As you might have seen by now, Animal Collective’s “Merriweather Post Pavilion” has done rather well in Uncut’s Best Of 2009 poll. “MPP” came out in early January, and a continuously active year has now climaxed with a reissue for “Campfire Songs” and this, “Fall Be Kind”, a fairly extraordinary new EP. Apologies for having teased about this for the past few weeks: there’s been an embargo on early reviewing imposed by the band, presumably as a response to the pre-release feeding frenzy which introduced “Merriweather Post Pavilion” to the world. If one of the stories preceding “MPP” - that it would reflect Noah “Panda Bear” Lennox’s “Person Pitch” solo jam – turned out to be not quite true, the outstanding track on “Fall Be Kind” does, a little, being a lush and intricate web of loops, rooted in a snatch of Phil Lesh’s vocal from The Grateful Dead’s wonderful “Unbroken Chain”. This is “What Would I Want? Sky”, one of the very best songs in Animal Collective’s increasingly substantive catalogue. Like much of “Fall Be Kind”, it’s mellower and more reflective than the ecstatic flurries of “MPP”, but every bit as catchy. The overt dance influence has been toned down, too: if “MPP” was an early harbinger of spring, it’s easy to take the “Fall” reference in the EP title very literally, with all the moods it traditionally signifies. That said, when the opening “Graze” begins with a distant Disney fanfare and (I think) Avey Tare intoning, “Let me begin, feels good ‘cos it’s early,” the atmosphere is dewy and tentative rather than melancholy. Tare has never sounded calmer and less fervid, and the spaciousness which surrounds his unusually mature vocal, the faintly orthodox songcraft, all combine to remind me a bit of Grizzly Bear circa “Yellow House” – until, that is, a typically capricious, jittery panpipe jig arrives to break up the reverie. As the EP progresses into its heart, though, the mood does become glassier, dreamer, more disorienting; reminiscent, perhaps, of some of the “Water Curses” EP. “Bleed” is one of Panda Bear’s almost sacred, aerated sighs-as-songs, while “On A Highway” is a dazed, albeit very catchy standby of the overworked band, the song about touring. Even by the standards of that genre, though, Avey Tare’s lyrics are pointedly banal and confessional, as he admits being neurotic, distracted, stoned, sick from too much reading and jealous of “Noah’s dreaming”. There are times here when AC’s old habit of submerging their vocals has its attractions: “On a highway there are some workers pissing/ It starts my bladder itching/ Can I wait for the exit?” He’s rarely sounded more like Jonathan Donahue, too. Finally, “I Think I Can”, an overlapping chant (shades of “Sung Tongs”, electrified, maybe) that would’ve fitted pretty neatly into the middle section of “Merriweather Post Pavilion”. “Will I get to move on soon?” it ends, with that curious combination of yearning and euphoria that increasingly seems to be an Animal Collective trademark. Incredible music, anyhow, available now I think: let me know what you think when you’ve had a listen. Watch out, too, for the Pantha Du Prince album that’s just arrived, featuring Lennox, which I'll write something about soon.

