SOUND JUDGEMENT

THE LATEST ALBUM RELEASES RATED AND REVIEWED

THE KILLERS IMPLODING THE MIRAGE

ALMOST 20 years since their formation in Las Vegas, the rock superstars return for their uplifting sixth studio album.

This is The Killers’ first collection without lead guitarist Dave Keuning, who took a break in 2017, but from the synthesiser to the distinguished Brandon Flowers vocals, this is still unmistakably The Killers.

Your dose of rousing rock is still here, given a pleasingly retro feel.

From the opener, My Own Soul’s Warning, to the album’s title track, there is a sense of moving forward at pace, which for 2020 is surely the perfect direction.

THE LEMON TWIGS SONGS FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC

IN 2018 The Lemon

Twigs showed their allegiance to the classic rock era by producing what was in effect a rock opera, Go To School. With Songs For The General Public they go even further, the versatile Long Islanders doing for the 1970s what San Francisco’s Foxygen (who produced the Twigs’ first album) have done for 1960s psychedelic rock. They’ve produced a tribute dazzling in its panache. There are sonic surprises with every track, right up until the final glorious squeals of feedback.

DAN CROLL GRAND PLAN

GRAND Plan charts a year-long period starting in February 2018 when Dan Croll left his hometown of Liverpool for Los Angeles. And the City of Angels hangs heavy over the album. Metronomy-indebted electronica was the name of the game on

Croll’s 2014 debut Sweet Disarray, while 2017’s Emerging Adulthood explored poppier, brasher sounds.

His third is less derivative than its predecessors, sitting somewhere between 60s British Invasion artists and the residents of LA’s famed Laurel Canyon (read Joni Mitchell).

Croll’s capacity for storytelling is greatly increased, with Grand Plan’s 12 songs exploring dislocation (on the title track) and lost opportunities (on Yesterday). Grand Plan suggests an artist struggling but just about managing to put down roots.