Music
Roddy Woomble swaps his folkier forays for a smooth crooning vibe while Mark Ronson adds some polish to alt rockers Queens of the Stone Age
Album reviews, plus Jim Gilchrist on Alexander Moffat’s new painting celebrating Scotland’s folk greats
Since returning in 2013 with their most sophisticated album to date, the something-foreveryone Everything Ever Written, former punky pups Idlewild have worn their Edinburgh elder statesmen robes most elegantly. But their hungry fans will just have to wait for a follow-up as frontman
Roddy Woomble, who has pursued a parallel solo career over the past decade or so, channels some of that pop sophistication into what he describes as “the most surreal and playful record I’ve made”. He has a point.
For those familiar with his folkier solo forays and collaborations with the likes of Kris Drever and John Mccusker, the urbane crooning of
The Deluder may come as a surprise. This is arguably the kind of album you might make when you turn 40, as Woomble did last year, although many Glasgow musicians in the 1980s – your Paul Buchanans and Lloyd Coles – were making this album in their 20s, and have continued to do so ever since.
Opening track Look Back Like
Leaving is quietly impressive in the way it takes its time over its beautiful slow build, layering on fuzzy chords and sighing backing vocals. Subtlety is the key – the mellow, pliant bassline running right through To Feel Like
A Fool adds character as well as backbone. Dulcet ballad Remember to Breathe is coloured with violin, A
Skull with a Teardrop uses sparing piano and conversational phrasing to paint its picture and there are little eccentricities, like the cosmic wibbles of Jupiter, a song Woomble started to write with and for his son but ended up in adult company here.
There is more cross-generational collaboration on Hue & Cry’s new album, as Pat Kane duets with his daughter Eleanor on the track Let Her
Go. The fraternal duo are old hands at the crooning pop business and their latest, Pocketful of Stones ,isan effortless mix of intimate songs about personal relationships and broader social themes.
The title track is a call to the Kanes’ generation not to waste their remaining opportunities, while the politically conscious soul of When We’re Not Strong (“what’s good seems wrong”) builds to an uplifting chant. The commentator in Kane would never knowingly avoid the political developments of the day, especially in action-packed times such as these, but this is first and foremost a lovingly arranged easy listening jazz pop odyssey rather than a slice of soapbox soul.
Two giants of US alternative music also return to the fray this week. In the rock corner, Queens of the Stone
Age keep their mojo up with Villains, a consistently driving collection of irresistible hooks from the industrial funk of Feet Don’t Fail Me via the heroic riffing and stormy strings of
Domesticated Animals to the gonzo rockabilly influence on Head Like
A Haunted House. Frontman Josh Homme turns in an imperious vocal performance throughout and there is punchy production from Mark Ronson, an unexpected but inspired pairing with the Californian desert rockers.
And in the hip electro corner, New York’s LCD Soundsystem act like they’ve never been away on American
Dream. Other Voices features all your favourite LCD elements – offkilter pop, lean funk rhythms, James Murphy’s drawling vocal, Talking Heads/television influence and that punk-funk percussion essential, the cowbell. The rest of the album plunders just as gleefully from the tribal gothic sound of How Do You
Sleep? to the taut Larry Mullen-like drumming on Emotional Haircut. There are nightmarish qualities to this American Dream but at least we know the party at the end of the world gets a decent soundtrack.
Pocketful of Stones is first and foremost a lovingly arranged easy listening jazz pop odyssey