A
Teen Dance Ordinance
(Warners)
British rock appears to be suffering an identity crisis of late. Guitar stalwarts Feeder took a few leaves out of Coldplay's big soppy book on their last record. Former scrappy arrivistes A have matured, too, into a solid outfit which might as well swap their British passports for American ones. Their fourth album, recorded in Seattle, is named after a local bylaw restricting entry into gigs by age. A's pop-punk songs have become ever more West Coast: 'Someone Else' sounds like it was written for The OC. And yet a few tracks on Teen Dance Ordinance veer off into the trippy excesses of LA band Jane's Addiction. It's a disorienting combination, like Busted suddenly breaking into a yoga chant. Most of Teen Dance Ordinance is, however, devoted to churning out reliable rock songs like 'Worst Thing That Can Happen'. Yet you can't help but feel that A's moment might have passed.
Autolux
Future Perfect
(DMZ/Full Time Hobby)
Los Angeles trio Autolux have just bagged the opening slot on the rock tour of the summer in the US, accompanying Nine Inch Nails and Queens of the Stone Age. It ought to make their name with artier noiseniks, and follows Autolux's recent signing to DMZ, the US label put together by T-Bone Burnett and the Coen brothers. Soft-toned singer and bassist Eugene Goreshter sounds a little more like Elliott Smith than he does a metal frontman, but the band he leads are capable of creating a compressed barrage of sound. They owe a lot to Eighties noise-pop darlings like the Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, but add a sheen of Los Angeles pop gloss to the mix. Their debut album manages to tick lots of hip boxes, but Autolux remain too far in debt to their influences really to impress.
The Boo Radleys
Find the Way Out
(Sanctuary)
Britpop thrust quite a few awkward, fuzzy-sounding indie bands into the mainstream spotlight.The early Boo Radleys were unlikely candidates for a number one hit. As this two-CD compilation reminds us, they sounded like Liverpool's fey answer to My Bloody Valentine when they started. The vagueness of their early catalogue did obscure a capacity for West Coast-influenced melody that climaxed in their joyous 1995 hit 'Wake up Boo', included here in remix guise. There might be an explanation for this: the world remembers them as a one-hit wonder, but the Boos were a rather more ambitious (and cantankerous) beast. Find the Way Out corrals their engaging forays into dub-rock (as heard on the 12-inch version of 'Lazarus') and horn-studded art pop.
Circulus
A Lick on the Tip of an Envelope Yet to be Sent
(Rise Above)
The silly season of music is upon us. Circulus sport medieval dress and play an idiosyncratic blend of medieval music, folk whimsy and progressive rock. They are not a joke band. Circulus fulcrum Michael Tyack knows a thing or two about early music, and they take themselves fairly seriously, powered by the kind of bloody-minded self-belief that paid off for the Darkness. It's unlikely they'll follow the Darkness into the pop stratosphere, though. While their dedication, belief in fairies and suspicion of the modern are all appealing, their actual music is ghastly. A Lick on the Tip... plumbs new nadirs in flaccid hippie noodling. These tales of self-immolating scarecrows and pixies are big on capes and progressive psychedelia but there is little here of the creepy power that remains ancient folk's legacy.
Fat Joe
All or Nothing
(Atlantic)
Supersize Latino rapper Joey Cartagena has been a pillar of New York's hip hop scene for more than a decade, initially as part of Terror Squad with his cohort, Big Pun (deceased). Joe's solo albums tend to be textbook thug affairs, prettied up by R&B collaborations, welcome cameos by female Squad member Remy and the odd curveball hit.
All or Nothing is no exception, roping in hitmakers Just Blaze and Timbaland and A-listers J-Lo and R Kelly. The nicely nagging single 'Get It Poppin' features Nelly and production from Scott Storch. The talented Storch was also responsible for Fat Joe's last US hit, Terror Squad's 2004 banger 'Lean Back'. A busy remix is included here, with Lil Jon and Eminem adding more weight to the song's reputation.
Michael Jackson
The Essential Michael Jackson
(Sony BMG)
Like a pop death, a pop acquittal begs a greatest hits release. Michael Jackson's people may still be in a tug of war with the district attorney's office over pictures of Jackson's penis, but the 'King of Pop' has four decades of music to fall back on in an effort to buff his tarnished crown. So, yes, it's a craven cash-in but it does set itself apart from Jackson round-ups already in circulation by spanning his entire career, from the Jackson 5 to the nadir of 'Earth Song'.
The excellent CD1 stops at 'Thriller', while CD2 charts the decline of the vitiligo messiah years with 'Heal the World', et al. If Michael Jackson has any sense, he'll get on the phone to the Neptunes and beg them to write him record as good as the one he turned down a few years back; it went on to become Justin Timberlake's Justified.
