WELSH ALBUM OF THE MONTH 1
MANIC STREET PREACHERS
Journal For Plague Lovers
Sony Music
Best seen as a companion piece to 1994’s Holy Bible, Journal For Plague
Lovers is a stunning return to the lyrics and sound of the Manics of 15 years
ago. They raided the vaults to use the words left by their missing rhythm guitarist
Richey Edwards; something Nicky Wire, James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore had
long promised themselves to do. After five albums of getting used to the more
traditional scansion and lyricism of Mr Wire, we get a window back into the
world of Edwards: dark, beautiful, disturbing and enlightening poeticism. "The
Levi jean has always been stronger than the Uzi," sings Bradfield on the
opening song, Peeled Apples, and you're transported back into the days in which
slogans rang loud and clear for this most political of bands. There'll be no
singles released from Journal For Plague Lovers and they invite you to listen
to it as a single unit. Hence the involvement of ex-Big Black bassist Steve
Albini as producer. He gave Nirvana’s In Utero a dense, dark, dry sound
and 16 years later he works his magic on this record. It’s one for the
fans, this. Not that there's no musical delicacy: This Joke Sport Severed is
an acoustic delight, while the title track has a glittering majesty.
Sure it’s slightly unbecoming for 40-year-olds to be singing the lyrics
of a 25-year-old, but the lyrics deserve to be heard, and only Richey's band
mates can do them justice.
WELSH ALBUM OF THE MONTH 2
THE BLACKOUT
The Best In Town
Epitaph
Almost two years ago on these pages we said Merthyr’s The Blackout were
ones to watch and here they are, two albums down the line and signed to the world’s
biggest independent label. The Best In Town is a blistering combination of heavy
metal and pop, with dual vocalists Sean Smith and Gavin Butler sparring like
wiry bantamweights in tight t-shirts and jeans. While the Manics in their Richey
Edwards years always had something of the disaffected teenager about them, The
Blackout is unashamedly a party band. I Love Myself And I Wanna Live is an explicit
contradiction of Kurt Cobain's famous, “I hate myself and I want to die,” statement.
They love life and being in a band, and their sense of joy rings through songs
like Save Our Selves and Were Going To Hell So Bring The Sunblock.
Total pop rock ameliorates the harsher elements throughout this record, like
the bastard child of Slayer and Duran Duran. It's irrepressible.
GARY GO
Gary Go
Polydor
Described as The One-Man Coldplay by Q Magazine, it's truly difficult to contain
the excitement when popping this one on the gramophone - err hmm. Okay, so after
almost a decade of that slow-motion, sepia-tinted indie, it’s easy to be
sceptical when yet another artist comes through threatening to bring some of
that easy-listening, coffee table, hand-wringing. Gary Go is a London-based wandering
minstrel, now TV advertised, who's cut his teeth on the road with Take That.
No surprise there, as those who have heard this album's lead single, Open Arms,
will testify. It has a big chorus like modern-day Take That and, my god, does
it recall Deacon Blue's Dignity in the verse. If you want to sell records it's
a sound plan, but the whole of this album is as memorable as an episode of Heartbeat.
It's just dull. Buy it for your mother if she's got no ears.
EMINEM
Relapse
Interscope
Based on the idea of being unable to shake an addiction because of the temptations
surrounding an addict, and based largely on his own much-publicised struggles,
Relapse is Eminem's first album in five years. It would have been nice for his
return to have had more invention; while the lyrics are as interesting as ever
from a man whose life has been laid bare for a decade through his own, strikingly
honest, words, the production is cold. With The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem and
Dr Dre raised the bar for hip hop production, but Relapse doesn't shake the rafters
in the same way. Combine that with the sense of ennui around even the most disturbingly
autobiographical stories from Eminem and its difficult to see this returning
him to the heights of 2001.
LEONA NAESS
Thirteens
Polydor
If there's a prize for phoenix-from-the-flames musical rejuvenation, New York's
Leona Naess scoops it this month for recording no less than 13 albums worth of
material following the 2004 death of her mountaineer father and a complete, three
year withdrawal from the music business. The much-respected singer songwriter
whittled these down to 13 tracks of acoustic guitar-led personal musings, from
the introspective On My Mind to the joyful Learning As We Go. It also includes
the single and probable girls-night-out favourite, Leave Your Boyfriends Behind,
a call-to-arms for people wanting to cast off the shackles and let it all hang
loose. Naess is a welcome antidote to the throng of pseudo-jazz-folk female soloists
cluttering up ITV's ad breaks.
James McLaren is lovin’ the new Manics album