I never miss a Yo La Tengo album. I often find them underwhelming, I always expect more (even when it comes to their most acclaimed LPs) - but there is something endlessly intriguing about them. They tease you with phenomenal music, this whole Sonic Youth-with-subtlety angle, and while they rarely fulfil the promise, I always come back for more. And This Stupid World (★★★½) is no different. There is noise and there is beauty, and sometimes they converge. "Fallout" is impossibly good.
And I do sometimes check whatever it is that Anton Newcombe is doing these days. The latest album by The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Future Is Your Past (★★★), sports a hideous cover and good songwriting in the unfading vein of 60s psychedelia. The songwriting that, sadly, never becomes anything special. Which is very much the problem with David Brewis of Field Music. The Soft Struggles (★★★) is solid art pop stingy with hooks and big on taste. "The Last Day" has some urgency, I guess, but it is all foreplay and no orgasm.
Coming back to ugly covers - the new album by Gorillaz, Cracker Island (★★★), surely has the worst one. The songs? A mixed bag, as ever, with two major highlights coming by way of collaborations: the gorgeous piano-based closer "Possession Island" (with a barely audible Beck) and the tastefully danceable "Oil" (with the ever brilliant Stevie Nicks). The rest is patchy beyond reason.
Graham Coxon, Peter Buck, Johnny Marr... I often think about these great guitar players who never really made it as songwriters. They all made vital contributions to their respective bands (in fact, it could be argued that these bands would never have existed without them) but they have not written a single signature melody. The Waeve's self-titled debut (★★★½) is a collaboration between Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall (of The Pipettes). It is a creative, colourful, fascinating album, art rock with a real edge, replete with inventive song structures and squalling saxophones, but the tunes lack the songwriting oomph that a guy like Damon Albarn has in spades.
As expected, The Church have not lost it. Over forty years they have been quietly releasing albums of consistently high quality, and Steve Kilbey can still transfix you with a dream-like melody filled with confidence and charisma. The Hypnogogue (★★★★) is the band's 26th album, and it is an hour of absolute aural bliss, with ringing guitars and breezy tremble of Kilbey's voice that still, after all these years, makes me swoon.
The surprise of the month was the live album by Black Country, New Road (who have lost their lyricist and singer but have refused to give up). For now, Live At Bush Hall (★★★★) only exists as a YouTube video, but it is absolutely brilliant and, most intriguingly, features new material only. No one knows whether they will ever record studio versions of these songs, but the musicianship is still exceptional and the songs are these thrilling, swirling creations that still take you places. The 'dancers stand very still on the stage' hookline alone is worthy of the admission price... What a band.
Songs of the month:
Robert Forster - "The Roads"
Black Country, New Road - "Dancers"
Yo La Tengo - "Fallout"
The Church - "C'est La Vie"
Gabi Garbutt & Du Blonde - "Panic"
Gorillaz - "Oil"