Joe Pug? No, I hadn’t heard of him either, before he opened tonight for The Low Anthem. Count me as a fan now, though. Pug’s a potentially major song-writing talent, as evidenced on his Nation Of Heat EP, available online and really quite brilliant. But who exactly is he? Well, turns out he’s a 23-year old former student of the University Of North Carolina, where he studied playwriting before dropping out and moving to Chicago. There, he worked as a carpenter when there were jobs going, otherwise starved, and also wrote the scorching songs on Nation Of Heat that in delivery and content will make you think of John Prine, Paul Seibel and, inevitably, Dylan. You will therefore also think of, say Josh Ritter and AA Bondy, two other terrific younger writers of thoughtful, literate, moving songs. Tonight he’s on briefly and early, which means a lot of people miss his opening couple of songs. But as the central hall of this Notting Hill venue fills up towards the end of his set, you can feel a buzz of collective acknowledgement that something special’s going on. By then, he would have been playing either “Hymn 101”, a stand-out track on the EP, or the more recent anti-war song, “Bury Me Far From My Uniform”, an angry lament whose clear-eyed fury would have won approval from Phil Ochs. Not long after this, as the house lights fall, shadowy appear figures on stage, and something that sounds like the distant skirl of bagpipes or something similarly ancient but which turns out in fact to be a sombre harmonium or pump organ drone, initially shapeless, a passing mood, begins to fill the hall, the audience immediately hushed and attentive. This is The Low Anthem, of course – Ben Knox Miller on, for the moment at least, guitar, harmonica and vocals, Jeff Prystowky on double bass, Jocie Adams on whatever she’s playing, plus newly-enlisted fourth member Matt Davidson – and what they’re now playing is “To The Ghosts Who Write History Books”, one of several great songs from this year’s breakout album, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, a runner-up in this year’s Uncut Music Award. The evening’s musical template is established early, and is familiar from said album. What the Low Anthem deliver is largely hushed, unhurried, mesmerising and quietly delirious. The mood, more often than not, is low-key and tends towards the sombre, as a rule, on songs like “This God Damn House” and “Senorita”, from 2006’s What the Crow Brings LP, and Charlie Darwin favourites like the breathtaking “Ticket Taker”, “To Ohio” – “our hit single!” - the astonishingly fragile “Cage The Songbird, new songs like “Smoke Myself To Sleep”, and, of course, the album’s supernaturally beautiful title track. People who haven’t seen them live may be forgiven for thinking of The Low Anthem as precious, somewhat serious types, straitlaced and even perhaps humourless. They are, of course, nothing of the sort. There’s a lot of wry humour about what they do and who they are and tonight there’s much hilarity when after the opening song, Miller suddenly quits the stage, followed by a baffled look from Prystowsky. Miller returns wearing the kind of 70’s wraparound shades you may remember Keith Richards or Lou Reed wearing back then, or maybe even Elton John in his coked-up heyday, an accessory for which he immediately apologises. He’s had to put them on because, he says, laughing at his own predicament – a first as far as I can remember - he’s suffering an allergic reaction to some carrots he’s eaten backstage. Some things, clearly, you just couldn’t make up, and Miller relishes the moment’s surreal cast. Elsewhere, they indulge a fondness for rowdy gospel mayhem on the rollicking “Home I’ll Never Be” (words: Jack Kerouac, music: Tom Waits) and the apocalyptic hootenanny barn-burner “The Horizon Is A Beltway”. They have a taste, also, for the bawdy end of the blues, given voice here, particularly, on a rousing version of the Reverend Gary Davis’s “Sally, Where You Get Your Liquor From?”, which recalls the raucous fatalism of Dylan’s Together Through Life. “What a band,” someone shouts hoarsely in one brief lull between transcendent moments. “What a fucking band!” He had a point. Book your tickets now for next February’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire and see you there.

Here are links to the judges discussing all eight of the albums shortlisted for the prize. Let us know what you think of their final verdict, maybe? The right decision? Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca Bob Dylan - Together Through Life Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night The Low Anthem - Oh My God, Charlie Darwin Tinariwen - Imidiwan: Companions Wilco - Wilco (the album)

From being a fairly obsessive fan of Devendra Banhart, I’ve found myself lacking much to say about “What Will We Be” in the months since it first turned up in the office. It’s far from a bad record, but the few times I played it, it felt oddly weary, even uncharismatic, compared with its predecessors; “Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon” is often identified as the jump-off point for a lot of Banhart former fans, but I still think that one stands up as a terrifically spirited album, full of life. Maybe the understated, relatively straight vibes of “What Will We Be” represents a first cautious step for Banhart towards a ‘mature’ style that isn’t yet fully resolved. But it also comes at a time when the raggle-taggle tribe of freak-folk (dread term) artists that he lead and nurtured seem, in many cases, to have gone to ground. Doubtless there’ll be another spike in activity and interest when Joanna Newsom finally follows up “Ys”. In the meantime, though, Newsom turns up playing a bit of piano on a nice, unshowy record by Kevin Barker on Banhart’s Gnomonsong imprint. Barker has long been an unassuming grafter in the freak-folk engine room, playing in both of those artists’ bands as well as with Vetiver, Antony And The Johnsons and Vashti Bunyan. He also put out a few fingerpicking albums under the name of Currituck Co, which were – or at least the ones I heard were - nice enough, if somewhat insubstantial. “You & Me” is quite a lot better, though, a fairly orthodox singer-songwriter album, touched by Americana, which finds Barker hooking up with the likes of Newsom, producer Thom Monahan, Wilco’s Pat Sansone and the fine, ubiquitous drummer Otto Hauser. Out of his various sparring partners, the best reference point would be Vetiver; there’s that same calm, wise grasp of roots tradition radiated by Andy Cabic at his best. You could also draw parallels, though, with some latterday records by Wooden Wand/James Jackson Toth, even if Barker doesn’t flaunt such an obviously maverick streak. For more pronounced eccentricity, you could do worse than try the debut Growlers album, “Are You In Or Out?”, a Californian band who’ve done some recent touring with Banhart. The Growlers specialise in a kind of sepia-tinted, battered kind of vintage pop, related to the more quirky end of the Nuggets spectrum – or some of Devendra’s own spikier ramalams. Considering “Are You In Or Out?” is ostensibly drawn from the band’s eight handmade CDRs, and that they evidently strive to present themselves as heavily flakey, it’s a surprisingly together, coherent album; a sweet and reverberant West Coast correlative to The Coral, of all things.

