OKUDAXIJ THE PRODIGY RAZORLIGHT SEASICK STEVE BLESS YOU NO TOURISTS OLYMPUS SLEEPING CAN U COOK? SELF-RELEASED, OUT NOW TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL, BELIEVE, OUT 26 OCTOBER BMG, OUT NOW LA misfit self-releases second OUT 2 NOVEMBER Johnny Borrell’s band returns, Grizzled veteran shrugs off collection of charmed alt-rock. Flame goes out for rave’s minus the actual band. “Fake Blues!” accusations. Eric Radloff is a little known musician original firestarters. Exactly 10 years since 2008’s under- The myth of “Seasick” Steve Leach based in Hollywood who appears to Liam Howlett claims The Prodigy’s performing third Razorlight album, as a train-hopping, panhandling hobo be refreshingly unconcerned with seventh studio album is meant as a Slipway Fires, Johnny Borrell may have been busted by a 2016 traditional songwriting tropes or wake-up call for people who have reactivates his flagship ensemble, biography, but his ninth album ticking trend boxes. That doesn’t “forgotten how to explore”. Yet the despite having long driven away its is still business as usual. Like its mean he’s not a student of great trio seem in need of a new adventure long-suffering co-founders. Sprawling predecessors, the shack-shaker forebears. You can hear influences themselves. Recent single Need solo dalliances alongside French rhythms and swampy slide guitar of from Nick Drake to The Shins on the Some1 showed Howlett still knows jazzers Zazou a few years ago are long Can U Cook? aren’t so much behind likes of opener Sequoias and Such A how to please the hardcore, looping forgotten, as here he assuages his the curve as outside of it. Recorded Good Feeling. But with an erratic disco queen Loleatta Holloway over FM-friendly “stadium Strokes” muse, in Florida, a sticky sultriness attention span across these concise some old-school breaks. Yet much of sounding so early-noughties that that permeates its 13 songs – the heat tunes, he explores everything from what follows sounds like he’s set his preposterous album title feels oddly haze is practically visible on the ’90s grunge (Rock Bottom) and overdriven synths to autopilot with appropriate. Yet, however ongoingly steamy Chewin’ On Da Blues and sombre R&B (Daily Bread). Lyrically, vocalists Keith Flint and Maxim Reality irksome his arrogance, his best- the mid-afternoon hush of Shady Radloff spouts a philosophy that’s at reduced to the odd irate interjection. chiselled tunes remain hard to resist, Tree. Most interesting is Young once tender and zany. “And you know New Jersey punks Ho99o9 briefly and there’s a few here, particularly Blood, whose fuzzy funk is a nod tomorrow how I’m gonna greet ya,” he spark Fight Fire With Fire to life, the hair-tingling Carry Yourself. to the disco-era session muso sings gooey-eyed to a lover, “in front but the risible Champions Of London He’s sounding like a contender again, he once was, proving he’s at least of the TV with greasy ass pizza.” is a shadow of past glories. Time for something only Borrell himself would got a sense of humour about it all. A realist and a romantic. HHHH a rethink. HH have ever betted on. HHHH HHH EVE BARLOW RUPERT HOWE ANDREW PERRY DAVE EVERLEY Listen To: Daily Bread | Rock Listen To: Need Some1 | Fight Fire Listen To: Got To Let The Good Listen To: Chewin’ On Da Blues | Bottom | Such A Good Feeling With Fire Times… | Carry Yourself Shady Tree | Young Blood BILL RYDER-JONES YAWN DOMINO, OUT 2 NOVEMEBER Slow-burning delights from former Coral guitarist. With most of its songs running over five minutes SHA LA DAS long, Bill Ryder-Jones’s fourth LOVE IN THE WIND outing is a long, slow, pleasurable DAPTONE, OUT NOW stretch of a record. Unhurried and Family vocal group meld unchided, these aren’t proggy doo-wop and classic soul. indulgences, rather there’s a Compromising of Bill Schaldas and his masterful delight to the way each three sons, Staten Island’s Sha La Das of these songs find their shape. have all performed and recorded with From the steady-gather of late soul singer Charles Bradley. To say opener There’s Something On they share something of Bradley’s Your Mind to the quiet fervour fondness for the old-fashioned would of Recover. Ryder-Jones’s voice be an understatement. But that is a husked, urgently sincere thing, doesn’t stop this debut LP being while the music finds the kind fantastic. Back of the neck hair-raising of muted grandeur not heard doo-wop harmonies float through done so well since the late ’90s – punchy four-to-the-floor fillers that Time Will Be The Only Saviour’s could be early Isleys (Carnival), guitar line, for instance, twilight teenage tearjerkers (Okay My carries something of Love, the title track) and even a touch Disintegration-era Cure. It’s a of lush Philly Soul (Sha La Da La La stunningly assured, deeply (Christmas Time)). There’s literally romantic and already one of nothing new here, but they deliver it this year’s best. HHHH with such skill and lightness of touch LAURA BARTON that it could easily pass for a long-lost Listen To: There’s Something classic. HHHH Bill Ryder-Jones: On Your Mind | Time Will Be CHRIS CATCHPOLE frustrated his briefs were The Only Saviour | Recover Listen To: Open My Eyes | taking an age to dry. Carnival | Love In The Wind DECEMBER 2018 113.