Herbert
Scale (!K7) £11.99
Matthew Herbert’s idiosyncratic approach - his 2005 album Plat du Jour consisted entirely of the sounds made by food and its packaging - can be a bit hit-and-miss. But while his recent collaboration with Moloko’s Roisin Murphy was too mannered to truly thrill the ears, this album of relatively conventional pop soul is a palpable success. In many ways, Scale is no less experimental than his previous efforts - it contains drum sounds recorded in hot-air balloons and under the sea - but every strange sound is tied to a buoyant tune, while his wife Dani Siciliano’s voice glides over every track like maple syrup over pancakes. LH
Orson
Bright Idea (Mercury) £12.99
Front-loading your album with your two singles is a bold move; it’s a long way to the end of the record from there. Happily for Californian whippersnappers Orson, the promise of the opening title track and their punchy debut single, ‘No Tomorrow’, is backed up by the rest of the album, singer Jason Pebworth’s high, boyish vocals riding on supertight drumming and ballsy riffs; ‘Happiness’ borrows the big guitar from the Stones’ ‘Start Me Up’. You may not have thought a hybrid of the Stranglers, Queen and Bryan Adams possible or advisable, but Orson prove you wrong. MW
Six Organs of Admittance
The Sun Awakens (Drag City) £11.99
Guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Ben Chasny is a hero of the American psychedelic and folk guitar undergrounds, a more thriving and rewarding scene than sceptics might imagine. He plays in aggressive psych band Comets on Fire, but his main vehicle, Six Organs ..., have racked up seven albums, plus a brace of collaborations. The Sun Awakens just adds to his myth. ‘Attar’ is a snarl of guitar and percussion, while ‘The Desert Is a Circle’ is a taut and accessible instrumental drama. Just when things threaten to get too pretty, a 24-minute piece called ‘River of Transfiguration’ closes the record with a gathering storm. Incandescent. KE
AFI
Decemberunderground (Interscope) £10.99
The horror-chime prelude; the thrash metal melee that ensues; grisly song titles like ‘Kill Caustic’ and ‘Miss Murder’ ... first impressions carry little warning of the gust of stadium rock that billows through AFI’s seventh album. With Green Day producer Jerry Finn on the boards, skater riffs and nu metal bass lines are there in force, but one senses the Californian quartet would rather be playing arenas in Stuttgart circa 1986. And though they do have heavy-duty hooks and choruses which would appeal to Scorpions devotees, it’s all let down by singer Davey Havok’s ponderous lyrics and an alarming lack of irony. KF
Phil Woods
Quintet American Songbook (Kind of Blue) £11.99
I doubt if Phil Woods has played a casual or non-committal note in his long career. On alto saxophone and clarinet, he is one of the most passionate improvisers in jazz, with the fervour of impatient youth matched to the technique and canny resourcefulness of the 72-year-old veteran he is. This music is just clean, straightforward arrangements of 10 American classics, but somehow it all sounds bigger, brighter, juicier than you would expect. With the superb Bill Charlap on piano, trumpeter Brian Lynch and Woods’s regular bass-drums team of Steve Gil more and Bill Goodwin, it’s a classic of the genre. DG
Thomas Mapfumo
Rise Up (Real World) £13.99
Thomas Mapfumo is lionised in Zimbabwe: the rebellious voice of a nation since its struggle for independence back in the 70s. There’s a keen sense of deja vu here as he rallies his compatriots yet again in the face of an oppressive regime. Rise Up was recorded last year in leafy Eugene, Oregon (where Mapfumo now lives in exile) with a great young band and a bagful of hooks. The fire remains – one song is called I’m Mad as Hell – yet he urges people to be brave in the most chilled of grooves. Deep in the mix, the non-stop plink of the mbira invokes his country’s ancestors in dark days that here sound like the best of times. CMcD
