Animal Collective - Centipede Hz

Over the last decade, Animal Collective’s journey has been characteristically bizarre, feeling their way through various shades of psychedelic noise pop. Though what they do is pretty hard to pin down, from the gorgeous psych-folk of Feels and Campfire Songs to the whacked-out madness of Strawberry Jam and 2009’s critics’ choice Merriweather Post Pavillion, psychedelia seems a pretty strong place to start when trying to make sense of it all.

That said, making sense of it all is absolutely the last thing you should do with an Animal Collective album. On Merriweather opener ‘In The Flowers’, the line ‘if I could just leave my body for the night’ turns an uncertain, washy picture of a chance meeting with a dancer in a field into a bursting, intense dreamscape that shoots off into the sky and, for an hour’s sensory onslaught, never really comes down.

And here, three years later, after a year and a half of doing whatever the hell it is they do when working on an album, is Centipede Hz. When asked how he would describe the sound of the new album, multi-instrumentalist Deakin helpfully went for “Centipede Hz”. Also, here’s a still from the video for single Today’s Supernatural:

So, there’s that.

Gratifyingly, Centipede Hz winds on in much the same vein as Merriweather. The familiar sonic blitz and sense of curious exploration are intact, but Centipede Hz is its own beast. It’s frantic and noisy, and a lot grander than anything that’s come before. Opener and possible album best ‘Moonjock’ kicks straight into an apocalyptic 7/8 sprawl with Avey Tare and Panda Bear sharing vocals. With Deakin back in the line up and after varied solo efforts, the band is more collected and resolute than ever.

There’s frequent spots of magic through the album – Deakin’s first songwriting credit and lead vocal ‘Wide Eyed’ bounces to its own irresistible groove, and ‘Tomorrow’s Supernatural’ is an organised mess of organ bursts and Avey Tare’s trademark snarls and shouts.

After becoming established in their own special way, every release seems to be hailed as Animal Collective’s most coherent effort to date, or the album that could finally break them into the mainstream. Though Centipede Hz does feel that little bit more like a more lucid and focused collection of songs, replete with catchy hooks and radio-friendly structures (see ‘Wide Eyed’ and ‘Amanita’), it’s as dense and mystifying as ever. Despite having their feet more firmly on the ground, their heads are still up in the clouds.

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Breton - Other People's Problems

Though south Londoners Breton take a lot of their sonic cues from the late 90s electronica of Mezzanine-era Massive Attack, it’s fans of the Rapture, Foals and the Maccabees that will be the most pleasantly surprised. It’s dark, pulsing electronica for established fans of indie rock, but there’s more to Breton than being the next NME poster boys.

In fact, there’s a lot more. They’ve already built up quite a name for themselves with their talent as filmmakers (based in disused-bank-turned-studio BretonLABS), which now translates itself perfectly to meandering, enigmatic music videos and a reportedly stunning live show. After starting to make and perform music to accompany short films, the band’s reputation grew from their notoriety on the south London squat party scene.

Named after the father of surrealism, Andre Breton, and with frontman Roman Rappak’s compulsive recording and mixing of anything and everything that grabs his attention, the band have set their compositional targets pretty high. That’s not to mention the recording of the album in Sigur Ros’ own studio in Rekyavik, and subsequent full orchestration by German composer Haushka.

So far, it’s all pretty impressive, and gratifyingly, Other People’s Problems pays up. It’s deceptively complex, and the ubiquitous thick, cinematic strings add a rare tension and depth to what could all too easily be dismissed as plain old indie electronica. In fact, the albums weakest points are those in which this influence is over-indulged. There’s always a danger to a band like this taking themselves too seriously, but Breton get away with it through sheer talent and artistic sensibility. Overall, it’s expansive and rewarding, and whatever your initial reaction, will be well worth your while.

