I have been listening to...

Short reviews of all of the 2017 albums I've bought in some form.

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Defeat

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not going to make it through reviews for all the albums in the time I have available. I might post comments on selected albums if any thoughts come to me, but it’s really something I should have started a lot earlier. Will maybe try and do it in real time next year.

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2017/035 Spoon - ‘Hot Thoughts’

I’d say this feels less polished and more primal than the previous album (2014′s ‘They Want My Soul’) but it’s still pretty polished despite allowing a little more roughness. Good though, even if I don’t have much to say about it.

[7.0/10]

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2017/034 Chilly Gonzales & Jarvis Cocker - ‘Room 29′

Totally coincidental that this follows Bastien Keb on the list, as a similarly narrative record. ‘Room 29′ is a series of vignettes about the titular room of the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood; unfortunately I find it hard to care about any of the characters within.

There’s something here, but maybe it works better as a stage show, with Jarvis talking to you? It’s not doing much for me as an album, as pretty as much of it is.

[6.0/10]

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2017/033 Bastien Keb - ‘22.02.85′

And we hit the magic number for an LP! (33). Sadly I’m hopelessly behind on where I need to be with this dumb project at this stage.

This is a wonderful record. First heard “Pick Up” on 6music then forgot who it was by until my pal Dan mentioned it a few weeks later. The album supposedly started out as a concept album of sorts about “a stripper lost in the city”, and even though it appears the concept ended up a little looser than that there’s still some of that grimy neon-lit nocturnal feel to it. Keb’s day job is writing music for film and TV, so it’s no surprise that there’s quite a cinematic feel.

If you like lo-fi hip hop, languid funk and sad soul you should like this. Definitely one of my favourite discoveries of the year.

[9.0/10]

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2017/032 Sleaford Mods - ‘English Tapas’

I really don’t know what to say about ‘English Tapas’; I admire it more than I like it but I’m pleased it exists and that Sleaford Mods have found a wide audience.

[6.5/10]

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2017/031 Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - ‘The French Press’

Technically an EP or a mini album but it’s on the list as “French Press” is one of my favourite songs of the year, and there’s more than a touch of the Go-Betweens via early-90s US indie rock about the rest of it. Also, I’m very fond of the artwork.

Go and listen to “French Press” on repeat, please.

[8.0/10]

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2017/030 Laura Marling - ‘Semper Femina’

I have to admit I may have forgotten this came out. It’s not you, it’s me, Laura. “Soothing” is a pretty interesting change of pace, and it’s a beautifully arranged record. Just not one I’ve connected with.

[6.5/10]

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2017/029 WHY? - ‘Moh Lhean’

At risk of turning this into a series of reminiscences about previous records by the bands I’m writing about we jump forward five or six years from ‘The Sophtware Slump’ to WHY?’s ‘Elephant Eyelash’ being my regular bus listening when I moved home after University and started working. “Gemini” and “Sand Dollars” are ingrained in my head.

This is probably just a testament to how much time I used to spend getting to know records inside out, and how they’re skimmed over now. This is good.

[7.0/10]

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2017/028 Grandaddy - ‘Last Place’

‘The Sophtware Slump’ is an all-time favourite record of mine, purchased from MVC in Perth near the end of the summer between school and university - I can still remember coming home from work that Saturday afternoon and listening to it for the first time. That’s the difference in the intervening 17 years /  half a lifetime - I used to buy things I felt fairly certain about and listened to them repeatedly and thoroughly, now I buy so much that new records by bands I’ve liked a long time get a fairly cursory listen.

It was always suspected but not (to me) made clear back in the day that in the studio Grandaddy was really just Jason Lytle. This is all Jason, bar the drums, but putting the Grandaddy name on it makes it feel like a Grandaddy record where maybe his too solo albums didn’t, though there’s not much in it really.

‘Last Place’ picks up from ‘Sunday’, lead single “Way We Won’t” gives off strong “Now It’s On” vibes, which is fine by me. It’s a really satisfying return, and sits well with their post-’Sophtware Slump’ catalogue.

I’m not sure where next after a tragic year for the band, with the passing of bass player Kevin Garcia. Hopefully at least one more record.

