Simply Red, 25 – The Greatest Hits (EMI/simplyred.com) *****

12:00pm Friday 21st November 2008

Mick Hucknall so enjoyed this year’s experience of recording his tribute to Bobby Bland that he decided to put a book-end to the Simply Red story with a final concert tour and this lavish 25-hit collection.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Dido, Safe Trip Home (Sony BMG) ****

12:01pm Friday 21st November 2008

NICK Ross is wont to advise Crime Watch viewers not to have nightmares. Well, if you are prone to the occasional difficult night, you should perhaps invest in Safe Trip Home.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Rodrigo y Gabriela, Live in Japan (Rubyworks) ***

11:53am Friday 21st November 2008

MORE of the exhilarating same from the Mexican guitar duo, who strum, pluck and rhythmically bash their guitars to such mesmerising effect.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Ben Folds, Way To Normal (Sony) *; Herman Dune, New Year In Zion (City Slang) **

11:59am Friday 21st November 2008

MISTAKES are part of life’s rich pageant. Folds seems intent on taking all the elements that made his last record so good; the melodies, clear lyrics and good tunes, and throwing them away.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Is It The Sea? (Domino) ****

11:55am Friday 21st November 2008

BONNIE ‘Prince’ Billy, the Louisville recluse, constantly meddles with his moniker and music alike, switching between Palace Music, Will Oldham and his Bonnie alter ego.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Little Joy, Little Joy (Rough Trade) ****

11:54am Friday 21st November 2008

FABRIZIO Moretti has had his fair share of superstardom playing sticks for The Strokes. But with the garage rock revivers on hiatus, he has followed his bandmates down the side project path.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Cardinology (Lost Highway) ***

11:44am Friday 14th November 2008

ADAMS overkill? Like Prince and others less talented, Ryan Adams is in danger of deluging the market with music.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Nitin Sawhney, London Undersound (Cooking Vinyl) ****

11:45am Friday 14th November 2008

REMARKABLY, this is the eighth album from the Anglo-Asian musician, whose prolific output is matched by the reach of his influences and guest contributors.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Marc Almond, Bluegate Fields – Live At Wilton’s Music Hall (Network) ****; Eartha Kitt, Live At The Cheltenham Festival (Network) ****

11:48am Friday 14th November 2008

Yorkshire fans were overjoyed to see Marc Almond’s triumphant concert at the Leeds Grand Theatre last June.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Tony Christie, Made in Sheffield (Decca/Autonomy) ****; Jane Taylor, Compass (Bicycle Records) ****

11:49am Friday 14th November 2008

AFTER the interminable, Lazarus-like chart resurrection of Tony Christie on a piggyback from Peter Kay, who would not have been happy to show him all the way to Amarillo.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Haymans Green, The Pete Best Band (EMI) **

11:43am Friday 14th November 2008

This record brings the year to a curious close. At 2008’s outset, Ringo Starr brought out an execrable album.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Razorlight, Slipway Fires (Vertigo/Mercury) **; Snow Patrol, A Hundred Million Suns (Fiction/Polydor) ***

12:42pm Friday 7th November 2008

There is something despicable about Johnny Borrell. And this is to the detriment of Razorlight.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Girls Aloud, Out Of Control (Fascination) ***; Sugababes, Catfights And Spotlights (Island/Universal) ****

12:41pm Friday 7th November 2008

AS A rule, the average pop act is relegated to the achieves on the release of a greatest hits collection. Last Christmas’s festive collaborations from Girls Aloud and Sugababes should have been the nail in their coffins.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

The Vines, Melodia (Ivy League) ***; The Datsuns, Headstunts (Cooking Vinyl), ***

12:35pm Friday 7th November 2008

THE Vines have dropped off the radar since 2002’s Highly Evolved sold two million copies and put the group alongside The Strokes, The Hives and The White Stripes.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Damien Jurado, Caught In The Trees (Secretly Canadian) ****; Jim White, A Funny Little Cross To Bear (Luaka Bop) ***

12:36pm Friday 7th November 2008

FUSING poetry and music often emphasises the words at the expense of the tune.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Buena Vista Social Club, Buena Vista Social Club At Carnegie Hall (World Circuit) ***

12:38pm Friday 7th November 2008

HERE, years after the event, is a live recording of the concert which saw veteran Cuban musicians playing at the most glittering New York venue.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

The Cure, 4:13 Dream (Suretone/Geffen) ***; Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby, Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby (Stiff Records) ***

12:40pm Friday 7th November 2008

ROBERT Smith turns 50 next year, still the panda-eyed teenager in a black pool of romantic despond.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

U2, Under A Blood Red Sky (Universal/Island) ****; The Clash, Live At Shea Stadium (Sony BMG) ****

10:05am Friday 31st October 2008

U2 were looking to break America; The Clash were broken by it.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

P!NK, Funhouse (Sony BMG) ****; Anastasia, Heavy Rotation (Mercury) ****

10:39am Friday 31st October 2008

John Lennon famously said: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Martyn Joseph, Evolved (Pipe Records) ****

10:25am Friday 31st October 2008

MARTYN JOSEPH, dubbed the “Welsh Springsteen”, revisits 15 of his most significant songs, stripping them back to the bare acoustic essentials.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

TV On The Radio, Dear Science (Touch and Go Records ) ****

10:26am Friday 31st October 2008

WHAT a confident, thrilling piece of work this is – all swagger and swoon from first moment to last.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Lucinda Williams, Little Honey (Lost Highway) ***

10:27am Friday 31st October 2008

NEW car wheels have parked on Lucinda Williams’s gravel road.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Black Ice, AC/DC (Columbia) ***

10:29am Friday 31st October 2008

BLACK Ice is the long-awaited new studio album from AC/DC, their first in eight years, and features 15 new songs from the Australian band.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Sarah McQuaid, I Won’t Go Home Until Morning ***

11:00am Friday 24th October 2008

THE voice of singer-songwriter Sarah McQuaid has been likened to “matured cognac” and her acoustic guitar work is inventive and skilled.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

James Yorkston, When The Haar Rolls In (Domino)****

11:01am Friday 24th October 2008

JAMES Yorkston has wandered in and out of notice with his tender, home-spun albums, which sound distilled rather than recorded.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Olivia Newton-John & Friends, A celebration In Song (EMI) *****

11:05am Friday 24th October 2008

OLIVIA doesn’t look it, but she celebrated her 60th birthday in grand style, in an all-star concert at the Sydney Opera House, while showing off her new husband, John Easterling.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Lambchop, OH (ohio)**

11:06am Friday 24th October 2008

OH (ohio) is Lambchop’s tenth album, and the immediate reaction on first play is Oh, is that it?

Comments (0) | Have your say »

BB King, One Kind Favor (Geffen) ****; Seasick Steve, Started Out With Nothing And I Still Got Most Of It Left (Warner) ***

11:07am Friday 24th October 2008

TWO blues albums whose performers may differ radically, but each painstakingly portrays the pain and bizarre uplift of the genre.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Kaiser Chiefs, Off With Their Heads (B-Unique) ****, Keane, Perfect Symmetry (Island) ***

11:08am Friday 24th October 2008

JUST one year after the release of second album Yours Truly, Angry Mob, the Kaiser Chiefs return. But make no mistake, Off With Their Heads is no slapdash effort.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

Lou Reed, Berlin: Live At St Ann’s Warehouse (Matador) ****

10:59am Friday 24th October 2008

Berlin, Lou Reed’s apocalyptic vision of a young couple’s descent into drug abuse, violence and suicide, was first released in 1973 to almost universal revulsion.

Comments (0) | Have your say »

More »