Albums of the week: three new releases

Yunchan Lim: Chopin Études Op. 10 & Op. 25 Decca

£13

At the tender age of 20, South Korea’s Yunchan Lim has secured a global reputation as a “prodigiously gifted, immensely exciting pianist”, said Andrew Clements in The Guardian. Now he has produced his debut studio recording – “thrilling performances of Chopin’s studies, the technique dazzlingly immaculate and the musical impulses propelling it often startlingly original”. If there are moments of youthful impetuosity, they are few and forgivable: the more consistent impression is one of breathtaking brilliance.

It’s fascinating, said Richard Fairman in the FT, to compare Lim’s recordings with those of Maurizio Pollini, the late Italian pianist whose Chopin Études remain a lofty benchmark. It turns out that Pollini and Lim “are polar opposites: where Pollini is coolheaded perfection, Lim searches out character, emotion, variety.” Lim “cannot equal Pollini’s exact matching of tone and balance on every note”; but he “does not stint on feelings” and “there is tenderness aplenty. Why not have Lim and Pollini? They both demand to be heard.”

Pet Shop Boys: Nonetheless Parlophone £11

It’s almost 40 years since their global hit West End Girls introduced Neil Tennant and his synth-playing partner Chris Lowe as a “delicately calibrated hit-making machine”, said Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph. In the intervening decades, the duo’s lush electro-pop sound – gleaming synthesisers, luscious strings, parping horns and techno beats – has expanded and deepened, and their latest album is typically good: “clever, fun, and at times very touching”.

On Nonetheless, the Pet Shop Boys “refine and update the sound of their late80s imperial era”, said Damien Morris in The Observer. It’s a fan-pleasing collection that combines the simplicity of the band’s 1986 debut, Please, with the lush orchestration of 1990’s Behaviour. New London boy, about Tennant’s glam-rock adolescence, is “gloriously affecting”. Even better, musically, is the “handbagabandoning disco thump” of Loneliness. The schlager hit parade doesn’t work so well, but it’s a rare misfire. “Essentially, there are three types of PSB albums: lifechanging, great and OK. This one’s great.”

St. Vincent: All Born Screaming Total Pleasure Records/Virgin £11

For nearly two decades, St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) has revelled in a Bowie-esque “gift for shapeshifting”, said Jordan Bassett in NME. Her musical alter egos have included an “asexual Pollyanna”, a latexclad dominatrix and, most recently – for 2021’s Daddy’s Home – a character based on Andy Warhol’s transgender muse Candy Darling. But on this seventh album, the first on which she has taken sole charge of production duties, she has ditched “the artifice” to make her most generous, and personal, music to date. At first “bracingly dark and aggressive”, then more mellow and lush, it’s invigorating, compelling stuff.

The “raw immediacy” of the music makes this one of Clark’s best albums to date, said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian. Her “thrilling guitar playing is at its most distorted and spiky throughout”; the songwriting is “restlessly inventive and packed with ideas”; and the range of influences and explorations is thrillingly eclectic, from Tori Amos and Nine Inch Nails to soft rock and electro-funk. This is a superb album from a great artist.

Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (5 stars=don’t miss; 1 star=don’t bother)