MUSIC REVIEWS

Ed Harcourt, “Beyond the End”

(Point of Departure)

One of the recurring themes in Ed Harcourt’s career has been his stylistic breadth, his affinity for stretching wide the musical variety on his albums within the singer-songwriter genre.

On “Beyond the End,” Harcourt sticks to his primary instrument, the piano, and retains his ability to create deeply atmospheric works, but he achieves it here through instrumentals, with nary a lyric in sight.

Working on a 1910 Hopkinson baby grand—very similar to his grandmother’s piano that he first learned to play on and which he used to write his first three albums— Harcourt sees the compositions as balms to the sensory overload we experience daily.

In that spirit, the album sails along on a sea of tranquility with only scattered showers of tension, usually when Gita Langley, Harcourt’s wife, and her sister Amy get involved— on violin and cello, respectively—as on “Keep Us Safe” and “Beneath the Brine.”

Some of the tunes have a cinematic feel, like opener “Diving Bell” or the main piano melody on “Wolves Change Rivers,” while others insinuate intimacy (“There Is Still a Fire”), the inescapability of time (“Duet for Ghosts”) and bygone eras (“Faded Photographs”).

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a song or melody can invoke countless feelings and moods. The scope of emotions on “Beyond the End” is not comprehensive but strong impressions abound.—Pablo Gorondi, The Associated Press

Holly Golightly, “Do the Get Along” (Damaged Goods)

By law, or nearly, it seems, you can’t mention Holly Golightly without calling her a “garage rock queen,” even though she’s taken on plenty of other genres in her time, expanding her realm to incorporate country, beat, blues and pop, among others.

A London-to-Georgia transfer, this is Golightly’s second album of the year, after the horse-themed “Clippety Clop” with the Brokeoffs, who’s all of one man, her partner and collaborator “Lawyer Dave” Drake.

“Do the Get Along” sees her applying a bit of hot wax to the garage sounds, making the album showroom ready without overloading the tunes with frivolous, glossy details.

Golightly (not a pseudonym) is an even-keeled singer here, conveying passion, frustration and even menace without unnecessary histrionics.

On opener “Obstacles,” she immediately stakes her place—“All the odds against me I will beat/There ain’t nothing gonna knock me off my feet,” as longtime drummer Bruce Brand is joined by guitarists Ed Deegan and Bradley Burgess and Matt Radford on double bass to create just the right amount of racket.

Her covers of choice—“Satan Is His Name,” a 1962 release by Steve King and The Echelons; “Love (Can’t You Hear Me)” by The Knight Brothers released on Checker, a subsidiary of Chess Records; and Ruth Brown’s R&B ode “I Don’t Know”—have great pedigree and are among the highlights of the record.

The title track is a civics lesson with a steady gait, while “Hypnotized,” the greasiest of the garage tracks, is followed by the fuzzy “Pretty Clean.”

“Do the Get Along” is one of the best-sounding albums of Golightly’s career and has the right songs to revel in the higher fidelity.—Pablo Gorondi, The Associated Press

The 1975, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships

(Interscope/Dirty Hit)

The English band the 1975, practitioners of some of the smoothest electropop in recent memory, have delivered another gem with “A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships,” the group’s third full-length album that serves as a heart-wrenching roadmap for modern relationships teeming with tumult.

Much of this effort addresses life rushing by too fast, and the 1975’s smart lyrics offer a glimpse at the hurdles we often erect for ourselves in this age of instant communication, and often miscommunication.

It’s done beautifully on tracks such as “TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME,” on which frontman Matthew Healy sings about stepping out on loved ones via texts and phone calls. It’s a finger pointed squarely at the mobile phone mischief that can strain a relationship.

The soundscape widens on “Love It If We Made It.” Synthesizers swell and welcome the listener on this song in which Healy declares “modernity has failed us” as he assesses the world around him.

Lest you think it’s all sonic smoke and mirrors, along comes “Be My Mistake,” quite possibly the loveliest slow ballad of 2018. It will touch you and convince you the 1975 should remain on your radar and playlists.—Ron Harris, The Associated Press

Jeff Tweedy, “Warm”

(dBpm Records)

Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy isn’t known for being warm and fuzzy.

So it’s with some irony that his first proper solo record of all new material is titled “Warm.”

But it’s also so Tweedy. Take “Let’s Go Rain,” for example. At first blush its upbeat tempo and catchy chorus makes it sound very much like a feel-good campfire singalong song. But that’s where Tweedy fools you—the song is actually a wish for another biblical flood to wipe the world clean and start over again.

Ah, Jeff! You jokester. The sound on “Warm” is somewhere between Tweedy’s solo acoustic shows and the finely tuned jet-engine rock of Wilco. It has a similar vibe to many of the songs on “Sukierae,” a side project Tweedy released in 2014 outside of Wilco under the band name of Tweedy.

Exploring life, death, love and heartbreak is familiar territory for Tweedy in Wilco, and he hits on all of those themes with “Warm.” The record comes after the death of his father, his wife’s battle with cancer and coincides with the release of Tweedy’s memoir, “Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back).”

Tweedy is at his most introspective in “Having Been is No Way to Be,” reflecting on his sobriety and those who wish he weren’t.

“We all think about dying,” Tweedy sings on “Don’t Forget” before adding in perfectly fitting Tweedy fashion, “Don’t let it kill you.”—Scott Bauer, The Associated Press