Out March 26th on FatCat Records

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James Blake - James Blake (Mancunion #7 Album of the Year)

Of all the things to have come out of the explosion of dubstep over the past few years, James Blake’s eponymous debut has to be the most unlikely. At the start of 2011, Blake was a 21-year-old popular music student from Enfield, releasing EPs of glitchy futuristic dubstep to a community of loyal fans. Despite alienating some dubstep purists, James Blake is an album of unexpected beauty and textural brilliance. His voice is fragile and soulful, carefully manipulated and seamlessly integrated into each track. From the earth-shattering drop of ‘I Never Learnt To Share’ to the delicate piano arrangement of ‘Give Me My Month’, it’s powerful, important, and sounds like nothing else in the world.

Listen: To Care (Like You), I Never Learnt To Share

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Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost

When Girls' debut Album was released in 2009, it was embraced for all its lo-fi tortured optimism and let's-get-fucked-up-and-love-each-other balladry. The story that led to its conception was pretty damn unbelievable (abandoned son of god-fearing cult members moves to San Francisco, is taken in by local millionaire, starts band with neighbourhood punks), and bandleader Christopher Owens' voice had apparently been tailor-made to break hearts, falling somewhere between Elvis Costello and Ryan Adams' end-of-the-road romanticism.

On Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Owens continues to channel the 60's sunshine pop of Roy Orbison and the Beach Boys, but in an altogether more ambitious, rounded and ultimately satisfying piece of work. Just like on the first album, there's a fresh batch of bouncy anthems about love that immediately sound like songs you've loved all your life, but they're tossed in with the Deep-Purple inspired, riff-heavy 'Die', the heartbreaking 'Vomit', and the world-weary despair of 'Myma' (a contraction of the last lines of the refrain 'so far away from home, and you my Ma'). It's an emotionality that borders on cliché, but lines that could appear over-sentimental and tacky elsewhere are so earnestly and desperately delivered that you can’t help but lend it the same sympathy and understanding that you would a close friend.

As is clear from the offset, the album borrows heavily from the past, but it's hard to imagine Owens' songs delivered in any other way. These are pop songs as they used to be, with all the raw emotion and attention to musical detail intact. Of course, it's got its weaker moments, but all in all Father, Son is anthemic, joyous, genuinely affecting and impossibly endearing in equal measure.



http://www.student-direct.co.uk/2011/10/28/album-girls-father-son-holy-ghost/

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Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See

Poor Alex Turner. It’s not often the curse of the difficult second album strikes so poetically. When he shuffled on to the scene in 2005, ever the unassuming frontman, Whatever You Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, his aching love letter to the practised art of going out and getting pissed, struck a chord with a generation of teenagers who did little else. The lyrics were disarmingly poetic, and above all else, the album sounded great. It came at a time when people needed their anthems, and an unsuspecting club-going public found them in Alex Turner, their unlikely spokesperson. Unsurprisingly, a headline set at the Reading and Leeds festivals followed, along with a world tour and an entire generation who know the album back to front.

It was then that the curse hit. When you’ve made an album that expresses everything you’ve learnt up to that point, what, then, do you have left to write about? 2007’s Favourite Worst Nightmare came and went, with a couple of expectedly great melodies, and flashes of lyrical brilliance, but little in the way of innovation. Similarly, with a new record collection (Hendrix, Sabbath etc.) and production credits from Josh Homme, Humbugpromised to showcase a brand new, badass incarnation of the Arctic Monkeys, which turned out to be surprisingly convincing. Their guitars sounded thick and impending, and a world-weary Alex Turner was more in his element as a Nick Cave-style balladeer.

Now, a full six years after their debut, Arctic Monkeys’ third shot at relevance is still just wide of the mark. That said, they do sound far more confident in their sound, and the newer influences finally sit comfortably with Turner’s morbid crooning. Matt Helder’s drums are as brutal and fresh sounding as ever, understatedly thrashing through each bouncing melody. At first listen, the tracks hold up. There are enough riffs and hooks to keep you interested, and each line is sung with an underlying melancholy that hints at something much darker underneath the surface.

