The Thrills
Let's Bottle Bohemia
(Virgin)
The Dublin five-piece's debut So Much for the City was a pleasant take on Sixties sunshine pop which wore the influence of Brian Wilson like a medal. Now their sound has acquired a harder edge; singer Conor Deasy still sounds like a less stoned Wayne Coyne, a more present Jonathan Donahue, but there's less of the Beach Boys harmonisation. There are still some lovely musical touches - the Ronnie Hazlehurst-style strings on the single 'Whatever Happened to Corey Haim?'; REM's Peter Buck's mandolin on 'Faded Beauty Queens'; a short string arrangement from Van Dyke Parks - little twists in the fabric of the music. Clearly for this band, the west (the album was made in LA) is still the best.
Ian Brown
Solarized
(Fiction)
The former Stone Roses frontman proves once again that he is more than a viable prospect as a solo artist, even if there is a strangely narcoleptic quality to his fourth solo outing. There's a vague Eastern feel to opener 'Longsight M13'. That inclination is made clearer in the rocky 'One Way Ticket to Paradise', which features ethnic drums and haunting, if heavy, guitar from co-writer Aziz Ibrahim. Tim Hutton, who rose to prominence with Groove Armada, is also present and provides complex, Latin-feeling brass on four tracks. The collaboration with Noel Gallagher - 'Keep What Ya Got' - is a competent (if plodding) rocker.
Giant Sand
It's All Over the Map
(Thrill Jockey)
Howe Gelb, the doyen of alt.country, continues his ridiculously prolific career (Giant Sand releases are into the dozens these days) with this pleasant selection of skewed ditties. At times, the songwriting falls down - there's something glib, for instance, about the lyrics to 'NYC of Time' - but there's a great range of textures crammed into the ramshackle country framework. The above track features a piercing solo which sounds like a guitar but is, in fact, a scream. There is some fine slide work and on several tracks the strings of Gelb's piano are struck or plucked while he plays to provide strange, hammer dulcimer-like accompaniment.
Paul Weller
Studio 150
(V2)
Paul Weller and his mates (including Steve Cradock of Ocean Colour Scene) decamped to Amsterdam to record this collection of a dozen cover versions but it has done little to alter his penchant for Seventies blues-rock. At times, this is a good thing, as with the opener 'If I Could Only Be Sure', where a clean, close Gibson riff and organ underpin Weller's vocals, or in the fizzing, funky drumbeat and heavy piano on Aaron Neville's 'Hercules'. At times, it doesn't work however; the cover of Sister Sledge's 'Thinking of You' just sounds strange - and what was the point of adding a choir to 'All Along the Watchtower'? That said, there's a lovely string section and harp on the single, 'Wishing on a Star', and Weller's voice really stands out on 'Black Is the Colour' with Eliza Carthy.
Fried
Fried
(London)
David Steele waited years post-Fine Young Cannibals for the right vocalist to come along. Then, one day, she turned up - bizarrely - in New Orleans. And Jonté Short, 24, does have an extraordinary voice, suffused with gospel and acrobatically versatile. There's fine material here - real sass on the opener 'When You Get Out of Jail', with its shuffling breakbeat and sitar drone and some fantastic high notes on 'Friends in Low Places'. The strong songs are backed by a nice line in sweet strings and off-kilter slide guitar. It's just a shame that Short and Steele rarely break free from the trip hoppy breakbeats.
Nellie McKay
Get Away from Me
(Sony)
There is no doubting 19-year-old McKay's talent. The multi-instrumentalist (a very good pianist) has put together a great collection of songs for her debut, all set more or less within the jazz idiom but ranging from melancholic piano ballads ('Manhattan Avenue') through funk-backed rap ('Sari') to Stereolab-style space rock ('Baby Watch Your Back'). There's an enjoyable cynicism to the slowie 'I Wanna Get Married' and the upbeat, anti-bloke 'It's a Pose', and some nice psychotic lyrical barbs to 'Won't U Please B Nice'. Musically, my money's on the opener 'David', which has crowded vocal overdubs on top of reggae, or 'Toto Dies', where Jay Berliner takes a turn on the Spanish guitar over pizzicato strings. Largely trite but impressive.
