ALPHABEAT
DON’T KNOW WHAT’S
COOL ANYMORE
ABSOLUTE
★★★★
THE WONDER STUFF
BETTER BEING LUCKY
GOOD DEEDS★★★★
rest is a riot. Nothing much
has changed – as anyone who
saw their smiley appearance
on The Graham Norton Show
with Shadows will know, Stine
Bramsen and Anders SG’s
harmonies still play hopscotch
over infernally catchy sugar-rush
pop. There are hints of country
(I’d Rather Die), indie-disco
(Back Of My Bike) and even
the ghost of Junior Senior (Now
You Know). Mostly, it’s timeless
radio-friendly euphoria that
really doesn’t care if it’s meant to
be cool: it might not be a hit, but
2019 hasn’t produced a better
traditional pop song than the
10-choruses-in-one Goldmine.
Alphabeat may not be in
fashion right now, but no matter.
Anyone who investigates Don’t
Know What’s Cool Anymore
will have eight of its nine songs
as earworms for the rest of their
days. Cool, huh?JEYou’d hesitate to say Hunt has
grown old gracefully – the title
track and No Thieves Among
Us snarl as thrillingly as the
Eight-Legged Groove Machine
days. But centrepiece ballad
The Guy With The Gift, borne
aloft by longtime violinist Erica
Nockalls’ beautiful playing, is a
deeply moving tribute to Hunt’s
heroes and as good as anything
the frontman has made in his
wild ride.
A couple of songs are
perhaps too sedate with, oddly,
shrugging opener Feet To The
Flames and closing wannabe
epic Map And Direction the
album’s worst tracks. What’s in
between is compelling, its variety
held together by Hunt’s ever-
sharp lyrics, Nockalls’ equally
descriptive performances and
the return of Treece’s distinctive
bite. If The Wonder Stuff really
were lucky, a new generation
would pay attention. JELoosely a Danish equivalent
of Scissor Sisters, Alphabeat’s
2007 debut, This Is Alphabeat,
spawned three Top 20 singles.
Follow-up The Beat Is...
performed respectably, too, but
the band have been in mothballs
since 2013 to raise families.
That the six-piece’s comeback
lasts only 27 minutes and three
of those belong to the gloopy,
self-referential twee of Sing A
Song is worrying. Luckily, the
Keeping up with The Wonder
Stuff’s lineup since they reformed
in 2000 is a full-time task: for
their fourth post-reunion album,
there’s a new bassist and
drummer, while original guitarist
Malc Treece is back after
missing previous LP 30 Goes
Around The Sun, which returned
the Stuffi es to the Top 40. As
Miles Hunt sings on the elegant
Lay Down Your Cards, “On
occasion, some people are
worth fi ghting for.”BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
WESTERN STARS –
SONGS FROM THE FILM
COLUMBIA★★★★
ROD STEWART WITH
THE ROYAL PHILHARMONIC
ORCHESTRA
YOU’RE IN MY HEART
RHINO★★★
What would a young Roderick
Stewart have made of this
historical revisionism? Together
with producer Trevor Horn, the
veteran’s applied the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra to 15
back catalogue hits (or 22 if you
opt for the deluxe 2-CD edition)
in much the same way as Donald
Trump might apply paint to the
White House. It’s a troubling
prospect, in other words, andcan’t run away forever from The
Boss’ quintessential Americana,
we can lose ourselves in what
are surely the richest, most
romantic arrangements he’s
ever employed.
Recorded in front of what
sounds like an intimate audience
at his family estate in New
Jersey, it fi nds him confi rming
that when he’s not projecting to
the back of an arena,
Springsteen still reaches the
heart. Hello Sunshine’s pedal
steel embellishments are
positively dreamy, and a choir
lifts Somewhere North Of
Nashville out of the doldrums
it initially promises, while,
despite its foreboding piano
accompaniment and talk of “the
lies you told me”, he emerges
optimistic from the lovely Stones.
By the time the graceful,
widescreen Western Stars ends,
you’ll wonder why you’d ever run
anywhere else.WWseems unnecessary, but the
results – like the Oval Offi ce’s
new gold drapes and furniture- aren’t as tacky as they
might be.
A song like The Killing Of
Georgie actually benefi ts from
such gilt and mirrors, and Tom
Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing
Matilda) is as moving as one
hopes, though, despite
impressively dramatic stabs of
strings and brass, Stay With
Me’s gutsy guitars remain its
standout feature. It’s still
impossible to separate
Handbags And Gladrags from
T h e O f fi c e, of course, but its
melody’s elegance is underlined
by the new arrangement, and,
generally, gentrifi cation’s the
central theme here, not
vandalism. A new version of It
Takes Two with Robbie Williams,
however, might dispute that.WW
“You can run away a lot for a
little while,” Bruce Springsteen
announces in a surprisingly gruff
voice, settling in for this live
celebration of his recent, majestic
album, “but you can’t run away
from it all forever.” Gently
strumming his acoustic guitar, for
a moment it sounds like we’re in
for a night of Nebraska-style
reworkings, but in the
background of Chasing Horses,
strings start slowly to swell, then
his band eases in, and while we