hoosiers & Scouting For Girls would kill for. Yet for as pop as it is, this is not an album made with any illusion that Paul will soon have a succession of hit singles: it's an art-pop album, not unlike either of the McCartney albums. Sometimes this is reflected in the construction —- the quick succession of short songs at the end, uncannily (and quite deliberately) sounding like a suite — sometimes in the lyrics, but the remarkable thing is that McCartney never sounds self-consciously pretentious here, as if he's striving to make a major statement. Rather, he's quietly taking stock of his life and loves, his work and achievements. Unlike latter-day efforts by Johnny Cash or the murky Daniel Lanois-produced albums by Bob Dylan, mortality haunts the album, but there's no fetishization of death. Instead, McCartney marvels at his life — explicitly so in the disarmingly guileless "That Was Me," where he enthuses about his role in a stage play in grammar school with the same vigor as he boasts about playing the Cavern Club with the Beatles — and realizes that when he reaches "The End of the End," he doesn't want anything more than the fond old stories of his life to be told.

 

This matter-of-fact acknowledgement that he's in the last act of his life hangs over this album, but his penchant for nostalgia — this is the man who wrote the sepia-toned music hall shuffle "Your Mother Should Know" before he was 30, after all — has lost its rose-tinted streak. Where he once romanticized days gone by, McCartney now admits that we're merely living with "The Ever Present Past," just like how although we live in the present, we still wear "Vintage Clothes." He's no longer pining for the past, since he knows where the present is heading, yet he seems disarmingly grateful for where his journey has taken him and what it has meant for him, to the extent that he slings no arrows at his second wife, Heather Mills, he only offers her "Gratitude." Given the nastiness of the coverage of his recent divorce, Paul might be spinning his eternal optimism a bit hard on this song, with the exaggerated vocals (he has frequently been highly critical of the likes of Whitney, Mariah, Celine type diva's and their OTT vocalisations) that can be interpreted as sarcasm.

 

Memory Almost Full is so melodic and memorable, it's easy to take for granted his skill as a craftsman, particularly here when it feels so natural and unforced, even when it takes left turns, which it thankfully does more than once. Best of all, this is the rare pop meditation on mortality that doesn't present itself as a major statement, yet it is thematically and musically coherent, slowly working its way under your skin and lodging its way into your cluttered memory. On the surface, it's bright and accessible, as easy to enjoy as the best of Paul's solo albums, but it lingers in the heart and mind in a way uncommon to the rest of his work, and to many other latter-day albums from his peers as well.

 

With Memory Almost Full, Paul has made an album that I doubted he was capable of making and I doubt he will be able to surpass in the rest of his lifetime. No wonder Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen & Ozzy Osbourne all named this album their favourite album of 2007.

 

Fav tracks:

Only Mama Knows

 

The End Of The End

 

 

2 Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand (9) Metacritic Rating: 87

 

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What a delightful album this is. I’m no devotee of solo Plant, but it seems to me that he’s at his best when he’s not trying to recreate the Zep glory days but instead indulging his passions, and this is the important part, in his own way. There’s no way his aging voice could compete with the banshee yowl of his halcyon days and he not about to find a backing band like the one he had, so why bother? Think of the distinctive sound of his early singles, Big Log and In the Mood, and you’ll see that Plant was not just a vacant frontman but a vital contributor to what made Zeppelin great. And you’ll also note that he has his own unique musical voice to rival his unique vocal style. So on first listen, and depending on your perspective, it may seem like Plant has met Alison Krauss, bluegrass’ leading light, on her own doorstep. But dig into this set and you’ll see that in fact he has yanked her off the porch and right into the swamp.

 

You could hear the collective “huh?” that emanated from the mouths of Zeppelin fans when they first heard about this pairing. A straight bluegrass songstress teamed up with the prototypical c**k-rocker? WTF? But then we remembered the Honeydrippers, and Zeppelin III, and Going to California and especially The Battle of Evermore, his fantastic pairing with Sandy Denny, and things started to make more sense. But who thought the pairing would be this natural or this successful? From the little I know about Krauss, she sounds far from her bluegrass roots in tone if not instrumentation and I think this can only serve to enhance her reputation. The song choice here is critical and the seamlessness with which a Plant vocal melds into a Krauss vocal forces us to assume that they were of one mind on this score.

