Latest releases reviewed
PEARL JAM
Rearviewmirror (greatest hits 1991-2003) Epic
***
In 1991, Nirvana weren't the only grunge game in town. Fellow Seattle-ites Pearl Jam were giving Cobain & Co a run for their money, and Ten, their début album, was shifting units almost as fast as Nevermind. In charismatic lead singer Eddie Vedder, grungeheads found their own Michael Stipe: a cult figure on whom they conferred near-divine powers. They were classed as grunge, but Pearl Jam's music came across as a mix of Zep, G'N'R and Neil Young - listen to Alive and you might hear Sweet Child O' Mine muffled by plaid. To avoid being burned by the spotlight, Pearl Jam swerved onto rock's backroads, releasing increasingly uncommercial albums and espousing a punk DIY aesthetic. Inevitably, though, they got locked in the creative potting shed, and though they never ran out of steam, they soon ran short of ideas. After the adrenaline burst of Once, Even Flow, Jeremy, Dissident, Not for You and Do the Evolution, your attention span will probably run out, too. www.pearljam.com
Kevin Courtney
CHRIS DORAN
Right Here Beaumex Music
*
Nobody likes a loser. Lucky to have finished second last in this year's Eurovision, Chris Doran may command sympathy, commiseration, perhaps even forgiveness - but it's much harder to earn respect. Right Here, a depressingly awful album of covers, doesn't even try. It is so distressingly cheap in concept, listless execution, karaoke production values and even mortifying cover-art (see Chris dominate that chair!) one wonders if Doran is now simply relying on charity. His worrying delusions of soul have the champion ex-kick-boxer tackling Stevie Wonder (Superstition), Jackie Wilson (Higher and Higher), even R Kelly and Boyz 2 Men. At all times he seems painfully exposed; shivering in the spotlight, looking for a back door out of here. People may buy this album, but, c'mon, this really isn't funny anymore.
Peter Crawley
RAY LAMONTAGNE
Trouble Echo
****
New England folkie Ray LaMontagne claims it was hearing Stephen Stills singing Tree Top Flyer on his clock-radio one morning that moved him to quit his job at the local shoe factory and become a full-time troubadour. It may also have been the realisation that his songs might get him a lot further than access to cheap shoe leather. Trouble grabs your attention as much for the weatherbeaten sturdiness of the songs as Lamontagne's distinctive soulful croak, almost Ted Hawkins-like in pitch. Indeed, both songs and singer are throwbacks, LaMontagne fixing absorbing vocal shapes around early 1970s Dylan/Morrison influences. Thanks also to the handiwork of producer Ethan Johns (who worked similar magic for Ryan Adams before Adams threw one petulant fit too many), songs like the title track and the delightful Shelter will have you coming round for more. www.raylamontagne.com
Jim Carroll
JERRY FISH AND THE MUDBUG CLUB
Live at the Spiegeltent RMG
***
His artistic reinvention complete, Jerry Fish (aka former Emotional Fish Ger Whelan) and The Mudbug Club take flight on this live recording, bagged during September's Dublin Theatre Festival. Harnessing the resurgence in popularity of Latin rhythms, alongside a latent appetite for lounge lizardry, Fish & Co marry a big brass section with a rake of fluid guitar lines, stitched together by Fish's own world-weary vocals. The irony-drenched lyricism of Upside Down sits in glorious opposition to the Tom Waits-influenced It Don't Get Much Better Than This. Later the mood shifts in a Cole Porter-ly direction, on a new offspring, So in Love Again. With a bonus live limited-edition DVD, this is one worth beating the Christmas rush for. www.jerry-fish.com
Siobhán Long
THE UNICORNS
Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? Rough Trade
**
There's a lot to be said for whimsy and most of it's negative; it begins with a wondrous child-like joy at viewing the world in a different light, the way a baby looks at a multi-coloured mobile toy, hanging in the air above their heads. And then, in keeping with our child-like theme, it ends with annoyance, petulance and a thirst for something new to engage with. The Unicorns, from a small seaside town off the west coast of Canada, epitomise the type of naïve, anti-whatever music that has kept small indie labels in exactly the same state as when they began. There's no harm in this, of course (indeed, it's admirable and pure for all the right reasons), but it'd be nice if there was something on these kinds of records that approximated a decent tune and that didn't give you hives just listening to it. Wilful irony and clinical capriciousness can only go so far. Go back to a small seaside town off the west coast of Canada, why don't you?
Tony Clayton-Lea
