Entertainment

Albums: The 1975 deliver on their fifth album – despite resorting to old tricks

New music from Tove Lo and The Big Moon...

The 1975 album Being Funny In A Foreign Language
The 1975 album Being Funny In A Foreign Language The 1975 album Being Funny In A Foreign Language

THE 1975

BEING FUNNY IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

MATTY HEALEY’S band are back with all the upbeat melodies and downbeat lyrics you could hope for.

But unfortunately, many of them sound much like what we have heard before from the usually forward-looking outfit.

Opening strong on The 1975 and continuing into the gorgeous disco-esque Happiness, the album certainly kicks off well, bringing in brass and bass and sampling that is truly new.

But Oh Caroline and I’m In Love With You could have been taken directly off of the second album I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware, and releasing I’m In Love With You as a single seems nonsensical when you have catchy, engaging tracks such as Human Too on the record.

There are great songs here that give you everything you want from a slightly more mature band but, ultimately, this does feel a bit too much like history repeating itself.

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THE BIG MOON

HERE IS EVERYTHING

HOWEVER wonderfully this third studio album turned out, it could only hope to be frontwoman Juliette Jackson’s second-finest creation of recent times.

This truth, as is evident from the very first glimpse of Here Is Everything, the cover depicts Jackson in an advanced stage of pregnancy.

Lead single Wide Eyes is a stunning ode to seeing the world afresh through the eyes of one’s infant child, with the lyrics producing the album’s title: “Here Is Everything And It’s All New Again, Cos I’ve Got Your Wide Eyes”.

Much of the album was written during pregnancy, reflecting the natural anxieties at play but with a wry approach.

“I wonder which parts of me my kids are going to hate,” Jackson muses on Satellites, one of a pair of gorgeous piano-led numbers with High And Low (“I wonder if you can die from sleep deprivation”).

The 11 songs as a whole though, carry a euphoric and life-affirming feel.

There is a strong Jenny Lewis feel to much of the album, summery indie defying the complexity of the lyrics, while Suckerpunch brings more than a hint of PJ Harvey and the disco-pop of Daydreaming is a pleasant curveball.

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TOVE LO – DIRT FEMME

IN THE ever more competitive landscape of female pop, Tove Lo rises to the top with her latest album.

Dirt Femme sees the Swedish singer exploring femininity and sexuality through powerful electropop, grungy vocals and blaring synths.

Pure energy is present in the lively electronic tracks: lead single How Long is set to lithe a dance beat, Kick In The Head features some catchy humming and 2 Die 4 samples the synthpop classic Popcorn.

This all offers a beautiful contrast to the slower songs on the album.

I’m To Blame is a tragic tale set to haunting acoustic guitar and piano, whereas True Romance uses a dark beat and highlights sensational vocals that are not overwhelmed by the epic production.

The lyrics and subject matter are impressive too.

Suburbia focuses on Lo not wanting children while Pineapple Slice plays with seductive lyrics to great effect.

Every song here pulls its weight. Truly, this is vocal pop at its absolute best.

****

BRIAN ENO – FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE

THE 22nd album from ambient maestro Brian Eno is remarkable for a number of reasons.

There is its sound. A tender mixture of rock sensibilities, crackling guitars harking back to the 70s, globe-trotting arrangements and dancing, glittering synth lines.

Also impressive is his voice. Eno sings on almost all the tracks and he goes deeper than on 2005’s Another Day On Earth – the last time his vocals played such a prominent role.

“My voice has changed, it’s lowered, it’s become a different personality I can sing from,” he says.

Finally, there is the message.

The liner notes to the album describe how Eno chose the album title because the planet and nature are “changing at a super-rapid rate and that large parts of it are disappearing forever”.

Each song on FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE, from the chant-like I’m Hardly Me to the majestic We Let It In, builds towards this vision of something beautiful at risk.

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