Red Hot Chili Peppers – I’m With You Released: 29 August 2011 Genre: Rock What do bands that are all about youthful exuberance do when they hit middle age? If they are the Red Hot Chili Peppers, they slide gratefully into their comfort zone and carry on churning out the same record. Im With You is their tenth studio album and, damningly, is virtually indistinguishable from any of the previous [...]
Laura Marling – A Creature I Do Not Know Released: 12 September 2011 Genre: Folk At the age of just 21, Laura Marling sounds terrifyingly wise beyond her years. Just a year after her formidable second album, I Speak Because I Can, its follow-up finds Marling once again shining a torch deep into the recesses of her heart and soul while simultaneously taking a musical quantum leap. Where her two [...]
Little Dragon – Ritual Union Released: 25 July 2011 Genre: Pop Most people first became aware of Swedish-Japanese singer Yukimi Nagano when she sang two tracks on Gorillaz Plastic Beach album. She is unlikely to need such celebrity leg-ups much longer, as her Gothenburg-based band Little Dragons third album is a fascinating and compelling mix of yearning synth-pop and slyly subversive lyrics delivered with poise, poetry and passion. The albums [...]
Nero – Welcome Reality Released: 15 August 2011 Genre: Dance Chase & Status proteges Nero may be the rave-pop pupils who end up bettering their masters. The London drum & bass/dubstep duo of Daniel Stephens and Joe Ray are signed to the most established C&S’s label, and it shows. They faithfully mirror many of their paymasters’ habits, which means sledgehammer rave beats, shuddering synths and choruses that throw the kitchen [...]
Kasabian – Velociraptor! Released: 19 September 2011 Genre: Rock Kasabian have loudly proclaimed their fourth studio album to be a classic. This is no surprise: they always do. In fact, such mouthy boasting has often worked against them in the past, leading many to dismiss their cocky self-promotion as a pale impersonation of Oasis’s similar antics. The difference is that this time the confidence is justified: Velociraptor! takes the Leicester [...]
Game – Welcome Reality Released: 22 August 2011 Genre: Hip hop The Game has lost the definite article from his name but there is not much else missing from this album. The West Coast rapper born Jayceon Terrell Taylor took two years to make The R.E.D. Album and appears to have spent the majority of the time amassing A-list rap and R&B collaborators. Games own gruff flow is compelling, but [...]
