Subscribe
Home Blog Page 731

THE NATIONAL – HIGH VIOLET

Uncut
-
0
THE NATIONAL – HIGH VIOLET

There is something anomalous, anachronistic, even quaint, about the career trajectory negotiated by Brooklyn quintet The National. Twenty or thirty years ago, it wouldn’t have been that unusual. Rock group form, garner a modest following, acquire a respectable critical reputation, release a succession of increasingly accomplished and confident albums, finally penetrate the consciousness of that much-desired demographic of people who only buy two albums a year, and are hailed overnight successes about a decade after their first rehearsal. It’s REM from “Radio Free Europe” to Document, and it doesn’t happen much, any more: record companies trying to survive until the end of next month tend not to make long-term investments, so you get one chance, now, maybe a chance and a half if you’re lucky. The National, a decade and some change and five albums into their career, have been very, very lucky – but then, as Matt Berninger and the brothers Dessner and Devendorf remind frequently on this (in every sense of the word) ambitious record, the good fortune is merited. There is no doubt at all that The National believe that High Violet – their fifth album, and their first recorded in their own studio – represents their shot at the title. The National’s previous albums, especially 2007’s Boxer, have hardly lacked for widescreen soundscapes, multi-spired sonic cathedrals, and so forth – diffident, reticent indie rockers tend not to have their songs appropriated by presidential candidates, as Boxer cut “Fake Empire” was by Barack Obama. Even in this context, however, High Violet represents a substantial jettisoning of whatever vestiges of self-consciousness might still have been preventing The National from daring to imagine themselves as platinum-selling arena headliners: this is emphatically not an LP conceived to flatter the vanities of a cult following. The opening track, “Terrible Love”, starts out as a scuffed-up, Mary Chainish take on the Velvets’ “Heroin”, but by the end of its four-and-a-half minute run time it has escalated into a monumental symphony embellished by thunderous drums and choirs of backing vocals. Though its evocation of the hypnotic furies of Joy Division remind of where The National are coming from, its suggestion of U2’s No Line On The Horizon is an unmissable signpost to where The National think they’re going. It’s a fraught business, entangling with the epic. Get it right, and you’ve acquired the means to create a genuinely thrilling euphoria, the opportunity to redraw the wider culture on your own terms, and a license to print money. At the peak moments of High Violet, The National are magnificent. The transatlantic lament “England” (“You must be somewhere in London,” croons Berninger, “You must be loving your life in the rain”) broods amid gloomy strings before erupting into the sort of ecstatic coda surely written in anticipation of being illuminated by the light of thousands of mobile phones waving to the beat. “Conversation 16” is as elegantly melancholy and mournfully melodic as any ballad by The Blue Nile, and promises the richly appealing prospect of large crowds of people singing along to the refrain “I was afraid/I’d eat your brains”. “Afraid Of Everyone” is the sort of allusive state-of-the-union address which REM regularly delivered in their commercial pomp in the late ’80s and early ’90s: to an ominously martial backbeat and a musical backdrop of angelic, half-sighed backing vocals, Berninger stumbles in his “shiny new star-spangled tennis shoes” through an America torn by the gravitational tug of opposed cultural poles (or, as Berninger has it, between “the young blue body and the old red body”). He gracefully avoids the amateur’s error of proposing a remedy: “I don’t have the drugs to sort it out,” is as good a response as any. High Violet is, then, very much the sort of LP likely to prompt a certain degree of resentful harumphing from the sort of people who derive righteous satisfaction from liking a band before everybody else does. It won’t be much consolation to this tendency – nothing ever is – but for all the album’s rather thrilling jousting with hubris, quite a lot of High Violet is still very recognisably the work of people who play in jeans and sneakers (as opposed to the capes and embroidered robes that feel more appropriate to the grander moments). Possibly ironically, however, it’s precisely these tracks that hobble High Violet short of giddying greatness: measured against the towering peaks of the record, they feel meagre. “Little Faith” aspires to the gloomy grandeur of The Cure circa Disintegration, but buries its hesitant melody beneath an oppressive arrangement. “Anyone’s Ghost” is a daubed-by-numbers exercise in gothic pop: it might have been the fourth single off any given Psychedelic Furs album. And the first single off this LP, “Bloodbuzz Ohio”, feels a copout: a potentially colossal rock anthem – never necessarily a bad thing – thrown away on a lyric which seems vexingly determined to be about nothing at all (Berninger is occasionally wrongfooted by the slenderness of the line that separates the oblique from the opaque). High Violet is going to be huge, which is no problem whatsoever: it happens to far worse records all the time. But it isn’t all it could be, and nor are the band who made it, at least not yet. The National are still contemplating their potential like it’s a glowering sarcophagus retrieved from an allegedly cursed tomb, their excitement tempered with superstitious trepidation. They need to get used to the idea that they’re on the verge of doing what every band worth hearing dreams of doing – ie, mattering – and that they might well deserve to. Andrew Mueller

There is something anomalous, anachronistic, even quaint, about the career trajectory negotiated by Brooklyn quintet The National.

Twenty or thirty years ago, it wouldn’t have been that unusual. Rock group form, garner a modest following, acquire a respectable critical reputation, release a succession of increasingly accomplished and confident albums, finally penetrate the consciousness of that much-desired demographic of people who only buy two albums a year, and are hailed overnight successes about a decade after their first rehearsal.

It’s REM from “Radio Free Europe” to Document, and it doesn’t happen much, any more: record companies trying to survive until the end of next month tend not to make long-term investments, so you get one chance, now, maybe a chance and a half if you’re lucky. The National, a decade and some change and five albums into their career, have been very, very lucky – but then, as Matt Berninger and the brothers Dessner and Devendorf remind frequently on this (in every sense of the word) ambitious record, the good fortune is merited.

There is no doubt at all that The National believe that High Violet – their fifth album, and their first recorded in their own studio – represents their shot at the title. The National’s previous albums, especially 2007’s Boxer, have hardly lacked for widescreen soundscapes, multi-spired sonic cathedrals, and so forth – diffident, reticent indie rockers tend not to have their songs appropriated by presidential candidates, as Boxer cut “Fake Empire” was by Barack Obama.

Even in this context, however, High Violet represents a substantial jettisoning of whatever vestiges of self-consciousness might still have been preventing The National from daring to imagine themselves as platinum-selling arena headliners: this is emphatically not an LP conceived to flatter the vanities of a cult following. The opening track, “Terrible Love”, starts out as a scuffed-up, Mary Chainish take on the Velvets’ “Heroin”, but by the end of its four-and-a-half minute run time it has escalated into a monumental symphony embellished by thunderous drums and choirs of backing vocals. Though its evocation of the hypnotic furies of Joy Division remind of where The National are coming from, its suggestion of U2’s No Line On The Horizon is an unmissable signpost to where The National think they’re going.

It’s a fraught business, entangling with the epic. Get it right, and you’ve acquired the means to create a genuinely thrilling euphoria, the opportunity to redraw the wider culture on your own terms, and a license to print money.

At the peak moments of High Violet, The National are magnificent. The transatlantic lament “England” (“You must be somewhere in London,” croons Berninger, “You must be loving your life in the rain”) broods amid gloomy strings before erupting into the sort of ecstatic coda surely written in anticipation of being illuminated by the light of thousands of mobile phones waving to the beat. “Conversation 16” is as elegantly melancholy and mournfully melodic as any ballad by The Blue Nile, and promises the richly appealing prospect of large crowds of people singing along to the refrain “I was afraid/I’d eat your brains”. “Afraid Of Everyone” is the sort of allusive state-of-the-union address which REM regularly delivered in their commercial pomp in the late ’80s and early ’90s: to an ominously martial backbeat and a musical backdrop of angelic, half-sighed backing vocals, Berninger stumbles in his “shiny new star-spangled tennis shoes” through an America torn by the gravitational tug of opposed cultural poles (or, as Berninger has it, between “the young blue body and the old red body”). He gracefully avoids the amateur’s error of proposing a remedy: “I don’t have the drugs to sort it out,” is as good a response as any.

