THIS WEEK’S CD RELEASES

Painted Ruins Grizzly Bear (RCA)

Grizzly Bear’s first album in five years finds the New York quartet firing on all cylinders. ‘It’s chaos but it works,’ Ed Droste sings amid the psychedelic swirl of Four Cypresses. He could be attempting an analysis of their approach. They lower and raise the tone, the intensity of accompaniment and pace so frequently that the fact it is coherent constantly comes as a surprise. Mourning Sound, perhaps the most direct, is an early favourite but Neighbors and the appropriately titled Losing All Sense soon vie for that title. You will love it all, I promise.

A Fever Dream Everything Everything (Geffen)

Listening to Everything Everything one sometimes feels the cleverness and complexities of their tack-sharp synth-pop seem almost wasted in the genre. If this is pop then the notion lurks that the Manchester band could morph into this generation’s Radiohead just as easily as remaining sonic bedfellows of Bastille. Ivory Tower and Run The Numbers are broken up by slashing guitar riffs and solos which, accompanying Jonathan Higgs’s falsetto, vault to the rock end of the progressive pop they purvey.

New Facts Emerge TheFall (Cherry Red Records)

The Fall have always been like musical Marmite. Some really love them, while others think they’re like something despatched by a muck-spreader. Well, for what it’s worth, their 32nd album is one of their best efforts in years. Mark E Smith still sings like a drunk fighting with himself but there is a focused intensity to the epic Couples Vs Jobless Mid 30s and Groundsboy. The best track, Fol De Rol, finds the 60-year-old sounding like Captain Beefheart after ingesting some particularly potent acid.