Problem is though, there’s not.

Lead single ‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair’ starts off with a promisingly seedy guitar line and grows into a thundering foot-stomper (special mention again to Matt Helders’ drumkit shitstorm), but save for an oo-oo-oo-yeah-yeah-yeah chorus, even by the end of its three-minute duration it seems tired and unimaginative. There’s plenty of workable stuff here, but every spark of ingenuity is stretched out and exploited, a far cry from the frequent splashes of colour jumping out of the first record.

While the performances are musically spot-on (Matt Helders isthe man), the lyrics and songcraft seem forced and lazy, which regrettably exposes a band firmly resting on their laurels. The greatest shame of all, perhaps, is that the album isn’t bad. Once it gets going, the vision’s there. All My Own Stunts is firmly up there with their best songs, and opener She’s Thunderstorms is a charming jangly anthem, both showing just what this album could have been. They’ve a solid new direction and as a band have an incredible potential to create another classic album, but for whatever reason, it’s yet to arrive.

At the start of the video to 2005’s I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor, a fresh-faced Alex Turner gave us a warning through his awkward teenage diffidence: ‘don’t believe the hype’. Maybe we should have believed him.

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Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

In a 2010 interview with MTV, Kanye West admitted in a rare moment of pseudo-modesty that “I do have a goal in this lifetime to be the greatest artist of all time, [but] that’s very difficult being that I can’t dance or sing”, and in his more vocally ambitious moments on MBDTF, the latter is made abundantly clear. How, then, do you go about proposing your place as the greatest indie-leaning rap megastar in the world? West’s own particular brand of superstar is miles away from the secret-freakshow stadium pop of his hero Michael Jackson. This new proposed superstar marries porn stars in Hell Of A Life, runs his mouth off about douchebags and scumbags in Runaway, and tells just about everyone to kiss his asshole. In fact, as he repeatedly proclaims in his wildly cathartic centre-piece, he’s a motherfuckin’ monster.

The list of guest stars is enough to sell this album alone, with the inclusion of mainstream big-hitters Rihanna, Jay-Z and Rick Ross, as well as a couple of inspired choices from across the board, including Nicki Minaj (Trinidadian no-bullshit brat rapper), Justin Vernon (Wisconsin cabin-folk staple) and John Legend (super-smooth sex-pest crooner). Each disparate guest star brings a fresh take to the Kanye West brand, never once sounding forced or out of place.The ensemble casts on Monster andSo Appalled show each artist off individually, but the message and ambition of the tracks are never lost.

Almost every track stands alone, but in All Of The Lights, West finally has his anthem. It sounds gigantic, and encapsulates his vision and purpose up to this point. The semi-dub-like chorus pops give way to a winding, off-beat groove for the verses, and the feeling of grandeur never lets up. As a single, it’s certainly catchy, with Rihanna’s club sing along chorus, but shows enough intelligence and dexterity to demonstrate just how good pop music can be.

The genius of this album is not in the performances (despite the all-star cast), nor is it in some great, sign-of-the-times lyrical statement. West’s saving grace, and his brilliance as a performer, is his unflinching dedication to his music.

West relies on a deep knowledge of sound and attitude, together with his own tortured musings on 21st century stardom, to deliver a statement so grand and decadent, yet ultimately insular and personal, that you can’t help but think this is the greatest record he could make. The attitude is not one of ego and self-promotion (much as he’d like you to think), rather it shows a tenacious self-belief, and a rejection of any suggestion of modesty, self-consciousness and self-sacrifice. Kanye West isn’t the messiah, but he is sure as hell trying his best.

“Have you lost your mind/Tell me when you think we’ve crossed the line/No more drugs for me/Pussy and religion is all I need/Grab my hand and baby we’ll live a hell of a life”

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