SOUND JUDGEMENT

THE LATEST ALBUM RELEASES RATED AND REVIEWED

FOR THE FIRST TIME BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD

★★★★

THIS is a group of supremely talented performers with fascinatingly diverse musical backgrounds, despite their tender years (all are in their early 20s).

Careering through post-rock and free jazz via Klezmer (Jewish party music), their debut LP For The First Time is erratic, epic and teeming with more ideas than many artists have in their lifetimes.

“I am looking at you and you cannot tell I am more than the sum of my parts,” goes the refrain on the superb anthem Sunglasses. The thing is: they really are.

MEDICINE AT MIDNIGHT FOO FIGHTERS

★★★

DAVE GROHL is, famously, the nicest man in the world, so I really don’t want to be rude about his new album. Sadly, it’s not very good.

The “na-na-nas” and handclaps of Making A Fire are a jarring start, only added to by Shame Shame’s funk-pop stylings. Of the other singles, No Son Of Mine is just straight-up Motorhead cosplay – albeit packing the album’s best riffs – while the earnest Waiting On A War is a curious disappointment.

Even a poor Foo Fighters album is certainly worth a listen, but this eclectic offering lacks cohesion and inspiration.

LOST THEMES III: ALIVE AFTER DEATH JOHN CARPENTER

★★★

OMINOUS jabbing synths and insistent drums get the adrenaline going before a brooding guitar solo releases the tension – welcome to John Carpenter’s unique vision.

The director is known for horror classics like Halloween and The Thing, as well as cult movies Escape From New York and Assault On Precinct 13, but has actually made more albums than films. Opener Alive After Death channels the spirit of Halloween, perhaps his best-known composition, the first of 10 suspense-filled instrumentals that lie somewhere between the 1980s and the near future.

Carpenter and his son Cody bring the widescreen synths and his godson, Daniel Davies, provides the crunching guitar, so the listener just needs to sink into the darkness.