SUNDAY MORNING POST DECEMBER 27, 2009 Sight&Sound 5 rock. Despite the horrendous first “The Automator” Nakamura for a set single, Know Your Enemy, this is a that took Stonesy blues rock and cohesive outing that tells an Ennio Morricone and hauls them interesting, albeit slightly contrived, into the 21st century, complete with story of a lovelorn couple. Horseshoes killer riffs. and Handgrenades is about as close to punk as we’re likely to get from Yuksek Green Day again. Away from the Sea (Barclay) Illustration: Teresa Tan Teresa Illustration: Somewhere between Bob Sinclar, The Dead Weather Justice and Hall and Oates, Horehound (Warner) French-born music producer, Even when Jack White takes a back remixer and DJ Pierre-Alexandre seat – literally – as a drummer, his Busson channels 80s rock and trademark bluesy guitar riff can still electro, Britpop and pounding be heard throughout the album. But dance floor beats for a schizophrenic with other members such as Alison but irresistible set. Mosshart and Jack Lawrence sharing the vocals, the Dead Weather offer a Yeah Yeah Yeahs fix for those in need of some earthy It’s Blitz! (Polydor) garage rock. Taking an electro turn, the Yeahs manage to up their game without Florence + the Machine betraying their punk roots with a set Lungs (Island) of songs that, despite a pulsating Lungs is 45 minutes of soulful vocal new electronic sheen, still sounds as bliss. Florence Welch spills her soul if they’d been made for guitars. Their on tracks such as I’m Not Calling most satisfying album yet and a You a Liar and My Boy Builds Coffins. thrilling reinvention. And in between all the emo crooning are some of the best pop melodies of Devendra Banhart the year. What Will We Be (Warner) After seven albums the psychedelic Julian Plenti folk troubadour delivers a Julian Plenti is … Skyscraper (Matador) major label debut that while Interpol frontman Paul Banks retaining his warbling eccentricities branches out on his own, but shoehorned them into a cohesive, ends up sounding very familiar. purposeful set, combining spacey And that’s not necessarily a bad acoustic playfulness with sturdy thing, as tracks such as Only if You blues rock. Still loveably strange, Run and Skyscraper remind us but louder. why Interpol were one of the best bands of the past decade. While Junior Boys Banks’ distinctive vocals work Begone Dull Care (Domino) wonders, it’s the instrumental piano The Canadian electro minimalists jam, H, that provides the most offer a third album that thaws satisfying moment. previous icy perceptions, revealing more of itself with every spin. Fever Ray Deceptively sparse tracks hide Fever Ray (Mute) meticulously placed details, in a Swedish singer Karin Dreijer glossy yet down-tempo classic. Andersson’s primitive vocals over bare electronic soundscapes make F*** Buttons for a dark and downbeat song cycle. Tarot Sport (ATP) It will test your patience at times, but With producer Andrew Weatherall as the melodies unravel you’re on board, the antagonistically rewarded with a graceful and named Bristol-based experimental brooding work of art. duo create a sonic maelstrom of 19-piece lineup, paying tribute to Skelton. Proof that the organ trio is blend of blues feeling and finesse nevertheless carefully created noise. Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie and alive and well and that Mullen and with more than a little Detroit Grizzly Bear Nodding backwards to the trance others without sinking into mere Sulzmann are as sharp as ever. soul pop and a dash of reggae. Veckatimest (Warp) and electro of the 90s while mixing it imitation. Hard swinging. No surprises here, but nobody Deep, meticulously produced, and all into something completely Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood does it better. enigmatic, Veckatimest is an album beyond its time, Tarot was Allen Toussaint Live From Madison Square Garden that demands repeated listenings. unfashionable yet giddily joyous. Bright Mississippi (Nonesuch) (Reprise) BEN SIN No wonder Radiohead’s Johnny Toussaint leads an all-star cast of Forty years on from Blind Faith the Jay Z Greenwood loves them so much – Mos Def musicians through a selection of Clapton-Winwood partnership The Blueprint 3 (Roc Nation) he probably saw a bit of himself in The Ecstatic (Downtown) well-loved standards that make an finally got to stretch out properly in Hova’s ninth studio album doesn’t the New