BEATIN’ THE HEAT

Arena Rock are currently reviving US indie with a slew of rainbow-hued rock groups, and the label’s loopiest hopefuls are Mink Lungs. This experimental psych-pop quartet merge post-punk guitars with growled cartoon vocals on this, their second album. “Men In Belted Sweaters” is joyous punk frippery while “Sad Song Of Birds” moves into mock-mournful, country-inspired territory. The result is as eccentric as an Edward Lear illustration.

But without the strong melodies or metaphysical beauty of The Flaming Lips, it borders on being novelty rock.

They may hail from Lowestoft, but The Darkness are Britain’s most triumphantly OTT rock band. The four-piece?who have in Justin Hawkins a falsetto-favouring frontman of awesome capability?tap into a genre so time-honoured it’s positively Pleistocene and, although their debut is an unashamed composite of AC/DC, Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Thin Lizzy, Kiss and Cheap Trick, it’s no less effective for that. The Darkness are genuinely in thrall to the power of stadium rock in all its bombastic, unreconstructed glory, and that they recreate it without recourse to irony is a testament to their talent. Silly? Quite possibly, but staggeringly skillful, and a strangely touching expression of unbridled joy.

Ocean Colour Scene are inextricably linked to a mid-’90s era which now seems hideously pass

In the current garage-rock feeding frenzy, The Star Spangles, though no doubt signed as Strokes knock-offs, have honestly raucous intent. Co-produced by Daniel Ray (The Ramones) and fitting in a Wayne Kramer/Johnny Thunders cover, they have natural, swinging guitar punch, sometimes forced down such tight sonic channels that they roar. But with strictly 1978 sleeve and clothes, and no new ideas, they just don’t matter like their models did.

Initially introduced to the world via Stereolab’s Duophonic label, Broadcast have perhaps benefited from their relative cultural isolation (they’re based in Birmingham) to cultivate a brand of avant-indietronica that is truly unique. Broadcast deploy an arsenal of electronic devices both antique and modern to complement and scar Trish Keenan’s often unnervingly childlike vocals. In a world supersaturated with electronica, Broadcast are nonetheless bold, rare and crucial.

On their seventh album, DJ Premier and rapper Guru have the amoral, musically simplistic idols of hip hop in their sights. The self-explanatory “Put Up Or Shut Up” delivers a killer blow; elsewhere literate, dizzying verbal sucker punches leave their opponents reeling. Best of all are Premier’s inventive backing tracks, hotwired with weird strings, unexpected piano and horn riffs, allowing Guru’s superior patter to rain down righteously. All told, a class act still in their prime.

With their hearts exhibited loftily on their sleeves, no one could accuse Longview of being dead inside. Yet underpinning the vulnerable, Red House Painters-inspired veneer of songs like fine single “Further” is an enduring worldliness that recalls U2 or Elbow. While cascading guitar chords and plaintive strings soar skywards, the lyrics repeatedly posit the idea that love is akin to collapse. This simple conceit is used to devastating effect on the drowsy, love-drunk ballad “Falling For You”. Frontman Rob McVey unravels a tumbling vocal style which apprehends the giddy uncertainty of romance in its infancy. Soft-coloured but deeply stirring music.

Glossy, glamorous Pete Yorn and his model good looks tested the bottled waters of the Hollywood star circuit with his debut disc Music For The Morning After, accompanied by a celebrity-fuelled fan club. His powered-up pop-rock style fits his image, and he name-drops so many famous folks he’s obviously banking on his connections. Songs like “Crystal Village” and “Committed” are literate, polished efforts, but Luddites who prefer a bit of hard graft might smell a marketing rat.

Dizzee Rascal is the best rapper this country’s ever produced, period. His words are as sharp as prime Tricky, his delivery sharper; he’s got bags more personality than anybody in the British rap scene. These local comparisons add up to faint praise, though, so how about this: 18-year-old, East London-bred Dizzee Rascal is as good as any MC currently active on Earth.

Every UK garage MC brags about how his style’s unique, and virtually every MC does it using the same flow and timbre. But Dizzee really does sound “identical to none”, from his blurting, jagged phrasing to his frayed, edge-of-losing-it grain (like he’s on the brink of lashing out, or sobbing, or both simultaneously). Better still, he’s got something to say as well as a unique way of saying it. Too much, maybe: listening to his torrential wordflow, you feel like his head’s surely set to EXPLODE. When he spits that he’s “vexed at humanity/Vexed at the earth”, you can hear the ingrown cyst-like rage of a generation for whom social-political deadlock is just “standard business”, kids who’ve never seen in their own lifetime so much as a glint that change is possible.

