SOUND JUDGEMENT

THE LATEST ALBUM RELEASES RATED AND REVIEWED

NEVER NOT TOGETHER

NADA SURF HHHHH TRY listening to So Much Love, the opening track on Nada Surf’s ninth studio album, and not smile. It’s nigh on impossible. And Never Not Together has another eight tracks just as good or even better.

The music is the same as Nada Surf have been making for a quarter of a century – Beatles-esque power pop, with an emphasis on pop (although Crowded Star has a dynamite guitar solo). Looking For You is an almost orchestral waltz until just after the three-minute mark when it explodes into life.

Singer/guitarist Matthew Caws is also a great lyricist, particularly here on Mathilda, a heartbreaking song of growing up looking and sounding different and how cruel children can be. It’s brilliant, as is this album.

FATHER OF ALL...

GREEN DAY HHHHH ALTHOUGH new album Father Of All Motherf **** rs is described as being filled with the grungy, gritty rock sound we know of Green Day, we beg to differ. This is a wellproduced, glam-punk pop album.

Ready, Aim, Fire feels like a White Stripes track but mixed with a hint of the Hives, while the glam is at its most rampant with an anthemic addition in Oh Yeah’s chorus, which will make it a live performance favourite.

This is not Green Day as you remember them. However, it is an awesome progression for the Californian natives.

TREAT MYSELF

MEGHAN TRAINOR HHHHH FOUR years since her previous album, Meghan Trainor is back with her third

LP which is full of the dancefriendly bops that her fans know and love her for.

Treat Myself is full of Trainor’s trademark nostalgic-infused pop sound, a little bit retro and a little bit sassy, but with a more rounded and grown-up energy compared to her earlier work.

A mix of R&B, doo-wop, pop and funk, and with duets with the likes of Nicki Minaj and Pussycat Dolls, it has a largely positive narrative, giving listeners an excuse to dance and smile.