High Violet is, then, very much the sort of LP likely to prompt a certain degree of resentful harumphing from the sort of people who derive righteous satisfaction from liking a band before everybody else does. It won’t be much consolation to this tendency – nothing ever is – but for all the album’s rather thrilling jousting with hubris, quite a lot of High Violet is still very recognisably the work of people who play in jeans and sneakers (as opposed to the capes and embroidered robes that feel more appropriate to the grander moments).

Possibly ironically, however, it’s precisely these tracks that hobble High Violet short of giddying greatness: measured against the towering peaks of the record, they feel meagre. “Little Faith” aspires to the gloomy grandeur of The Cure circa Disintegration, but buries its hesitant melody beneath an oppressive arrangement. “Anyone’s Ghost” is a daubed-by-numbers exercise in gothic pop: it might have been the fourth single off any given Psychedelic Furs album. And the first single off this LP, “Bloodbuzz Ohio”, feels a copout: a potentially colossal rock anthem – never necessarily a bad thing – thrown away on a lyric which seems vexingly determined to be about nothing at all (Berninger is occasionally wrongfooted by the slenderness of the line that separates the oblique from the opaque).

High Violet is going to be huge, which is no problem whatsoever: it happens to far worse records all the time. But it isn’t all it could be, and nor are the band who made it, at least not yet. The National are still contemplating their potential like it’s a glowering sarcophagus retrieved from an allegedly cursed tomb, their excitement tempered with superstitious trepidation. They need to get used to the idea that they’re on the verge of doing what every band worth hearing dreams of doing – ie, mattering – and that they might well deserve to.

Andrew Mueller

THE HOLD STEADY – HEAVEN IS WHENEVER

Uncut
-
0
THE HOLD STEADY – HEAVEN IS WHENEVER

You’ll have caught the gist of The Hold Steady by now. Over their previous four albums the adopted Brooklynites have honed their one big idea to the edge of greatness: soulful, unfussy bar-room rock shackled to Craig Finn’s hyper-literate tales of lost souls. These are songs populated with easy girls and aimless guys who are everyone’s second choice, battling defeat and despair with cheap drugs, casual sex, booze and God. Occasionally they’re rewarded with a glimpse of something affirming; more often they’re left to pick up the pieces and stagger on. The band’s focus was forensic, burrowing into the detail of ordinary lives until you could see bone. Album by album they created an epic narrative with a cumulative force that went beyond the merely cinematic, closer in spirit to a rolling TV saga – The Wire, say. But every story must reach its conclusion. 2008’s Stay Positive was a companion piece to its predecessor, Boys And Girls In America, and it felt like the end of the line for Finn’s cast of misfits. Perhaps because he’s pushing 40, perhaps because success alters everything, or perhaps because he sensed he was writing himself into a corner, on Heaven Is Whenever Finn has changed tack. The stories here are built to a smaller scale, edging towards something more hopeful, more personal. On the superb “Soft In The Center” he plays it straight as the sympathetic mentor to a younger man, imparting hard-won relationship advice over a soaring chorus. “We Can Get Together” tracks an affair through precious musical memories, taking its romantic cues from Todd Rundgren’s Utopia. “They sang, ‘Love Is The Answer’, and I think they’re probably right,” Finn all but purrs, above a swooning coda of sweet harmonies and cascading piano. Finn may not have found The Answer, but it does sound suspiciously like he has found love. When he sings “struggle feels wonderful most days” on the vast, beautiful closer “A Slight Discomfort” it has all the force of a manifesto: Heaven Is Whenever is about how a lifetime of bad breaks makes the fleeting moments of euphoria taste all the sweeter. The musical focus, too, is tighter. Recorded in bite-sized bursts with long-time collaborator Dean Baltulonis, the 10 tracks have a sharpness and sense of space that the sometimes cluttered Stay Positive lacked. The recent departure of keyboardist Franz Nicolay means piano and keys are now added to taste rather than smeared liberally. Tad Kubler’s guitar moves centre stage, slipping from the thunderous rhythm of “The Smidge” to the lilting, Smithsy arpeggios of “We Can Be Together”. He’s devastating on “The Sweet Part Of The City”, unleashing a rolling avalanche of slide and acoustic picking which sounds like the Stones’ “No Expectations” on turbo boost. These aren’t necessarily seismic shifts. Finn still ticks off the desperados “passing round the thermos” and throws around references to Saint Theresa like a man tossing his last few dollars on the bar. “Our Whole Lives” could have slipped onto any of their other albums, yet another tale of religion and hedonism butting heads (“Father I’ve sinned and I want to do it all again”) set to some long-lost Born To Run outtake. But it’s the natural, assured way in which Heaven Is Whenever moves between building on past glories and breaking fresh ground that’s so impressive. The Hold Steady are writing a new chapter that promises to be just as compelling as their last. Graeme Thomson

You’ll have caught the gist of The Hold Steady by now. Over their previous four albums the adopted Brooklynites have honed their one big idea to the edge of greatness: soulful, unfussy bar-room rock shackled to Craig Finn’s hyper-literate tales of lost souls.

These are songs populated with easy girls and aimless guys who are everyone’s second choice, battling defeat and despair with cheap drugs, casual sex, booze and God. Occasionally they’re rewarded with a glimpse of something affirming; more often they’re left to pick up the pieces and stagger on. The band’s focus was forensic, burrowing into the detail of ordinary lives until you could see bone. Album by album they created an epic narrative with a cumulative force that went beyond the merely cinematic, closer in spirit to a rolling TV saga – The Wire, say.

But every story must reach its conclusion. 2008’s Stay Positive was a companion piece to its predecessor, Boys And Girls In America, and it felt like the end of the line for Finn’s cast of misfits. Perhaps because he’s pushing 40, perhaps because success alters everything, or perhaps because he sensed he was writing himself into a corner, on Heaven Is Whenever Finn has changed tack. The stories here are built to a smaller scale, edging towards something more hopeful, more personal.

On the superb “Soft In The Center” he plays it straight as the sympathetic mentor to a younger man, imparting hard-won relationship advice over a soaring chorus. “We Can Get Together” tracks an affair through precious musical memories, taking its romantic cues from Todd Rundgren’s Utopia. “They sang, ‘Love Is The Answer’, and I think they’re probably right,” Finn all but purrs, above a swooning coda of sweet harmonies and cascading piano.

Finn may not have found The Answer, but it does sound suspiciously like he has found love. When he sings “struggle feels wonderful most days” on the vast, beautiful closer “A Slight Discomfort” it has all the force of a manifesto: Heaven Is Whenever is about how a lifetime of bad breaks makes the fleeting moments of euphoria taste all the sweeter.

The musical focus, too, is tighter. Recorded in bite-sized bursts with long-time collaborator Dean Baltulonis, the 10 tracks have a sharpness and sense of space that the sometimes cluttered Stay Positive lacked. The recent departure of keyboardist Franz Nicolay means piano and keys are now added to taste rather than smeared liberally. Tad Kubler’s guitar moves centre stage, slipping from the thunderous rhythm of “The Smidge” to the lilting, Smithsy arpeggios of “We Can Be Together”. He’s devastating on “The Sweet Part Of The City”, unleashing a rolling avalanche of slide and acoustic picking which sounds like the Stones’ “No Expectations” on turbo boost.

