Latest releases reviewed
BETH ORTON The Comfort of Strangers EMI ***
It's 10 years since the Norfolk singer's debut album, Trailer Park, tricked everyone into thinking she was a true blue southern belle. Now the place is crawling with rootsy rock chicks, and there's an Irish girl named Gemma who can do an even more authentic American drawl. What's a guitar-strummin' girl to do? For Orton, it means slowing down, taking stock of her career and channeling that introspection into these 14 stripped-down tunes that bring the listener closer than ever to her spiritual core. The album was recorded quickly in New York with peer and hero Jim O'Rourke on piano, bass and knob-twiddling. Countenance, Shadow of a Doubt, Absinthe, Shopping Trolley, A Place Aside and Safe in Your Arms sometimes offer cold comfort, but, wrapped up in Orton's warm acoustic guitar and O'Rourke's earthy production, they are also intimate and reassuring. www.bethorton.co.uk
Kevin Courtney
Melbourne's loss is LA's gain; Australia's Toby Burke had to hightail it out from Down Under in order to be seen as more than just Thom Yorke with a tumbleweed connection. Once in the City of Angels, he flourished, picking up with a bunch of Americans and some stray Irish people to focus on a fusion of lo-fi rock and raw, electrified folk. It's all very woozy music, bliss by any other name, but occasionally too mellow for its own good. When it's great it unselfconsciously references a straw-chomping REM and a witty, experimental Wilco; when it's not so great it rummages through discarded Radiohead riffs and Mercury Rev doodles. Fine and lovely in its own sweet way, but original? Say cheese, people. www.horse-stories.com
Tony Clayton-Lea
You might infer from the title of his second album that Jason Mraz considers himself a master of words. But, though the San Diego singer can deftly twist the alphabet to suit his needs, he doesn't always come up with a great lyric. Sure, the poptastic satire of Wordplay is pressed home by such lines as "I'm the wizard of oohs and aahs", but the Dr Seuss-style philosophy of Life Is Wonderful ("It takes an egg to make a hen, it takes a hen to make an egg") just brings the word cheese to mind. Still, there's no denying that Mraz has a way with a pop tune, and when he builds up a head of melodic and lyrical steam, as on Did You Get My Message?, Clockwatching and Please Don't Tell Her, he can almost dazzle with radio-friendly sheen. Mr Curiosity bends the laws of attraction with operatic skill, and Plane glides on a wave of romantic fatalism, but ultimately Mr A-Z is a nifty love letter to himself. www.jasonmraz.com
Kevin Courtney
Accidents will happen. Take the hand injury that pushed Jeff McLeod, The Double's drummer, away from his kit and toward the technological fracture of electronics and samplers. A happy accident, it steered Brooklyn's so-so post-rockers into a bristling album of noise and psychedelia with 2004's remarkable Palm Fronds. No sooner had McLeod removed his plasters, however, then the dalliance with edgy experimentalism faded. Loose in the Air still has echoes of industrial and digital decay, spitting through a fog of mumbly vocals on Up All Night or On Our Way like electronic jetsam. There's subversion, too, in a dissonant and morose Dance. But more often The Double settle back into polite indie-rock textures with muted sporadic crashes - think Pavement, in a china shop. Serendipity in music is a wonderful thing. Ignoring it may be more than just a mishap. www.thedoublethedouble.com
Peter Crawley
On first exposure, Limerick's Don Mescall's debut slots neatly into that amorphous category called MOR. Repeated listening reveals more, particularly in the lyrical depths he plumbs. Part John Mellencamp, part Bryan Adams, Mescall manages to visit his attentions on the subtler aspects of those close encounters in which humanity engages, however disastrously, on a daily basis. Although his perspective on world politics swings from a credible first-world guilt to well-worn cliché (Grace of God), an articulate voice lurks beneath his weakness for radio-friendly rhyming couplets. Thing is, Mescall does those couplets justice, too, particularly on the current single, Left in LA, so which way he turns at the crossroads is a decision that's all his: due right for the Pulp FM market, hairpin bend to the left for the long haul. www.donmescall.com
Siobhán Long
