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

BEST OF THE REST

Other new releases out this month.

Vinny Peculiar

While You Still Can SHADRACK & DUXBURY

Tough times bring out the other Bard of Salford’s best, as pin-smart,

razor-sharp lyrics are allied to a gutsier-than-usual 70s-informed

backdrop. Disgust and disillusionment as a fine art. 7/10

Robyn Hitchcock Andy Partridge

Planet England EP APE HOUSE

Exquisite, quintessentially English, XTC-skewed post-psych from two

left-field geniuses for the price of one. Hitchcock takes lead vocal, as

Partridge skews baroque pop as only he can. More please. 8/10

Lagwagon

Railer FAT WRECK CHORDS

Precision pop-informed SoCal rockcore from Joey Cape’s off-on three-

decade Fat Wreck vets. There are odd moments of generic ‘meh’

familiarity, but more of slack-jawed ‘this is awesome’ brilliance. 8/10

Hawkestrel

The Future Is Us CLEOPATRA

Alan Davey brings in nine ex-Hawks (Lemmy, Nik Turner, Ginger Baker

etc) to record an album that does credit to none of them. Poorly

executed and produced. William Shatner recites Sonic Attack and no

one cares. 3/10

Agnostic Front

Get Loud! NUCLEAR BLAST

No change of direction, no mellowing, no surrender from Stigma and

Miret’s enduring NYC hardcore legends on AF’s twelfth studio set.

Blurring, brutal, ideally suited to a scowling fist dance. 6/10

The Jones

Exploder ROCK OFF

Proper, rough-as-fuck Detroit rock‘n’roll. No-nonsense production

propels hoodlum, bad-attitude guitars into your psyche, as irresistible

Stones-y swagger ignites Jon Spencer r’n’blues explosions. Tasty. 7/10

Irontown Diehards

Linchpin IRONTOWN DIEHARDS

Combining Phil Dixon’s assured vintage Purple vocal sensibility with latter-

period Lizzy melodic muscle, this Belfast quartet sidestep generic modern

metal cliché to engineer a fresh take on hard rock classicism. 7/10

KMFDM

Paradise METROPOLIS

So quintessentially and unchangingly KMFDM it could be a ‘best of’.

Inhabiting yesteryear’s cutting edge where pounding Manson/

Madonna/KJ electro-goth propels a tirade of obvious ‘motherfuckers’.

7/10

The Menzingers

Hello Exile EPITAPH

Still insisting on calling themselves a punk band despite all evidence to

the contrary, The Menzingers deliver an energetic strain of melodic rock

and bare their souls on aging, alcohol and angst. 7/10

The Cold Stares

Ways ANTIFRAGILE MUSIC

Chris Dunn of Nashville’s Cold Stares (a blues-born duo completed by

drummer Brian Mullins) matches strident honeyed gravel vocals with

a guitar style echoing Jimmy Page at his Zep II riffiest. 8/10

Vambo

Va mb o GOLIATH

Gilt-edged clichés combined in a complex melange of 70s-informed pop-

rock brilliance. Like Queen before them, Vambo are too self-consciously

smart for metal and deploy gang vocals with military precision. 8/10

Blacktop Mojo

Under The Sun INDEPENDENT

Southern rock and Texas groove collide as twin guitars butt heads in

a firestorm of sheer undiluted power. What better setting to showcase

Matt James’s phenomenal off-the-leash vocals. 8/10

which finds Gorilla seemingly
gargling cement before
a breakdown marked by the
sound of a toilet flushing.
Anyone searching for the
speed-’n’-cider-fuelled spirit of
Motörhead in 2019 need look
no further.
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Paul Moody

Joe Henry
The Gospel According
To Water EARMUSIC
Cult US singer-songwriter’s
wry musings on mortality.
Joe Henry once
joked that he’d
been saddled
with the
nickname The
Undertaker on account of the
fact that he produced the final
albums from Allen Toussaint
and Mose Allison before they
died. The joke seems thin now.
Henry revealed last year that
he’d been diagnosed with stage
IV prostate cancer.
The shadow of mortality
inevitably colours the 59-year-
old’s bittersweet sombre
sixteenth album. ‘The dead down
here don’t stay dead long,’ he
intones on Gates Of A Prayer
Cemetery #2, more in irony
than hope.
The term ‘Americana’ has never
done justice to Henry – like all his
best records, The Gospel According
To Wa t e r hovers in a mystical
space between country, folk and
jazz, his literate lyrics providing
the thread which holds it all
together. There’s too much joy
and life in the likes of General Tzu
Names Planes For His Children for it
to count as a eulogy, but it’s still
an emotional listen.
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Dave Everley