These aren’t necessarily seismic shifts. Finn still ticks off the desperados “passing round the thermos” and throws around references to Saint Theresa like a man tossing his last few dollars on the bar. “Our Whole Lives” could have slipped onto any of their other albums, yet another tale of religion and hedonism butting heads (“Father I’ve sinned and I want to do it all again”) set to some long-lost Born To Run outtake. But it’s the natural, assured way in which Heaven Is Whenever moves between building on past glories and breaking fresh ground that’s so impressive. The Hold Steady are writing a new chapter that promises to be just as compelling as their last.

Graeme Thomson

THE DEAD WEATHER – SEA OF COWARDS

Uncut
-
0
THE DEAD WEATHER – SEA OF COWARDS

For all his achievements, Jack White is not a man to romanticise the creative process. Rather than waiting for the muse, White is someone who diarises a meeting with that muse, who treats the business of creativity in refreshingly practical terms. Talking to Uncut about the last White Stripes album Icky Thump, White described his and Meg White’s efforts in terms of manual work: making the album was like packing boxes “and shipping them to Switzerland.” If you wanted a visual anecdote for his method, it’s hard to better the trailer for It Might Get Loud. On his porch, White builds a primitive guitar from a plank. Immediately, he begins to play. The Dead Weather are the latest band to have emerged from White’s restlessness. In an 18-month period which has seen the opening of Third Man records in Nashville, White’s production for raw-voiced rock legend Wanda Jackson, a recording session with Jay-Z, and even a decent record by his wife, Karen Elson, the band have also swiftly followed up their hectic debut, 2009’s Horehound. The drummer, producer, and occasional vocalist for the project, this is a band who very much fit in to White’s scheme. If The White Stripes are to be discerned by the colours red, white and black, and The Raconteurs by their signifier of copper, then The Dead Weather might be best represented by black leather. Comprising his Raconteurs associate Jack Lawrence, Alison Mosshart from The Kills and Dean Fertita from Queens Of The Stone Age, this is a band comprised of folks whose day jobs are in high level, modern rock’n’roll. Never is this more evident on Sea Of Cowards’ best track, “Gasoline”: where we witness what could once have been unselfconsciously described as “twin guitar fireworks”. This is not, however, simply a display of virtuosity for its own sake, but something much more interesting: essentially, Fertita and White get to trading licks, but in doing so go beyond the bounds of good taste, the high-pitched wailing and bickering of their guitars both thrilling and funny, fully cognisant of how absurd, and yet how brilliant is the nature of their competition. This, undoubtedly, is wherein lies the value of The Dead Weather. In the past, White has spoken of how, since the possibility of making entirely “new” music remains a pretty remote one, the way forward for him will likely be to go deeper into what he already knows. It’s duly hard not to think of The Dead Weather as a kind of research lab into the gestures and history of rock’n’roll. In the best-case scenario, all of Sea Of Cowards would deliver material as exciting as “Gasoline”, but what the band often come up with are familiar strains of vaguely gothic blues rock. Things open promisingly with “Blue Blood Blues”, sung by White, and with “Hustle And Cuss”, which is like a potted history of British heavy rock, referencing Zeppelin, and with organ swells redolent of Deep Purple. Less convincing, though are “The Difference Between Us” and “I’m Mad”, segued together, really more grooves than actual songs. It’s a pattern redeemed by “Jawbreaker”, however, where more heroic soloing lifts things out of the ordinary. In fairness, Sea… doesn’t outstay its welcome, with many of the songs under three minutes, the product of the intense studio sessions for which the band are famed. (While I was listening to the album on the bus, the vehicle was struck by lightning, the kind of incident you might imagine might delight The Dead Weather.) One wonders if more time spent on the composition, rather than relishing this profusion of creativity might have yielded more significant results, but it’s hard to see how that would fit in with White’s plans. This, after all, is someone who seems to want to compete on every level. He wants success, but to keep his conscience clean. He’s started an indie label, but is releasing this through Warners (the last was on Columbia, while White retains association with XL). He wants to swim with the sharks while retaining the integrity of the small pond. Sea Of Cowards is undeniably a major rock record in terms of production and personnel, but is caught between two camps: what it contains is neither major, nor indie, simply enjoyably minor. John Robinson

For all his achievements, Jack White is not a man to romanticise the creative process. Rather than waiting for the muse, White is someone who diarises a meeting with that muse, who treats the business of creativity in refreshingly practical terms.

Talking to Uncut about the last White Stripes album Icky Thump, White described his and Meg White’s efforts in terms of manual work: making the album was like packing boxes “and shipping them to Switzerland.” If you wanted a visual anecdote for his method, it’s hard to better the trailer for It Might Get Loud. On his porch, White builds a primitive guitar from a plank. Immediately, he begins to play.

The Dead Weather are the latest band to have emerged from White’s restlessness. In an 18-month period which has seen the opening of Third Man records in Nashville, White’s production for raw-voiced rock legend Wanda Jackson, a recording session with Jay-Z, and even a decent record by his wife, Karen Elson, the band have also swiftly followed up their hectic debut, 2009’s Horehound.

The drummer, producer, and occasional vocalist for the project, this is a band who very much fit in to White’s scheme. If The White Stripes are to be discerned by the colours red, white and black, and The Raconteurs by their signifier of copper, then The Dead Weather might be best represented by black leather. Comprising his Raconteurs associate Jack Lawrence, Alison Mosshart from The Kills and Dean Fertita from Queens Of The Stone Age, this is a band comprised of folks whose day jobs are in high level, modern rock’n’roll.

Never is this more evident on Sea Of Cowards’ best track, “Gasoline”: where we witness what could once have been unselfconsciously described as “twin guitar fireworks”. This is not, however, simply a display of virtuosity for its own sake, but something much more interesting: essentially, Fertita and White get to trading licks, but in doing so go beyond the bounds of good taste, the high-pitched wailing and bickering of their guitars both thrilling and funny, fully cognisant of how absurd, and yet how brilliant is the nature of their competition.

This, undoubtedly, is wherein lies the value of The Dead Weather. In the past, White has spoken of how, since the possibility of making entirely “new” music remains a pretty remote one, the way forward for him will likely be to go deeper into what he already knows. It’s duly hard not to think of The Dead Weather as a kind of research lab into the gestures and history of rock’n’roll.

In the best-case scenario, all of Sea Of Cowards would deliver material as exciting as “Gasoline”, but what the band often come up with are familiar strains of vaguely gothic blues rock. Things open promisingly with “Blue Blood Blues”, sung by White, and with “Hustle And Cuss”, which is like a potted history of British heavy rock, referencing Zeppelin, and with organ swells redolent of Deep Purple. Less convincing, though are “The Difference Between Us” and “I’m Mad”, segued together, really more grooves than actual songs. It’s a pattern redeemed by “Jawbreaker”, however, where more heroic soloing lifts things out of the ordinary.

In fairness, Sea… doesn’t outstay its welcome, with many of the songs under three minutes, the product of the intense studio sessions for which the band are famed. (While I was listening to the album on the bus, the vehicle was struck by lightning, the kind of incident you might imagine might delight The Dead Weather.) One wonders if more time spent on the composition, rather than relishing this profusion of creativity might have yielded more significant results, but it’s hard to see how that would fit in with White’s plans. This, after all, is someone who seems to want to compete on every level. He wants success, but to keep his conscience clean. He’s started an indie label, but is releasing this through Warners (the last was on Columbia, while White retains association with XL). He wants to swim with the sharks while retaining the integrity of the small pond.

