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This weeks big new releases (31-10-11)
Florence + The Machine – Ceremonials (Island)
Florence Welch’s debut album of 2009, Lungs, lived up to the hype of a music press that had been utterly seduced by her harp plucks and tribal drum riffs, her otherworldly sensibility and her arresting vocals. She pushed us through fairy-tale dreamscapes and catapulted us through life’s dramas with anger and beauty, her voice as strident, sharp and strong as a deftly brandished scimitar. Visceral, raw and passionate, Lungs was aptly named.
And so too is the follow-up, fittingly released on Halloween. The arrangements here are even more richly layered and majestic; they surge with strings and arrive backed by choristers, while the narratives are darker and prioritise the spirit over the corporeal. Lead single What the Water Gave Me, issued as a standalone cut in August, is brooding and windswept, its harp twinkling eerily in the ether. As Welch mournfully sings of being laid down with "pockets full of stones" before the track swells to a choir-bolstered climax of Emily Brontë ’n’ Kate Bush proportions, images of her as John William Waterhouse’s doomed, red-headed Ophelia can’t help but swim before your eyes. It is magnificent – so it’s hardly surprising that, despite not having a physical release, it managed to chart.
But as a taster it is misleading, for little comes close to either its elegiac splendour or its subtlety. The disturbing, discordant Seven Devils, with its lyrics about being "dead before the day is done", is at least as sinister. It resembles Heavy In Your Arms (perhaps this is a Twilight – or, bearing in mind those familiar scales, should that be Twilight Zone? – soundtrack waiting to be commissioned), but is as intense as a blow to the head with a broomstick. Forthcoming single No Light, No Light – drum-chased, harp-gilded and hook-jawed – recalls the likes of Cosmic Love, but its epic proportions are too much; while the anthemic opener Only If for A Night, a mix of bombast and ballast, is too ponderous.
Ceremonials, which sees Lungs producer Paul Epworth return but ignore all restraint, offers the pomp, but somehow not quite the power, of Welch’s debut: this is all grandeur without any grace. The more weight and length (the average is five minutes) given to the songs, the less impact they have and the more wearied they leave you – it’s probably best not to listen to the 20-track deluxe edition in one sitting. Having established herself as Florence, the songstress of craft and great emotion, it’s a shame she’s now allowed her machine to take over.
BBC Review
The Beach Boys – The Smile Sessions (EMI)
Product Description:
Uncut - November 2011 - *****
"The unfinished symphony, in five formats, with a wealth of extras. Picking and choosing from the original session masters, Linnett and Boyd's 49-minute 'approximation' of the cancelled 1967 album dominates all five formats of The Smile Sessions - 1CD, 2CD, 5CD deluxe box set, vinyl and download. Arranged chronologically for each song or section, the stereo discs are packed with isolated verses, choruses, inserts and overdubs, allowing us to eavesdrop on the intricate draughtsmanship of Wilson's creation; virtually every bar of it."
CD Description
2CD Edition
Lift top box
Original cover art designed by Frank Holmes
2 CDs in wallets
14.5" x 20" poster of Frank Holmes cover art
1" Smile button
36 page booklet featuring liner notes by Brian Wilson and previously unseen photos
Lou Reed & Metallica – Lulu: Deluxe Book / 2 Disc Box Set (Vertigo)
CD Description:
This deluxe version of the Metallica and Lou Reed collaboration, Lulu, is a limited edition two book set. Each book 12" x 12" square bound with a hard cover. The first book includes 20 pages of photographs by famed photographer and director Anton Corbijn, all taken of Lou Reed and Metallica in Gothenburg, Sweden in July of 2011. The lyric book consists of 28 pages with lyrics from each song along with imagery from the objects collection of Werkbundarchiv Museum Der Dinge, Berlin, Germany. The two Lulu CDs are also included in the lyric book, all housed in a clear plastic slipcase.
