What’s new in the world of music? We take a listen.
Dolorean: Subiza (Just Music)
Dolorean is named after the time-travelling car in Back to the Future (rather than the doomed car company), but an interdimensional teleporter might be a more appropriate analogy. How else can you explain a quartet of post-punk rockers from Spain’s Basque region who have hybridised their original sound with a virulent strain of ethereal electronica? For some reason iTunes lists the album as ‘indie rock” but it’s really pop. It may be the kind of kooky synth-pop that appeals to Gen Y hipsters — a bit like mochachino-flavoured candy floss — but it’s pop nonetheless. And, just like candy floss, you’re never sure of when you have finished a bite or exactly what it tasted like 15 minutes later. There’s a naivety to Subiza, a relentlessly joyful silliness that you only find in European pop bands singing in English. Like Abba, the Cardigans and Ace of Base, you get the feeling that Dolorean is not 100% sure of what it’s singing and that it doesn’t much care. English is just music to the group and it belts it out without irony. It’s not ‘important” music, but it’s delightful in a way that so much mainstream pop and electronica is not. The melodies are full of the bounce and shimmy of a band enjoying itself and not just trying to craft that bestselling dance-floor hook or ringtone-friendly chorus. It is easy to mistake this level of sincerity for vapidity, but the intricate layering of the band’s melodies betrays the level of craft behind a band that’s been going for a decade. The band isn’t dumb, just fun — an increasingly rare ingredient in today’s cynical chart hits. — Alistair Fairweather
Brandon Flowers: Flamingo (Universal)
Usually a solo album means experimenting, going crazy and trying things that wouldn’t be acceptable to the rest of the band or its fans. But it seems that when Brandon Flowers decided to make a solo album while the rest of the Killers took a break, he missed the band so much that he ended up making a second-rate Killers’ album — without the knockout choruses and fun-time, catchy bridges and hooks for which the band is famous. There are elements of country in a few tracks though, which add a maturity to the album that is new for Flowers. There is a personal touch to this album, a kind of individual sensitivity that wouldn’t come through as clearly on the Killers’ records, but there’s nothing on here that comes close to Sam’s Town, Mr Brightside or anything else memorable from the band. — Ilham Rawoot
Chief: Modern Rituals (Just Music)
The four shaggy-haired hipsterish musicians who make up Chief are all from California, but met while studying at New York University. Their sound is soft rock with a hippy edge and a few surprising key changes. The tracks on their debut album, Modern Rituals, are sweet but none is particularly memorable and some have no shape whatsoever. The opening track, The Minute I Saw It, starts off with a pretty, catchy guitar intro, but leads to a disappointingly bland chorus. The single, Breaking Walls, is not the most obvious track for a single, being less hooky and catchy than some of the other songs. Nothing’s Wrong and Stealing are among the better tracks on the album — good melodies and heartfelt lyrics that make for good afternoon driving. Although they’re not very bad at what they do, the biggest problem with Chief is that it sounds too much like too many other bands and doesn’t have that special something to make it stand out. — Ilham Rawoot