Listen To This!

Imogen Heap – Ellipse

The Real Chris Marsh — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:20:25 +0000

All this time on from Imogen Heap’s last solo effort in 2005, following her previous work with Frou Frou, and it feels like an age. A series of massively successful tours, not to mention appearing on the soundtrack of the very trendy The OC, has raised her profile no end.
Opener First Train Home starts things off well, a stand out track, with Heap musing on the feelings of not feeling comfortable and wanting to get away as soon as possible. Wait It Out begins deceptively like previous success song Hide And Seek, but wanders off into an opportunity for her voice to ebb and flow, flourishing on phrases like “wretched hollow”.
Earth presents a percussive vocal with a wheezing beat carrying it along, minimal in its music which mostly comes from her harmonies and a plodding bass part.
There are so many elements to the work of Imogen Heap, especially here on Ellipse, which for all the studio work still maintain the sense of a woman writing songs in her London flat, enjoying life, and engaging with all her worries and joys over a cup of herbal tea as she looks out on the busy city below. Although the album doesn’t consistently stun, amaze or impress, it does manage to maintain a sense of rhythm and consistency, despite her frequently distressed lyrics.

Even so, there are still some pop hooks to be found after some digging; witness the swagger of the chorus which seems to come from absolutely nowhere on Swoon.
There is no doubt she has developed and perfected her sound; it continues to be very electronic and industrial – check out the Bjorkesque 2-1 - but it can become somewhat wearying, inorganic, and just very digital. One song totally stripped back, accompanied with just a piano would go a very long way to breathe some life into this collection of quite rigid, glacial tracks. The Fire comes close to breaking out of this format, but as a sub-two-minute instrumental, it falls a bit short really and ultimately feels generally unnecessary.
Canvas gives a warmer set of sounds, with an aching cello and sleepy drumbeat over soft guitarwork, but this far on in the album, it’s too little too late, even when followed by album closer Half Life. It’s a beautiful piece with all the right elements, which sadly leaves the listener wanting more, but all there is to go back to is the cold digital beats that brought us here in the first place.

Cheryl Cole – 3 Words

The Real Chris Marsh — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:39:29 +0000

‘National treasure’ she may be, but from first listen, “3 Words” immediately lacks the sheen of, well, everything Girls Aloud ever did, frankly.

Opening track, the album’s title track, actually sets the album off to a good start, wavering between indie-electronic and alternative r&b. With a great off-beat piano part and a hard-hitting bass beat that leaps in and out of the tune with a real aggression, there are plenty of inventive elements that make for genuinely keen listening. Sadly though, the track never really “gets” there.

The Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.Am has his mark stamped all over the album; as expected, it’s all a far cry from anything Cole previously recorded with studio alchemists Xenomania. That said, having now heard Cole on her own, I will certainly find it easier now to identify her voice from within the vastly stronger voices in the Girls Aloud camp. It turns out she was one of the major “ooo-hoo”ers.

Further irritation occurs within Heaven which initially feels like a relatively groovy club anthem, but once Will.I.Am gets going over it, it all feels forced, even incompatible, as though Cole is trying to be as ‘hood’ as she can – see how long you can cope with the Geordie lass trying to authentically sing “my heaven’s wit’ choo”.

Then we come to 2009’s fastest selling single, Fight For This Love. Comparisons to Kelis’ 2006 Lil Star aside (I’ll wait here while you go to check it out…

…back? The same, isn’t it?) Fight… stands strong with undeniably strong production. However, it is a song which underlines current musical trends; it’s not designed to be a classic, but purely to get into the public headspace, make a fuss (and a LOT of money!) and then disappear quickly before anyone realises there actually wasn’t very much to it, once you take away the cut-to-the-thigh trousers, military cap, and fairly spurious drum-break.

Hitting the middle of the album, it’s mostly filler territory I’m afraid, with throwaway hooks, a few audio tricks and more than a handful of cliches; “disguise my tears so you’ll never see/let it rain”, obligatory expletive to show she’s “real” (fo’ sho’).

While Happy Hour would sit happily on a Black Eyed Peas record, straddling that east coast/south London attitude we all love (to hate?), Stand Up is exactly the song you know should have been the first single – if it didn’t sound just like a girls aloud song – and as a result it leaps out from the rest as a pure club anthem without any of the pretense that seems to run through the very veins of the rest of the record. Of course, Will.I.Am still manages to stick his oar in but we’ll forgive him this time as it’s so brief.

