Entertainment

Albums: New music from Gary Numan, Gruff Rhys, Billie Marten and Chrissie Hynde

Gary Numan's album Intruder
Gary Numan's album Intruder

GARY NUMAN – INTRUDER

INTRUDER, the latest release from 80s synth-pop star Gary Numan, presents a dystopian vision of the future driven by a climate crisis. The brooding album sees Numan strive to push boundaries with his reflections on politics, nature and the impact of humans on the planet.

As well as having a strong message for a contemporary audience, he has also ensured his latest release has a fresh new sound to match.

Intruder opens with Betrayed, an eerie, hypnotic-sounding song which sets the tone for the rest of the album. However Intruder's title track is perhaps its strongest. The song features a driving synth tune reminiscent of Numan's 80s heyday played against the backdrop of a driving beat.

The Chosen, Now And Forever and When You Fall are also particular highlights.

The album shows Numan's ability to reinvent and develop his music and at 63 he is showing no signs of letting up creatively.

Rating: 4stars

Tom Horton

GRUFF RHYS – SEEKING NEW GODS

GRUFF Rhys set out to record a biography of an active volcano, Mount Paektu on the Chinese-North Korean border, and ended with a more personal quest.

The Super Furry Animals leader says the record is about the transience of people's lives compared with geology's slower changes, and it has a spiritual aspect not always found in his other work.

Mausoleum Of My Former Self begins with a simple piano pattern while joyous brass and woozy keyboards accompany cryptic lyrics. Hiking In Lightning surfs in on a wave of distorted guitars before a catchy chorus, while The Keep is influenced by Beach Boy Brian Wilson, adding some squawking sax.

The title track is slower and sparser, while on closer Distant Snowy Peaks he sings about looking for truth and wisdom before a slow fadeout.

Always moving forward, never predictable or repeating himself, with this biography of a mountain, Rhys is still conquering new peaks.

Rating: 4stars

Matt George

BILLIE MARTEN – FLORA FAUNA

BILLIE Marten was 17 when she released her gently folk-rocking debut, Writing of Blues and Yellows. Her music was soulful but pleasingly rough around the edges.

Five years later, her third offering, the pastoral Flora Fauna, builds layers of sound and emotion at the expense of that rawness.

It is certainly Marten's most full-bodied work, full of sombre musings tinged with the cynicism of adulthood.

Album opener Garden Of Eden, in which she sings "Blooming louder by the hour / Separate the sweet and sour / I am hungry for the power", paints an abstract picture of human growth in an oppressive society.

Recorded with producer Rich Cooper in London, the record marries the murmuring intensity of Billie Eilish with the smoothness of vocal contemporaries Birdy and Lorde.

Most impressive is how she seeks inspiration from German krautrock pioneers Can, drawing on their intense drum rhythms to great effect.

What Marten may have lost in rawness here, she has gained in scope.

Rating: 3stars

Alex Green

CHRISSIE HYNDE – STANDING IN THE DOORWAY: CHRISSIE HYNDE SINGS BOB DYLAN

SUCH was the impact of Bob Dylan's Murder Most Foul on Hynde and Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne when it was released last year that they decided to record a full album of Dylan covers – what emerged was faithful renditions of nine songs with original release dates spanning from 1965 to 1997.

The lockdown recordings have a relaxed feel, with Hynde counting in the first two songs and the pair's conversation and laughter faintly audible during the outro to In The Summertime.

The stand-out offering, curiously, is Blind Willie McTell – only released by Dylan on his 1991 Bootleg Series or rare and unreleased recordings.

Hynde's voice suits the material but adds little of note on a collection which is more curio than crucial.

Rating: 2stars

Tom White