It’s nice to come across a Christmas album that more-or-less avoids the usual suspects that tend to appear out of the woodwork at this time of year. Macy Gray’s seasonal offering is just such a beast.
Oy vey. Where to start. This is essentially painful – and I write that knowing that Neil Diamond is a genuinely nice guy and that he is now stricken with Parkinson’s. But there is no way round it: A Neil Diamond Christmas is an auditory assault.
Good things don’t tend to come in slews. Slews seem to be reserved, pretty much exclusively, for the bad stuff: legal issues, school shootings, Christmas albums…
Paramount added a late “old dark house” mystery comedy to Hollywood’s annus mirabilis of 1939 by teaming Bob Hope with Paulette Goddard in The Cat and the Canary, skilfully directed by Elliott Nugent. The death-trap mansion in the Louisiana bayous where family members gather to hear the reading of the deceased owner’s will – his niece Goddard inherits it – proved the perfect venue for Hope’s hilariously pusillanimous shtick.
We Were Promised Jetpacks is a band name that seems off the cuff at first glance. This could be said for the Scottish indie-rock darlings' latest effort, an EP that reworks some of their record from last year, Enjoy the View – as remixed material may hold lukewarm appeal.
Want an antidote so forced seasonal cheer and the catchiness of Christmas pop? How about some almost entirely atonal drone, clatter and throb with titles like “Fish Death”, “Tales for Violent Days” and “Dissonance Émancipee”?
Oh dear. 10 songs of very little consequence. And one which has sparked “controversy”. "I Hate You When You're Drunk" has generated more publicity for Mr Murs than his PR team has mustered for the launch campaign. But it simply doesn’t add up. The lyrics are so utterly at odds with the giddy, lightweight music, it’s as if an AI pop song generator has malfunctioned. Deemed misogynistic by the twiteratti, it’s hard to take offence at something so very lacking in malice.
In 2016’s abrasive album opener, "Dead Weight", frontwoman Mish Barber-Way laments over multiple miscarriages as her biological clock ticks away like a malevolent metronome.
This Is What We Do is only Leftfield’s fourth album in a career that has lasted almost 35 years (on and off). But if there is a dance outfit that can demonstrate the worth of quality over quantity, it’s the duo of Neil Barnes and Adam Wren (Barnes’ original partner, Paul Daley jumped ship 20 years ago).
Son of the White Mare (Fehérlófia), a 1981 Hungarian animated epic, defies easy description, Marcell Jankovics’ film blending folklore and psychedelia to startling effect.