 

Credit also has to be given to the backing band and especially producer T-Bone Burnett for his backwoods sound, but it’s a rare group of artists that can make you listen intently to all 5 minutes 39 of Polly Come Home, whose tempo is not quick enough to merit the descriptor “snail’s pace”.

 

Many of the songs here are textbook slow burners, and are only enhanced by great performances from the stars. Has Plant ever delivered a sexier vocal than the one on Killing the Blues? And with Krauss seductively caressing his lead with harmonies, Christ, it sounds like these guys recorded this one in bed. Plant returns the favour on Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us, hovering with wordless backing vocals around Krauss during the verses. Some of the best work here obviously recalls the classic Parsons/Harris pairing, though Krauss is not as confrontational a singer as Emmylou was on those records and so she is never in danger of overwhelming Plant the way Harris could on songs like We’ll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning. That pairing sounded like a meeting of strong personalities, while this sounds like a seduction, a love affair.

 

This collection is simply a joy to listen to, with great singers lovingly rendering great songs with a talented producer at the helm. My favourite is the most effortless. Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) was a minor mid-60’s hit for the Everly Brothers and sounds like an old pair of Robert Plant’s shoes, right up to the moaning “well, well, well” outro. But the whole album feels that comfortable and comforting. It’s not breaking any new ground or making any great demands, yet it nevertheless remains a complete triumph. Mark Ronson take note - this is how to do a covers album!

 

Fav tracks:

 

Gone,Gone,Gone (Done Moved On)

 

Through The Morning

1 Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (10) Metacritic Rating: 87

 

http://www.metacritic.com/media/music/artists/arcadefire/neonbible/picture.jpg

 

In 2004, Canada's Arcade Fire became one of the most warmly received and widely celebrated Montreal acts in some time. Propping up a multi-instrumental approach with driving rhythms and rousing guitars, the band crafts engaging, exciting songs with imagination to spare, mixing a diverse set of styles into a wholly original sound.

 

Named for the novel John Kennedy Toole wrote before A Confederacy of Dunces, Neon Bible is a tremendous follow-up to the wonderful Funeral. Dispensing with the giddy exuberance of the debut's sound, Arcade Fire casts a dark pall over a variety of styles, including intricate orchestral suites ("Black Wave / Bad Vibrations"), bittersweet folk ("Keep the Car Running") and even a bit of Delta blues fused with prog-rock ("My Body Is a Cage"). Wim Butler’s lyrical observations are razor-sharp (as you would expect from an American living in Canada), and the band seems capable of mastering anything it attempts. Yet Arcade Fire are at their best when they raise the roof, anthem-style, as on "Intervention," which blasts organized religion. Nick Cave’s got nothing on a line like "working for the church while your family dies." A nifty remake of "No Cars Go" and the America-dissing "Windowsill" are also standouts. A rewarding, resonant album, Neon Bible easily ranks among the best indie rock recordings of all time.

 

Whilst right now Arcade Fire remain in a field of one as contenders for the accolade of greatest Act in the world of Rock'n'Roll music today.

 

 

Fav tracks:

 

Intervention

 

Black Mirror

 

My Body Is A Cage

Hi TIP, i like these in your countdown :D

 

125 C.S.S. - Off the Hook (10wks 22-20-25-27-29-34-39-36-36-38)

124 Maximo Park - Karaoke Plays (7wks 16-10-7-7-12-21-37)

123 Just Jack - Starz In Their Eyes (8wks 25*-12-12-13-18-22-32)

122 Scissor Sisters - Kiss You Off (7wks 27-19-9-7-10-17-27)

120 Twang - Either Way (7wks 38-27-10-11-15-23-32)

119 Pigeon Detectives - I'm Not Sorry (6wks 33-21-14-11-11-21)

118 Enemy - Away From Here (7wks 20-14-12-13-18-32-39)

117 Sounds - Tony The Beat (Push It) (7wks 17-12-11-15-17-29-37)

116 Siouxsie Sioux - Into A Swan (6wks 8-8-8-12-17-29)

115 Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry (9wks 39-30-22-13-9-13-19-22-31)