The saccharine Don’t Talk About This Love drifts in and out, with its flowing strings and flimsy sentiments; it sounds like a Celine Dion album track – one of the ones where she doesn’t really seem to try very hard but still sounds good. Here Cheryl’s autotune is on so tight she would have sounded better without it, as it only serves to show up the weaknesses in her voice.

Boy Like You is yet more of the new “Westside Cole” persona – again uncomfortable and inauthentic, while final track, previous Will.I.Am release Heartbreaker doesn’t really count as Cole only did a guest spot on it.

If anything this is Cole’s sure fire way of making it big stateside, especially if the rumours of joining Simon Cowell in the US X Factor are true. Girls Aloud, despite massive success in London and around the UK, never really got much attention further afield, but Cole clearly has other plans. If only making an excellent record had been part of it, rather than just a batch of iTunes friendly, forgettable songs that won’t really make it much further than the release of the next Girls Aloud album, let alone setting a new standard in pop. Best leave that to Lady Gaga, perish the thought!

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Higher Than The Stars EP

The Real Chris Marsh — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:11:16 +0000

It seems strangely out of place yet is entirely welcome, like your best friend from home coming to visit you at Uni. An autumn EP release as a follow up to 2008’s eponymous LP, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart haven’t quite served up the full album we were maybe hoping for, but boy, have they come close. Production has tightened up, while retaining the distant, slacker-pop vibe, and there’s even hints on Twins towards some power-ballad territory.

It’s not until the final track, a St Etienne remix, that the true sadness and tragedy of the title track is revealed, as we realise that we were fooled all along. Amongst the lo-fi, glorypop, the lyrics tell of the drunken teenage fumble “in the back of your mother’s car”. Granted, the title track is more than reminiscent of previous single, This Love Is F______ Right, especially with its ambiguous lyrics, but who cares when The Pains are keeping this up!

The Mars Volta – Octahedron

The Real Chris Marsh — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:31:19 +0000

While I take some time to absorb the fresh offerings from Cedric and Omar, here’s what Amazon also has to say on the matter…

“Octahedron is the stunning new album from The Mars Volta. An album heady with the emotion and high-drama that has always been the band’s trademark, their newfound simplicity and focus has delivered some of the most immediate and powerful songs in their discography. The album opens with the tender ache of “Since We’ve Been Wrong”, Cedric’s keening vocal establishing a mood that’s deeply blue, powerfully melancholic, a suckerpunch that hits every bit as hard as Octahedron’s unashamed rockers (the gleaming futuristic funk of “Teflon”, the tense chase-music of “Cotopaxi”). Pulling back from the full-tilt experimentation of previous releases, the album invests its energies in Omar’s gift for songcraft, for swooning guitar runs of high tension and emotive power (”Luciforms”‘ epic riffage), and for the nagging hooks and melodies that wreath the churning rhythms of “Desperate Graves”.”

Jason Lytle – Yours Truly, The Commuter

The Real Chris Marsh — Sat, 23 May 2009 13:41:17 +0000

There always was a glorious sense of exhausted tenacity in the sound of Grandaddy. Ever since I first heard ‘Summer Here Kids’ from the album Under The Western Freeway, Grandaddy has always given my music listening a very special splash of melancholy. That’s not to say Lytle’s music is consistently downbeat or depressing – far from it – but that there is the ever present sense that there really should be something more, and that after all the effort put in it simply sucks that the full appreciation deserved never seemed to appear.

On Yours Truly, The Commuter, Lytle has presented a fine set of songs that work as a great follow on to Grandaddy’s swansong, Just Like the Fambly Cat. Littered amongst the traditional, dreamy computerpop, are a stack of hooks and lyrics that show continued defiance; It’s The Weekend manages to champion the joy of the end of a working week without degrading into a hedonistic ‘living for the weekend’ mentality – instead we get the sense he’s overjoyed but once he gets through the front door he’s crashing on the couch with a beer and switching on the football with no intention of moving for the next 48 hours.

This latest offering is a joy for anyone who was following Grandaddy and was justifyably disappointed at the news when they called it a day. It’s good to know Lytle will continue to create work which lets us little people know we’re not alone.