Today, the judges chew on "Wilco (the album)". Tony Wadsworth: I love this album, a great set of songs, probably their best since the ones they did with Billy [Mermaid Avenue Vols 1 & 2]. It’s a driving album, it skipped along wittily. I think it all came together really well for them on this one. Mark Cooper: Wilco are one of those groups that if you have a relationship with them, like, I dunno, REM or The Grateful Dead, you just love them. They’re a bit like one of those groups for me. I love Wilco, they lost me for a while when they went a bit Radiohead, although I admire them for doing it. I agree with Tony, I think this album puts together everything that Wilco do really well; great melodies, great arrangements. Allan Jones: It’s kind of hard to fault, isn’t it? Mark: It’s really hard to fault, I suppose that could be a problem with it. I’m slightly damning it with faint praise, because I admire it while not loving it with the fierce heat that I have some of their earlier records. They’ve attained a professionalism and a sort of consummate artistry, but that doesn’t mean it’s quite as good as when they were finding their way. There’s earlier records that probably aren’t as accomplished, like Summerteeth, but I kind of loved them more. I play this and I’ll continue to play it, as it’s both their best record but not their best record, if you understand what I’m trying to say. Allan: It came alive for me when I went to see them do the bulk of it live at The Troxy. Everything was extended just a bit more, so songs that are on the record, perfect as they might seem, could have gone just a bit further. I share Mark’s admiration and affection for them. It’s curious, because it’s good and you can’t imagine how it could be palpably better. So, yes it is their best album, but it’s not their best album. Rachel Unthank: I’m not really familiar with Wilco, somehow I seem to have missed out on them. Friends of mine have said how much they love the earlier albums, and I really feel like I need to go back and find out more. So, I don’t really have a relationship with them, but I have to say that I found this quite boring. Listening to the opening track I found myself asking “is this Blur?”, not that there’s anything wrong with that, I like Blur. But because I’d heard so many things about them I was kind of expecting something more. I don’t know, it just didn’t engage me. Mark: I get what you mean, because I think this album is slightly preaching to the faithful. They’ve honed what they do, they’re doing it really well, but maybe it’s not outgoing enough to engage in the way their early records do. Billy, you’re giving me a look... Billy Bragg: No, it’s just that I’m trying think about how to gauge it as well. I love what they do, I always buy their records, but sometimes they can be a little hard to listen to. Are you supposed to compare this to the weird ones, are you supposed to compare it to Summerteeth, or what went before. The great thing about them is that you never know what to expect. All the time they were in that period where they were sonically pushing the envelope, underneath all that there were still these great songs. You could never say that they lost the ability to write great songs. I wouldn’t say it’s their greatest album ever, but when you fit them all together it’s still really interesting. For me, this is a very interesting next Wilco record. Dave Robinson: I was really looking forward this album, because I’d heard a lot of demos which were absolutely extraordinary. I was expecting this record to be finished versions of those demos, but I found it to be a good, nice record but not great. I hear a couple of good album tracks, a few B-sides, but there was nothing like a couple of those big peaks that you might expect a record to be set around. I liked the songs, but I didn’t get excited by them. Bob Harris: I love this album, I love the whole family that surrounds Wilco, like The Jayhawks, Uncle Tupelo. It’s a good Wilco album, I really like it, but again in the context of this award I think we’re looking for something really extra-special, and it isn’t.

