The M&Gs reviewers reveal the latest CD releases for your listening pleasure
Stornoway: Beachcomber’s Windowsill (Just Music)
Music’s history is littered with examples of radio DJs taking on the cause of promoting bands or artists. Celebrated BBC One DJ John Peel’s love for Manchester punk band The Fall is the stuff of legend, with the band recording a whopping 27 live Peel Sessions between May 1978 and August 2004.
Oxford’s new indie-folk band Stornoway appear to inspire similar levels of devotion, with BBC Oxford presenter Tim Bearder being suspended from work for two days for playing an hour of Stornoway songs on his breakfast show. Beachcomber’s Windowsill is the band’s debut album and follows hot on the heels of three well-received singles.
The opening track, Zorbing, sounds like Belle and Sebastian meets The Fleet Foxes — actually, it sounds better than that, but those are the references. I Saw You Blink sounds like The Decemberists front-man Colin Meloy fronting the latter-day Beach Boys, whereas Fuel Up is a laid-back track about the long and winding road of life, a sad song urging you to pick yourself up and move on.
Stornoway have a big future ahead of them and after spending a few weeks with Beachcomber’s Windowsil I can understand Bearder’s point. One of 2010’s best debut albums. — Lloyd Gedye
Jolly Boys: Great Expectations (Sheer Sound)
I can see it now — some smug producer discovers a Mento band from Port Antonio, Jamaica, who have been playing together since 1955 and who had some hits back in the 1980s and 1990s but are now the house band at a local hotel. He thinks to himself: “With the right repertoire these guys could be a big hit.” And the result is Great Expectations.
Well, Mr Producer Man, you may have been right, you may sell loads of albums but, to be quite honest, this album you have put together is a sham. Despite what you think, a Mento band doing covers of Iggy Pop’s Nightclubbing and Amy Winehouse’s Rehab is not really what the world needs right now. It’s doubtful if it ever will need it. Mento is a style of rootsy, rural Jamaican music that had a major influence on ska. It typically features acoustic guitar, banjo, hand drums and the rhumba box — a large mbira in the shape of a box.
There is no denying that the Jolly Boys are a really cool band and their genre of music is a rich tradition that goes back more than 60 years with roots in the music of African slaves taken to the Caribbean. What I object to is the gimmicky way they are being sold in 2010. Classic songs by Johnny Cash, New Order, The Doors, The Clash, Blondie and Lou Reed all get a Jolly Boys revamp and I’d be prepared to bet money that these songs were not among their repertoire when they were playing local hotels in Port Antonio. This could have been an awesome CD, but some Western producer thought he had a great idea. — LG
The Plastics: Shark (Independent)
Tight without sacrificing rawness, honest without being gauche, Shark is one of those albums that disguises an occasional unevenness with some impressively likable high points.
There’s more than a hint of trademark Libertines slurring, both in the vocals and the guitar, and songs such as Late Night Scene and Stereo Kids are real bedroom anthems. The latter, especially, will move you to intense dancing and abandoned singing along. It’s one of those instant classics that carries its influences (in this case what I can only describe as British indie rock and trust you’ll know what I mean) into a new and fresh place.
It’s a massive leap in quality from last year’s nonetheless impressive Kiss the Plastics, although that wasn’t an official debut for some reason, so comparisons are probably unfair. The solid production is courtesy of biggish name producer Gordon Raphael, who produced The Strokes’s first two albums and the live sound for The Libertines, which might explain the influence.
There’s an occasional deviation from the high points, especially when The Plastics attempt a lyrical naiveté that only a band such as Desmond and the Tutus can really carry off, but in the main this is the kind of album that lead to critics ruefully deleting the word “infectious” five times in one review. There’s got to be a Sama award in The Plastics’ near future. — Chris Roper