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April is over. Done. Dusted. We’re a third of the way through 2007 and what have we learned? If you’re a Championship team-following sort – hello – then a whole lot of not much. I am royally bricking it over this Sunday’s final fixtures.
Could be worse though, eh José? Could have been the better team and lost on penalites... these rules, you just don't understand them...
During the last month some might fine records – albums, or CDs, if you will – have been released. As is sort of regular, here we collect together our pick of the bunch. ‘Our’, ‘we’, ‘I’… someone is getting their tenses confused… but anyway: here are April’s finest releases, as assessed by the ears of the ever-reliable DiS review team.
I just wish the fortunes of my favoured football team were as consistent as the writers of the below words. Truly, this has been a tumultuous campaign… ‘til next month…
Electrelane
No Shouts, No Calls
(Beggars Banquet)
Says reviewer Richard MacFarlane: “Electrelane have their own special sort of take on build-ups and progressions. Along with an intricate style of drumming, No Shouts, No Calls is driven mainly by organ drones; that said, there are all sorts of other different sounds employed throughout. It is a record that is subtly surprising. It’s a little bit adventurous, capable of surprising sidesteps, but remains safely at home in Electrelane’s own engagingly individual aesthetic.”
Read the full review here
Arctic Monkeys
Favourite Worst Nightmare
(Domino)
Says reviewer Sam Strang: “If there is one thing Arctic Monkeys have mastered over the last year it is understanding the importance of retaining a certain level of mystique – an aspect thoroughly reflected in Favourite Worst Nightmare. Though Alex Turner continues to be crudely hailed as akin to Alan Bennett, the blunt narratives that garnered his band their initial acclaim have been softened in favour of more lyrical ambiguity.”
Read the full review here
Feist
The Reminder
(Polydor)
Says reviewer Shain Shapiro: “The Reminder should elevate Feist above the success she garnered on both Let It Die and Open Season because it appeals to both the mainstream and the anti-mainstream. Regardless how cynical one gets to popular music, everyone can enjoy this; like diving into a good cup of coffee at a Parisian café haunted by Goethe and Baudelaire. Hey, one can dream. Feist certainly has.”
Read the full review here
Blonde Redhead
23
(4AD)
Says reviewer Mike Diver: “It seems strange that a band so full of sound would lift their moniker from a no-wave group from a couple of decades ago, but in Blonde Redhead’s case the contradictory has always made a perverse sense. In some ways their firmly independent approach to each and every album – not one to date has really sounded like echoes of influences past – is the absolute epitome of punk, but to place 23 beside the likes of BoySetsFire and The Bronx in high-street racks is only likely to compound the confusion further.”
Read the full review here
Nine Inch Nails
Year Zero
(Interscope)
Says reviewer Chris Nettleton: “The first time you listen to Year Zero it's doubtful you'll be thinking much about Trent Reznor’s book of Nine Inch Revelations, the Year Zero Project. The more likely first impression (especially if played at volume) is that Nine Inch Nails have made a great big, fucked-up, dirty dance record; it’s the sort of thing The Sneaker Pimps might have made if they'd had children with Slipknot.”
Read the full review here
Modest Mouse
We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
(Columbia)
Says reviewer Alex Denney: “A radio-friendly sheen is apparent in ‘Florida’’s strident chorus and ‘Missed The Boat’’s bittersweet lament, the latter buoyed by a swoonsome backing vocal courtesy of the evergreen James Mercer. ‘Parting Of The Sensory’ is the album’s centrepiece and Isaac Brock’s expletive-ridden attempt at nailing his thematic colours to the mast, as it were, spitting existential lines like “this fits like clothes made out of wasps!” and “someday you will die and something’s gonna steal your carbon” over a raging sea monster of a jig. Nice…”
Read the full review here
Cornelius
Sensuous
(Korova)
Says reviewer Alex Denney: “A composer-ly sense of control permeates throughout, underlined by the appositeness of that title – it’s surely no coincidence that ‘sensuous’ nails the tone of the album more succinctly than this reviewer could ever hope to articulate. Suppressed funk guitars keep time before billowing into nebulous clouds of reverb, broken-English syllables ping-pong across your speakers and bleed sumptuously into electronic washes of sound.”
Read the full review here
Porcupine Tree
Fear Of A Blank Planet
(Roadrunner)
Says reviewer Raziq Rauf: “Fear Of A Blank Planet is a lonely and ambiguous tale fearing for the future, spoken softly against a complex arrangement of symphonic swirling guitars and absolutely watertight drumming. The result is an often crushingly heavy masterpiece that has true meaning with or without the music. It’s a rare thing these days but Porcupine Tree seem able to do it time and again. This album is no exception.”
Read the full review here
Low
Drums & Guns
(Sub Pop)
Says reviewer Jordan Dowling: “Drums & Guns is likely to split opinion to a greater extent than any other piece of Low's extensive catalogue, but avid fans should not be put off as behind the challenging production and at the centre of all their controlled experimentation lies one of the band’s strongest releases to date. Here’s to their next decade and some.”
Read the full review here
Efterklang
Under Giant Trees
(Leaf)
Says reviewer Mike Diver: “This is magical, all scintillating interstellar sparkles and the bubbling up of glorious geysers of sound; it’s a recording to ice the heart and keep it still for a full half-hour, those experiencing it for the first time likely to set personal bests for breath-holding. It creaks with aged weariness and blossoms brilliantly; it is alien yet welcoming, otherworldly yet on your doorstep wearing a bright smile. It’s music to witness the dawning of new ages and the end of days as we know them, music to lose all perspective on and to fall into like a first love.”
Read the full review here
The Pony Collaboration
(Series 8 Records)
Says reviewer Dom Gourlay: “The musicianship is a joy to behold - despite the plethora of styles and instrumentation throughout the record, at no point do The Pony Collaboration feel the need to bludgeon the listener's ears to death in a halo of noise, which is simply down to the fact that there is nothing really negative to hide about this record.”
Read the full review here