The penultimate transcript today, on The Low Anthem's "Oh My God, Charlie Darwin". Allan Jones: This is a favourite of mine. It had been around the office for a while and I kept hearing snatches of it, and I just became totally engrossed by it. It’s a great exercise in story-telling, great lyrics, that really draws the listener in. Billy Bragg: It’s one of my favourite albums of the year. Didn’t Uncut have one of their tracks on a cover-mount CD? Yeah, I remember picking it up an airport and their track really stood out. I saw them at the Newport Folk Festival on one of the little stages, I didn’t realise they were on the bill. I got there and the stage was just covered with instruments, I assumed there’d be ten of them, but then just three people walked out. One of them was this tiny woman, this almost fey little girl, and the three of them just made this incredible, beautiful, engaging music that really drew everybody in. They revved it up, right to the back of the tent – which was totally crammed. The audience was totally enthralled. They seemed to move in and out of the contemporary and the past with ease. The lyrical content, of all the bands on the shortlist, was just incredible. My son picked up on it and wanted to hear it just on the strength of the little quote on the sleeve: “Set the sails, I feel the winds a-stirring/Towards the bright horizon set the way/Cast your wreckless dreams upon our Mayflower/A haven from the world and her decay”. When you talk about making folk music, there’s folk music where you go back and you discover it as part of some tradition, and then there’s folk music that you seem to tune in to from a different angle – it’s something you do with your music, Rachel. You force the person who’s listening to you to think of music in a different way, you add something to it. I think The Low Anthem do that, and I’m really excited to find out where they go with it next. There’s a real beauty to this, and not a fragile beauty, it’s a very strong sense of self to what they’re doing. Bob Harris: It’s interesting that their background, the way they’ve grown into who they are, is similar to the Fleet Foxes, are at least it’s not that dissimilar. You’ve got these two guys who meet this girl who works at the local library, I think, and she brings with her this whole spectrum of different sounds. I think what really appeals to me about this album is the willingness to experiment. You’ve got all this different influences in the mix. My son does a hip-hop radio show, and I recall playing him the Fleet Foxes and he really got into it, and the term he came up with was that it was “beyond music”. And The Low Anthem are his latest favourite band for the same reason. I just love this album, I love the feel of it, and the fact that they’ve been so imaginative with the sound and the textures. I’m just swept over by it. Dave Robinson: Well, I quite liked it, I thought it was about sixth on my list of the initial 25 albums. It isn’t particularly car music, and I find myself listening to most music while driving. Where you first hear something always colours your thoughts about it, and maybe that’s why this didn’t grab me as much as if I was playing it at home. I mean, I’m a bumptious, obnoxious, opinionated person and I’m always thinking that a lot of these artists need A&R people, they need guidance. With the best will in the world, I love artists and I’ve spent a lot of my life dealing with them, and they’ve trained me to become a parent. It’s about objectivity, you’re always trying to add something to the artist and give them a fatherly hand. You find yourself saying “look, these three songs are stunning, they’re the benchmark. All the others you can find a use for later, after you’ve written another seven up to this benchmark”. For instance, I think Elvis Costello has a great career, but could have been much more memorable if he’d had an A&R person to guide him. Mark Cooper: Imagine being that person, though... Dave: I thought that this group, if they had a mentor it could have been really interesting. Everybody knows that after one or two records and the bottom line is looming, you tend to rush things. Whenever I’ve been involved in an album I’ve wanted it to be the equivalent of a greatest hits. Every song should be there because it’s got a great quality, rather than you’re trying to hide something below par in the running order and get away with it. Rachel Unthank: I really liked the album, although I kind of didn’t like it for a while but then it grew on me again. They have a lovely way of storytelling, which makes you listen to their words. That’s important to me, with my music I want people to listen to what I’m saying, and I did find a lot of what they were saying really beautiful. I did struggle a little with the random loud bits, I haven’t really decided what I think about them. Do they give the music some light and shade, or is it too different to the rest. But the record’s got a lot of warmth to it. It reminds me a little of Sam Baker, in the way that they draw you into their world. Mark: I agree with