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11 January 2006

Luke Haines, Luke Haines Is Dead (Hut) Rating: 8
Since the '90s, the Luke Haines story reads like one of the great lost careers in British pop music. Through the Auteurs and Baader Meinhof to his solo albums and soundtrack work, he has been solely responsible for some of the most gloriously twisted songs in British pop. His vision has remained essentially British, without really concerning itself with the windswept romanticism of Morrissey, or the twitching curtains melodrama of Jarvis Cocker. And it's all the better for it. Anti-nostalgic and often wilfully perverse, (witness the charming Christmas single "Unsolved Child Murder"), Luke Haines Is Dead brings together some of the high points and hidden gems from his somewhat daunting output. Highlights range from the Britpop-inventing early work with the Auteurs to the terrorist funk of the magnificent Baader Meinhof album. It takes in the devastatingly beautiful ("How to Hate the Working Classes") and the bitterly cynical ("Chinese Bakery") along the way. It would appear that Mr Haines's decision that writing songs about middle class German terrorists ("Baader Meinhof") and English far-right decadence ("The Mitford Sisters") would be more interesting than songs about 18-30 holidays and Manchester, has hindered his commercial potential. But really, when the results have been as fine as this, he should leave the worrying about sales figures to Oasis. This 3-CD box set is the perfect excuse to become acquainted with the most criminally ignored British songwriter of the last decade.
      — Michael Lomas

Mick McAuley and Winifred Horan,Serenade (Compass) Rating: 5
Serenade deserves to be better than it is. Mick McAuley and Winifred Horan are both accomplished musicians; they've been part of the successful Irish-American folk group Solas for at least a decade now so you know that they can handle their instruments and carry a tune. In the case of "To Make You Feel My Love" they should have carried it miles away and buried it underneath a rock. It's the last song on the album and it's awful. The awfulness lies in the bland lyrics, which, in their defence, they did not write. Mick McAuley is known best as an accordionist but on Serenade he gets a chance to show off his singing as well, and "To Make You Feel My Love" is graced with his lilting, pleasant voice. "Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy" gets the same treatment, and so does Neil Young's "After The Gold Rush". Winifred Horan's fiddle springs along cheerfully and they play together on jigs and reels. The problem with all of this is that Serenade is not an exciting album. It's amiable and unmemorable. If you enjoy soft Irish folk music then you'll like what you hear. If you don't, it won't convert you.
      — Deanne Sole

Tim Anthony, The Happy Door (Jealousy) Rating: 6
This former member of The Brambles returns with light but very polished pop that falls somewhere between The Gin Blossoms and the Rembrandts. Songs such as "Maryellen" and the Byrdsian or Petty-like "Baby I'm Back". Anthony sounds as if he has a suitcase or vault filled with pop hooks judging by the infectious and airtight "Up to You" with its summer feeling and handclaps. The fact that MTV, Emotional Pictures and Granada Television inked him to a five-year deal to use his songs on MTV's "Roomraiders" and other upcoming shows only reinforces the fact that his tunes are finally getting the due that they are well overdue in getting. "This Autumn" is more of a Bowie-esque sort of tune with the melody carrying the brunt of the number while "No Words" is good but seems almost too ordinary. Maybe that says more to Anthony's consistency to maintaining a high level of well-crafted nuggets. Listening to "It Was You" is a great example of this as it starts off sappy but then gives the listener a good swift kick. Other tracks are too string-heavy, notably the Harrison-like "Disappear" that would have been better suited on recent XTC efforts. Nothing theatrical or over the top, just quality pop!
      — Jason MacNeil

So L'il, Dear Kathy, (Goodbye Better) Rating: 3
Usually, when I hear a synth-based band, there's a little bit of exuberance, a little bit of infectious energy behind the limited instrumentation that compensates for the barebones setup. If that's not there, at least a hint of catchy melody that pops in to catch my ear. So L'il has none of this. So L'il is the electronic equivalent of a second-rate Sonic Youth wannabe band, all disaffected vocals and "artsy" wank. The band's most recent album Dear Kathy, features songs with beats generated via second-hand '80s synths, various noises layered on top, and repeated mantras that mean not much of anything. And of course, like any good Sonic Youth knockoff, they close the album with a seventeen-minute "jam", which could be the most painful seventeen minutes I've heard all year. Occasionally the jam trips into more melodic territory, but it falls back into random beats and guitar noises just as quickly. Dear Kathy, is a perfect example of profound, ambitious intentions gone terribly awry -- anti-pop is fine, as long as a reason for being can be found. Regrettably, no such thing is anywhere in sight.
      — Mike Schiller

.: posted by Editor 8:31 AM