Melodious synths & melancholic reflections : The Tribune India

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Melodious synths & melancholic reflections

On the follow-up to Kacey Musgraves’ Grammy-winning breakthrough, she collaborates with some of the best songwriters working in country and in popular music today, including Luke Laird, Shane McAnally, Brandy Clark and Josh Osborne.

Melodious synths  & melancholic reflections


Back to the winning formula
Kacey Musgraves — Pageant Material 
(Mercury Nashville)

On the follow-up to Kacey Musgraves’ Grammy-winning breakthrough, she collaborates with some of the best songwriters working in country and in popular music today, including Luke Laird, Shane McAnally, Brandy Clark and Josh Osborne. The album is a full-on traditional country music record, so packed with acoustic guitars, pedal steel moans, booming bass lines and lush vocal harmonies, that it doesn’t even sound like a contemporary music album. For the most part, Pageant Material is more successful when it stays personal. Family Is Family looks at the familial relationship with both wit and wisdom, noting that your family is always with you whether in church or in prison. Other high points include the opener, High Time, with its south-western feel and flamenco guitar and the rollicking Dime Store Cowgirl, on which she pledges that’s what she’ll always be no matter her fame, harks back to Dolly Parton’s My Tennessee Mountain Home. Inclined mostly towards acoustic folk genre, with Musgraves’ airy high-pitched vocals lilting over Paul Franklin’s excellent steel guitar, it visits Celtic territory in Somebody To Love, and even steps towards Muscle Shoals on This Town. The waltz-time closer Fine closes with wariness but conceals a hidden track with Willie Nelson. One of the remarkable things about Musgraves is not how much she has deviated from country music’s territory, but the way she expands it.

Best track: High Time

Worst track: Late To The Party

Rating: * * *


Walking the fine
line of blurred moralities & moods
Richard Thompson — Still (Fantasy)

Prolific singer-songwriter Richard Thompson continues his remarkably consistent recorded legacy with his 42nd UK-inspired folk rock album Still. Opening with the nostalgic She Never Could Resist a Winding Road, the album opens with promise. The track is a delightfully melancholic reflection on lost love, with a beautifully winding guitar line flowing to a momentous climax. Based on track titles alone, it’s clear Thompson isn’t tempering with his preferred dark and edgy emotions, he has displayed over the decades, and age hasn’t blunted his verbal attack. Several members of the band that played on 2013’s Electric return for this album and despite having only nine days to record, everyone sounds comfortable together. The mood is typically tempestuous, with the gnarly Patty Don’t You Put Me Down and the barbed political outburst of Dungeons for Eyes among the standouts. For the visibly fast-paced pieces, Thompson belts out his trademark folk-rock jams with more convincing gusto, giving us the sing-along marvel All Buttoned Up, the rousing Long John Silver and the rocking self-indulgent No Peace, No End. Elsewhere, Pony in the Stable is like a musical puzzle, built around a meandering melody in traditional UK folk style. On closer Guitar Hero, Thompson utilises vintage guitars to mimic his heroes, from Les Paul to Hank Marvin and Django Reinhardt in the semi-autobiographical play.

Best track: All Buttoned Up
Worst track: Beatnik Walking
Rating: * * *


Duo’s most creative
burn-out in a decade
The Chemical Brothers — Born In The Echoes

With chart-topping albums around the world, Grammys, contributing to the Olympic Games, sold-out arena shows, plus a status for being one of the best live acts in the world, we have seen them grow into one of the most influential electronic acts ever. Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons have been away for, effectively, eight years after their unfocused 2010 album Further. Born In The Echoes is thus something of a re-launch for The Chemical Brothers, a thunderous reminder that when they’re on their game, they’re fantastic. The return to form is clear on album opener, Sometimes I Feel So Deserted. The album boasts an impressive list of vocal contributors, including returning favourites Q-Tip on Galvanise and Ali Love on Do It Again as well as welcoming new guests St. Vincent, Cate Le Bon and Beck. Reflexion is the album’s best offering, a driving piece of widescreen techno highlighted by high-pitched synths and layers of distortion. EML Ritual has classic Chemical Brothers sonic depth and motion, while ominous Taste of Honey is driven by fuzzy violin and dark swirls. Elsewhere, the electronic flourishes and elastic synth loops lend verve to I’ll See You There. Go, with its rebounding bass lines, reunites the Brothers to fine effect, while Under Neon Lights slants the duo’s sound towards St Vincent’s arty pop. The closer Wide Open features Beck, and they’re such a good fit for each other, you wonder why didn’t they think of this earlier.

Best track: Reflexion
Worst track: Just Bang
Rating: ***


Psychedelic music in unknown territory
Tame Impala — Currents
(Interscope) 

Tame Impala’s third studio album, Currents, is the follow-up to 2012’s Lonerism, and the declaration of an introspective period for Kevin Parker, the founder, front man and visionary of the Australian psychedelic rock band. Album opener Let It Happen is by far the best track here, and possibly the best song Parker has ever written. Throughout its nearly eight-minute run, the song effortlessly switches from genre to genre. Parker made his name with bold, fuzzed-out guitar riffs, but virtually the only time a guitar appears on Currents, is midway through the instrumental track Gossip. There’s a luxuriance to every instrumental and vocal decision here of a tone smacking of eternality. Reverberated handclaps echo throughout Moment, and Yes I’m Changing chugs along through melodious synths. One of the most impressive parts of the album is the production. Once again recorded by himself at his house, Kevin Parker’s production gives the album an unparalleled amount of life and colour. On the roaring pop epic Eventually, he deals with the feeling of breaking someone else’s heart and how that makes him feel, opening with the line “If only there could be another way to do this/ ‘Cause it feels like murder to put your heart through this….” This is a record meant to further Parker’s well-documented love of experimentation with sound.

Best track: Let It Happen
Worst track: Reality In Motion
Rating: ***


Top 10 Singles

Bad Blood....................................Taylor Swift feat. Kendrick Lamar (CU)
Cheerleader ...........................................................................OMI (CU)
See You Again................................... Wiz Khalifa feat. Charlie Puth (FD)
Trap Queen.....................................................................Fetty Wap (FD)
Shut Up & Dance...................................................Walk The Moon (NM)
Uptown Funk!.................................Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars (NM)
Hey Mama.................David Guetta feat. Nicki Minaj, Bebe, Afrojack  CU)
Want to Want Me .......................................................Jason Derulo (FD)
Honey I’m Good .....................................................Andy Grammer (NE)
Can’t Feel My Face.......................................................The Weeknd (CU)
Legend: (CU): Climbing Up    (FD): Falling Down   (NM): Non-Mover  (NE): New Entry 

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