Dave, and I think they’ll go on to make better records. I think it’s got an aura of preciousness about it, though. I think “To Ohio” is a beautiful song, that’s the real stand-out. Overall, I think it’s a bit schizophrenic and doesn’t always add up to the sum of its parts, it’s just of a sketches of really good ideas which, if they’re any good, they will improve upon. I think the good moments are really good, but for me it’s not a great record. Bob: I see what Dave’s saying, there’s that balance between just letting a group kind of be who they are or bringing someone else in to steer them to the next level. It’s that balance of letting the band breathe without there being too much of an outside influence but also with someone keeping an ear open for their best interests. I wouldn’t like them to surrender themselves totally to someone else’s thinking, though. Billy: I think you have to join the dots a bit with this record. This is what they’ve got, this is the stall they’ve set out, and you’ve got to look at the little bits and ask yourself if they fit together. I hope they’ll get better, and the Fleet Foxes have kind of created the space for people to make records like this, and I think that’s a positive thing. Tony Wadsworth: I think it’s a really great album, the first two songs are among the best things I’ve heard all year. I think you’ve got to think of bands like this as career artists, you have to let them follow the wind – a bit like the Mayflower! I’ll be very interested to see where they go from here, because there’s some fantastic songwriting. As an opening track, “Charlie Darwin” really gets your attention, but I’ve been thinking about this running order business, in terms of CDs. When everything was on vinyl you had a Side One and a Side Two, and you could kick Side Two with a fast track. Now it just appears round the middle and doesn’t quite grab you as much. Rachel: I think for me they’re probably the only band whose lyrics I can remember, having had to listen to so much music in such a short space of time when considering the whole shortlist and trying to take it all in. Billy: I know what you mean, I can see all the characters, in songs like “Ticket Taker”. Not just their faces but how they were going through all those emotions. Tony: I actually went off to see Charles Darwin’s house after listening to this album! Billy: I had to explain to my son what Peanuts was because of the title, the whole Charlie Brown/Charlie Darwin thing. So when you were checking out Darwin I was getting into Schultz. Tony: That’s an intellectual spectrum for you!

Sad news reaches us of the passing of Edward Woodward, who died today aged 79. It’s rare for any actor to find a starring role during their career that leaves its mark – but Woodward successfully managed it three times. First, there was Callan, the British TV show that ran from 1967 – 1972, with Woodward as the world-weary secret service agent working for “the Section”. If Callan was, to some degree, a response to the success of the James Bond movies, then Callan himself was very much an anti-Bond. If the Bond movies were all about gadgets, guns, girls and glamorous locations, then Callan was an entirely different proposition: a lonely, cynical man, working in a grubby and distinctly unglamorous profession. [youtube]QmwdXVkJ4RU[/youtube] In 1973, Woodward starred in The Wicker Man, as a Christian policeman, Sgt Howie, investigating the disappearance of a young girl on a remote Scottish island run by a pagan community. Although it’s perhaps best remembered for Britt Ekland’s naked dancing, and the burning giant wicker man at the film’s climax, there’s plenty to commend Woodward’s performance as a man whose faith is tested to its very limits. It’s a far cry, too, from the cold ruthlessness of Callan. [youtube]4tKPcJ1Y3-Y&feature[/youtube] Woodward sort-of seemed to revisit the Callan character in the 80s, for an American TV series, The Equalizer. There, Woodward played a former secret service agent turned troubleshooter working out of New York. The show was a huge hit in America – and, to some extent, brought Woodward greater recognition than Callan had. [youtube]qh9XQHQj5Nw[/youtube]

Today, the judges discuss Kings Of Leon's "Only By The Night". Quite lively, this one. Bob Harris: Well, we’re now moving into my four favourites of the eight, and this is my album of the year. I tried to fight against it, in the sense that it’s so popular and it’s already done so well. There’s a whole number of things about it for me, first of all it’s got a touchpoint with Nashville, and I do think Nashville is currently the music capital of the world right now. The calibre of musicianship is so high, there’s a kind of organic feeling to the city which I really like. Kings Of Leon also has that thing of lifestyles spilling into the music, there’s a dynamism to it that I really like. It also has – and I don’t see this as a bad thing at all – a cross-generational appeal. It’s a favourite of my 17-year-old son, as well as being my favourite of the year. On top of all that, “Sex On Fire” just