Malakai – Ugly Side of Love

The Real Chris Marsh — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:04:33 +0000

Out of the ashes (well, not really ashes) of the Bristol music scene, which gave us that remarkable brand of trip-hop through groups such as Portishead, Tricky and Massive Attack, comes this offering from Malakai. Lead single, Faded World, is filled with woozy, swirly piano parts and distant deck-scratching. There’s also a remarkable feeling the music is haunted by the echoes of the Beatles – not in any derivative way, but somehow through the vocals and phase there is a very real twist of Lennon. This record is well worth a look if you like any of the Bristol scene, or indeed if you like intelligently unusual music at all.

Tinted Windows – Tinted Windows

The Real Chris Marsh — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:06:02 +0000

With band members from Fountains of Wayne, Cheap Trick and Hanson, it would be foolish to expect Tinted Windows to turn out to be some kind of experimental mathcore band. And although that would certainly have been interesting, what we have here, thankfully, is pure power-pop of the highest order: catchy, disposable, and totally engaging.

The hooks are solid, the vocals have bite, and the production sparkles. Kind Of A Girl and Messing With My Head stand strong as a pair of fine album openers. The summer is upon us. Let this be the soundtrack.

It’s Blitz – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

The Real Chris Marsh — Sat, 09 May 2009 14:36:10 +0000

Despite mixed reviews, It’s Blitz isn’t that much of a departure from the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s previous work. OK, so Heads Will Roll’s disco-happy synth beats may have thrown fans a little, and the album overall has inherited a new, less guitar-centred sound. But that’s just fine. What we have been handed here is a fantastic, beat-driven piece of pop. It’s dancefloor filling stuff, and if it makes the indie hipsters turn their noses up and shuffle off to listen to a bit more Of Montreal, well, it’s their loss and our gain.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

The Real Chris Marsh — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:07:42 +0000

Yes, it’s been called retro, sounding like the C86 bands of old. Agreed, there’s no hiding the influences of My Bloody Valentine, Belle and Sebastian, and I’d even go as far as to include Teenage Fanclub and Camera Obscura into the mix. But since
when was this a bad thing to bring fresh new tunes into the foray, considering the 70s punk/glam inspired offerings by the Walkmen and the Strokes during the early 2000s?

The recording is distant, the vocals less present in the mix than a lot of recent overproduced pop-rock, but The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have created a delicious slice of ‘tweemo’.

Opener ‘Contender’ immediately displays the My Bloody Valentine influences, while ‘This Love Is F______ Right’ and ‘Stay Alive’ offer intriguingly suspicious lyrics and spot-on songsmithery respectively.

Underoath – Lost In The Sound of Separation

The Real Chris Marsh — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:17:36 +0000

“I’m the desperate, and You’re the savior,” yells Spencer Chamberlain during what seems to have become the obligatory false start before Underoath’s latest offering bursts into a ravaging assault. I’ll admit the first 20 seconds had me fooled – I immediately worried for the disturbingly lo-fi production, only to breathe easy as soon as the familiar sound of the Florida boys threw itself to the forefront.

Actually, album opener Breathing In A New Mentality comes in at not much over two minutes, before we’re thrown straight into absurdly titled Anyone Can Dig A Hole But It Takes A Real Man To Call It Home. We begin to realise we’re in for a quick, but thrilling, ride.
And this is the beauty of ‘Lost In The Sound Of Separation,’ – this time it feels like everything Underoath were trying out previously on ‘Define The Great Line‘ has been tightened up and improved. For where ‘Define…’ was a sprawling, spluttering epic ‘Lost…’ is a slick, sharp, well-oiled machine that delivers the goods song after song. There’s some very real freshness to it at the same time; ‘Emergency Broadcast :: The End Is Near’ opens with a dirty, fuzzed-up bass which add texture not really heard before in an Underoath tune, and then treats us to a grimy, palm-muted guitar chug.

‘The Only Survivor Was Miraculously Unharmed’ belts out a traditional attack which nods back to the heavier style first shown on ‘Define..,’ with a glorious mantra ‘Repeat, repeat, repent and repeat, the cycle never really ends,’ Chamberlain’s inner pain laid bare for all to see in his guttural screams.

‘Lost In The Sound Of Separation’ refuses to be ignored. The navel-gazing of ‘Define The Great Line’ has been distilled down to conscise, brutal energy. And it works.