Album: Ghost Woman - Hindsight Is 50/50

★★★★ GHOST WOMAN - HINDSIGHT IS 50/50 Psychedelicists add a bit of va-va-voom to sound

Psychedelicists add a bit of va-va-voom to their sound

Ghost Woman’s 2022 self-titled album and this January’s swift follow-up Anne, If were both fairly laidback and spaced out affairs, with echoes of Beak’s free form motorik grooves and the Byrds’ pastoral psychedelia. Now that multi-instrumentalist Evan Üschenko has recruited the forceful percussion of Ille van Dessel to gang, however, their third album in 18 months, Hindsight Is 50/50 presents a considerably heavier prospect.

Album: Trevor Horn - Echoes: Ancient & Modern

★ TREVOR HORN - ECHOES: ANCIENT & MODERN From the bland to the excruciating

Downtempo cover versions run the gamut from the bland to the excruciating

A deathless trend in pop is taking great songs, slowing them down, doing orchestral versions, or rendering them raw acoustic. This, ostensibly, reveals their genius and/or brings them a new audience. Rarely, it can work, as on Johnny Cash’s final albums, but usually it simply renders sonic perfection as bland, naff slop. Such is the case with Trevor Horn’s latest.

Album: Peter Gabriel - I/O

★★★★ PETER GABRIEL - I/O  Nearly three decades of reflection have produced a likely classic

Nearly three decades of reflection have produced a likely classic

Some 28 years in gestation, Peter Gabriel’s eighth studio album of wholly original songs – his first since 2002’s Up – will delight his fans and top the charts. Gabriel’s best instrument remains his voice, that husky marvel, which is at its most resonantly tender, vulnerable, and intimate here.

CMAT, Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow review - an evening of exuberance

The Dublin singer's tales of a toxic relationship were transformed into a party

There was a moment towards the end of this exuberant evening when Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson compared the show to a pantomime. This was an extremely apt comparison, in a good way, for alongside the singing and dancing there was a helping of cheeky raised eyebrow wit, lashes of audience participation and even the usage of unexpected props.

Album: Harp - Albion

★★★★ HARP - ALBION The exquisite comeback of former Midlake mainstay Tim Smith

The exquisite comeback of former Midlake mainstay Tim Smith

After leaving Midlake while recording their fourth album, Tim Smith said he was pursuing music under the name Harp. That was in 2012. Smith had been the Denton, Texas-based band’s singer and main songwriter. Without him, Midlake pushed on and issued 2013’s still-stunning Antiphon album.

Music Reissues Weekly: Soft Cell - Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

SOFT CELL - NON-STOP EROTIC CABARET Marc Almond & Dave Ball’s landmark 1981 debut

Head-spinning box-set makeover of Marc Almond and Dave Ball’s landmark 1981 debut album

"Both of us have always enjoyed listening to dance music, and we wanted to interpret disco in our own way. We wanted to make good quality soulful electronic dance music, more biting than the usual bland disco stuff. We wanted to make records that would stand out in a disco and that you could listen to in your own bedroom."

Album: Catrin Finch & Aoife Ni Bhriain - Double You

★★★★ CATRIN FINCH & AOIFE NI BHRIAIN - DOUBLE YOU Divine harp-and-violin duets

Divine harp-and-violin duets focused on the folklore of bees

Two weeks ago, Welsh harpist Catrin Finch and Irish fiddler, violinist and Hardanger fiddle player Aoife Ni Bhriain entranced their audience at the Union Chapel in North London, playing from their new album, Double You, as part of the London Jazz Festival, with guest singer Angeline Morrison joining them at the end of a glorious 90-minute set of dazzling instrumental duets.

Album: Take That - This Life

The national treasure trio don't have enough tunes to counteract the bland production

Listening to the best of what they’ve created since their post-2005 reformation, it would take a staunch anti-Take That churl to hold fast to the punk-rockin’ claim the “man band” are, musically, just talentless piffle. “Shine”, “Patience”, “Hey Boy”, “The Flood” and others are evidence to the contrary.

Album: Joe Jackson - Joe Jackson Presents Max Champion in What a Racket!

A note perfect music hall pastiche with a potent whiff of modernity

Lord love a duck, Elsie, music all’s avin a bleedin’, whatchamacallit, comeback, innit? The release of Joe Jackson’s 19th studio album Joe Jackson Presents Max Champion in What a Racket! a week after Madness’s Theatre of the Absurd Presents C’est la Vie might prove the full extent of this revival.