York quartet. American hip hop star and actor explicit connection between his own concert, revisiting that classic album overwhelm the way 2004’s Black Mos Def’s fourth studio outing is his funky style and the earliest days of and tunes reflecting their mutual Album or the original Blueprint did, Manic Street Preachers most international-minded set to Crescent City jazz. Spellbinding. association with Jimi Hendrix, as but it’s still bursting with wit and Journal for Plague Lovers (Columbia) date. Sample-heavy, it brought well as the Traffic and solo Clapton hits. DOA (Death of Autotune) has In a year full of newcomers and side Middle Eastern and European Mark Knopfler repertoires. Nostalgia? Certainly, but a thumping beat that cannibalises projects, the veteran Welsh rockers tinges, Bollywood, rap and jazz and Get Lucky (Vertigo) great music as well. 99 Problems, while Empire State of showed the old timers still have free-flowing rhymes together Knopfler the songwriter looks Mind is obnoxious, but catchy. Proof something to offer. Methodical with spectacular effect. sympathetically and perceptively John McLaughlin and Chick Corea that Jay-Z is still setting the agenda. guitar riffs and ambiguous lyrics add into the lives of soldiers, gamblers, Five Peace Band Live (Concord) a sense of mystique and the random Handsome Furs drifters and an artist who makes The leaders of two of the most Yeah Yeah Yeahs inclusion of a passage from the Face Control (Sub Pop) exquisite mandolins, while Knopfler influential jazz fusion bands of the It’s Blitz! (Polydor) Christian Bale film The Machinist The husband-and-wife duo of Dan the guitarist adds light and shade to 70s rekindle the spirit of the era, in Alternative pop-rock at its irresistible doesn’t answer any questions. Boeckner from Wolf Parade and the emotional truth of the lyrics. the company of younger but like- best. Lead single Zero captures Alexei Perry hit their stride on this Beautifully crafted and substantial. minded musicians to spectacular everything that’s right about the JON CHAN leaner, more muscular second effect. Now where’s the DVD? New York trio: Karen O’s soft, yet Amadeus Phoenix album whose fusion of minimal Bob Dylan heartfelt vocals, distorted fuzzy Phoenix Wolfgang (Glass Note) indietronica and chainsaw guitars Together Through Life (Columbia) Otis Taylor guitars and a hook-filled chorus. Precision-tooled Gallic-pop with channelled the likes of New Order Dylan continues to write thought- Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs (Telarc) a nod to French heroes Daft Punk and Bruce Springsteen with just a six provoking songs in the rocky folk- An intriguing new direction for the Julian Casablancas and Air, Phoenix add thrust and string and a drum machine. blues vein he did so much to blues is suggested by Taylor’s Phrazes for the Young (RCA) an electro-polished verve to their pioneer, this time around with the inventive mixture of John Lee With the way its members keep typically arch and knowing template. Fever Ray assistance of Grateful Dead lyricist Hooker and trance, performed with churning out solo albums, it may It’s finally perfected here, despite the Fever Ray (V2) Robert Hunter. So it’s not Highway unusual instrumentation. A flawed seem like the Strokes are over. It’s a awful title. As one half of sibling duo the Knife, 61 Revisited. So what? work, to be sure, but a rare example shame, because as refreshing as this Karin Dreijer Andersson’s solo of true innovation in a generally futuristic space-age set is, Kasabian project was menacing, brooding, Jim Mullen conservative genre. Casablancas’ vocals will always bring West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum (Sony) and claustrophobic. And it was Organ Trio Make Believe (Diving Duck) back memories of Last Nite. Once just the gobby heirs to Oasis’ about being a new mother. One of Britain’s finest jazz guitarists Robert Cray Band throne, Kasabian take a well-judged Moving at a funereal pace, spars with tenor saxophonist Stan This Time (Vanguard) Green Day steer away from the derivative its glacial soundscapes and Sulzmann supported by organist Robert Cray’s first studio outing for 21st Century Breakdown (Reprise) glam stomp of their second album to disembodied vocals were both Mike Gorman and drummer Matt four years featured his trademark Goodbye pop-punk, hello stadium team up with former Gorilla Dan haunting and stunning..