After more than half a century Paul McCartney is still pushing his songwriter’s pen, seemingly with a desire to prove his worth in each successive generation. The last few decades haven’t been his strongest yet New, surprisingly, is something of a return to the essence of the ex-Beatle in terms of strong, melodic, pop songs. Not everything works, particularly on the lyrical front where he too often settles for simplistic wordplay yet there are many quite superb moments. The infectious groove of I Can Bet, the glorious Beatles-esque single New and the tripped-out beats of Appreciate are just some making a strong case for McCartney’s continued musical relevance.
by Chris Familton
this review was first published in The Music
Returning with their first album in seventeen years, it quickly becomes apparent that time doesn’t equate to change in the world of Mazzy Star. That is of course a good thing if you are fan of their earlier work as here they take those key elements of Hope Sandoval’s breathless, sensual voice and David Roback’s spacious, drifting musical canvases and wrap them around a batch of beautiful, shimmering songs.
The third album from Melbourne’s The Ancients is a record that hurtles, ambles and breezes by with equal amounts of intricate musicality and simple skewed-pop broad strokes. There is a wistful 60s folk tinge to songs like House of Cards, the lighter contrast to their more layered and dense psych excursions such as the shoegaze haze of Hamster and the epic Molokai that manages to sound like Boo Radleys, High Llamas and Ariel Pink all at the same time. Ultimately Night Bus is a gorgeous, wide-ranging melancholic pop album that embraces sonic friction, frayed edges and melodic beauty with equal aplomb.
Pond are and forever will be compared to Tame Impala, with whom they share a few members, and yes they both trade in retro-fitted psychedelic rock but dig below the surface and the two bands are clearly circling different planets. On Hobo Rocket they’ve pulled back on the overblown eccentricities that were generally to their detriment and produced a concise, freewheeling and fun album.