Sea Of Cowards is undeniably a major rock record in terms of production and personnel, but is caught between two camps: what it contains is neither major, nor indie, simply enjoyably minor.

John Robinson

Neil Young live in Albany and Buffalo

John Mulvey
-
0

An email over the weekend from Mark Golley, who's gone over to the States to catch a few dates on the solo tour Neil Young's doing with Bert Jansch in support. It's really interesting stuff about Young's latest capricious and intriguing career swerve - "performance and spook in equal measure" - so I figured that, with Mark's permission, I'd reprint it here. "I came over to the US on Sunday," writes Mark, "and show one was Tuesday in Albany, NY. "A genuinely remarkable show. Maybe not the best Neil show I've seen (I'm in the mid-50s there), but easily the most intense, darkest and weirdest.Seven new songs from his new "Twisted Road" project; an 18-song set(identical but tighter - more subtle - on night two in Buffalo). "Despite being solo, only three songs were done on one of his acoustic Martins. There's one each for the tack piano, the pump organ and the grand piano. Everything else is on Old Black or the Gretsch White Falcon. "Extraordinary deconstructions of "Down By The River", "Cinnamon Girl" and "Cortez The Killer". "Ohio" is towering, but it's "Hitchhiker" (rare as hen's teeth and resurrected here in an immense new form), hammered out on the Gibson, that shines like a beacon, the pivotal song which everything else hangs around. "The new songs are tough to love at first, black to the core (the death of LA Johnson looming large, understandably so) but there are chinks of light. There's some Nash -like whimsy on "Leia", a song which was thought to be about his granddaughter (on night three Neil seemed to suggest otherwise). But the Lanois influence is washed over some new songs with the heaviest of brush strokes. "(I'm told that, as it stands, the new album will be a solo electric record...I'm guessing that the material I know was recorded at the end of last year and early this year has been put on the back burner. These new songs are really new...) "Black & white, light & dark, life & death... He's counting down to the end in a stark, desperately revealing way.Almost surreal,the shows are heavy, draining, dense, intense and challenging. Hhe's reinventing his own set of wheels. Again... "Like no shows I've ever seen from Neil...." Thanks so much for this, Mark. Any more reports from those of you who've seen the shows will be hugely appreciated.

An email over the weekend from Mark Golley, who’s gone over to the States to catch a few dates on the solo tour Neil Young‘s doing with Bert Jansch in support. It’s really interesting stuff about Young’s latest capricious and intriguing career swerve – “performance and spook in equal measure” – so I figured that, with Mark’s permission, I’d reprint it here.

Continue

Arcade Fire preview new single online

Uncut
-
0
Arcade Fire preview new single online
Arcade Fire have previewed their forthcoming 12-inch single online. Called 'The Suburbs'/'Month Of May', the double A-side will be "in stores in the next couple weeks" according to the group. The band are now previewing a sample from both tracks on Arcadefire.com. Arcade Fire's third album is expe...

Arcade Fire have previewed their forthcoming 12-inch single online.

Called ‘The Suburbs’/’Month Of May’, the double A-side will be “in stores in the next couple weeks” according to the group. The band are now previewing a sample from both tracks on Arcadefire.com.

Arcade Fire‘s third album is expected to be released sometime this summer. They are set to headline the Reading And Leeds Festivals, which take place between August 27 and 29.

Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

Paul Weller and The Coral to play Summer Madness festival

Uncut
-
0
Paul Weller and The Coral to play Summer Madness festival
The Coral and Paul Weller have been announced to play this year's Summer Madness festival. The Hoylake band join headliner Weller at the Isle Of Wight bash, as well as local act The Bees, Brand New Heavies and Twisted Wheel. Summer Madness takes place on the Isle Of Wight on August 29. The full l...

The Coral and Paul Weller have been announced to play this year’s Summer Madness festival.

The Hoylake band join headliner Weller at the Isle Of Wight bash, as well as local act The Bees, Brand New Heavies and Twisted Wheel.

Summer Madness takes place on the Isle Of Wight on August 29.

The full line-up for Summer Madness is:

Paul Weller

The Coral

The Bees

The Chords

Imelda May

Brand New Heavies

DJ Eddie Piller

Twisted Wheel

Tickets are on sale now.

Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

Special Muse collectors magazine published by Uncut and NME

Uncut
-
0
Special Muse collectors magazine published by Uncut and NME

A limited-edition Muse magazine has been published by Uncut and its sister-title NME. The special collectors magazine features 100-pages of archive material relating to the Devon band, with articles covering their entire career. It includes numerous features, extensive reviews, interviews and the stories behind the trio's songs and albums. The magazine is on sale now and is limited-edition. Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

A limited-edition Muse magazine has been published by Uncut and its sister-title NME.

The special collectors magazine features 100-pages of archive material relating to the Devon band, with articles covering their entire career. It includes numerous features, extensive reviews, interviews and the stories behind the trio’s songs and albums.

The magazine is on sale now and is limited-edition.

Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

Elvis Costello cancels Israel gig for political reasons

Uncut
-
0
Elvis Costello cancels Israel gig for political reasons
Elvis Costello has announced the cancellation of two gigs in Israel, as a protest of the country's treatment of Palestinians. Writing on Elviscostello.com, the singer said he feared that playing the gigs in Caesarea on June 30 and July 1 could be seen as him supporting the country's government. "T...

Elvis Costello has announced the cancellation of two gigs in Israel, as a protest of the country’s treatment of Palestinians.

Writing on Elviscostello.com, the singer said he feared that playing the gigs in Caesarea on June 30 and July 1 could be seen as him supporting the country’s government.

“Then there are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent,” Costello wrote.

He added: “I must believe that the audience for the coming concerts would have contained many people who question the policies of their government on settlement and deplore conditions that visit intimidation, humiliation or much worse on Palestinian civilians in the name of national security.

“Sometimes a silence in music is better than adding to the static and so an end to it. I cannot imagine receiving another invitation to perform in Israel, which is a matter of regret, but I can imagine a better time when I would not be writing this.”

Costello isn’t the first musician to deliberate over playing the country. Gil Scott-Heron and Carlos Santana are among the artists to have cancelled gigs at protest towards the government, although Paul McCartney played there in 2008.

Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

The Rolling Stones on course to get first Number One album in 16 years

Uncut
-
0
The Rolling Stones on course to get first Number One album in 16 years
The Rolling Stones are on course to have their first UK Number One album in 16 years this Sunday (May 23). Their re-released version of 'Exile On Main Street' is currently top of the midweek charts. If it stays in that position, it will be the first time the band have topped the chart since 1994's ...

The Rolling Stones are on course to have their first UK Number One album in 16 years this Sunday (May 23).

Their re-released version of ‘Exile On Main Street’ is currently top of the midweek charts. If it stays in that position, it will be the first time the band have topped the chart since 1994’s ‘Voodoo Lounge’.

The new release of ‘Exile On Main Street’ contains a host of newly-discovered, unreleased tracks by the band.

Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

Paul McCartney to host webchat

Uncut
-
0
Paul McCartney to host webchat
Paul McCartney is to speak to fans in his fist ever webchat tomorrow (May 20). The former Beatle, who is gearing up to head to Mexico as part of his current world tour, will take time out of his rehearsals to chat to fans online for 20 minutes from 5pm (GMT) tomorrow. He'll will also announce the w...

Paul McCartney is to speak to fans in his fist ever webchat tomorrow (May 20).

The former Beatle, who is gearing up to head to Mexico as part of his current world tour, will take time out of his rehearsals to chat to fans online for 20 minutes from 5pm (GMT) tomorrow. He’ll will also announce the winners of a competition run by Paulmccartney.com during the chat.

