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Molek FMJUICE’s July ’14 Review Roundup
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LILY ALLEN
SHEEZUS
[REGAL]
IRRELEVANCE
Lily Allen makes pop songs that are damn catchy with a pointed observation and knowing precocity. After marriage and kids in a four-year-long break, she returns with a tentative third. Is she missing the pop crown so hard that she namechecks Lorde and RiRi on ‘Sheezus’ (playing on Kanye’s Yeezus) and cloyingly covers Keane’s ‘Somewhere Only We Know’? Maybe, but there’s no denying that her inconsistencies cannot dampen her ability to stir controversy – see ‘Hard Out Here’.
LISTEN TO: ‘Hard Out Here’
IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU’LL DIG: Foxes
RATING: 2 ½
THE HORRORS
LUMINOUS
[XL]
EUPHONIC
When we first faced The Horrors in 2006, they were all big hair, black skinny jeans, and goth garage-punk-y. Eight years and three albums later, they more or less look the same (just more cleaned up) but sound like baggy Madchester’s next new champs. It’s a style change that sees them feeding off Stone Roses, Primal Scream, and Happy Mondays, swivelling their guitars and synths towards dance-y, psychedelic rock. And the band does sound grandly euphonic, especially on ‘I See You’.
LISTEN TO: ‘I See You’
IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU’LL DIG: Primal Scream
RATING: 3
THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART
DAYS OF ABANDON
[YEBO]
SUNNY SIDE UP
Romance is still in the air that frontman Kip Berman breathes, but is that a whiff of heartbreak, trifles of actual growing up pains experienced by this sugary-scuzz pop band we sniff? As members of the band depart, vivacious innocence makes way for some duskier thoughts in their third album. But the tunes remain sunny-side-up-lifting: new member Jen Goma is clear and bright in ‘Kelly’ and ‘Eurydice’, a welcome +1 for Berman in this shinier tune-up of his songcraft.
LISTEN TO: ‘Eurydice’
IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU’LL DIG: Yuck
RATING: 3 ½
thepainsofbeingpureatheart.com
TORI AMOS
UNREPENTANT GERALDINES
[MERCURY CLASSICS]
EASILY EMBRACED
Tori Amos is pretentious, a weirdo-musica writing artsy piano chamber pop and neo classical compositions. And that’s why we love her. She returns to beguile in her most natural ways – her flitting piano playing and mellifluous voice centres the 15 songs threaded with a seemingly simplistic concept of songs inspired by visual artwork. But on a more personable level, she sings of age and womanhood. It’s her most unchallenging work yet, but it’s work that everyone can finally, and easily, embrace.
LISTEN TO: ‘Trouble’s Lament’
IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU’LL DIG: Kate Bush
RATING: 3 ½