Nick Beggs
Words Fail Me ESOTERIC ANTENNA
Modern prog bass maven
gives it some Stick.
When it comes
to things you
definitely didn’t
think you
needed in your
life, an instrumental version of
Elton John’s Blue Eyes performed
on Chapman Stick by the former
bassist of Kajagoogoo must rank
pretty high on the list. But as
latter-day prog rock icon Nick
Beggs proves throughout these
eight instrumental covers,
resistance to such remorselessly
elegant and charming
musicianship is futile.
Besides that achingly beautiful
Blue Eyes, Words Fail Me has
takes on Japan’s Night Porter,

John Barry’s Midnight Cowboy

theme and even a Bach soprano

aria, Sheep May Safely Gaze. Quite

how Beggs plays all of this stuff

without needing multiple extra

fingers or the help of fiendish

studio trickery is anyone’s guess,

but somehow even the most

complex moments feel

wonderfully understated.

As an added Beggs bonus,

Words Fail Me comes with

earlier solo albums Stick Insect

and The Maverick Helmsman

thrown in. Bargain.

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Dom Lawson

The Wonder Stuff

Better Being Lucky

GOOD DEEDS MUSIC

Luck’s got nothing to do with it.

Nine studio

albums now,

and main man

Miles Hunt still

(thankfully)

sounds pissed off and unwilling

to compromise, the unflinching

honesty, scathing observations

and casual vitriol carried by the

mature songcraft that’s been

evolving ever since Never Loved

Elvis. Tunes like acerbic opener

Feet To The Flames and spiky No

Thieves Among Us are balanced

by the optimistic rush of Bound

and the bright-eyed It’s The Little

Things..., the level of warm, lush

musical invention matched

perfectly to the unforgiving

emotional impact, Hunt just

telling it how he sees it. Erica

Nockalls’s sweet, sweeping

violin sounds especially

powerful, particularly on The Guy

With The Gift and the beautiful

introspection of Map & Direction,

and with the return of original

guitarist Malc Treece the

resulting super-confident

tunesmithery sounds like some

sort of artistic resurgence.

The Stuffies clearly have

nothing to prove and plenty

more left in the tank.

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Essi Berelian

Ringo Starr

What’s My Name UMC

Friends? Check. A little help?

Check.

Ringo’s

twentieth sees

him gathering

mates at his

home studio

and patently enjoying a mix of

jollity and sentiment. Starry pals

include Joe Walsh, Steve

Lukather, Dave Stewart and

Edgar Winter, but the headline

is Paul McCartney joining his

former Beatles bandmate on

Grow Old With Me. Ringo

apparently hadn’t heard the

song, a demo from John

Lennon’s The Bermuda Tapes,

until recently, and found himself

getting emotional. With Paul on

bass and backing vocals it’s – if

you squint – a three-Beatle

collaboration. Unfortunately,

swaddled in Jack Douglas’s

strings it remains as maudlin

and cheesy as most of Lennon’s

creations from that time.

Elsewhere we engage with Fun

Ringo, with happier results. The

title song gives us a chance to

bellow his moniker, while Gotta

Get Up To Get Down, Life Is Good

and an amiable trot through

Motown’s first hit, Money, are

buoyant. Nobody’s pretending

that this album is a masterpiece,

but it’s convivial.

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Chris Roberts

Swans

Leaving Meaning

MUTE/YOUNG GOD

Music to float down stream on.

The new album

from Michael

Gira’s Swans

• the fifteenth
  from the
  seminal experimental New York
  band – is often more tuneful and
  accessible than their reputation
  belies, although this may simply
  be an indication how much the
  world has moved in the almost
  four decades since Swans began
  deconstructing sound.
  In places as reminiscent of
  Cohen and Cave as the Swans’
  own turbulent industrial sound,
  there is still very much a dark
  edge, a lurking menace behind
  the beautiful sprawl of The
  Hanging Man and the
  uncompromising hypnotic
  mantras of Sunfucker. Guest
  musicians contribute to this
  double album, many of them


• including former Swans,
  members of Gira’s other main
  band Angels Of Light, as well as
  Ben Frost, Australia’s incredible
  genre-defying The Necks and A
  Hawk And A Hacksaw – adding
  their own indelible stamp.
  This is music to immerse
  yourself in, lose yourself within
  its many complexities and layers
  of sound, sudden explosions of
  light and directed commentary;
  always fascinating, challenging
  and densely packed. Sepulchral,
  sombre, challenging,
  claustrophobic... But then comes
  a song like the unashamedly
  direct What Is This to wash your
  cares away.
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  Everett True

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