Latest releases reviewed
THE KILLS
No Wow Domino ***
A leather-clad lad with the look of a young Lou Reed, a vampish vixen with a smoky, seductive snarl ... could The Kills be the Anglo-American Raveon- ettes? Thankfully, VV and Hotel aka Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince, aren't that cold and calculating, and their music, while keeping to a dirty retro template, isn't penned in by any rigid genre rules. Their début, Keep on Your Mean Side, had a heady, sexually charged menace, and the chemistry's still there on such new tracks as Love Is a Deserter, I Hate The Way You Love and Sweet Cloud. Hotel's stripped-down guitar feels even more bare than before, all the better for VV to curl her lascivious lips around such tunes as Dead Road 7 and Rodeo Town. Sometimes, though, the pair riff too much on their own karma and end up dropping the song somewhere along the way, but this is still a fine slice of sleazy backstreet busking. www.thekills.tv
Kevin Courtney
MOGWAI
Government Commissions - BBC Sessions 1996-2003 PIAS Recordings ****
The Scottish post-rockers have popped into the BBC studios on numerous occasions, effortlessly recreating their ambient magic for the benefit of live radio. It's fitting that the late John Peel's voice introduces the opening track, Hunted by a Freak; in Peel's heaven, there's definitely a copy of Happy Songs for Happy People on heavy rotation. Like Sigur Ros, Mogwai have the power to make their (mostly instrumental) music feel like a living, breathing creature; most of the time it undulates peacefully, but sometimes, as on Like Herod and Stop Coming to My House, it goes on a sudden rampage of white noise and guitar effects. Early tracks (R U Still in 2 It, New Paths to Helicon Pts I and II) will delight longtime fans, while the majestic sweep of CODY, Secret Pint and Kappa opens new sonic spaces in the dark corridors of the Beeb. www.mogwai.co.uk
Kevin Courtney
HEM
Eveningland EMI/Liberty ****
Hem's 2002 album, Rabbit Songs, was unheralded. Out of the blue, from Brooklyn of all places, the eight-piece band delivered the kind of lucid dream music one hears very rarely. Structured around a hazy notion of new alt.country and vintage Americana, Rabbit Songs also blended the likes of George Gershwin, Randy Newman and indie-cinematic orchestration. The result was little short of amazing. Three years later - now signed to a major label, following a troubled development period with DreamWorks - Hem has done it again. Eveningland boasts a surer touch; where previously the songs trembled and shadow boxed, now they are defined and distinct. The core facets are Dan Messe's songwriting and Sally Ellyson's singing. The former writes with the ghosts of 1960s and '70s classic tunesmiths breathing down his neck; the latter sings with a spirit that is so soothing you just want to wallow in it for hours. Not The Kaiser Chiefs, then, and by no means Bloc Party, but in its own little, magical way just as relevant. www.eveningland.com
Tony Clayton-Lea
GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT
All Is Violent, All Is Bright Revive ****
Quiet-loud-quiet aficionados will find much to ooh and aah over on this Dublin rocktronica act's second album. Whereas their 2002 début, The End of the Beginning, suffered from an over-reliance on technology to produce all the tricks, this one is where technique triumphs every time. Gone, too, is a slightly cautious approach to shape-shifting electronica in favour of a full-frontal immersion, a move that makes for some quite astonishing moments throughout. The menacing, meticulously layered drift that dominates the first half of Fragile will catch your ear, as will the dramatic pitch and tone of Deafening Distance. But it's how Fire Flies and Empty Skies emphatically keeps its melodic shape despite tailing off into an euphoric, metallic wig-out which indicates that GIAA have really struck gold this time out. www.godisanastronaut.com
Jim Carroll
GARY DUNNE
Twenty Twenty Fiction Honest Records **
After touring with Damien Rice, Damien Dempsey and Mundy, and recording with producer Karl Odlum, it's commendable that Gary Dunne isn't simply another acoustic woe-is-me wannabe; however, the Portlaoise troubadour's brave attempt to embrace styles ranging from raw Americana to cool Brit art.rock sees him come sadly unstuck. Some songs work well, such as the politically charged, chug-along single, Amerikan Folk Song; the majority, however, stumble badly, particularly the toe-curling Small Town, which sounds like Joe Dolan covering Franz Ferdinand. The problem is not so much the songwriting as Odlum's production which, like Dunne's voice, seems constantly afraid to let anything rip. The ironic result is that, for all Dunne's attempted eclecticism, it's only the woe-is-me ballads, such as True What You Said, which end up sounding the way they should. A dreadful pity. www.garydunne.com
Johnnie Craig
LUKA BLOOM
Innocence Big Sky Records ****
The artistic imperative ebbs and flows, and there are some who won't be too enamoured with the tidal patterns in Luka Bloom's music these days. Evidently personally content, Luka's music bespeaks of matters spiritual rather than material. His belly is fired by personal reflection rather than political objection, and it makes for a satisfying gathering. There's a pinprick precision to the lyrical path of Forgiveness, a vulnerable honesty to Salvador and a refreshing bareness to his reworking of City of Chicago, each one buoyed by the most intriguingly minimalist arrangements you'll hear outside of a John Cage concert. Ken Edge's clarinet and sax, basted by Joe Csibi's double bass and Pat Collins's gypsy fiddle lines, cosy up inside the music like lifelong bedfellows. Bloom's tincture of contentment rings true. www.lukabloom.com
Siobhán Long
66E
Fall Down Seven Times Stand Up Eight Underfoot Records **
So, what comes after post rock? For 66e, an Irish/ Scottish five-piece surely entitled to springboard from The Redneck Manifesto and Mogwai into undiscovered territory, their "uncompromising" approach has been to take all the stasis and portent of rock that refuses to rock, then cake it in sadness and add vocals. With the proverbial determination of their début's title, 66e are clearly undaunted by shoehorning song-structures back into experimentalism, and often they get away with it. When they rise above low-rent Sigur Ros droning, Scrambled Pictures, 66e Are Home and Meanings and Traffic are almost affecting. This is, however, an album that demands a love for metronomic guitars, eons of epic fuzz, then sudden, stabbing descents - not to mention an ability to indulge Edward Cullen's obliquely dreary vocals. "Are you an actual person?" he moans, inconsolable yet catatonic. "Yes? No?" www.66earehome.com
Peter Crawley
