Disc of the Day reviews new albums, week in, week out, all year. Below are the albums to which our writers awarded five stars. Click on any one of them to find out why.
Baxter Dury, Etienne de Crécy and Delilah Holliday - B.E.D. ★★★★★ A small but perfectly sleazy work of sweary, cynical brilliance
Certain artists’ success lies in a direct ability to pastiche the past into something new and bumptious. Oasis, The Scissor Sisters and The Vaccines all had this in spades and, at their best, created music whose pizzazz and punch eventually rendered their retro allusions irrelevant. The musical back-references are still there but the albums in question long ago outgrew what was so obvious on first listening. The second album from bigger-in-America Derby rockers The Struts falls joyfully into such territory with a couldn’t-give-a-damn insouciance.
Eight long years, Robyn fans have been waiting. Crazed tweets screamed #releasehoneydammit into the ether for weeks as the Swedish songwriter teased her new music.
It’s been a tough few years for Sŵn Festival. Once a genuine rival to fellow urban festivals Great Escape and Sound City, recent events have fluctuated between one-dayers and a string of ticketed gigs. 2018 marked the biggest change yet, but also a return to the multi-day, multi-venue format. Founders Huw Stephens and John Rostron announced they were handing over the reigns to Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff’s leading music venue.
Ex Mykah is a multi-instrumentalist and producer on the LA music scene who’s worked with the names such as Mark Ronson and Miike Snow. His own debut album sounds very far from either of those. Instead it comes from the warped, alt-hip hop end of the pop spectrum, while also recalling that brief Noughties blog flourish “chillwave” (the likes of Neon Indian and Washed Out).
From 7.30pm on Thursday 19 January 1967, George Martin and The Beatles spent the next seven hours at the Abbey Road’s Studio 2 working through takes one to four of “In the Life of…”, a new song which, when completed, would be retitled “A Day in the Life”. In late May, fans would hear it as the final track of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Think of Karen "MØ" Andersen and you may well picture one of her smash hit videos. "Lean On", for instance, where the singer gyrates to a Bollywood/ house mashup. Or "Kamikaze" set in post-apocalyptic Ukraine. Yet, for all the Zeitgeist-y imagery what really made those songs so popular was really just simple youthful exuberance. "Forever Neverland" sounds like it should offer much of the same. Instead, it feels curiously grown-up.
MØ, it would seem, has moved in from her recent incarnation as the singer of Diplo pop songs. Diplo - the producer responsible for both "Lean On" and "Kamikaze" - only appears, here, on one song, "Sun in Our Eyes", a sweet slice of Balearic electro-pop. Still, his influence isn't entirely absent. Rather MØ has absorbed some of the superstar DJ's mojo, and mixed it with some Danish quirkiness.
The results feature some real nuggets. Top of the pile are "Mercy" and "Blur" both of which hark back to MØ's indie roots. The former is a particular gem - a slow-burning torch song that finds the singer at the peak of her vocal prowess. The elasticity of her voice, and her dynamic range is on a par with technical mistresses like Sia and Adele. "Blur" is much grungier with Graham Coxon-style acoustic guitars, and a languid melody.
MØ's voice also shines through on many of the electronic numbers. The best are the least self-conscious. "Beautiful Wreck" has a catchy electro-pop vibe, featuring a cool bass vocoder effect. "Red Wine" couldn't come as more of a contrast. Its Ace-of-Base-reggae-style is so wilfully uncool it's hard not to love it.
It's only where the album starts to take itself too seriously that things begin to drag. "It's All Over" featuring the usually irrepressible Charli XCX, sounds strangely po-faced. There are also a handful of tracks, such as "I Want You", where slick production seems to have been favoured over quality tunes. Of course, you have to admire MØ's decision not to include earlier hit singles initially intended for the LP in the finished version. But it makes the quality a little uneven. Then again, who still listens to albums all the way through, anyway? There's more than enough material here to confirm the Danish singer as not only one of the most interesting artists of her generation but also one of the best singers.
Overleaf: MØ's lyric video for "Blur"
The first release from Jess Glynne’s new album, “I’ll Be There” confirmed the North London singer as the first ever British female artist to have seven no.1 singles in the UK Chart.
I come to this band from the perspective of one who’s only seen the words "YOU ME AT SIX" on endless T-shirts passing in the street. I’m no connoisseur, then. From the cultural detritus that’s wended my way during their 10-year career, they just seemed a band who had no “thing”, no breakout song, no look, no cultural space or loudly impressed belief. Just five normal-looking guys who tour a lot, hard-working meat’n’potatoes rockers (who’d bridle at that cliché).