Albums of the week (Feb 20-26)

The latest album releases reviewed by the Evening Standard's music critics
The heart of America: Kid Rock
Evening Standard Critics20 February 2015

Pop

Kid Rock

First Kiss

(Warners)

★★★

Preposterous though he may be, it is hard to remain in the corner with your arms folded when Kid Rock enters the room. How can you when he spits lyrics such as: “I ain’t never been a champagne drinkin’ man/ I ain’t never been a Coldplay music fan”? On his 12th album, Robert James Ritchie has fully dispensed with the rapping (thank God) and embraced the sort of heartland Republican rock that goes down well at NRA barbecues in Kentucky. Grandfatherhood has mellowed his criminal streak but he still appreciates the core American pleasures of bourbon, first kisses, guns, having fun, drinking beer with dad, etc. The title track shoots straight for Bryan Adams’s Summer of ’69 status and only just misses.

Richard Godwin

Gliss Riffer

(Domino)

★★★★

It can be hard to sound distinctive when writing purely electronic music. Baltimore’s Dan Deacon fought this by using an orchestra on his last album but even this time, solo again, there’s no mistaking him. His songs are complex, endlessly layered and hyperactive, delighting in wrong-footing the listener. Take It to the Max builds over almost eight minutes towards an expected arrival of beats that never come. The ironically titled Learning to Relax is piled high with stuff like a Black Friday superstore. Yet he’s also never sounded poppier, using sweet robotic vocals everywhere and playing plenty of tricks. Even the girl’s voice on Feel the Lightning is him. He’s exhausting but fun.

David Smyth

Emile Haynie

We Fall

(Interscope)

★★★★

Break-ups have inspired plenty of classic records, though no one expected the producer of Eminem, Kanye West and Bruno Mars to come up with such a classy, lovelorn debut. We Fall shows a remarkably sure touch — from psychedelia to New Orleans R&B — and Haynie’s bulging contacts book comes in handy too. The album features a revolving door of vocalists, including Lana Del Rey, Rufus Wainwright, Brian Wilson and Randy Newman, who were recorded at LA’s Chateau Marmont. His hotel room lends an intimacy to the heartbreak, particularly on the woozy Come Find Me featuring Lykke Li. Like fellow producer Mark Ronson, he’s a backroom boy who deserves solo success.

Andre Paine

Black Star Riders

The Killer Instinct

(Nuclear Blast)

★★★

Since Phil Lynott died in 1986 Thin Lizzy have stumbled on with a rotating cast of past members and new young bucks. They currently feature guitarist Scott Gorham and ex-Almighty singer Ricky Warwick. Refusing to use the Thin Lizzy name for recordings, they are also Black Star Riders. Their second album is straight-ahead, uncomplicated, traditional rock. Warwick’s vocals are uncannily like Lynott’s, whether emoting on Blindsided or grandstanding on Finest Hour, while Gorham’s guitar gallops with much the same intensity as it did on Black Rose and Jailbreak. Inevitably, there are no concessions to the 21st century but for better and for worse this is really how it used to be.

John Aizlewood

World

Songhoy Blues

Music in Exile

(Transgressive Records)

★★★★

It's a low, repeated riff on booming electric bass that kicks off this album of desert rock ’n’ roll with fizzing electric guitars. Three of the four musicians, ethnically Songhai, fled north Mali during the Islamic insurgency of 2012 and are now “in exile” in the capital Bamako. There they formed their band and were the stand-out group when Damon Albarn and Africa Express recorded in Bamako in 2013. There’s a raw energy in the guitar solos, a solid rhythm section and nods to Amadou & Mariam and Ali Farka Touré plus guest vocals from Khaira Arby on one track. So now with a leg-up from Africa Express they’re set to take London by storm, playing the Barfly in Camden on Monday.

Simon Broughton

Jazz

Pete Oxley & Nicholas Meier

Chasing Tales

(MGP Records)

★★★★

The second duet album from jazz guitarists Pete Oxley and Nicolas Meier follows on from their acclaimed live debut, Travels to the West. This time they’ve brought an arsenal of guitars: instruments with nylon strings, steel strings, 12-strings, fretless, slide, synth and glissentar. What might have been a happy shambles turns out to be one of the best guitar albums you will hear all year, a work that captures all the spontaneity and brightness that makes the duo so special, with a sophistication lent by deft use of layering, constant but subtle variations in tone and numerous virtuosic solos. The British-born Oxley’s lithe phrases meet Meier’s Turko-Latin soundscapes with an ease that belies both men’s technical skill.

Jane Cornwell

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