SOUND NT JUDGEME

THE LATEST ALBUM RELEASES RATED AND REVIEWED

LIVE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL ARCTIC MONKEYS

★★★★ ★

“THANK you very much fer ‘avin us,

Royal Albert ‘all.”

Alex Turner’s languid cool and swagger may have never been more succinctly expressed than those 10 words, uttered before launching into I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor at this charity gig for War Child, staged in 2018 and now released as a live album.

A 20-song set skews towards the Sheffield quartet’s later albums AM and Tranquility Base Hotel And Casino, though early favourites also on show include Brianstorm, 505 and The View From the Afternoon.

You know what you’re getting, and with formats available from a £6.99 download to a £40 box set, here’s hoping for a major windfall for a great cause.

WE WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU

THE AVALANCHES

★★★★ ★

WE Will Always Love

You has a lot of samples – it wouldn’t really be The Avalanches if it didn’t. But it’s far more centred around a revolving door of studio collaborators, albeit the sort of eclectic blend you might anticipate.

Among the many names dropping in for cameos large and small are Johnny Marr, Jamie XX, Kurt Vile, Blood Orange, Karen O and Sananda Maitreya – known to most of us as Terence Trent D’arby – with an unexpected highlight on the stunning psych-soul groove Reflecting Light.

While We Will Always Love You has a lot of the fun fans are used to, there are certainly fewer funnies.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN SUMMER

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN

★★★★ ★

AT a time when we can’t go to gigs,

Belle and Sebastian remind us what we’re missing with a double live album taken from their tour in the long-gone summer of 2019.

The 23 tracks come from 10 studio albums and numerous EPS from the 25 years since they started at a college music business class.

Fans will lament the absence of favourites like Lazy Line Painter Jane, but we do get Stuart Murdoch musing between songs on Boris Johnson and austerity. It will delight hardcore fans and serve as a fine introduction for newcomers.