FATHER JOHN MISTY
I Love You, Honeybear
SubPop
Former Fleet Foxes drummer and soft folk troubadour, Josh Tillman, has reinvented himself for his last two albums as Father John Misty. Gone is the earnest lo-fi strumming, to be replaced with dense pop splendour. I Love You, Honeybear finds Tillman looking internally as he critiques his marriage/relationship with his tongue firmly in his cheek.
As far as alter egos go, Father John Misty is a mischievous and goofy one. It is this persona that allows Tillman the space to be as candid on the title track when stating ‘I brought my mother’s depression, you’ve got your father’s scorn and wayward aunt’s schizophrenia’. Whilst autobiographical, I Love You, Honeybear doesn’t gloss over any of the cracks, particularly on the darkly confessional The Ideal Husband.
The songs here are lavishly layered with strings, acoustic guitars and pianos to deliver some beautiful sounding orchestral pop that spends a large amount of time crossing the bridge between declarations of love and acrid irony. The canned laughter through the satirical Bored In The USA reinforces Tillman’s tipping of the hat to pop culture during these bombastic melodic moments.
It is true that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but the packaging for I Love You, Honeybear is exquisite. There is a pop-up collage, a listening guide and extensive artwork. Tillman has left no stone unturned on this sensual beauty.
4.5 stars
CHRIS HAVERCROFT
STEVE EARLE AND THE DUKES
Terraplane
New West/Warner
Steve Earle’s 16th solo album, Terraplane, is an affair a tad over half-an-hour long, firmly rooted in Americana. There’s talk of Tennessee, a vagrant love life and a good dose of harmonicas all over this largely bluesy/hillbilly record. At other times, there are hints of saloon piano, a mandolin and a fiddle.
Indeed, the album criss-crosses all over the vagaries of American music – blues, country, western, bluegrass, folk – and back again.
Terraplane comes across as a rather serious affair, and indeed Earle recorded this album shortly after breaking up with wife, Allison Moorer, his sixth (!). Unlike Earle’s heart, this album doesn’t do much wandering, rarely ever getting close to upbeat or exciting – the opener, Baby Baby Baby (Baby) is the only exception.
If you like sad, traditional American music and/or nostalgia, Terraplane is recommended. Better Off Alone deals heavily in misery while Acquainted With The Wind and Baby’s Just As Mean As Me are lathered in olden-day Americana.
But if you’re in need of cheering up, try watching the cricket instead.
3 stars
NICHOLAS HARTMAN
KITTY, DAISY & LEWIS
The Third
Shock
The title of this third studio album is not very imaginative, which is a shame because it immediately lowers your expectations from this talented young band. Even the album itself, produced by The Clash’s Mick Jones, isn’t quite as ambitious or exciting as we’d hoped.
Opening track, Whenever You See Me, is one of the more energetic on the album, adding some big band piano and brass to the mix. It’s a strong start. Baby Bye Bye is the first song with older sibling Lewis on vocals. He’s like the hybrid of Jack White and C.W. Stoneking. Feeling Of Wonder is a soulful ditty reminiscent of bands like Saskwatch or Blue King Brown, while No Action starts soft and slow before launching drums and a killer bass riff.
Lewis returns to vocals for Good Looking Woman, a song about long-distance love affairs; a common theme the trio seem to explore this time ‘round. Turkish Delight is a bouncing beat that’s much more in tune with their previous album, 2011’s Smoking In Heaven. It Ain’t Your Business utilises the male/female vocal dynamic to nice effect, with a duelling electric guitar/harmonica backing to complement.
Ain’t Always Better Your Way lacks energy but thankfully Bitchin’ in the Kitchen makes up for it in spades, while Never Get Back packs an emotional punch. Whiskey is a sombre country ballad, featuring a sweeping acoustic rhythm and string section and the album finishes with Developer’s Disease, which keeps the Southern country vibe going strong.
