ALBUM OF THE MONTH:
WHITE LIES
To Lose My Life
Polydor
If there’s one band following through on the usual hot-next-year hype
it’s London trio White Lies. If the 80s are coming back in a big way
this year, the band is combining some of that decade’s best bits. There’s
a drama to the title track that recalls Duran Duran’s epic moments, while
the influence of Echo And The Bunnymen, early Killing Joke and minor-key-era
Depeche Mode is key. Unfinished Business shows off their sense of razor-sharp
chorus construction while E.S.T. wallows gleefully in its over-the-top synth
and stick-in-the-head melody. Of course, the current appetite for 80s cinematic
grandeur has its origins in bands like The Killers, and the Las Vegas band
loom large over To Lose My Life. If this debut was purely a facsimile of Hot
Fuss it’d be easy to discard White Lies as mere musical larcenists; but
happily the songwriting here is of such quality that, instead, it becomes an
early contender for album of 2009.
U2
No Line On The Horizon
Mercury
From the boxfresh debutants to the slightly dusty legends. U2 have been going
for 30 years and they’ve always reinvented themselves just in time to retain
both commercial viability and a certain critic-proof Teflon quality. To whit:
the Madchester-influenced indie dance sound to Achtung Baby after the tired Rattle
And Hum, or the back-to-the-roots stadium rock of All That You Can’t Leave
Behind after the misjudged, patchy Pop. It sounds like they’ve really got
to go through that process once more, if this disjointed, clumsy album is anything
to go by. It starts promisingly with a Boy-era Bono wail at the start of the
title track but it swiftly descends to a boring, middle of the road aimless wander.
Then lead single Get On Your Boots distils all that is up with U2 at the moment:
they’d argue it’s ironic, good-time rock’n’roll but it’s
just plain embarrassing. Then there’s the loud tie-wearing I’ll Go
Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight, which is teeth-clenchingly awful. Meanwhile,
Breathe is like Bob Dylan reading from a pub menu. If U2 want to wrestle the “biggest
band in the world” title from that Coldplay lot, they must remember to
write songs that people might want to listen to. It should be fairly simple for
a band of their vintage.
LILY ALLEN
It’s Not Me It’s You
Parlophone
I was recently at Chepstow Garden Centre checking out the choice of evergreen
border shrubs when I tried some of their Marmite cheese. It was lovely and reminded
me of Lily Allen. Really. She polarises opinion so completely that conventional
criticism is nigh-on impossible. With a speak-sing style over Casio-lite rhythms
her skill comes in writing little urban scenarios rather than appealing to a
muso community. Whether that makes her any less worthwhile is open to debate.
Suffice to say, songs like Fu*k You with its parping, bouncing backing track
and bile-strewn lyrics won’t be winning any Ivor Novello Awards anytime
soon. But Not Fair is more substantial: a funny poem to the nice chap in her
life who can’t satisfy her – is it better to have an idiot who can
cut it in the sack? The number one single The Fear will be familiar to anyone
who owns ears, but it’s some of the album tracks which have more interest – Who’d
Have Known has a Beatles-esque tone with a melody that recalls that Take That
track from the Morrisons ads. Bizarrely it’s alright. The downside to Lily
Allen is that many of her songs are on the same template both lyrically and musically.
Use the album as a dip rather than a sauce and it becomes far more tolerable.
LADY GAGA
The Fame
Streamline Records
A quick mention for this collection of shiny, polished disco-funk-soul-pop courtesy
of Stefani Joanne Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga. She’s from the New York City
arty-disco scene and her take on an eminently commercial sound is sufficiently
knowing to make it cool, but melodious enough to make pop fans a-glow. Poker
Face is a clunking attempt at dirty disco, while chart-topping single Just Dance
will be familiar to most. It does pay to have the tracklisting to hand though;
her pronunciation of Paparazzi did beg the question as to why she was singing
the praises of former Archbishop of Canterbury Robert ‘Papa’ Runcie.
Still, those with a penchant for pop will find much to enjoy here.
THE JOY FORMIDABLE
A Balloon Called Moaning
Pure Groove
Another London-based three-piece doing indie, but hold your horses here, The
Joy Formidable are North Walean couple Ritzy Bryan and Rhydian Dafydd, relocated
to the capital, recruiting a drummer and cleaning up the indie plaudits. This
eight-track mini-album demonstrates exactly why they’re getting the fans
frothing – it’s a delightful, swirling rhythmic maelstrom with almost
ethereal female vocals and chiming guitars. Lead track The Greatest Light Is
The Greatest Shade – a live favourite by all accounts – sounds like
Lush with more backbone, while the seamless shift into Cradle takes us into a
faster-paced territory, then Austere has a weird Klaxon-like ‘aaa-aaah’ refrain
under a delicate, bass-driven fuzzbox melody which then explodes into wonderfully
distorted lushness. Whirring is a highlight, as is The Last Drop, all explosive
potential straining at the leash, but with an intrinsic sweetness. And a cracking
chorus to boot. The dark, brooding Ostrich finishes the set with a hypnotic coda.
Top stuff.
Achtung baby! James McLaren thinks the new U2 album is a lemon