Albums of the week: Barbra Streisand, The Prodigy and Marianne Faithfull

Walls: There’s no love lost for the President in Streisand’s stunning return to form

Barbra Streisand - Walls

(Sony)

****

It's a reflection of the many thoughts that keep me up at night,” Barbra Streisand says of this album’s opening song, What’s On My Mind. It comes from one of 11 candid descriptions Streisand has written to accompany each of her new songs — and while Donald Trump is never mentioned by name, his politics, and Streisand’s antipathy towards them, most certainly are.

This is Streisand’s first album of predominantly self-written material since 2005 and both her voice and lyricism see a staggering return to form. Lyrics are sharp, passionate and powerful and often tread a gossamer line between abject despair and fleeting hope while trying to make sense of the current divisive political landscape.

“Walls that are designed to protect us can also divide us,” Streisand bluntly says of the title track, imploring leaders not to “build [walls] where they shouldn’t be”. Don’t Lie To Me feels like a direct address to the US President and contrasts pointedly with Better Angels, a delicate song referencing Abraham Lincoln whose humility, Streisand says, “implore[d] us to listen to the better angels of our nature”.

Elsewhere, there is a poignant cover of Burt Bacharach’s anti-Vietnam song What The World Needs Now, alongside another which tenderly weaves John Lennon’s Imagine into Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World. Yet it’s Streisand’s self-penned songs that make this one of her most accomplished albums in years.

by Elizabeth Aubrey

The Prodigy - No Tourists

(BMG)

***

While Nineties dance culture is undergoing a nostalgia trip, at least The Prodigy still bring a sense of danger to their reductive rave anthems. Despite its highly familiar array of belligerent bleeps and ageing punk vocals, No Tourists is a frequently exhilarating record.

Their famously frantic live shows will surely find a place for the distended drone of Give Me a Signal, the bass-heavy Boom Boom Tap and the febrile, clattering assault Champions of London. Comeback single Need Some1 was far from band leader Liam Howlett’s finest hour, though you have to admire The Prodigy’s staying power based on a fairly limited sonic palette and daft lyrics. A seventh consecutive No 1 album is in their sights.

by Andre Paine

Anthony Joseph - People of the Sun

(Heavenly Sweetness)

****

Anthony Joseph is a London-based, Trinidadian-born author and poet whose spoken-word stylings about the Caribbean diaspora balance hard truths with a sparkling magic realism. Set to music, delivered with rhythm and authority, they conjure up images of journeys taken, battles overcome and here, on an album recorded in Trinidad, of sun, carnival and hope.

A wealth of local musicians add steel pan, soca and rapso flavours to Joseph’s blend of horn-heavy jazz and funk, while guest vocalists including Joseph’s daughter Mina and rapso legend Brother Resistance mix it up, and arrangements by producer/saxophonist Jason Yarde make all 11 tracks shine. Anthony Joseph presents Windrush: A Celebration at the Barbican on November 17 as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival.

by Jane Cornwell

Marianne Faithfull​ - Negative Capability

(BMG)

****

At 71, Marianne Faithfull has recorded a melancholy testament to the truth that feelings don’t age. It’s an album of raw ballads set to a handsome arrangement by pianist Ed Harcourt with Nick Cave on backing vocals. “I know I’m not young and I’m damaged/ But I’m still pretty, kind and funny,” she pleads to a would-be lover on In My Own Particular Way. “What can I do but pretend to be brave / And pretend to be strong when I’m not,” she laments on No Moon in Paris.

It doesn’t all hit the heights. Her new take on the Jagger/Richards dirge As Tears Go By and the cover of It’s All Over Now Baby Blue feel dutiful. But when the forces come together, it’s as compelling as the late masterworks of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.

by Richard Godwin

Jaune Toujours- Europeana

(Choux de Bruxelles)

****

Going for more than 20 years, Jaune Toujours are a wild and eclectic six-piece Belgian brass band that draw on a wide range of sounds and influences. Europeana is the band’s invented European equivalent of Americana — and it sounds a lot more fun. With titles such as Funky Brussels, Save Le Monde and Refugees Welcome, it’s clear they’re a band with a message but delivered in a danceable and joyous musical mix.

Lyrics are in French, Flemish and English, sometimes in one song, but musical influences range much wider on Ska-Man, with its Jamaican touches and Balkan Khan with its snakey clarinet.

With a party band such as this, there’s clearly a lot more going on in Brussels than EU legislation and the Brexit negotiations.

by Simon Broughton

Tenacious D - Post-Apolcalypto

(Columbia)

**

The creators of South Park needn’t feel threatened by Post-Apolcalypto, an unpolished mix of music, comedy and cartoons from actors Jack Black and Kyle Gass. Weekly episodes on the duo’s YouTube page are a series of hastily drawn still images accompanied by sweary ramblings and rock opera songs that amuse briefly and irritate ever after.

The accompanying album, their first since Rise of the Fenix became a number two hit in the UK in 2012, contains a daunting 21 tracks but thankfully only three are longer than two minutes and the whole thing is over in half an hour.

As far as the highlights go, Daddy Ding Dong is a galloping blast of hair metal — the best of a pretty shabby bunch.

by David Smyth

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