To take part in the webchat, head to Ustream.tv/paulmccartney.

Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

The 20th Uncut Playlist Of 2010

John Mulvey
-
0

Only had half an ear on new records these past couple of days, since Mark and I have been sifting through your many, many nominations for Great Lost Albums, following our special the other month. Pretty amazing discoveries there, that are going to keep us busy for a while. There is, though, one fairly auspicious new arrival that I can’t talk about for a bit: place your guesses here to be met with the usual devious, non-committal shrugs and so on. And if you have a moment, please check out a new blog, Electric Eden, by our colleague and friend, Rob Young. It’s been launched to coincide with the impending publication of Rob’s book of the same name, a history of visionary British folk music, which is the first music book I’ve been excited to read in quite a while. Plenty of interesting stuff on the blog already. 1 Heaven And – Bye And Bye I’m Going To See The King (Staubgold) 2 A Brand New Mystery Record 3 Cheikh Lo – Jamm (World Circuit) 4 Department Of Eagles – Archive 2003-2006 (Bella Union) 5 David Wrench/Black Sheep – Spades & Hoes & Ploughs: Songs Of Insurrection, Defiance & Rebellion (Invada) 6 Avi Buffalo – Avi Buffalo (Sub Pop) 7 Big Boi – Shutterbugg (Mercury) 8 Diskjokke – En Fid Tid (Smalltown Supersound) 9 Underworld – Scribble (www.underworldlive.com) 10 Steve Winwood – Revolutions: The Very Best Of Steve Winwood (Island) 11 Rangda – False Flag (Drag City) 12 Land Of Kush’s Egyptian Light Orchestra – Monogamy (Constellation) 13 The Teardrop Explodes – Kilimanjaro: Deluxe Edition (Mercury) 14 Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today (4AD) 15 Endless Boogie – Full House Head (No Quarter)

Only had half an ear on new records these past couple of days, since Mark and I have been sifting through your many, many nominations for Great Lost Albums, following our special the other month. Pretty amazing discoveries there, that are going to keep us busy for a while.

Continue

Bobby Womack: ‘Damon Albarn is like Jimi Hendrix or Ray Charles’

Uncut
-
0
Bobby Womack: ‘Damon Albarn is like Jimi Hendrix or Ray Charles’
Bobby Womack has compared Damon Albarn to the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Ray Charles, both of whom he has worked with in the past. Womack sang on recent Gorillaz single 'Stylo' and has been performing live with the band. Speaking of the hook up to The Sun, he explained that working with Albarn had r...

Bobby Womack has compared Damon Albarn to the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Ray Charles, both of whom he has worked with in the past.

Womack sang on recent Gorillaz single ‘Stylo’ and has been performing live with the band. Speaking of the hook up to The Sun, he explained that working with Albarn had reminded him of some of his previous studio partners.

“He’s the same way [Hendrix and Charles were]. He’s very creative and thinks way out there, trying things that people don’t try,” Womack said, adding that “working with Gorillaz was different” because “their ain’t no ego – these guys are cool”.

Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

Ronnie James Dio dies of cancer

Uncut
-
0
Ronnie James Dio dies of cancer
Black Sabbath, Rainbow and Dio singer Ronnie James Dio has passed away after losing his battle with stomach cancer. Dio, aged 67, had died on Sunday (May 16), after being diagnosed with the condition last November. His wife and manager Wendy Dio posted a statement on his official site Ronniejamesd...

Black Sabbath, Rainbow and Dio singer Ronnie James Dio has passed away after losing his battle with stomach cancer.

Dio, aged 67, had died on Sunday (May 16), after being diagnosed with the condition last November.

His wife and manager Wendy Dio posted a statement on his official site Ronniejamesdio.com which read: “Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us.”

She added: “Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever.”

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich also paid tribute, writing an open letter on Metallica.com, where he explained that he has been a lifelong fan of the singer.

“I made the pilgrimage to the Plaza Hotel to see if I could somehow grab a picture, an autograph, a moment, anything,” Ulrich wrote. “A few hours later you came out and were so kind and caring… pictures, autographs and a couple minutes of casual banter. I was on top of the world, inspired and ready for anything.”

The drummer added: “When we finally got a chance to play together in Austria in 2007, even though I may not have let on, I was literally transformed back to that little snot-nosed kid who you met and inspired 31 years earlier.”

Dio, who replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath in 1979, fronted Heaven & Hell and Dio before his death.

Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

Buzzcocks classics get covered by The Whip, Mike Joyce and I Am Kloot

Uncut
-
0
Buzzcocks classics get covered by The Whip, Mike Joyce and I Am Kloot

Bands and artists including former Smiths drummer Mike Joyce, The Whip and I Am Kloot have come together to perform a series of covers of Buzzcocks songs. The acts, all performing as part of the [url=http://www.nme.com/jdset]JD Set[/url], tackle tracks by the Manchester punk legends including 'Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)' and 'Orgasm Addict', and you can watch the videos on Uncut.co.uk's sister title [url=http://www.nme.com]NME.COM[/url] now. I Am Kloot frontman [url=http://www.nme.com/video?bcpid=26429438001&bctid=84983447001]John Bramwell performs his cover of Buzzcocks' 'Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)'[/url] at Manchester's Blueprint Studio, while [url=http://www.nme.com/video?bcpid=26429438001&bctid=84357648001]The Whip and Mike Joyce tackle the same track live[/url]. Meanwhile, [url=http://www.nme.com/video?bcpid=26429438001&bctid=84983446001]Twisted Wheel's Jonny Brown and The Answering Machine cover 'Orgasm Addict'[/url]. See [url=http://www.nme.com/jdset]NME.COM/jdset[/url] and [url=http://www.thejdset.co.uk]Thejdset.co.uk[/url] for more information on the videos. Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

Bands and artists including former Smiths drummer Mike Joyce, The Whip and I Am Kloot have come together to perform a series of covers of Buzzcocks songs.

The acts, all performing as part of the [url=http://www.nme.com/jdset]JD Set[/url], tackle tracks by the Manchester punk legends including ‘Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)’ and ‘Orgasm Addict’, and you can watch the videos on Uncut.co.uk‘s sister title [url=http://www.nme.com]NME.COM[/url] now.

I Am Kloot frontman [url=http://www.nme.com/video?bcpid=26429438001&bctid=84983447001]John Bramwell performs his cover of Buzzcocks’ ‘Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)'[/url] at Manchester‘s Blueprint Studio, while [url=http://www.nme.com/video?bcpid=26429438001&bctid=84357648001]The Whip and Mike Joyce tackle the same track live[/url].

Meanwhile, [url=http://www.nme.com/video?bcpid=26429438001&bctid=84983446001]Twisted Wheel’s Jonny Brown and The Answering Machine cover ‘Orgasm Addict'[/url].

See [url=http://www.nme.com/jdset]NME.COM/jdset[/url] and [url=http://www.thejdset.co.uk]Thejdset.co.uk[/url] for more information on the videos.

Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

Tom Jones to cover Bob Dylan, John Lee Hooker on new album

Uncut
-
0
Tom Jones to cover Bob Dylan, John Lee Hooker on new album
Tom Jones is to release an album featuring covers of songs by artists such as Bob Dylan, John Lee Hooker and Billy Joe Shaver. Called 'Praise And Blame', the album is released on July 26. The album was produced by Ethan Johns (Kings Of Leon, Rufus Wainwright, Laura Marling). The tracklisting (ori...

Tom Jones is to release an album featuring covers of songs by artists such as Bob Dylan, John Lee Hooker and Billy Joe Shaver.

