5 BEST ALBUMS OF THE MONTH – APRIL 2024
29 April 2024
Band: THE BLACK KEYS (Akron, Ohio)
Album: OHIO PLAYERS – their 12th
TUTV: Surprise. The Black Keys made an album that features lots of bright pop tunes and some light blues ones. The licks/riffs and hooks, about a thousand of course, haven’t that BK’s raw and rough edge as we are used to. It’s all about feel-good, easy-going, and most entertaining tunes. It makes me feel happy and relaxed.
The overall sonority leans more towards power guitar pop (slow, mid-tempo and only
a couple of fast ones), maybe that’s Beck‘s vibes influence, who is present on half of the songs. They also invited befriended rappers Lil Noid and Juicy J and some other celebs.
I never thought that the tandem would come up after 23 years (yes, twenty-three years!) with a different sounding, coherent longplayer, without ignoring their blues roots that is. Ohio Players will be the album that I’ll play more than their whole catalogue together.
14 songs, 44 minutes with an accurate cliché ‘all killers, no fillers.’
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Band: METZ (Ottawa, Canada)
Album: UP ON GRAVITY HILL – their 5th
TUTV: ‘Up On Gravity Hill’ blows your mind, your psyche, and your ears
for 34 thunderous minutes of razor-blade wall-of-sound exorcism. Vintage
chainsaw voltage (No Reservation/Love Comes Crashing, Entwined (Street Light
Buzz), Never Still Again and the ace anti-advertising ballyhoo sledgehammer
’99’), a mean drum/bass machine throughout, and Edkins‘ mixed emotions
cry outs combine for a rough helter-skelter ride.
No arty farty BS for them, no special effects. All cylinders, all burners. It’s only
on the gripping mid-tempo closing reflection that the trio slow down a bit but
still make your stereo tremble. A great ending to another great record.
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Band: FAT WHITE FAMILY (London, UK)
Album: FORGIVENESS IS YOURS – 4th LP
TUTV: Gone are the days of rock to shock with pathetic songs such as the one about
Nazi propaganda chief Goebbels and Lebensraum. Also gone is musical orchestrator Saul Adamczewski who left the band amidst the recording sessions (not the first time he went through the exit).
Less drugs and less hedonism led to more focus on the songwriting/music, which
got better and better over the years and results now in their best full length.
Almost all tracks are ongoing electronica-infused vibes (Polygamy Is Only For The Chief / Feed The Horse) and addictive jams with poetic frontman Lias Saoudi telling/singing lots of enigmatic and absurd stories showing again how extensive his vocabulary is (The Archivist, Today You Become Man).
Here and there he’s the crooner he loves to be (Religion For One / You Can’t Face It). Sonically the record, enriched with lots of spot-on details (flutes, backing choir vocals, piano) is ingenious and crackerjack. A winner.
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Band: VIRGINS (Ireland)
Album: NOTHING HURT AND ANYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL – debut
TUTV: Virgins take you on a flight at supersonic speed way up into the sky above the clouds, where reality becomes surreality, where layers of seventh heaven shoegaze symphonies blast from the plane’s speakers. For 40 phantasy-stimulating minutes, you’ll forget all about what happens down there, on our dramatically disturbed planet.
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We need to escape it all, now and then to stay sane, and that’s when these Belfast daydreamers are a great option to connect with. Layers of glowing guitars, hallucinatory vocals and an overall lyrical sonority will trigger your fantasies and will make you feel
going high(er) forgetting all about the daily, mind-boggling rat race.
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Band: THE LIBERTINES (London, UK)
Album: ALL QUIET ON THE EASTERN ESPLANADE
TUTV: After the turbulence, chaos, and drugs addictions (especially Doherty) of the early years, the side-projects, solo records, and getting clean and healthy the Libs are back, again. They’re not the boys in the band of yesteryear, they’re now grown-up men who
enjoy a stable life and are still obsessed by making music.
Compared to their first two tempestuous and jarring indie punk LPs they mellowed naturally. Older and wiser. But Doherty/Barat are still terrific songwriters, assisted here
by John Hassall/Gary Powell, with Doherty as the 5-star one.
They still rock with vivacious punch (Run Run Run / Of Shit / Mustangs / Be Young ), they
still know how to seduce with captivating, romantic ballads (Shiver / Night Of The Hunter / Baron’s Claw), and Doherty/Barat still are soul-stirring vocalists.
Not one dull moment, not one dull song. They became notable, experienced musicians who left their hedonistic lifestyle behind themselves for several years now. They sound clean, healthy and happy (lots of laughter between songs, especially at the end of closer Songs They Never Play On The Radio) all the way through and it feels very fine.
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