Classic Rock - Robert Plant - USA (2019-12)

The Blackheart

Orchestra

Mesmeranto ESOTERTIC ANTENNA

Pop and prog coalesce for

existential musings.

Taking on life

and all of its

complexities,

from birth right

through to the

terminal breath and what may or

may not lie beyond, is a pretty

big theme to explore by any

measure. Not least when tackled

by a pop-prog duo from

Manchester. Or so you’d think.

But by reaching high, The

Blackheart Orchestra – that’ll be

singer Chrissy Mostyn and

multi-instrumentalist Rick

Pilkington – have created

a concept album that ebbs and

flows with moments of fragrant,

acoustic fragility as well as

electronic synth pulses,

processed beats and gently

delivered vocals.

Sensitive opener Ennikur draws

comparisons to Kate Bush, but

there’s enough material where

the duo hold their own. The

piano-led All Of Me rises

incrementally, while the

bouncing pop of Tr y shows that

there’s more to this band than

dour introspection. Alas the

twee Back To Earth is a misfire,

but that still leaves much here

to enjoy.

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Julian Marszalek

The Glorious

Sons

A War On Everything

BMG/BLACK BOX

Melodic Canadians who keep

your attention.

Opening track

Panic Attack,

both quirky and

catchy, might

remind you of

Jellyfish. Then throw in the title

song, which veers into Verve

territory, before these Sons keep

you on your toes with Pink Hotel,

reminiscent of The Hooters. On

their third album, the Glorious

Sons never stand still long

enough to be tagged, yet are

staunchly cohesive.

In many respects they have

much in common with American

cult band Something Corporate

and their 2002 album Leaving

Through The Window, delivering

stripped-down, inviting tunes

without sounding contrived.

The only criticism is that they

should have been a little more

self-critical, and cut the 14 tracks

here down to 10. But when they

have such a titanic power-pop

anthem as The Ongoing

Jeff Lynne’s ELO

From Out Of Nowhere SONY

Speculation Into The Death Of

Rock And Roll you can forgive

them almost anything.

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Malcolm Dome

Bruce

Springsteen

Western Stars: Songs

From The Film SONY

The Boss goes to the

movies with a low-key

companion piece.

In lieu of touring

to plug his

album from

earlier this year,

Springsteen has

opted to send a film out on the

road to do the job for him.

What’s described as

a “cinematic retelling” of

Western Stars replicates that

record’s 13 tracks recorded live in

a New Jersey farm building with

a full orchestra, although there’s

a renewed freshness and

immediacy to several of the

tracks, particularly in his laconic

vocal delivery.

It’s heard to great effect on the

nostalgia-seeped narrative of

Moonlight Motel, its hushed tone

recalling the confessionals of his

Nebraska album, and the dusty

denim lament Sundown, but the

intimacy of every track is

curiously embellished by the

smattering of applause from

what sounds like an audience of

about a dozen people. To further

add to the sense that we’re

witnessing a gig, Bruce serves up

an ‘encore’ in the shape of

a faithful rendition of Glen

Campbell’s Rhinestone Cowboy,

a song which, with its neat blend

of introspection and aspiration,

is arguably a forefather of the

weather-beaten western

mythologising that runs through

the entire parent album.

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Terry Staunton

Ronnie Wood

& His Wild Five

Mad Lad BMG

The Stones’ own Mad Lad

repays his debts with a tribute

to Chuck Berry.

A warm and

intimate live

album, recorded

in 2018 at the

500-seat Tivoli

Theatre in Wimborne with the

excellent Ben Waters on piano

and his son Tom on occasional

sax, this record belies the

evening’s status as a warm-up

for gigs at Ronnie Scott’s the

following two nights.

After a Wood original as

opener – the potted biography

Mostly a sparkling continuation of Jeff

Lynne’s return to form.

O

nly the second album from ELO

in two decades (third in more

than 30 years), and right from

the opening notes of starter From Out Of

Nowhere it’s like Jeff Lynne has never been

away. The wistfulness, the super-saturated

sound, the layered harmonies and

instrumentation, the timeless echo of pasts

and retro-futures colliding. The humanity,

the performed frailty at the heart of

manufactured perfection. Lynne still has it.

He still knows how to create the magic.

Of course, there’s a spaceship on the

sleeve, motionless in the night sky.

Like 2015’s Alone In The Universe, Lynne

plays almost every note on the album

• guitars, bass, piano, drums, keyboards.
  He sings all the lead vocals and harmonies.
  He produces (of course). The only other
  musicians who play on it are engineer Steve
  Jay, who adds a little percussion, and ELO
  keyboard player Richard Tandy, who plays
  a piano solo on One More Time.
  Perhaps some tracks are a little
  throwaway – the string-driven Sci-Fi
  Wo m a n, the cleaned-up 50s swoon of Goin’
  Out On Me. That’s okay, though. That was
  always part of the appeal of ELO back in
  their glory days. (You could argue the late
  2010s are another period of ELO’s glory
  days, so triumphant has been Lynne’s
  return to touring.)
  Help Yourself is as gorgeous and draining

as Wild West Hero or Te l e ph o n e L i n e – every

note artfully designed to draw out

maximum emotional response, the beat

chugging away like the way ELO beats

always chug away. This is some strange

kind of magic, that Lynne can so

seamlessly continue his vision of ELO into

2019, the chain unbroken. These are songs

worthy of the legacy.

Down Came The Rain, the upbeat Time Of

Our Life and One More Time rock, the way

Traveling Wilburys or post-Beatles

Lennon rocked. Losing You uses many of

the same studio tricks used on Lynne’s

co-production of The Beatles’ ’95 single

Free As A Bird. But why not? Some might

decry these songs’ easy-going nature, but

for millions this will serve as affirmation,

reassurance that some things in life never

change – and why would you want them

to? Why mess with a blueprint when the

blueprint resonates so strongly?

Closing track Songbird is beautiful, the

way Lynne has always approached beauty:

not raw, not edgy, but sumptuous, multi-

layered and sounding oddly vulnerable

despite everything, despite the hollow

heart of perfection.

‘You can never change,’ Lynne sings on Help

Yourself. ‘You just keep on being you.’

Ye p.

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Everett True

JOS

EPH

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