sits there week after week in the download chart, still in the mid-20s, and it’s been there ever the album first came out, and that in itself says something to me about the longevity of individual tracks on the album. Billy Bragg: I’m in a very difficult position with Kings Of Leon in my house, because my missus loves them and my son hates them. I’m in neither camp, I’m non-committal about them, really. I liked their first album more than I liked this one, which I really didn’t get. I can’t get as enthusiastic as you, Bob, especially as we’re really getting down to the most interesting albums on the list. I can see why they’re popular, they put on great live shows, and it’s great to hear guitar music the way they’re using it, and unlike the Grizzlies they do have that light and shade in there, but it’s not something that I feel particularly strongly about championing. Bob: To what extent to do you Kings Of Leon, and maybe Kasabian, are the last of the great popular rock bands? We seem to be coming to the end of the line with something, don’t you think? Billy: I don’t think so, I think each generation has to get hold of that in a different way. I’d put Kings Of Leon above Kasabian, I think Kasabian are a part of the Oasis thing rather than doing something more interesting. I think Kings Of Leon are, for their generation, a pathfinder. The way they’re doing it, I want them to succeed in wherever it is they’re going, but this particular album doesn’t really go anywhere for me. Bob: I wasn’t making a comparison with Kasabian, and I take your point completely, but there haven’t been that many bands emerging in the last few years. Kasabian have been around for some time, and they’re one of the few big breakthrough bands in terms of sales, as are Kings Of Leon. Allan Jones: Well, I think it’s a really good album, but it just gives up all its secrets too quickly, too apparently. With something like Grizzly Bear, it’s like walking to a room you’ve been in before but every time you walk into it the furniture has been slightly rearranged. You discover something new every time. With Kings Of Leon, it’s exactly the same every time, I never get any more out of it. It’s a big, exciting rock record but I’m not engaged hugely by it, despite its massive familiarity or its pan-generational appeal. Dave Robinson: I concur with Bob. I think this is a cracker, because the progression of this band has been good. It’s better than their earlier records, they’ve developed into something really good. I love their style, to me it’s folk music in a rock idiom, which is pretty much what I’ve always been interested in. Again, because it’s so popular, you think it maybe shouldn’t be on this list, you want to try and fight against the idea of going for something so obvious, but at the end of the day the general public do occasionally latch on to something that is cool and exciting. The other thing about it is that I don’t believe they’ve been especially successful in America, they thought the Brits had gone mad when they took to it. I’m Irish, I’m not anti-British, but I really don’t like English music by and large, I only like it when it’s got a folk influence. I thought The Beatles were folk, for example. I thought The Rolling Stones were crap, I thought Queen were a complete abortion, I couldn’t believe people were singing along to those dodgy old operatics. I could never understand why England likes thespian ham music. Bob’s been more articulate than me on this, but I think this is a great record, it’s a stunning progression of the group, I love their family orientation and their backwoods vibe. Rachel Unthank: I’ve been having to bite my tongue here. I feel really emotional about music, as I’m sure everyone here does, but I just don’t understand what all the fuss is about. They drive me mad, I just think they’re awful. I agree with Billy’s son, and I agree with the Americans. The way he sings is not honest. I think they take themseves far too seriously, there’s no humour there, not a trace of humour throughout the entire album. The way he sings is full of histrionics - not in an experimental way, but in a “I am sexy, I am a rock singer” way. I just find myself thinking “oh, shut up!”. Tinariwen have got more rock ‘n’ roll in their little fingers than any of that band have. “My Sex Is On Fire”? What a ridiculous name for a song – aaarrrrgggh! They drive me mad! I couldn’t believe I had to listen to it again once it made the shortlist of eight, to be honest. It incenses me. They’re supposed to be a rock band, they’re supposed to incite passion and sex and something raw, but they’ve just got a big fat load of gloss and put it all over the record. There is no light and shade, it’s just... fakeness. And I hate them. Well, I don’t hate them – that’s a bit mean. I just don’t get it, I’m sorry. I’m really shaking just thinking about them. Dave: But what do you really mean, Rachel?! Rachel: I mean, how can you say that this is good and some of these other records aren’t? I feel like I’m being sold something, I really do. I’m just being sold an idea of