Tony Clayton-Lea
On occasion, songs hark back to Gabriel’s funk-pop years – The Court and the Sledgehammer-adjacent Road to Joy are the summery additions to the album’s late-autumn sensibilities – while the final track, Live and Let Live, is as elegant a prog-pop song as you’ll hear.
No one expects the band’s quality control to scale the heights of yesteryear, but this collection is more than a pleasant surprise.
Album will be thrill for fans whose tastes veer towards fervid dynamics of old.
Whatever Hynde had been missing before Walbourne came along was debatable, but since his arrival the Pretenders’ batteries have been recharged.
If you thought Sour was a royal flush, then this album is the winning goal in a penalty shoot-out.
Third album by Wicklow songwriter features some firsts, and the differences are subtle but robust.
Casual but confident club-friendly summery beats echo Lanza’s new home.
An album littered with reflective but dialectically odd lyrics balanced by a natural leaning towards strong melodies.
Album confirms Amber Bain as an astute, assured songwriter who could easily become a star.
The stark nature of the songs in this first solo outing highlight Chatten’s worldview of separating the good from the bad.
Forthright, assertive and lusty collection of styles that filter reggae, lover’s rock, Philly soul and nasty funk.
The templates are familiar, and the themes, crucially, are rooted in childhood and teenage years.
Anything has to be better than this by-the-numbers mulch.
Fuse is so good a soundtrack it is as if Thorn and Watt have never been away.
There is a fusion of each of the songwriter’s signature characteristics on The Record that is a joy to listen to, but the most crucial aspects of its overall worth are the central bonds that tie the women together.
Worked on quietly throughout the pandemic, the songs here fuse O’Neill’s elemental explorations with more textured arrangements that we have been used to hearing from her.
The album could be accused of sticking to a template that has barely shifted in over 40 years, but that would be missing the point: here is a record that knows its audience and delivers, without compromise, exactly what they want.
Underpinned by SHO’s distinctive, some might say unique and colourful, playing, the songs are shaped by austere humour, humanity, nature and grief.
English folk songwriter scales new heights with his experimental, exploratory album.
Hold On Baby is right – strap yourselves in for a non-binary and boisterous ride.
The usually hypnotic music of Mike Hadreas has been replaced by wearying self-indulgence.