3 stars
CHRIS BRIGHT
GRENADIERS
Summer
Independent
With a mix of impressive riff work, high energy vocals and fast paced drumming, Grenadiers’ second album, Summer, is a hotbed of cleverly structured hard rock that manages to drag influences from post-hardcore, punk, blues, heavy rock and progressive rock, creating a scorching amalgamation as fierce as the sun itself. Despite the album’s strengths, one of the most interesting parts of Summer is also the thing that is going to leave listeners most divided – the duality of its nature.
Summer takes the odd path of splitting its tracks into two subtly but still notably different song types: half of the music sets its roots in progressive rock and post-hardcore influences, while the other half goes for a classic rock’n’roll approach. What this means in terms of a listening experience is that on one hand, you’ll be sitting through howling vocals and unexpected hardcore riffs that cater nicely to fans of heavier music, but once this changes to the rock’n’roll parts with their easier to digest aesthetic and calmer singing sections, the fire and the staying power of the music takes a noticeable hit – although this may be reversed depending on where the listener’s interests lie.
With that said, there are several moments in Summer that bridge both influences, through the use of well-placed progressive guitar segments which have a tendency across the album to pop up, take an already enjoyable song and flesh it out past its own bonds – the proverbial cherry on top. Summer also manages to have the collateral to back these sections up with an unfettering, crisp production to add that extra punch to the harder sections, but ultimately due to the inconsistency between the heavier and the rock tracks, Summer seems to try and be too much at once in order to reach its full potential.
3 stars
THOMAS BRAND
JONNY TELAFONE
Romeo Must Cry
Chapter Music
In Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, the narrator frequently debates whether his sad disposition stems from years spent listening to pop music or if he likes pop music because he’s naturally sad. Jonny Telafone’s first official LP follows a relationship from the early stages of doting attraction, through ‘Does she really like me?’ insecurities and nasty fight scenes, before the ultimate ‘Inferno’, which actualises the title’s prophecy.
Throughout, one wonders if Telafone hadn’t been exposed to innumerable songs of heartbreak, would his album narrator be such a hopelessly romantic figure?
The lyrical tear-fest is beautifully matched with synthesiser tension, new romantic percussion and power ballad progressions. Bang in the middle comes ‘Waking Up Crying’, featuring a stellar performance from rapper Bones. It sounds like an incongruous inclusion, but throwing Bones’ tougher point of view into the mix offers welcome respite from Telafone’s devout desperation.
There’s a sci-fi twinkle to the instrumentation, which suggests there’s more to this relationship than a simple ‘boy meets girl at the pub and proceeds in an ongoing courtship’ scenario.
Then again, isn’t there something unique about all of our relationships that convinces us that no-one else could’ve been through what we have? So perhaps such sounds are implemented to express Telafone’s disbelief at his entwinement in this unlikely love affair.
4 stars
AUGUSTUS WELBY
RYAN BINGHAM
Fear And Saturday Night
Lost Highway Australia
Ryan Bingham sounds pretty happy by his standards on his new album, Fear And Saturday Night. This is probably inevitable when you have exorcised the demons of your parents deaths (his mother through alcohol abuse and his father committed suicide) on previous album Tomorrowland and you are expecting your first child.
Bingham isn’t a big fan of studios, so he hired an Airstream trailer and took himself away from people for a while to write songs amongst the woods and the coyotes. The first of those tunes, Nobody Knows My Troubles, is uncharacteristically breezy kicking the album off in a laidback manner. Broken Heart Tattoos follows as a cautionary tale to Bingham’s unborn child about the wilder side of life.
The churlish voice of Bingham has him sounding like a weathered drinking buddy of Willie Nelson, with the songwriting know-how of a Jeff Tweedy. Top Shelf Drug lets Bingham play around with a dirty blues riff whilst Adventures Of You And Me shows the influence of his neighbour who taught Bingham Mariachi songs when he was 17 years-old.
Fear And Saturday Night finds Bingham moving on from the devastation that shaped his previous record without losing any of his bite. Fear And Saturday Night has Bingham ageing better than many a wine.
4 stars
CHRIS HAVERCROFT
