It’s almost a truism in rock’n’roll that within every padded and bloated double album, there’s a fine single disc waiting to burst out. Among the plethora of tunes on Smashing Pumpkins’ first double album since 1995’s fine Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, however, there’s barely enough to fill a worthwhile EP.
Kali Uchis is a superstar in the making. But she’s seemed that way for a few years and, despite making waves in the US, has not crossed over on the scale her talent deserves.
Charles Webster is one of those connecting figures who make the idea of “the underground” seem quite convincing. Originally from the Peak District but coming of musical age in Nottingham, he was inspired by Chicago house and Detroit techno music from their very genesis in the mid 1980s, and went on to make some of the finest British house music ever.
Václav Marhoul’s The Painted Bird (Nabarvené ptáče in Czech) comes with a lot of baggage, a critics’ screening at the 2019 Venice Festival punctuated by mass walkouts but finishing with a ten-minute standing ovation.
Almost 30 years since Stephen Mallinder jumped ship from Cabaret Voltaire, it still seems strange to accept that the band is now the solo concern of Richard H Kirk, the final remaining original member of Sheffield’s path-beating electronica experimentalists. This isn’t to suggest, for one minute, that the quality of the Cabs’ work has taken a dip since Mal’s departure.
After all we've been through this year, thank God some things never seem to change. Like the music of metal monoliths, AC/DC. Forty-seven years after the boys started jamming together in a Melbourne suburb, they're still at it, pumping out their iconic amped-up, head-banging blues. Power Up, their 17th studio LP, is loud, ludicrous and, above all, uplifting.
It's also a miracle it was made at all. After 2014's Rock or Bust, odds were the band would never play together again: the problems started when drummer Phil Rudd got busted for drugs and attempted homicide; a year or so later singer Brian Johnson had to leave because of a split eardrum; and then bassist, Cliff Williams decided to retire.
Most tragic of all, was the death of musical lynchpin Malcolm Young who had been suffering for years with dementia. But Mal's spirit lives on in the songs that on the new album, which are based on a trove of unfinished ideas he and brother Angus had worked on. As on Rock or Bust, nephew Stevie Young fills in on rhythm guitar.
The rest of the gang are now all back together. It may be a stretch to compare Power Up to the band's triumphant comeback of 1980, but there's no denying the defiant energy on display. Brian Johnson, (73, complete with a bionic ear) still yowls like a bear wearing very tight jeans, while Angus Young (65) seems to have made a pact with the devil that while he continues to wear his schoolboy outfit, his fretboard wizardry will stay intact.
The album starts a little hesitantly: the first couple of songs merge into each other, and Johnson struggles on some of the high screams. But after that, the boys come out punching. Three pieces, in particular, stand out: "Through the Mists of Time" sees the gang almost getting wistful; "Witch's Spell" is a nod to "Shoot to Thrill"; and "Code Red's" rollicking chorus is destined to be a live favourite.
The song also throws in a solo straight from "Back in Black". This adds to the comforting familiarity of the LP. In a recent interview, Brian Johnson said he hoped that fans would enjoy the songs' simple musical honesty, that it would take them away 'from politicians and viruses'. It does precisely that. For those trying to forget that 2020 ever happened, Power Up is a humdinger.
Overleaf: watch the video for "Shot in the Dark"
For her fifth studio album, Paloma Faith decided to boldly ctrl-alt-delete the first version, and re-do it in lockdown.
The new-new one is a little bath bomb of an album – it fizzes with funky pop, 80s sheen and emotional nuance than speaks of her long term relationship and being a mother to teenies (she’s currently pregnant with no. 2).
Lordy, how much marijuana did we smoke in the 1990s? When people arrived home from the endless dance, jack-frazzled, 6.00 AM or later, pupils the size of 7” singles, legs twitching to invisible percussion, the time arrived for doobies, chillums, bongs, an eternal blissed NOW in foggy, curtained living rooms. The accompanying music was my generation’s unlikely conceptual fusion of prog rock and easy listening.
Just as British pub and punk rock of the mid-to late 1970's ushered in an era of music that referenced the history of pop and thrived on irony, much of the French New Wave, nearly 20 years earlier, looked back as much as forward, an avant-garde anchored like none other before in a sense of cinema history.
Little Mix, currently at another profile peak with their TV talent show The Search, are one of the most successful female groups ever, their tours amongst the highest earning of recent times.