what a rock band is. It makes me angry, I’m sorry. Billy: See, they just bounce off me, I wish I felt as passionate about it, one way or the other. You are right, though; one of things that always pissed me off about Oasis was that they had no sense of knowing, there was nothing in the way of knowingness in regards of what a silly-arsed job being in a band is. I want a bit of that from my stadium rock bands, because it is a silly-arsed job. You don’t get that with the Kings Of Leon, they are a bit po-faced. Rachel: They think they’re the real deal. Mark Cooper: It’s interesting to me that you kick off so much about the record, because I know that some people have problems with what they perceive as an old-school sexist element to their lyrics, but I haven’t really ever listened to their lyrics. Rachel: I didn’t really get engaged enough to listen to the lyrics that closely, to be honest. Mark: I think it’s really hard to judge this record against the others. I think it’s a really great mainstream record, I think it’s brilliantly produced, I love its dynamism, I love the fact that all the sounds on it really grab you. A lot of these records are very blissed out, but I love the tension of Kings Of Leon, it’s what I loved about a band like, say, Television. The sounds on this record kick against each other, if they were balls they’d be zooming around a pinball machine. I think the arrangements are great, for a guitar band, I love the singer’s voice, I think it’s really soulful and moving. I think they are utterly po-faced, but I sometimes think that isn’t a bad thing in rock ‘n’ roll band, there’s an element of pomp in a lot of great rock bands. Yes, it can go too far, but I don’t this record does. I’ve got four children, aged nine to 23, and they all like this record. Rachel: That’s because it’s average and is therefore less likely to draw an enthusiastic response, maybe. Mark: Well, I don’t think they like it because it’s average, they like it because it’s great pop-rock music. They engage with it instantly. That’s not my way of judging music, and I think the Grizzly Bear record is way better than this, but this is a great mainstream record and there aren’t that many great mainstream records these days. I personally don’t think there’s any point in making the Kings Of Leon the record of the year, because two-and-half million people in the UK have already bought it and they’re really happy with it. I like advocacy, I like turning people on to stuff they’ve not had a chance to hear, and we wouldn’t be turning anyone on by making Kings Of Leon the winner. Maybe that’s unfair, it should be a purely aesthetic issue, but I don’t see the point of going too populist when choosing a winner. Allan: I think it’s in the spirit of Uncut to advocate, rather than focus on music that is already really accessible. Dave: Well, Allan, I kind of took it that the best album would be the best album that you put on and don’t take off until the end. Lets’ find the record that cooks, where somebody’s thought about the running order, so that there’s a nice graph of interest or whatever. I love what Rachel had to say, I think she should have her own radio show with people sending her product every week, but the Kings Of Leon ticks a lot of boxes for me. Tony Wadsworth: I agree with a lot of what Rachel says about this album, probably not quite as strongly! I really like the earlier Kings Of Leon stuff, it was a lot spikier, and I think the problem for me with an album like this is that it is very glossily produced, and a lot of the character seems to have been taken out of it. If you’re examining it with your head it’s all there, it’s really well produced, the sound is crystal-clear, he’s got an amazing voice, but does any of it make you weep or whatever? No, it really doesn’t move me. If I hear a track on the radio I actually prefer it to most other things you hear on the radio, but to listen to it as an album... er, I don’t want to, really. Mark: But it’s a mass record, it’s a record you hear standing in a field and want to sing along to, and it sounds great on the radio. I think you’re right, it’s a harder record to appreciate on a panel like this, when you’re perhaps talking about records that you develop a close personal relationship with. Maybe it’s a record you can admire and sing along to – (looks at Rachel) unless you hate it – more than you can feel like you’ve discovered. Bob: I agree with you, Mark. My radio programmes are all about discovery. I like to put something like Kings Of Leon into the running order to slice the programme up with the occasional note of familiarity, but then you back to the real purpose of what you’re doing, which is to play music that will be fresh and new to the listeners. I think Mark’s right, because if we finished up with Kings Of Leon as the winner we wouldn’t be taking anyone anywhere other than where they already are. I love it and it’s probably the first thing on this list that I’d put on at home, but in terms of our combined efforts this afternoon I don’t think it would be the right choice for the award.