Album reviews: Feb 11

Thursday 11th February 2010

Corinne Bailey Rae
The Sea
(Virgin Records)
For those artists who complain about that difficult Second Album Syndrome, spare a thought for Corinne Bailey Rae. At the end of 2007 she began work on the not inconsiderable task of following up her four million-selling eponymous debut only to see her world fall apart with the news that her husband had been found dead at home following an accidental overdose of methadone and alcohol. By her own admission, Bailey Rae spent the next year in shock, hardly leaving the safety of her own home and was left complete inert by her loss.
Touchingly, an unassuming dedication in the liner notes reads: “This album, like everything I do, is made to try and impress Jason Bruce Rae.” Her grief does has an influence on The Sea, but it’s by no means its defining emotion.
The record opens on two emotional ballads. Are You Here seems to directly talk to her late husband’s spirit, but it’s understated and delivered in a whoozy soft-focus style cleverly suited to its other-worldly subject matter. It builds to a beautiful swelling chorus shot through with optimism. It’s an idea that is pulled off again on I’ll Do It All Again which finds rays of hope in even the most hopeless situation.
After wrongfooting listeners with the opening slowies, Feels Like The First Time kicks in with a funky mash-up of Marvin Gaye, Philly soul and John Barry spy scores.
The Blackest Lily turns up the guitars on a kicking slice of rocky soul which boasts a killer chorus. Closer is an unassuming slice of slinky soul which could have come from Luther Vandross or Teddy Pendergrass. However, Love’s On Its Way is rather too hushed for its own good and passes by almost unnoticed.
And would you believe it, Bailey Rae’s promise of a Radiohead influence stands up on the spiralling melody of Paper Dolls.
Diving For Hearts is a grandiose and sweeping way to round things off before the enigmatic title track wraps things up. It’s perhaps her one outpouring of frustration at her loss on a dignified and admirable collection.
Out now
8/10
STEVE HARNELL

The Sunshine Underground
Nobody’s Coming To Save You
(City Rockers)
There’s a lot of huffing and puffing on this second album from this Leeds-based four-piece. But for all the bluster, it’s a record which fails to connect on an emotional level.
Originally lumped in with the short-lived nu-rave scene headed by The Klaxons, the new-look Sunshine Underground return as anthemic indie dance rockers.
They’re not helped by frontman Craig Wellington’s foghorn voice which comes at you like a mixture of Public Image Ltd-era John Lydon and The Music’s Robert Harvey.
Opener Coming To Save You lurches along propelled by a fat bassline until its inevitable terrace anthem chorus. They meld 80s white funk to current dance rock on In Your Arms perhaps unaware that The Killers beat them to it by several years. Back to the drawing board, lads.
Out now
4/10
STEVE HARNELL

Hayseed Dixie
Killer Grass
(Cooking Vinyl)
You probably know the drill by now. Nashville’s Hayseed Dixie made their name with semi-comedy bluegrass versions of classic rock anthems. They fiddled with the formula on 2008’s self-explanatory No Covers which duly bombed. They return here to the safety of Bohemian Rhapsody (ho-hum), The Prodigy’s Omen (disappointingly aimless) and Black Sabbath’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (cover your ears, Ozzy). A trawl through The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again elicits the merest flicker of a smile.
The band’s original material takes in a celebration of hard drinking and dope smoking on Tolerance and the just plain juvenile on Alien Abduction Probe.
Killer Grass is perhaps only of interest for those who think that Cheech and Chong are the height of urbane wit.
Out now
3/10
STEVE HARNELL

Josh Rouse
El Turista
(Bedroom Classics)
This new record from acclaimed singer-songwriter Josh Rouse is the aural equivalent of a Vitamin D injection.
After relocating with his wife and child to Valencia, this bilingual collection of samba and Cuban beats positively bursts with sunshine. Rouse has come a long way from his Nebraskan roots and seems to have totally absorbed the Spanish musical influences of his new home. The spirit of Joao Gilberto pervades much here including pretty opener Bienvenido and the slinky Duerme.
But there’s also a touch of Paul Simon to the percussive strum of I Will Live On Islands.
Rouse’s Lemon Tree is a swooning beauty and he pulls off a radical reinvention on American Civil War traditional song Cotton Eye Joe. El Turista’s schizophrenic for sure, but never less than beguiling.
Released: February 22
7/10
STEVE HARNELL