Boy In Da Corner is bookended by “Sittin’ Here” and “Do It”, two songs that open up whole new emotional terrain for garage rap (and that sound bizarrely like Japan circa “Ghosts”/Sylvian-Sakamoto). Dizzee is voicing the fragility and doubt underneath the thug’s invincibility complex, the tenderness behind the you-can’t-touch-me/you-can’t-stop-me armour. “Sittin’ Here” features Dizzee as the painfully acute observer: “I watch every detail/I watch so hard I’m scared my eyes might fail.” Those eyes have seen too much in too few years: on “Do It” Dizzee mourns how “everyone’s growing up too fast” and confesses “sometimes I wake up/Wishing I could sleep forever.”

This ain’t exactly So Solid Crew, then. Oh, Dizzee’s got few peers when it comes to boasts and threats, slaying rivals who wanna test him with a murderous exuberance: “Flushing MCs down the loo/If you don’t believe me bring your posse and your crew.” But it’s not the gun talk that’s the draw, it’s the vulnerability that peeks out, exposing the hard’n’ heartless posture of every mannish boy as desperate sham.

Gotta mention the music, which is self-produced (Dizzee’s like Dre’n’ Eminem in one body) and stunning. This is a totally post-garage sound that draws on beat-science from ragga, electro, gangsta and gabba. (And, on the uproarious “Jus’ A Rascal”, opera and Sepultura-style thrash-metal!) The result is as angular and futuristic as any German weirdtronica, as shake-your-ass “dutty” as Southern bounce, as aggressive as punk.

On which subject, it turns out that Dizzee’s a Nirvana fan?especially the ultra-gnarly In Utero. It may only have creased the outer edge of the UK Top 30 but his savage war-of-the-sexes single “I Luv U” is a “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for the new millennium.

In summation: Boy In Da Corner is a front-runner for this year’s Mercury (yeah, right?big deal). Mike Skinner should be shitting his pants. So should everyone else. Because next to Dizzee Rascal everybody looks pale, uninteresting, and irrelevant.

Always renowned for his showbiz trappings, the great Todd treated his Japanese fans to a greatest-hits-plus Utopia-style set, with a side order of zen archery and go-go girls. The sights, sounds and smells of his labours are well captured here with faves like “Real Man”, “Can We Still Be Friends?” and “Hello, It’s Me” jammed up against class-A rockery like “The Want Of A Nail” and the punked-out “Love In Action.” Our own Paul Lester pens an illuminating note to go with a sleek package. Toddtastic, as per.

It’s safe to say The Wind is the most highly anticipated new album of Warren Zevon’s 37-year career. With the grievous news last summer that Zevon’s days were numbered due to inoperable lung cancer, and subsequent outpouring of love and respect for him by his peers (from Bruce Springsteen, Dwight Yoakam, Jackson Browne and Emmylou Harris to Ry Cooder, David Lindley and Jim Keltner, all of whom play supporting roles here), Zevon’s presumed swan song has been the subject of unprecedented speculation, not a little heartache, and perhaps some concern that too many cooks would spoil the broth. Or worse, that Zevon would not have time to finish the record.

Those worries were unfounded. Zevon has done, if not the impossible, then the unlikely. Under the direst circumstances, he has painted his masterpiece. His high-profile guests play respectful, if pivotal, roles, giving a remarkable set of songs the kind of density and attention to detail they need. Yet the record feels loose, full of camaraderie and little revelations. And a lot of smiles.

The backdrop, of course, is mortality?the artist’s, inevitably, but really everyone’s?but then that’s nothing new; Zevon’s last two records dealt directly, unflinchingly, with such matters. But, in typical Zevonian fashion, the songs here mix unbearable poignancy with crazed humour, the spectre of the gallows with the prospect of an all-night party.

On opener “My Dirty Life And Times”, autobiography begets self-mythology begets, finally, a kind of Zen-like reconciliation?the wild-eyed, vodka-swilling thirtysomething LA-noir songwriter coming face to face with the older, wiser family man of later years. It’s a perfect opener, full of wry wordplay and featuring Yoakam’s hillbilly backing vocals and a bit of The Carter Family’s “Wildwood Flower” in its timeworn melody.

As Zevon himself would probably tell you, everything’s a matter of tone, and the man is in perfect form here. Echoing his growling aside of “Draw blood!” on the fade-out of his 1978 hit “Werewolves Of London,” Zevon resurrects that little stylistic bent on several cuts. “Here we go, hit me harder,” he demonically exhorts on “Disorder In The House,” as Springsteen reels out a blistering guitar solo. “Can I get a witness, hey!” he shouts, as “Numb As A Statue” kicks into overdrive. But when it comes time for more heart-rending material, Zevon’s singing becomes sweeter than a hummingbird in spring.

“There’s subtext all over the place,” Ry Cooder says about the recording sessions, and it’s hard to escape, no matter where you are among the disc’s 11 cuts. Even on seemingly mindless party anthem “The Rest Of The Night”, a throwaway line like “We may never get this chance again” leaves its mark. On the hard-scrabble Chicago blues “Rub Me Raw,” feelings are much closer to the surface. Powered by Joe Walsh’s slide guitar, Zevon spits out a venomous catalogue of images that would make Howlin’ Wolf do a double take: “This goat-head gumbo is keeping me alive,” he growls.