113 Pipettes - ABC (7wks 31-10-12-18-20-31-36)

112 Bloc Party - Flux (8wks 37-29-18-8-5-8-12-16)

110 Sophie Ellis Bextor - Today The Sun's On Us (6wks 38-24-15-13-20-31)

107 Ghosts - Stay The Night (9wks 26-18-13-12-15-19-26-32-39)

106 Coral - Jacqueline (9wks 33-25-22-15-12-13-16-24-38)

105 Joan As Police Woman - The Ride (8wks 11-11-15-19-20-22-25-30)

104 Take That - I'd Wait For Life (8wks 28-18-9-3-3-10-27-38)

103 Newton Faulkner - Dream Catch Me (8wks 26-16-14-13-10-9-15-28)

102 Garbage - Tell Me Where It Hurts (9wks 29-20-13-8-8-12-17-23-34)

101 Little Man Tate - Sexy In Latin (8wks 31-17-11-7-12-17-23-35)

 

99 Stereophonics - It Means Nothing (9wks 39-31-22-12-9-9-9-14-30)

98 Peter, Bjorn & John ft Victoria Bergsman - Young Folks (2007 Remix) (8wks 7-4-4-4-10-17-25-33)

97 Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend (10wks 25-14-12-8-7-8-13-19-24-34)

96 Muse - Invincible (4wks 40-33-35-40)

94 Kaiser Chiefs - Angry Mob (5wks 37-33-28-23-26)

93 LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great (7wks 4-4-6-11-14-20-30)

92 Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love (12wks 5-6-8-9-11-7-6-10-12-17-23-39)

89 David Guetta - Love Is Gone (8wks 37-27-16-8-18-37-38-40)

83 Babyshambles - The Delivery (9wks 36-20-14-8-15-15-17-28-37)

82 M.I.A. - Jimmy (7wks 6-5-5-9-11-30-38)

81 Groove Armada ft Mutya - Song For Mutya (6wks 7-7-7-13-19-29)

 

80 Ghosts - The World Outside (8wks 34-25-14-6-6-8-14-33)

77 Fedde Le Grand ft Ida Corr - Let Me Think About It (9wks 37-12-5-6-11-18-16-19-25)

76 C.S.S. - Alcohol (7wks 29-20-15-14-19-26-40)

74 Calvin Harris - Acceptable In The 80's (6wks 20-6-6-9-19-40)

73 Cherry Ghost - People Help The People (10wks 16-8-11-14-23-30-31-32-36-39)

72 Klaxons - Golden Skans (9wks 32-26-17-15-14-12-13-21-38)

71 Shins - Phantom Limb (8wks 38-5-4-9-12-16-25-31)

70 Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Catch You (12wks 37-33-24-20-13-7-6-8-16-24-31-38)

68 Linkin Park - What I've Done (10wks 14-7-6-7-7-7-9-20-28-35)

67 Travis - Closer (9wks 39-10-6-5-2-2-9-16-27)

64 Lily Allen - Alfie (8wks 6-5-6-8-11-20-27-35)

63 Take That - Shine (14wks 36-32-29-14-7-5-3-3-4-9-14-17-24-38)

61 Travis - Selfish Jean (10wks 36-29-24-22-5-4-6-12-24-34)

 

59 Scouting For Girls - She's So Lovely (8wks 18-16-13-7-8-8-18-33)

58 Dan Le Sac & Scroobius Pip - Thou Shalt Always Kill (6wks 4-4-5-8-11-22)

56 Arcade Fire - Keep The Car Running (10wks 21-8-7-10-11-20-24-32-38)

50 Enemy - We'll Live In These Towns (3wks 11-7-8)

48 Maps - You Don't Know Her Name (7wks 15-11-9-8-10-17-35)

47 Guillemots - Annie Let's Not Wait (7wks 29-16-9-12-17-20-24)

46 Charlotte Hatherley - Behave (6wks 3-3-8-15-23-31)

45 Cherry Ghost - Mathematics (11wks 22-19-21-17-20-22-25-28-29-31-38)

44 Hoosiers - Worried About Ray (10wks 18-12-6-5-3-10-16-22-27-40)

43 Remi Nicole - Go Mr Sunshine (8wks 4-3-3-6-16-27-33-39)

42 Emma Pollock - Paper and Glue (6wks 15-4-2-3-8-13)

41 Rihanna ft Jay Z - Umbrella (8wks 11-1-1-4-10-18-32-36)

 