Called ‘Praise And Blame’, the album is released on July 26.

The album was produced by Ethan Johns (Kings Of Leon, Rufus Wainwright, Laura Marling).

The tracklisting (original artists in brackets where appropriate) of ‘Praise and Blame’ is:

‘What Good Am I’ (Bob Dylan)

‘Lord Help’ (Jesse Mae Hemphill)

‘Did Trouble Me’ (Susan Werner)

‘Strange Things’

‘Burning Hell’ (John Lee Hooker)

‘If I Give My Soul’ (Billy Joe Shaver)

‘Don’t Knock’

‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine’

‘Didn’t It Rain’

‘Ain’t No Grave’

‘Run On’

Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

Arcade Fire announce new single details

Uncut
-
0
Arcade Fire announce new single details
Arcade Fire are to release a new single in the next few weeks. Writing on their official website, Arcadefire.com, the Canadian band revealed that they are planning on getting a 12-inch vinyl release in shops soon. "Just finishing up pressing our new 12-inch," they wrote. "Should be in stores in t...

Arcade Fire are to release a new single in the next few weeks.

Writing on their official website, Arcadefire.com, the Canadian band revealed that they are planning on getting a 12-inch vinyl release in shops soon.

“Just finishing up pressing our new 12-inch,” they wrote. “Should be in stores in the next couple weeks. God willing.”

The band, who headline the Reading And Leeds Festivals this August, are expected to release a new album, possibly a double, later in 2010.

Latest music and film news on Uncut.co.uk.

IGGY AND THE STOOGES – RAW POWER

Uncut
-
0
IGGY AND THE STOOGES – RAW POWER

Is there some rock law about archive sets, where the less success you have, the more your work is catalogued, fussed over and released in luxury annotated collections? “Yes” would appear to be the answer, judging by the career of Iggy and/or The Stooges. With seemingly every gig they ever recorded now available, and with a million comps, remixed LPs and officialised bootlegs out there, bands like the Stooges rival the then-even-more-unpopular likes of Throbbing Gristle and Suicide for posthumous prolificacy. We’ve all become used to acts releasing more records after death than when alive, but it now seems that the Stooges – unloved and unsuccessful in their addled heyday – are about to rival one-man heritage sausage machine Neil Young in their updated back pages. You’ve probably, if you’re reading this, already got Raw Power by Iggy & The Stooges, the 1973 album by Ann Arbor’s unfinest. You may have the original Bowie-produced vinyl, the “original” CD, or even the 1996 “violent” CD remixes by Iggy Pop. Perhaps you even have the Georgia Peaches live bootleg, from the October 1973 concert at Richards in Atlanta. If you’re still reading this, you quite possibly have all of those items and are wondering what’s actually new in this collection. Good question; how many times have we obsessives bought some hand-tooled tool of a boxed set or limited edition padded out with dance mixes and something horrible with Elton John on backing vocals? Too often. I am happy to relate that this new Raw Power is nothing like that. Bowie’s original, insane, “tell the guitar to get DOWN from there” mix is restored, as mad and non-linear as it always was, but sounding as clean as hell ever can. (Some of Iggy’s ’90s mixes turn up right at the end, like weird relatives late for a wedding.) This is the best Raw Power has sounded since it was first humiliating people’s turntables in the 1970s. The live CD, which is the Georgia Peaches bootleg, sounds excellent, radio broadcast quality, and is notable for a) the frequency with which Iggy insults the audience and b) the length of some of the songs. It’s like being there, except Iggy can’t hurt you. And it ends with the Raw Power out-take “Doojiman”, where Iggy sings made up-noises for quite a while. It’s very good. The third CD is more of a grab-bag, but you won’t be bored. “I’m Hungry” is, essentially, “I’m Bored” and “Five Foot One”’s granddad over the backing track to “Penetration”. “Hey Peter” (“where you going with that sandwich in your hand?”) is a bit silly. And there are Japanese 45 mixes of “Raw Power” and “Search And Destroy” that are brilliantly rough. Listening to this not as a collector, you are continually impressed with James Williamson’s guitar playing, which is as near to free jazz metal as common sense will allow, with the relentless and also gleeful grind of the rhythm section (the Ashetons, sulking like they mean it), and of course Iggy himself. On this LP, he combines both the scariest elements of the early Stooges and, astonishingly, the South Park grinny loveable pop star that he would one day, absurdly, become. Most of us will be perfectly happy with a single Raw Power disc; the rest will consume this genuinely excellent set, with its booklets, photos and almost complete absence of dud moments, and wait for the forthcoming Arista collection of “Pumpin’ For Jill” remixes. I wish. DAVID QUANTICK

Is there some rock law about archive sets, where the less success you have, the more your work is catalogued, fussed over and released in luxury annotated collections? “Yes” would appear to be the answer, judging by the career of Iggy and/or The Stooges.

With seemingly every gig they ever recorded now available, and with a million comps, remixed LPs and officialised bootlegs out there, bands like the Stooges rival the then-even-more-unpopular likes of Throbbing Gristle and Suicide for posthumous prolificacy. We’ve all become used to acts releasing more records after death than when alive, but it now seems that the Stooges – unloved and unsuccessful in their addled heyday – are about to rival one-man heritage sausage machine Neil Young in their updated back pages.

You’ve probably, if you’re reading this, already got Raw Power by Iggy & The Stooges, the 1973 album by Ann Arbor’s unfinest. You may have the original Bowie-produced vinyl, the “original” CD, or even the 1996 “violent” CD remixes by Iggy Pop. Perhaps you even have the Georgia Peaches live bootleg, from the October 1973 concert at Richards in Atlanta. If you’re still reading this, you quite possibly have all of those items and are wondering what’s actually new in this collection. Good question; how many times have we obsessives bought some hand-tooled tool of a boxed set or limited edition padded out with dance mixes and something horrible with Elton John on backing vocals? Too often.

I am happy to relate that this new Raw Power is nothing like that. Bowie’s original, insane, “tell the guitar to get DOWN from there” mix is restored, as mad and non-linear as it always was, but sounding as clean as hell ever can. (Some of Iggy’s ’90s mixes turn up right at the end, like weird relatives late for a wedding.) This is the best Raw Power has sounded since it was first humiliating people’s turntables in the 1970s. The live CD, which is the Georgia Peaches bootleg, sounds excellent, radio broadcast quality, and is notable for a) the frequency with which Iggy insults the audience and b) the length of some of the songs. It’s like being there, except Iggy can’t hurt you. And it ends with the Raw Power out-take “Doojiman”, where Iggy sings made up-noises for quite a while. It’s very good.

The third CD is more of a grab-bag, but you won’t be bored. “I’m Hungry” is, essentially, “I’m Bored” and “Five Foot One”’s granddad over the backing track to “Penetration”. “Hey Peter” (“where you going with that sandwich in your hand?”) is a bit silly. And there are Japanese 45 mixes of “Raw Power” and “Search And Destroy” that are brilliantly rough.

Listening to this not as a collector, you are continually impressed with James Williamson’s guitar playing, which is as near to free jazz metal as common sense will allow, with the relentless and also gleeful grind of the rhythm section (the Ashetons, sulking like they mean it), and of course Iggy himself. On this LP, he combines both the scariest elements of the early Stooges and, astonishingly, the South Park grinny loveable pop star that he would one day, absurdly, become.

Most of us will be perfectly happy with a single Raw Power disc; the rest will consume this genuinely excellent set, with its booklets, photos and almost complete absence of dud moments, and wait for the forthcoming Arista collection of “Pumpin’ For Jill” remixes. I wish.

