ALBUM REVIEWS
The Last Dinner Party – Prelude To Ecstasy
Rarely has the hype been so well-deserved than for The Last Dinner Party’s debut, Prelude To Ecstasy. Fittingly for a band whose recent video featured its members bedecked in Shakespearian garb to re-enact one of his greatest hits, these 12 tracks play out as a theatrical spectacle. The cinematic Prelude harks of a march into battle; a march that becomes a dance as it breaks into the euphoric Burn Alive. Elsewhere, gaps in-between songs form a pastiche “and, scene” as the fragile emotion underpinning the whimsical Feminine Urge is rolled up, ignited and ground into ash by the warped dying breath of follow-up On Your Side.For their first album, The Last Dinner Party have brought everything to the table. If music be the food of love, play on.
Brittany Howard – What Now Review by Lisa Allen
The second solo studio album from the frontwoman of Alabama Shakes follows Brittany Howard’s critically acclaimed debut offering, Jaime, released in 2019. Her eclectic style continues here with elements of rock funk, soul, dance and beyond… it illustrates how widespread her musical inspiration has been. Howard offers an introspective, almost meditative environment, there are even interludes with art therapy singing bowls. But this doesn’t mean she wants you to sit back and relax. The title track is aggressive funk about the need to pull away from a toxic relationship, Red Flags continues that theme and the thoughtful track Samson is full of conflicted feelings of love. The instrumentalism of this album is sublime and multi-layered, and it has a genre for everyone.
Jamie Webster – 10 For The People Review by Matthew George
Jamie Webster is in reflective mood on
Better Day, the opening song of his third album, flicking through video on his phone of him playing the local bars. “From festivals to sell-out tours, believe me I was never sure I’d get this far”, the Liverpudlian singersongwriter admits in the typically anthemic track. The former jobbing electrician has done it the hard way, the momentum of his 2020 debut stalled by Covid, while he’s had little support from the music industry. But both his previous albums made the top 10 and he’s some huge summer gigs booke and he’s distinctly on the up. 10 For The People – which actually has 11 tracks – doesn’t reinvent the wheel: folky acoustic guitar-based songs, with piano, brass and strings adding variety.
NewDad – Madra Review by Andrew Steel
They say what goes around comes around, and in the case of this Galway four-piece, with licks and tones cherry-picked from Eighties goth and Nineties shoegaze, there’s an intriguing, almost flinty quality to their songcraft. NewDad arrive with their debut record less coherently formed as a whole than those offered by their biggest influences, but there’s an undeniable pop nous that goes a long way in helping this collection grow legs. Across almost a dozen tracks that flit in and out like a dream, they travel from the spooky chiming riffs of Angel to the ghostly dancefloor shuffle of Nightmares. The crest-and-wave dynamics of Nosebleed topline a promising first effort, one with real sinew and muscle to its spectral shapes.