2:20pm Monday 30th November 2009
Twilight Saga: New Moon (Atlantic) ***
This album has a stellar line-up of bands – from Thom Yorke to The Killers, Muse, Editors and Death Cab For Cutie.
I’m not particularly a fan of the film, but the soundtrack I can handle. I half expected a load of Emo bands on a soundtrack to a vampire movie, so I was pleasantly surprised.
A few of the tracks are acoustic, in fact nothing on here is really all that heavy; even the Muse song I Belong To You (New Moon Remix) isn’t the guitar beast of a song that you’d expect from them.
This soundtrack is okay, but I’ll stick to my Lost Boys soundtrack thanks.
RUSS PETCHER, 34, bassist, Low Moor
Procol Harum – All This And More (Salvo) ***
If any song encapsulates the ‘turned-on’ year of 1967, it’s Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade Of Pale, an abstract, swirling track that still haunts.
Unfortunately, this single overshadowed their future work and in some quarters they are unfairly dubbed as one-hit wonders.
However, a retrospective listen to tracks like Salad Days, In The Wee Small Hours Of Sixpence and Shine On Brightly should lead to a new evaluation of an act that enjoyed underground acceptance on the same scale as Pink Floyd.
This four-CD box set is a little top-heavy, unless one is a Procol cultist, but is nevertheless a great listen for those special years when something certainly appeared to be in the air.
REG NELSON, 58, bank administrator, Bradford
Tori Amos – Midwinter Graces (Island) *****
A Christmas offering, Midwinter Graces contains five original songs. While A Silent Night With You is far from Tori’s best work, the other tracks more than make up for it.
Take, for example, the all-out big band Pink And Glitter. It’s a spot-on retro hit that will charm both young listeners and those old enough to remember the big band sound’s first pass through pop culture.
Enough praise cannot be heaped on the Amos original, Winter’s Carol. Featuring her trademark piano, poetic lyrics and expressive vocals, it is a masterpiece.
Only the biggest Scrooge would fail to be moved by such an album, which is hopefully a harbinger of all things musical to come from her.
DAPHNE ROWBOTHAM, 59, retired, Shipley
The Flaming Lips – Embryonic (Warner Bros) *
I’ve never really warmed to The Flaming Lips. How can they class themselves as a band? This isn’t music. These aren’t even songs – just random noise.
I accept that some bands can be experimental and strange, but this is taking it to the extreme. Have you heard the noise a set of speakers make just before a mobile phone is about to go off?
Well, this band thought that it would be a good idea to sample that sound!
RUSS PETCHER, 34, bassist, Low Moor
Little Johnny England – Tournament of Shadows (Talking Elephant) ***
This transports ageing folkies back to the time of Fairport Convention, when old English lyrics were married to social comment and proved the catalyst for the brave new world of folk/rock.
Little Johnny England are as authentic as they come, conjuring up the folk cellars prevalent in most English towns in the Sixties and now making a comeback as a prescription against manufactured pop.
Tracks like Tournament Of Shadows, Welcome To The Sparrow Club and Cut Throats, Crooks And Conmen epitomise their folk roots, displaying vivid lyrical imagery set to the indispensable fiddle, melodeons and guitars acoustic and electric.
Regrettably, only the purists will purchase this one.
REG NELSON, 58, bank administrator, Bradford
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