SOUND JUDGEMENT

The latest album releases reviewed

MADNESS POLICA HHHHI

Minneapolis-based band Polica’s excellent sixth album is a sort of companion piece to 2020’s When We Stay Alive, which came after lead singer Channy Leaneagh was temporarily paralysed in an accident.

Leaneagh’s deft lyricism, which paints with the lightest of touches, tackles introversion, frustration and longing while the band provide atmospheric electronic backdrops.

Album opener Alive is a thrilling rollercoaster ride of synths and drums punctuated by neck-cracking glitches. The title track, meanwhile, is a nearly beatless landscape of thrumming synths.

The sudden introduction of a violin only adds to the splendour.

DOWN BY THE RIVER THAMES LIAM GALLAGHER HHHII

Liam Gallagher streaming a concert from a barge slowly sailing down the River Thames in 2020 – a year that brought so much pain and misery across the world – brought some joy in lockdown and the words “It’s good to be back” were never sung as loudly in my household, because it was so good to have live music back.

Further Oasis hits such as Columbia, Morning Glory, Cigarettes and Alcohol and Champagne Supernova followed, intertwined with Liam’s solo tunes of

Shockwave, Once, Halo and The River from Why Me? Why Not and Wall Of Glass and Greedy Soul from As You Were. The resulting album is packed full of rock ‘n’ roll, and a welcome return to a live album featuring Liam.

IN THE WILD JASMYN HHHHI

Jasmyn Burke, the former frontwoman of Canadian band Weaves, is sharing a new side to herself with her honest and raw debut album.

The record features songs crafted to inspire confidence following the pandemic but similarly leans into moments of self-contemplation and catharsis.

The lyrics on Edge Of Time feel melancholic at the prospect of disconnecting from the old version of yourself, yet hopeful towards the end of the track, at the thought of experiencing a new way of being in the world. The slow tempo of track In The Wild was a particular highlight and encapsulates the entire theme of the album – finding hope in a period of change.