DAVID QUANTICK

BAD LIEUTENTANT – PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS

Uncut
-
0
BAD LIEUTENTANT – PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS
DIRECTED BY Werner Herzog STARRING Nic Cage, Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes Although it shares its title and a certain grubbiness with Abel Ferrara’s 1992 Bad Lieutenant, Werner Herzog’s film is a very different proposition. A surprise, you might think: after all, many of Herzog’s protagonists are ...

DIRECTED BY Werner Herzog

STARRING Nic Cage, Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes

Although it shares its title and a certain grubbiness with Abel Ferrara’s 1992 Bad Lieutenant, Werner Herzog’s film is a very different proposition. A surprise, you might think: after all, many of Herzog’s protagonists are eccentric loners, driven by madness and obsession, exactly the kind of character Harvey Keitel played in Ferrara’s film.

But Herzog, a director never known for taking half measures, pushes the original idea of a murderous, depraved and drug-addicted police officer way out there. While it’s true that there are very few actors who’ll take themselves to the edge like Keitel, similarly there’s no-one prepared to unleash his inner freak quite as fearlessly as Nicolas Cage.

Indeed, Herzog is reported to have instructed Cage to “turn the pig loose”. So, sporting one of the most terrifying hairpieces of his career, Cage does adrenalised, bug-eyed intensity as Terence McDonough, a coke-and-Vicodin addicted homicide detective who’s investigating a gangland murder in post-Katrina New Orleans. At the start of the film, McDonough injures his back saving a perp; the injury dogs him continuously, and he assumes a hunched, limping gait, somewhere between Richard III and Quasimodo. The murder case enables us to watch McDonough go about his increasingly deranged business. His interview techniques include cutting off the oxygen supply on an elderly lady’s respirator. He sees a dead man’s soul breakdance, and hallucinates a pair of iguanas – shot in super psychedelic close-up by Herzog – who serenade him with Johnny Adams’ “Release Me”. He’s up to his eyes in gambling debt, and to make matters worse, his girlfriend – call girl Frankie (Eva Mendes) – is having problems with a jilted client.

In lesser filmmakers’ hands, perhaps, this might have been frankly awful. But Herzog runs with the material. Shot in a harsh, bleached-out light, Herzog’s version of New Orleans is, in the wake of Katrina, a rotten and dilapidated Wild West frontier town, recalling LA in classic noirs. Everyone is either on the make or high. Kilmer does good second-string as McDonough’s partner, and there’s great turns from Brad Dourif, Jennifer Coolidge and Fairuza Balk. The story is grim, but, equally, it’s hilarious – Herzog mixing anguish, slapstick, irony and pathos in a way that mirrors McDonough’s own loopy mood swings. Certainly, it’s not a stretch to suggest that Herzog has in Cage found his most simpático lead since the great Klaus Kinski.

MICHAEL BONNER

FOUR LIONS

Uncut
-
0
FOUR LIONS
DIRECTED BY Chris Morris STARRING Riz Ahmed, Adeel Akhtar, Kayvan Novak, Nigel Lindsay Chris Morris’ reputation as a fearless satirist, forged by The Day Today and Brass Eye, is so entrenched that you can forget that his work also has a whimsical sitcom aspect – look at his contributions to th...

DIRECTED BY Chris Morris

STARRING Riz Ahmed, Adeel Akhtar, Kayvan Novak, Nigel Lindsay

Chris Morris’ reputation as a fearless satirist, forged by The Day Today and Brass Eye, is so entrenched that you can forget that his work also has a whimsical sitcom aspect – look at his contributions to the amusing but insubstantial Nathan Barley and The IT Crowd.

Four Lions, his long-anticipated comedy set amid the 21st century jihad, is – perhaps surprisingly – spiritual kin to these latter efforts. Though the humour is grim, it is essentially gentle. Morris and the film’s writers – Peep Show creators Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain – depict the modern holy warrior as hapless rather than evil, more to be pitied than blamed.

They have half a point. Amid the hysteria that’s surrounded the subject since September 11, 2001, the great unsayable has been that most terrorism is rubbish – planned by idiots, executed by morons. Such notable atrocities as 9/11, 7/7, Bali or Madrid were distinguished as much by their competence as their body counts – bids to smite the infidel have more often ended with the would-be perpetrator getting lamped by a Glaswegian baggage-handler or hauled off an aircraft with singed underpants.

Four Lions conjures a British terror cell of exactly this species of dunderhead. Omar (Riz Ahmed) is ringleader in the way that a one-eyed man ends up ruling a kingdom of blind men. Faisal (Adeel Akhtar) is a descendent of Pike, Manuel and Baldrick, harmless and decent, but paralysed by stupidity. Waj (Kayvan Novak) is the dim, enthusiastic cannon fodder necessary to any paramilitary outfit. Barry (Nigel Lindsay) is a white English convert to Islam, inevitably the most boneheadedly militant of the lot. Barry represents that gratingly persistent strain of the Left that will adopt any position, however foolish or disgusting, so long as it pits them in self-righteous opposition to their own country and culture. A few decades ago, a posturing buffoon like Barry would have been a Communist – and the inspiration for Wolfie Smith (Barry’s self-appointed role as “Founder of the Islamic State of Tinsley” is surely a tip of the turban to Citizen Smith’s Tooting Popular Front).

The characters are well acted, and astutely written. Especial care is taken not to turn Omar into a cartoon villain – in an obvious tug on our perplexed memories of the largely ordinary, even admirable, suburban lives of the 7/7 bombers, Omar is depicted as a doting father, adoring husband and genial chap, even to the extent of teasing more devout Muslims about their humourless piety. More crucially, he’s also a stock British comedy lead, believing himself – like Captain Mainwaring, Basil Fawlty and Edmund Blackadder – denied his glorious destiny by the imbecility of his colleagues, which in turn blinds him to his own failings.

The quartet journey to London, intending to visit righteous carnage upon the Marathon. What unfolds is funny without quite being hilarious, tragic without quite being affecting, the satire a series of gentle swipes which never quite threaten to rattle their targets. Perhaps Morris thinks it is statement enough merely to make any sort of satirical foray at Islam, however tentative. Perhaps he’s nervous. He’d have good reasons for this, of course. Theo Van Gogh, approximately Morris’ Dutch equivalent, made a more explicitly confrontational film about Islam in 2004, and was subsequently executed for his troubles on an Amsterdam footpath. And Van Gogh is scarcely alone in having been murdered or threatened with death for having the temerity to ask questions about what Muslims choose to believe.

For whatever reason, Four Lions rather shies away from considering what terrorists think, and concentrates its mockery on what they do. This does result in some moments of priceless slapstick, most of them involving the nice but pathologically dim Faisal, with his useless disguises and cunning plans for exploding crows. The difficulty, whether it was Morris’ intention or not, is that it all feels a bit affectionate, as if the subjects of Four Lions – and, by extension, all putative terrorists – are merely over-excited larrikins who’ll grow out of it eventually.

The single most venomous jab in the film is made at the British security services. In the climactic scenes, a confused police sniper misidentifies a suspect, brings down the wrong man, and says, “It must be the target, I shot it.” In itself, this is a brilliant line of Joseph Heller-esque circular logic. In context, this obvious reference to the death of Jean Charles de Menezes feels like cheap equivalence. The police officers who shot Menezes did not wake that morning intending to kill an innocent person. The bombers of 7/7, and their would-be comrades of 21/7, woke intending to kill as many as possible. Someone possessed of Morris’ rugged moral compass should be able to perceive the difference.

