New music releases

Let's start with what may be the worst album ever made: Various 'Independents Day'. It's a charity compilation, but that doesn't let the artists involved off the hook. Imagine if Jo Whiley's 'Live Lounge' was taken over by Zane Lowe and turned into an hour long show. Yes, it's bands unnecessarily covering songs by other people, to staggeringly underwhelming effect. The Prodigy have simply put some funny noises over The Specials 'Ghost Town', while The Futureheads add some noisy guitar to Robyn's 'With Every Heartbeat', noisy guitars we could happily live without. The dreariness is relentless, all of the acts cluelessly picking songs better that their own, which they can only dilute. Stop with the covering!

Paul Heaton is a man we like more than his music. Not that we haven't been fond of the odd Housemartins or Beautiful South tune over the years, but we enjoyed interviewing him far more. His first solo album The Cross Eyed Rambler isn't drifting too far from what's gone before, and his 'fey Kermit' vocal is unmistakeable. There's quite a bit more guitar going on, and perhaps a 'darker' musical tone. But the lyrics are still firmly down the pub, alternating between witty one-liners and misty-eyed nostalgia.

Now that Dirty Pretty Things are one album on from being 'what Biggles did next', it's difficult to come up with a good reason to still be paying attention. It's certainly not for the music. Barât's band have never risen above the level of early 90s support band indie and Romance At Short Notice has such an unsatisfactory and ugly sound, its hard to understand just what they were aiming for. Lyrically it fares far better than Doherty's nonsensical juxtapositions; Carl's world view is original and admirable, his turn of phrase natural and effective. If only someone else were writing the tunes and singing them. And no, we're not hoping for a Libertines reunion.

The Watson Twins are the two identical sisters who turned up a few years back, in collaboration with Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley. People seemed to like that a lot. Here they are again but minus Jenny (though we think they're still friends). Although not really sounding like her, we'd say Fire Songs comes from a similar musical place to Feist - pop songs soaked in bluegrass or even sweet soul, yet still coming up shinning and unmistakeably pop; sleepy, summery, shoulder-knot untying pop. And the album adds a third successful cover of The Cure's 'Just Like Heaven' to our collection.*

Is there any point talking about Five O'Clock Heroes 'Speak Your Language'? Anyone interested in anything more than the Agyness Deyne factor needs to get out and hear more third rate, unoriginal indie bands. There are lots of them. All as shit as this.

Seth Lakeman is an artist we've always had 'trouble' with. His folk credentials are top notch and we certainly have nothing against attempts to experiment with the form. It's just we've never enjoyed his particular experiments. Seth's over-earnest rock voice is our biggest problem and its more forceful than ever on third album 'Poor Man's Heaven'. You can almost hear the veins bulging in his neck. There's the usual mix of traditional, or traditional-sounding, tracks, and his much lauded, but subtlety-free, fiddle playing, but it all sounds like he's trying too hard to be the male KT Tunstall. There are far more interesting avenues in folk town to explore than this one.

» Reviewed by: Tim
» Talk on the boards