39 Maximo Park - Our Velocity (15wks 26-18-17-23-27-30-24-25-26-27-28-26-30-33-37)

38 Nerina Pallot - Learning To Breathe (8wks 18-7-4*-2-6-16-33)

36 Arcade Fire - No Cars Go (10wks 28-19-15-6-4-7-11-18-26-37)

35 Mutya - Real Girl (11wks 8-4-4-5-5-5-5-5-11-20-34)

34 Candie Payne - One More Chance (10wks 28-16-9-9-13-15-20-29-34-36)

33 Coral - Who's Gonna Find Me (10wks 18-6-3-3-3-3-7-13-21-39)

32 Arctic Monkeys - Brainstorm (11wks 10-7-5-4-3-2-2-8-16-27-40)

31 Siouxsie Sioux - Here Comes That Day (9wks 1-3-5-9-16-23-20-24-33)

28 Travis - My Eyes (7wks 1-1-2-11-18-28-40)

27 KT Tunstall - Hold On (10wks 19-12-6-2-2-2-2-11-24-37)

26 Feist - 1234 (15wks 21-15-12-11-11-9-11-15-23-35-OUT*3-20-13-16-30-40)

25 Robbie Williams - She's Madonna (12wks 14-12-10-DSQ(4)-8-4-2-2-2-5-8-12-18)

24 White Stripes - Icky Thump (11wks 6-4-3-3-3-2-2-2-7-18-30)

23 Britney Spears - Gimme More (12wks 2-2-3-4-4-1-2-9-13-23-31-36)

22 Take That - Rule The World (12wks 3-1-2-3-3-5-6-8-12-16-24-34)

21 Adele - Hometown Glory (12wks 20-14-10-6-5-3-3-6-9-15-23-35)

 

20 Mika - Grace Kelly (11wks 35*-1-1-1-1-3-3-8-13-32)

19 Arcade Fire - Intervention (10wks 4-4-11-23-X(13)-3-2-2-6-12-23)

18 Girls Aloud - Call The Shots (9wks 35-21-17-5-3-3-7-9-10)

17 Sugababes - About You Now (11wks 34-17-10-5-1-2-2-3-8-19-28)

16 Editors - Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors (10wks 9-4-1-1-1-4-11-20-32-40)

15 Client - Xerox Machine

14 Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent (11wks 12-6-4-3-2-2-5-10-16-21-32)

13 Manic Street Preachers ft Nina Persson - Your Love Alone Is Not Enough (10wks 15-7-6-3-3-2-3-6-12-20-29)

12 Foo Fighters - Long Road To Ruin (6wks 1-1-1-5-10-11)

11 Duffy - Rockferry (5wks 20-9-1-1-1)

10 Mark Ronson - Stop Me (9wks 1-1-1-1-3-7-11-16-24)

7 Amy Macdonald - Mr Rock & Roll (11wks 4-4-1-1-4-6-8-12-20-24-32)

6 Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby (12wks 30-23-12-3-1-1-1-1-11-18-26-40)

4 Modest Mouse - Dashboard (15wks 1-1-3-7-6-13-14-17-18-18-12-15-17-21-33)

3 Kate Nash - Foundations (12wks 1-1-1-2-2-2-3-4-8-16-21-34)

2 Nelly Furtado - Say It Right (26wks 21-7-4-3-2-2-2-2-5-11-13-17-24-25-31-33-34-31-28-35-39-28-27-27-26-34)

1 Robyn ft Kleerup - With Every Heartbeat (13wks 20-1-1-1-1-1-6-7-12-19-23-27-39)

 

I have and like these albums ^_^

 

1 Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

7 Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare

10 Girls Aloud - Tangled Up

11 Amy Macdonald - This Is The Life

12 Enemy - We Live & Die In These Towns

16 The Good The Bad & The Queen - The Good The Bad & The Queen

18 Feist - Reminder

19 Maps - We Can Create

22 Maximo Park - Our Earthly Pleasures

24 Kate Nash - Made Of Bricks

25 Hoosiers - The Trick Of Life

27 Kaiser Chiefs - Yours Truly, Angry Mob

28 Editors - An End Has A Start

33 Mika - Life In Cartoon Motion

35 Klaxons - Myths Of The Near Future