SOUND JUDGEMENT
THE LATEST ALBUM RELEASES RATED AND REVIEWED
Sound out: Boyzlife duo that got back down to making music
LOVE & PEACE SEASICK STEVE
★★★★★
YOU don’t really picture Seasick
Steve as a hippy, but the cover of his new album features a hand making a peace sign and clutching a flower.
Love & Peace, the opening and title track, starts with him asking “Hey man, what’s the issue here” before suggesting over a classic blues riff “Gotta stop the hatred now, get back to love and peace”.
He moves onto more traditional blues subjects on Travelling Man and Regular Man, where he tells how “I’ve been down in the dumps all my life”, as you’d expect from someone from his self-professed back story.
Love & Peace will keep his many fans happy through a summer of cancelled shows and festivals until he can return next year to the stage, his natural home.
TWENTY TWENTY RONAN KEATING
★★★★★ THIS is a celebration of Keating’s 20-year career. Lashings of nostalgia come courtesy of reworked hits like When You Say Nothing At All, Life Is A Rollercoaster and Lovin’ Each Day, while singles like Forever Ain’t Enough and Little Thing Called Love bear testament to his solo success. The former Boyzone star also duets with Emeli Sande (One Of A Kind), Shania Twain (Forever And Ever, Amen) and Robbie Williams (The Big Goodbye).
THE SAFEWAY JIMOTHY LACOSTE
★★★★★ THE Safeway is Timothy Gonzales’ debut album and comes after a series of singles and EPs illustrating his quirky, catchy style – somewhere between a lo-fi Prince and awkward school-yard rapper. The album is written and produced by north Londoner Jimothy – who adopted the name because it “just sounded nice to my ears”.
Sad-boy rap and gleeful pop sounds set songs like Getting Greygoose, Getting To Rob A Bank and Getting To The 70s, apart from the norm and spans genres and moods. Yes, every one of the album’s 17 tracks is titled “Getting” something. A surprisingly deep paeon to fashion, drugs and romance, it’s an album that presents a young artist with a initiative understanding of how pop ticks.