Still driving people mad around seven years--yes, seven!--after his landmark Pop Idol win (it's almost enough to make you dewy-eyed for the early days of the Simon Cowell TV talent franchise), mainly by refusing to be typecast as a one, or two, or three (etc.) hit wonder and continuing to be so alarmingly consistent, Will Young returns with Let It Go, his fourth--yes, fourth!--album. ...
Manufacturer: RCA
It's now twenty years since grunge emerged from then culturally isolated Seattle and Fleet Foxes, the eponymous debut album from the city's latest heroes, demonstrates just how much American independent rock has mutated in that time. The five young members of Fleet Foxes make up a very different sort of rock band, describing their own music as "baroque harmonic pop jams". Even that ...
Manufacturer: Bella Union
Manufacturer: Polydor Group
Though Oasis are forever fated to live in the shadow of their initial success, they remain capable of producing exciting and touching music, and Dig out Your Soul continues the upswing in their fortunes sparked by 2005's Don't Believe the Truth. Unashamedly an album of two halves, the first part is heavily loaded with Noel Gallagher's tunes, including the pounding single "The Shock ...
Manufacturer: Big Brother
It's hard to believe that For Emma, Forever Ago is the work of one man. But when Justin Vernon's old band split he hauled himself (and presumably plenty of instruments and recording equipment) to his dad's hunting cabin in the woods of Wisconsin for the coldest season and worked through his issues in musical form. (The name comes from the French for "good winter"--"bon hiver"). By the start ...
Manufacturer: 4AD
After cockily shrugging off the difficult second album challenge with their hugely successful Yours Truly, Angry Mob, the Kaisers deliver yet another collection of blistering rock-pop in the shape of Off with Their Head. Producer Mark Ronson returns the band to the distilled pop potency of 2005's Employment as well as providing an all-star cast of guests: Lily Allen provides ...
Manufacturer: Polydor
Sacred Arias is Katherine Jenkins' last album in her deal for Universal before she moves to Warner for another six-album deal, and she has decided to go out with a bang--albeit a quiet one. While her previous outing, Rejoice, saw the Welsh mezzo-soprano striking out more than ever towards the world of pop, Sacred Arias, as the title suggests, sees her return to her ...
Manufacturer: Universal
Such are the near-generational gaps between latter-day AC/DC albums that it's always tempting to hail the arrival of a new one as a return to form. Black Ice arrives a whopping eight years after the band's last offering, Stiff Upper Lip, but one chorus into "Rock N Roll Train", the wise man would conclude that any evolution here is as slow and incremental as, well, evolution. A ...
Manufacturer: sonyBMG
The debut album by Salford's The Ting Tings comes hot on the heels of their No.1 single "That's Not My Name", a nugget of pop gold that comes on like a genetic splicing of Toni Basil's "Micky" and The Knack's "My Sharona". The bulk of We Started Nothing follows a similar formula, navigating a path between the smart, angular indie of CSS, Bonde Do Role, et al and the pop mainstream. Here and ...
Manufacturer: Columbia Records
808s & Heartbreak sees Kanye West move somewhat controversially away from hip hop towards what he calls "pop art"--not the art movement championed by Andy Warhol, but his own artful pop music. This translates as Kanye dropping his rap shtick and picking up the Auto-Tune to help even out his singing voice, and trading his usual summery bounce for the brittle, wintry sound of the electronic ...
Manufacturer: Mercury
