It's Saadiq's fine songs--notably the showstopping slow-jam 'Oh Girl'--that makes The Way I See It less a homage, more a timelessly enjoyable 42 minutes.
There is an unassuming brilliance to much that they do and, as ever, We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River is a-bristle with finely-tooled detai.
Throughout, his mellowness of tone is the album's defining feature ... Miraculously, thanks to the minutiae of the arrangements, it's a sound that never becomes one dimensional.
Cornershop’s 2009 incarnation may not have the kinetic energy of the 2002 model, or the accidental pop brilliance of “…Asha”, but it isn’t short on inventiveness.
Arctic Monkeys were never comfortable as the ‘voice of a generation’. Humbug subtly shrugs off that unwanted mantle, and in the same deft movement, promises a much more interesting future.
Andrew Weatherall has been employed to help build Tarot Sport a beaty backbone and the results are brutally mesmerizing.
It’s as far removed from the combustible racket of his siblings as is possible to imagine, Felice instead heading for the sweet spot between ’70s FM radio and the boom years of Topanga Canyon.
At 36 minutes, Preliminaires is slight and covers-heavy, but points to a promising new career phase for Iggy as Detroit’s answer to Serge.
Together, Parish and Harvey sound confidently experimental, like two soldiers daring each other to ever more stupendous feats of bravery.
The Liberty Of Norton Folgate--a title which makes sense in context but is otherwise unlikely to be jamming up the ringtone sites--is Madness in both their pomp and their prime.
To Be Still is a quantum leap from its predecessor, and one which establishes Alela Diane as a significant figure in contemporary Americana.
The album closes with a reprise of “To Ohio” – possibly superfluous given the perfection of the earlier version, but the only marginal misjudgement on an otherwise largely faultless album.
The Spinning Top, a really very enjoyable record, displays some of the finest aspects of the guitarist’s talents, but chief among them, those that pertain to Coxon the folkie, and acoustic guitar stylist.
Embryonic is certainly as exciting as anything produced by the psych rock underground this year.
Eagle is as good as anything he's ever done.
While I’m not sure Veckatimest is the huge improvement on Yellow House that some blogs claim it to be, it’s unquestionably a lovely record and it deserves to be heard on land, sea, indoors and out.
Wilco (the album) picks up more or less where 2007’s mellow and soulful Sky Blue Sky left off, but subtly expands that record’s parameters.
Wild Beasts summon up the ghosts of that decade’s brainier, more flamboyant indie bands.
As a whole, Bitte Orca feels nothing less than a modern equivalent to Talking Heads' Fear Of Music or Scritti's Cupid & Psyche 85 –art-rock with intellectual rigour, borderless curiosity, and no fear of the mainstream. Pop, by any other name.
It’s a rare contemporary album that sounds like it couldn't have been made at any other time or by any other band.