Manic Street Preachers – National Treasures: The Complete Singles (Columbia)
And so the Manic Street Preachers bid farewell to music-making, "for at least two years" so they claim. But then, anyone who knows how soundbite-savvy bassist/pop provocateur Nicky Wire can be, knows not to believe a word that comes out of his mouth. The band's early mission statement to make one great album and split is now as distant a memory as their wonderfully camp explosion into indie rock; a refreshing alternative to baggy and grunge, all inflammatory slogans, spouting literature and politics in skin-tight jeans, eyeliner and Coke-sculpted hair (they couldn't afford hairspray). As the Welsh act celebrates 25 years together, they find themselves a decidedly un-Manics proposition. They're still going for a start, and seething apocalyptic punk rock and sneering diatribes now sit rather awkwardly alongside mainstream acceptance, stadium sing-alongs and sedate attire.
But then these conflicting elements are what make Manic Street Preachers one of the most gloriously infuriating and subsequently utterly compelling bands around. And it's reflected in their music, their paradox-ridden contrariness captured and collected here chronologically for the first time. So the career-defining vitriol of Faster, You Love Us, Stay Beautiful and Motown Junk and the epic melancholy of Motorcycle Emptiness, Little Baby Nothing, From Despair to Where and La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh) - all must-hears - arrive before the act's most successful anthem-penning period as a trio (A Design for Life, Everything Must Go, Australia, If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next), and then lead into the decidedly dodgy-in-places most recent offerings. The Masses Against the Classes, Your Love Alone Is Not Enough, Autumnsong, (It's Not War) Just the End of Love and Postcards From a Young Man provide sonic relief from a clanger-heavy second disc containing such meandering low points as The Everlasting, Empty Souls and the frankly bizarre So Why So Sad.
But such ups and downs are exactly what makes Manic Street Preachers tick. As the ultimate rock'n'roll survivors, they have battled through more than most - the majority of their peers having either given up long ago or are currently to be found embarking on cringe-worthy comebacks. National Treasures is imperfect in places but it's an honest, true and ultimately triumphant musical document of where the Manics have been and what they've achieved; where they've stumbled and where they've soared. In short: an indispensable guide to an iconic band.
BBC Review
CD Description:
Manic Street Preachers release a brand new track to coincide with the release of this, their complete singles collection album. "This is the Day" is a cover of the 1983 The The track taken from the synth-noir classic album Soul Mining. The band have been fans of the group and their version echoes the original whilst bringing a new dynamic production and their own distinctive sound to the song.
National Treasures features the band’s 37 previous single releases from the last 21 years and 10 studio albums. It’s also the first time since 1992’s "Suicide Is Painless" (Theme from M*A*S*H) that the Manics have released a cover version as a single despite recording and playing live many versions of their favourite tracks over the years.
Bush – The Sea Of Memories (earMusic)
CD Description:
The Sea Of Memories is Bush's fifth studio album and the first since Golden Suitcase, released some ten years previous. It was produced by Bob Rock (Metallica‘s The Black Album, Aerosmith, The Cult and Motley Crue among many others) and includes the atmospheric single "The Sound of Winter".
This double CD limited edition includes eight exclusive tracks picked personally by the band from their archive of unreleased remixes, B-sides and live performances (including a Junior Sanchez remix of "The Sound Of Winter" and an acoustic cover of Fleetwood Mac’s "Landslide").
V/A – Movement: The Peel Sessions 1977 - 1979 (EMI)
CD Description:
EMI in partnership with the BBC are making available for the first time some incredible material from distinguished artists’ BBC Peel Sessions. Movement is the first in a series of Peel Sessions compilations. It features 41 different artists/songs, covering the hugely musically fertile - and influential - period of 1977 – 1979. From the ‘year zero’ birth of Punk, Movement includes session tracks from such era-defining and esteemed artists, as: Buzzcocks, The Adverts, The Slits, The Skids, Wire, John Cooper Clarke - as well as those who transcended the pub rock scene, and influenced the punk generation, Dr Feelgood and Ian Dury & The Blockheads – and post-punk, electronica-influenced artists such as The Monochrome Set, Magazine, Joy Division, OMD and PiL, and a selection of reggae and Two Tone artists: Steel Pulse, UB40, The Specials, Madness and The Beat.
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