That said, Morris does deserve credit for resisting the common temptation to blame the victims of Islamist terrorism – there’s little credence given here to witless “root causes” theories with which many of Barry’s western fellow travellers excuse the depravities of terrorists. When Omar explains his plans for martyrdom to his son, he does so with clumsy, childish reference to The Lion King, and the internal ideological dicussions of the quartet are an (inevitable) echo of the deliberations of the People’s Front of Judea. There’s also a deft dig at the ridiculous post-9/11 conspirazoid tendency, in Barry’s idea for the cell to blow up a mosque to frame their enemies.

At the heart of Four Lions is the idea that we should perceive fanatics as humans, rather than demons. There is much to be said for this: it’s arguable that it would have been more constructive, after 9/11, for western press and polity to characterise Osama bin-Laden as a dingbat loser ranting in a cave, rather than an omnipotent bearded Blofeld. But by refusing to be quite as bitter and bleak as it could, and probably should, have been, Four Lions ends up feeling weirdly trivial, ultimately little more – though certainly no less – than a diverting knockabout farce. Damningly faint praise to find oneself singing about a Chris Morris film about terrorism.

ANDREW MUELLER

BAND OF HORSES – INFINITE ARMS

Uncut
-
0
BAND OF HORSES – INFINITE ARMS

Beyond the six-string fireworks and an ever-present vocal twang, the current generation of Southern rockers shares one common element with its wild and woolly forebears: the capacity for attaining a sort of spiritual elevation within passages of inspired musical interaction. You can find plenty of these goosebump moments in the work of Kentucky’s My Morning Jacket and Tennessee’s Kings Of Leon – and now in that of South Carolina’s Band Of Horses. On this third LP, Ben Bridwell’s band leave the lo-fi balladry and middling indie-rock rave-ups of their previous two LPs in the dust. That’s not to say these LPs didn’t have their stellar moments: “The Great Salt Lake” and “Funeral” from their 2006 debut, Everything All The Time, and “Is There a Ghost” from ’07’s Cease To Begin were searching visits to a rich Southern rock heritage. With Infinite Arms, however, Bridwell has surpassed himself. Not only has he re-connected with his Southern heart, relocating to South Carolina after starting the band in Seattle, but he’s also surrounded himself with a stable unit: four talented, like-minded players in drummer Creighton Barrett, keyboard player Ryan Monroe, lead guitarist Tyler Ramsey and bassist Bill Reynolds. The first two are on their second Horses record, the other pair joined during touring behind Cease To Begin. Maybe more important, though, are the developments in Bridwell’s songwriting, as he interweaves the elliptical verbiage of his past records with detail of an intensely visual nature. First track “Factory” opens in a hotel lobby, leading to brief eye contact with a stranger in the elevator, a stop at the snack machine and other mundane details that take on an air of mystery through musical context, conjuring up the sort of hyper-reality found in William Eggleston’s photographs. Like those pictures, the songs hint at storylines whose specifics you are left to piece together. Musical and visual juxtapositions permeate the album, taking centre stage on “NW Apt”, a nostalgic, atypically straight-forward series of aural snapshots picturing various places where Bridwell crashed while living in Seattle and touring the region; they’re paired with pile-driving drums and bludgeoning guitars, ending with the hum of an amp hanging in the air like a receding memory. On “Laredo”, the band deftly fuses the buoyancy of The Byrds’ “Feel A Whole Lot Better” with the jutting-jawed physicality of Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Cinnamon Girl” – yet the performance is bracingly modern in its aggression. First single “Compliments” features the close harmonies of Ramsey and Monroe over a “London Calling” strut, and they turn up again in close-mic’ed intimacy on Ramsey’s candlelit ballad “Evening Kitchen” and on the Morgan-penned country-rocker, “Older”. One of the album’s defining aspects is its vivid sense of the American expanse, stretching northward and westward from Bridwell’s Carolina, retracing his own journeys. The title track is a dreamscape that inhabits the woodsy Northwestern terrain of Fleet Foxes, with Bridwell’s stacked harmonies stretching heavenward. “On My Way Home” resonates with SoCal buoyancy, even as it yearns for Dixie. It’s a track that’s key to the album as a whole: far-reaching, but rich in local colour, gleamingly modern, thanks to Dave Sardy’s deft mix, but steeped in tradition. And while it sees Ben Bridwell leaving his lo-fi past behind, Infinite Arms is a neoclassic landmark that you’ll need to get on vinyl. This is a record that begs to be flipped over and played again. BUD SCOPPA

Beyond the six-string fireworks and an ever-present vocal twang, the current generation of Southern rockers shares one common element with its wild and woolly forebears: the capacity for attaining a sort of spiritual elevation within passages of inspired musical interaction. You can find plenty of these goosebump moments in the work of Kentucky’s My Morning Jacket and Tennessee’s Kings Of Leon – and now in that of South Carolina’s Band Of Horses.

On this third LP, Ben Bridwell’s band leave the lo-fi balladry and middling indie-rock rave-ups of their previous two LPs in the dust. That’s not to say these LPs didn’t have their stellar moments: “The Great Salt Lake” and “Funeral” from their 2006 debut, Everything All The Time, and “Is There a Ghost” from ’07’s Cease To Begin were searching visits to a rich Southern rock heritage. With Infinite Arms, however, Bridwell has surpassed himself. Not only has he re-connected with his Southern heart, relocating to South Carolina after starting the band in Seattle, but he’s also surrounded himself with a stable unit: four talented, like-minded players in drummer Creighton Barrett, keyboard player Ryan Monroe, lead guitarist Tyler Ramsey and bassist Bill Reynolds. The first two are on their second Horses record, the other pair joined during touring behind Cease To Begin.

Maybe more important, though, are the developments in Bridwell’s songwriting, as he interweaves the elliptical verbiage of his past records with detail of an intensely visual nature. First track “Factory” opens in a hotel lobby, leading to brief eye contact with a stranger in the elevator, a stop at the snack machine and other mundane details that take on an air of mystery through musical context, conjuring up the sort of hyper-reality found in William Eggleston’s photographs. Like those pictures, the songs hint at storylines whose specifics you are left to piece together.

Musical and visual juxtapositions permeate the album, taking centre stage on “NW Apt”, a nostalgic, atypically straight-forward series of aural snapshots picturing various places where Bridwell crashed while living in Seattle and touring the region; they’re paired with pile-driving drums and bludgeoning guitars, ending with the hum of an amp hanging in the air like a receding memory.

On “Laredo”, the band deftly fuses the buoyancy of The Byrds’ “Feel A Whole Lot Better” with the jutting-jawed physicality of Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Cinnamon Girl” – yet the performance is bracingly modern in its aggression. First single “Compliments” features the close harmonies of Ramsey and Monroe over a “London Calling” strut, and they turn up again in close-mic’ed intimacy on Ramsey’s candlelit ballad “Evening Kitchen” and on the Morgan-penned country-rocker, “Older”.

One of the album’s defining aspects is its vivid sense of the American expanse, stretching northward and westward from Bridwell’s Carolina, retracing his own journeys. The title track is a dreamscape that inhabits the woodsy Northwestern terrain of Fleet Foxes, with Bridwell’s stacked harmonies stretching heavenward. “On My Way Home” resonates with SoCal buoyancy, even as it yearns for Dixie. It’s a track that’s key to the album as a whole: far-reaching, but rich in local colour, gleamingly modern, thanks to Dave Sardy’s deft mix, but steeped in tradition. And while it sees Ben Bridwell leaving his lo-fi past behind, Infinite Arms is a neoclassic landmark that you’ll need to get on vinyl. This is a record that begs to be flipped over and played again.

BUD SCOPPA

1...730731732...1,274Page 731 of 1,274

SHOP UNCUT