[7.5/10]

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2017/027 Blanck Mass - ‘World Eater’

I saw Fuck Buttons years ago at ATP vs Pitchfork and it was pretty harsh and intense. I saw Blanck Mass in Dundee a year or so ago and it was not harsh but still pretty intense. I was giving this a review listen in the office when the background noise was becoming irritating and it was a little unsettling. Definitely very physical in the bass regions, pretty impressive but I think I need to be in a particular mood to really appreciate it.

[6.5/10]

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2017/026 Meursault - ‘I Will Kill Again’

Every so often I get a handful of lines from “Flittin’”, from Meursault’s third LP ‘Something for the Weakened’ stuck in my head. “To hell with romanticism” indeed.

After a brief hiatus and rebranding as Supermoon, Meursault (Neil Pennycook) returned with their fourth album, ‘I Will Kill Again’ in February. I saw much of the album played live at a charity all-dayer last December, it was one of the best shows I’ve seen them play - sort of a Magnolia Electric Co/Neil Young vibe, wish there was a recording of it. The album is a little more intimate sounding, and is very good too.

[9.0/10]

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2017/025 Art of the Memory Palace - ‘Voiture Blanche Dans Le Noir’

Andrew Mitchell [Andrew Wasylyk/The Hazey Janes/Idlewild] and Raz Ullah [Jane Weaver’s band/solo] follow up their excellent 2015 debut ‘This Life is But a Passing Dream’ with this soundtrack to a “1972 French new wave thriller by Claude Doinel”.

I have no idea if the film actually exists, but the soundtrack is great. Proper sixties spy flick vibes in places, and some great Central European pop.

[8.0/10]

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2017/024 Bing & Ruth - ‘No Home of the Mind’

I’ve been listening to more instrumental/ambient music, particularly piano based stuff. I’d hesitate to call this minimalist as there’s quite a bit going on at times on the piano, but it builds nicely.

[7.5/10]

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2017/023 Sinkane - ‘Life & Livin’ It’

I’m falling behind a little now!

Sinkane’s fourth album, the most band-focussed to date. Really good, laid back eclectic funk pop.

[7.5/10]

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2017/022 Jens Lekman - ‘Life Will See You Now’

I think I’m over the artwork now.

Great to have Jens sounding reinvigorated on his new album, it seemed like he was maybe in a bit of a funk after the wonderful ‘I Know What Love Isn’t’, but the writing projects he undertook ahead of making this record, including the weekly Postcards series, seem to have done the trick.

I’ve seen Jens live twice around this album. The first time was in London last November where Jens debuted many of the albums songs solo, we were taken aback by how dancefloor-friendly many of them were. The second time was in a former church in Glasgow with a full band, after the album came out, where even though Jens was suffering from an almighty virus he still put on one of the most life-affirming shows I have seen in years.

Ewan Pearson’s production takes Jens pop-magpie approach and just fits all the pieces together that little bit more smoothly. The album plays like a mixtape in many ways, covering a variety of different styles from song to song, all held together by Jens.

If we’re doing highlights, Jens-as-balearic-disco-crooner on “What’s That Perfume That You Wear?” is hard to beat, while “Postcard #17″ has offered a supportive mantra on more than one occasion. Frankly, the whole record is great.

[9.0/10]

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2017/021 Sampha - ‘Process’

I feel like I’m at risk of being really down on every singer-songwriter type album I’ve listened to so far. I definitely feel more awkward about being critical of records that someone has clearly poured themselves into as a personal statement than I do a band record.

I think this is a very good record, I just haven’t connected with it the way I had hoped or expected to.

[7.0/10]

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2017/020 Old 97′s - ‘Graveyard Whistling’

I was first properly exposed to Old 97′s as a fairly major plot point in a Jennifer Anniston/Vince Vaughn rom-com (’The Break Up’, I think) about a couple breaking up, going through who gets what, and both refusing to give up tickets to see Their Band. Of course, they probably went together and that was that.

I like this, it’s a good solid straight up Heartland Rock record with pretty strong country leanings. Pretty rowdy, sounds like it’ll go down well live. “I Don’t Wanna Die In This Town” is a rollicking opener. There’s a song called “Irish Whiskey Pretty Girls”.

A good promo box find. Went back and checked out one of their older albums and wasn’t so keen.

[7.0/10]