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The baby of the Wainwright clan grows up with assuredly mature second album

Put on partly to raise awareness of the dangers of racist political parties in the run-up to London's elections this week and partly to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Rock Against Racism festival, the Love Music Hate Racism Carnival has got a lot to live up to.

It’s quite a good time for new bands at the moment in our corner of the world, what with Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes riding a mild wave of critical acclaim in the wake of South By Southwest and so on. To that list we can add White Denim, another hit at SXSW that I’ve already written about here a while back.

I guess it’s become a cliché over the years that, when a Bristol band affiliated to trip-hop make a comeback, they should be somehow darker, and heavier, as if the magisterial doom that they all conjured up from the start somehow wasn’t enough.

A small recurring theme here these past few weeks has been the work of John ‘Speedo’ Reis, with the release of Rocket From The Crypt’s posthumous live album, “RIP” and the appearance of a new band called The Night Marchers on Myspace. Now, the Night Marchers album has arrived, and I reckon it may be the poppiest thing Reis has ever been involved with.

Uncut.co.uk reveals the tracklisting

Before I start, a couple of caveats. First, I must admit that I haven’t played either of the first two Portishead albums for a shamefully long time, so I’m going to be struggling a little to put “Third” into context. Second, we’ve been listening to “Third” on a fairly capricious secure stream, which seems to skip a couple of tracks and be a little unpredictable; consequently, if I get titles wrong and can’t give a complete picture of the album, apologies in advance.

Pure pop for now people, 30 years on...

Wu-Tang's Raekwon also announced for Don't Look Back 2008