I Blame The Producers

The Stillest Hour
Carl Riseley
Mercury/Universal, 2009
2 stars

For me, watching a naïve, awkward young musician work his or her way through the various rounds of Australian Idol actually diminishes any star status they might have once they make it to the top. You get to see them pushed and prodded, beaten-down, styled and polished to a high-gloss sheen – by the time they make it to the steps of the Sydney Opera House they barely resemble the ‘real person’ they once were. Carl Riseley is a good example of this - during the show the producers did all but paint Michael Buble’s face over his own. Given, the guy is a decent singer and handy with a horn, but he’s no ladies man, so when on The Stillest Hour he channels Norah Jones and asks the listener to “come away with me in the night” he has about as much panache as a cabin supervisor on some late-night V-line service. That said, musically, this is pleasant enough, so if acoustic jazz-pop is your thing you could probably do worse. But for those expecting an Aussie answer to Harry Connick Jr. it’ll be like picking up a Miles Davis album at your local record store, getting it home and finding a Kenny G CD inside. Yes, your mum is going to love it.

Artwork: D
Predictable. "Someone, take Carl and his trumpet down to the train station and take some photos". The guy just looks lost.

Published in mX, Thursday April 30, 2009.

Still Smoking

Easy / House Music
Mum Smokes
Sensory Projects, 2009
4.5 stars

Wow. Though prolific in their various solo guises, not a lot has been seen/heard of these guys together in the last few years. Clearly, they've been busy - this double-album set (as opposed to a double-disc album, ala Deerhunter's Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.) was recorded between 2006 and last year, though how or why they've held onto it until now is beyond me, as either album could easily have been released in its own right to guaranteed critical aclaim. Easy starts offf with material from '06 and '07, predominantly a mix of lazy, poppy, acoustic folk with a few ambient instrumentals thrown in for good measure. Standout At The Gate is a front-runner for song of the year, with Karl Scullin's great basslines right up front in the mix, Them Days is a downbeat melancholy gem, and the laid-back epic Easy that closes out the disc is a ripper too. Vocal duties are shared throughout by Karl (better known as Kes) and Julian Patterson, though the latter has more success nailing the slack-but-still-in-tune thing. The second disc (depending on which way you hold the cleverly-designed album cover), House Music, is a more upbeat, rocking affair, with freak-folk and '60s rock sneaking its way into the mix. Once again, the album's first single is its standout track - Left For Dead is awkward at first, but once the haunted strings give way to the bouncy chorus it's absolutely riveting. Elsewhere the pace slows down - such as on the spacey Health and Girls, and title track House Music, a loose synth-flecked instrumental, heavily reminiscent of member Patterson's Minimum Chips project - but never does either disc lose its hold on the listener. Both seperate and as a whole, Easy and House Music are wonderful examples of late-noughties Australian folk-pop.

Artwork: A
Designwise, beautifully understated. Two albums built into one clean, elegant cardboard wallet. The artwork itself (as well as the band's first video clip, for At The Gate), comes courtesy of Mark Rodda, who was also responsible for the wonderful illustration that that addorned their previous album, 2005's Rainbows, Chasms and Fantasies (which will itself have a timely re-release later this year).

Born Crazy

Born Like This
DOOM
Lex/Inertia, 2009
3.5 stars

Comedians don’t start their stand-up routines with hip hop tracks, so why the hell do hip hoppers consistently start off their albums with un-funny, embarrassing skits? “Time to get the fetta”? What is that? There’s probably a garage full of DOOM’s mates absolutely pissing themselves about that fetta line, but it’s well and truly lost on the other 99.999% of us. Please, just cut to the hip hop. Thankfully however, when it actually kicks in, the music on Born Like This is pretty damn good. It’s a couple of marks off the superb Madvillainy (DOOM’s 2004 collaboration with Madlib), but the dark, low-end heavy, old-school approach works beautifully on Raekwon duet Yessir!, the piano-backed More Rhymin’ and ‘90s jazz-infused Still Dope, easily one of the best tracks he’s done. DOOM’s rhymes are as free and easy as ever, and the instrumental samples are as interesting as you’d expect from the first man in accordion-rap, but overall – for me – the flow is thrown off by the clumsy ‘Dr Evil’ skits that pop up throughout.

Artwork: C
Basically, as over-produced as the album itself. The concept is fantastic, with a stone tablet and mask on the album's cover, but on the inside it looks like a designer vomited. It's a nice gatefold digipak, with good stock and a gloss varnish to boot, but the designer has over-worked the type and, well, it's too much.

Published in mX, Thursday April 16, 2009.

Not Rusting Just Yet

Kingdom of Rust
Doves
Heavenly Recordings, 2009
3.5 stars

It must be hard work being a contemporary Brit-pop group in the shadow of Coldplay. But over the past decade these guys have plugged away, crafting the same kind of emotive, wide-reaching pop/rock as other shadow-dwellers Elbow and Keane. Their last LP, Some Cities, however, proved them to be at least a few rungs above the average. Kingdom of Rust, their first album in four years, sees Doves follow that same path – its songs, though not particularly inventive, are real foot-tappers - you’d be a fool to deny that these guys know how to write a good tune. Some Cities was choc-full of instant radio hits, but Kingdom of Rust is a bit more of a slow-burner. Thankfully singer Jimi Goodwin’s yearning vocal styling hasn’t changed over the band’s entire four-album catalogue –with the diverse nature of this record, there’s times where it’s the only recognizably ‘Doves’ thing happening. Highlights come in the form of the bottom-heavy guitar wig-out on 10:03 and the great, spacious groove of The Greatest Denier, but the Blondie-esque Compulsion is, well, kind of embarrasing. Kingdom of Rust won’t blow you away, but it definitely makes a nice addition to what is a solid catalogue for the Manchester three-piece.

Artwork: C+
A few nice photo-montages with a real 'rust' theme and some clean type make for a tidy, if a little underwhelming, overall package.

Published in mX, Thursday April 9, 2009.