Zevon has structured The Wind in such a way that you can take from the songs what you will. On its surface, it sounds like just another collection of smart Zevon rock’n’roll, a nice mix of rabble-rousing rockers and vulnerable ballads. But linger too long on one lyric and you’ll start to tear up. He balances precariously between the personal and the universal throughout, yet this is no stuffy, sentimental goodbye. Laugh-out-loud lines abound, yet the sorrowful undertow is unmistakable. “I’m on the periphery of a lot of despair,” he told The New York Times last autumn, “but at the same time, the songs have never come like this.”

It’s a mark of the strength of Zevon’s writing that a nicely textured cover of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” strong as it is (“Open up, open up for me,” he pleads as the melody melts into a wall of guitars) fades to the back of the pack. Instead, two of the record’s undeniable highlights are four-to-the-floor rockers. “Disorder In The House” is loose as hell, fuelled by Chuck Berry rhythms and Springsteen’s paint-peeling guitar. It finds Zevon waxing apoplectic (“There’s zombies on the lawn, staggering around,” he intones), cataloguing in typically peculiar fashion the entropic deterioration surrounding him. “Numb As A Statue” is less of a bull in a china shop, but no less affecting. Riding a bouncy, piano-driven melody and a delicious David Lindley signature guitar figure, this song surely captures Zevon’s predicament in the most graceful of terms. It’ll have you singing along?”I’m going to beg, borrow and steal/Some feelings from you/I’m going to beg, borrow and steal/So I can have some feelings too”?before the absurdity of its sentiments sink in.

Zevon gets down to ominous cases with four ballads that subtly infiltrate the album’s second half. Regret, longing, benediction, and, finally, on “Keep Me In Your Heart”, a remarkably lucid vision of the effects of his death on his loved ones, leaven the album with a bittersweet fragility. “Please stay, please stay/Two words I thought I’d never learn to say,” Zevon pleads on the de facto title song. With Emmylou Harris’ floating harmony and perhaps Zevon’s most measured singing ever, this is searing audio-v

Although this two-CD set is subtitled “The Searchers 1963-2003”, the 56 tracks it contains only date up till 1988. This in itself won’t surprise most people, since the group’s post-’60s career has hardly been a headlines affair; indeed, it’s something of a shock to discover that they’re still going. Including three early demos and a dozen tracks from their post-’60s output, it’s aimed at long-term devotees rather than casual buyers, who should instead search the browsers for the same label’s The Definitive Collection.

By her own admission, the ’80s were not kind to Raitt, but she hit paydirt at the decade’s close with the aptly-titled, self-penned Nick Of Time. Her refined allure and mature sensibility have yielded a series of tasteful, emotionally resilient releases since then. This collection highlights the importance of her relationship with producer Don Was and ability to cherry-pick from trusted composers like Richard Thompson, Paul Brady and John Hiatt. The only regret is, given that she’s capable of songs as classy as “Nick Of Time”, she doesn’t give her own compositions more prominence.

999

999/SEPARATES

BOTH EMI

From the siren that opens The Ruts’ “Babylon’s Burning”, the first track off these two EMI repackagings of classic punk fare, we’re bovver-booted back to Fatcher’s Britain with vigour and vividness. Digital remastering emasculates the rawness but highlights the power-pop credentials of Southall’s finest?”Staring At The Rude Boys” was a crafty Jam/Clash hybrid, and there’s bucketloads more invention and chops than was normally put before the crophead unwashed. “Jah War” inhales the ganja of honky dub as convincingly as anything by The Clash, and “Love In Vain” is a bizarre white-boy stab at lovers’ rock.

The Ruts died in 1980 with lead singer Malcolm Owen, and therefore didn’t play into their dotage in endless punk revival festivals. That is 999’s richly-deserved fate, for, like this set, it gives new generations a chance to despise their caricature, underpowered, nerdy hybrid of punk and R&B, still sounding like a genre parody by Kenny Everett on an off day. Makes Eater sound as classy as Shostakovich.

SPECTRUM

Loose Ends

THE BEST OF

EMI GOLD

Two bands that could, and should, have achieved more. Central Line earned immortality with ’81’s “Walking Into Sunshine”?here represented twice, in original and Larry Levan-remixed form?and it’s noticeable how much better the material from their 1982 debut album Breaking Point is than their later work. “That’s No Way To Treat My Love” and “Don’t Tell Me” are US funk-rivalling highlights.

Loose Ends specialised in vaguely paranoid electro-soul balladry. “Hangin’ On A String”?the best soul record ever to come out of a British studio; Gaye and Terrell ghostdancing?hangs over the rest of their work like Damocles’ sword, but the beautiful misery of “Choose Me” has to be recognised, as does the Timbaland-anticipating “Stay A Little While, Child”.