SOUND JUDGEMENT

THE LATEST ALBUM RELEASES RATED AND REVIEWED

SCREAMING FEMALES – ALL AT ONCE ★★★★★ THE band is the New Brunswick trio Marissa Paternoster has led as singer and virtuoso guitarist for 13 years. Now she, bassist Mike Abbate and drummer Jarrett Dougherty follow 2015’s Rose Mountain with a new career high watermark.

Thundering opener Glass House recalls early Black Sabbath. The relationship red flag of I’ll Make You Sorry emerged on a benefit album for Chelsea Manning nine months ago. Since reworked, the wig-out comes loaded with heavy pop cargo as Paternoster warns of incoming storms threatening a relationship.

Her guitar shredding remains a wonder, slathering but never sluicing the record with dizzying solos.

THE WANDERING HEARTS – WILD SILENCE ★★★★★ THE Wandering Hearts are as close to a classic overnight success as you are likely to find in these digital days. Just 26 minutes after uploading their first Americana-influenced demo to Soundcloud, the London-based quartet were approached by Decca to sign with them.

There are definite undertones of bluegrass in this light country-pop album – and each track is over-long before you want it to be. If you are thinking that you don’t like country this release will prove you wrong.

Stand-out tracks include Rattle, Fire And Water and Biting Through The Wires – as the spring arrives The Wandering Hearts bring hope that summer is nearly here.

DARLING WEST – WHILE I WAS ASLEEP ★★★★★ THIS Norwegian trio has cast its work as a sustained love letter to Americana. Immediately we’re in Highway 61 territory as the harmonica-laced opener bounds along, deceptively affable though lyrically morbid. Haunting and altogether more compelling is Rolling On, with bright fingerpicking, hazy atmospherics and major/minor feints.

It’s no coincidence that this is the point at which multi-instrumentalist Mari Sandvaer Kreken takes centre stage, and the vocal limelight is hers for the record’s greatest moments. The title track emerges in a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young West Coast haze, gearing up into a double-time country chorus – and occasionally, as with Traveller, the pedal steel, harmonies and songcraft conjure something you’d swear was a lost 60s classic.