Emmylou Harris has always had a way with woe. On All I Intended To Be, she seems more maudlin than ever as she sings her way through songs about loss, heartbreak, even the odd funeral. Of course, this is the kind of material Harris has always been comfortable with, but as her career and years advance gracefully, so her gliding soprano seems to breathe ever more refinement and soul into her ...
Manufacturer: Warner
It's been a less than Roman trail up to this point for long-haul, stubbly Scot trio Biffy Clyro. From the proto-grunge of their debut, through gathering melodic grandeur, progressive cross-genre experimentalism, brief indie accessibility and some truly heavy songwriting, to say they've surpassed expectations along the way is an understatement as large as the chasm between their original ...
Manufacturer: 14th Floor
Rodrigo and Gabriela are two fast-fingered, Dublin-based Mexicans with a unique sound created on acoustic guitars. Their music is difficult to define, straddling both world and rock, and often imbued with the timeless Hispano classical influences. The fire in it comes from their life-long passion for metal music. Rodrigo is a deft finger-picker who can move from raging speed to sensual soul in the ...
Manufacturer: Rubyworks
So this is where it all began. This is where Noel Gallagher first realised his vision of a band that matched the swagger of the Stone Roses to the harmonic thrill of the Beatles. It is difficult to resist this album, despite the obvious flaws. (It plods. The production is too heavy-handed. "Shakermaker" borrows its melody from a soft drink commercial.) There is such a passion, such self-belief in ...
Manufacturer: Big Brother
One of the defining moments of the 1990s, despite happening at the start of the decade. The guitars start jittering, then "BOOMA-ABOOMA-ABOOMA-ABOOM!", the drums kick in and grunge splatters itself all over a generation of MTV viewers. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" will surely always speak to alienated teenagers, while giving them something to thrash around their rooms to, kicking the whole thing off ...
Manufacturer: Polydor Group
Would it be outlandish to suggest that wholesome rugby-shouldered ruddy-faced English piano-pop boys Keane have spent the best part of their two-album career fanning the impression that they exist somewhere between an easy Mothers' Day gift and the album it's ok to give your girlfriend back when you split up, just in order to blow everyone out of the water like 80s neon-pop commandos with the ...
Manufacturer: Universal / Island
Manufacturer: Polydor
Manufacturer: Mercury
There's nothing terribly complicated about the Fratellis' debut album, Costello Music, but that's by no means a criticism. Rather than inject their songs with complex chords, or steep their lyrics with their political and social agendas, this Glasgow trio have instead focussed on writing 13 songs that are pure, unabashed entertainment. And it's a pace--and an attitude--that doesn't let up, ...
Manufacturer: Island
Razorlight's eponymous sophomore release doesn't so much reinvent the freewheeling sensibilities of their '04 debut Up All Night as hone them into a more willfully focused pop whole, a mindset that immediately evinces itself on the inviting, Boomtown Rats-meets-INXS-flavored opener "In the Morning." The growing confidence of songwriter/vocalist Johnny Borrell is almost palpable as he ...
