Category: Album Reviews

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Wolf Alice – The Clearing (2025)

Posted on by Michael

The Clearing is London’s Wolf Alice fourth album and second in a row to hit #1 in the UK. Produced by Greg Kurstin, the introspective album bounces around in styles with indie rock, country and 70s singer-songwriter styles all making appearances. First track “Thorns” captures the theme of the album – “I must be a narcissist/God knows that I can’t resist/To make a song and dance about it”.  First single “Bloom Baby Bloom” pops with its piano and handclaps, where Ellie Roswell vocals are inspired by the rock sound of Axl Rose.

The middle of the album mellows things out with a few ballads among the laid-back grooves of tracks like “Passenger Seat”. Things pick up again towards the end of The Clearing when drummer Joel Amey takes over the vocals on a track that ironically sounds like female lead Wet Leg about living the nomad life of a touring musician. Roswell returns for highlight single, “The Sofa” where she hopes “I can accept the wild thing in me”.  While a few songs slow the pace, The Clearing is another fine batch of songs from the eclectic band.

7.5/10

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David Bowie – “Heroes”EP (2017)

Posted on by Michael

In David Bowie’s boxset that was released in 2017, A New Career In A New Town 1977-1982, it includes an exclusive “Heroes” EP to the set. Made up of four tracks – It features the English/German version of the song “Heroes/”Helden” + the English/French version “Heroes”/”Heros” along with the single length versions in those two languages.

The language variations add a different flavour to the classic song.  The German version sounds harsher, more angry whereas the French version sounds a bit more desperate. More of a curiosity, it is interesting to hear “Heroes” four different ways when the listener needs a kick of something different.

7/10

Posted in Album Reviews

David Bowie – “Heroes” (1977)

Posted on by Michael

Just nine months after David Bowie released his groundbreaking Low album in January of 1977, he then released the second in the Berlin trilogy of albums, “Heroes”.  Keeping the same personnel but adding Robert Fripp on guitar, Bowie continued to work with Brian Eno and producer Tony Visconti. The album follows a similar strategy to Low in that side one is composed of songs with vocals and side two is mostly instrumental.

The songs on side one veer from fairly regular structures to Avant Garde/experimental sounds, often within the same track.  Second single “Beauty and the Beast” has dissonant sounds at times but that also obscures the funky dance beat underneath.  Distorted, scratchy guitars appear on “Joe the Lion” on a track where Bowie switches to talk singing for parts of the track. “Blackout” could be about a New York blackout or about Bowie passing out in the studio but he also sings the romantic line, “kiss you in the rain” several times over.

Side two starts with “V-2 Schneider” named in tribute to Kraftwerk member Florian Schneider on the rather catchy track before the darker and foreboding sounds of “Sense of Doubt” appears. Two more instrumentals including the Japanese influenced “Moss Garden” appear before Bowie starts singing again on “The Secret Life of Arabia”, complete with handclaps in the desert.

The album is most notable for its legendary title track, the first single taken from the album that was not a hit upon release but has gone onto be one of the great anthems of all time. Originally said to be based on Bowie seeing a Berlin couple kiss by the Berlin Wall, another story is that Visconti was seen stealing a kiss from a back up singer while he was still married. The lyrics are stuff of legend – “I will be king… and you, you will be queen”, the dreamlike image of “I wish you could swim, like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim” and of course, “we can be heroes just for one day”.  The album itself is challenging, filled with startling imagery including its iconic cover art, all which make it one of the most intriguing and celebrated albums of the 1970s.

9/10

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Thompson Twins – Into The Gap (40th Anniversary Edition) (2024)

Posted on by Michael

The Thompson Twins trio scored a worldwide hit in late 1983/early 1994 with the synth pop sound of “Hold Me Now”.  40 years later the band released the 40th anniversary of the album it’s from, The Gap.  Two extra discs of rarities, B-sides, and alternate mixes of the record’s five singles fill up the rest of this deluxe edition of the album that went to #1 in the UK and top 10 in the US.

Charting higher than the first single in the UK were “Doctor! Doctor!” with it’s easily remembered chorus and the faintly ridiculous Southern US influenced but no less catchy “You Take Me Up” with it’s line, “I know what it means to work hard on machines”. Whether singer Tom Bailey is referring to the factory or synthesizers is anyone’s guess. The album is loaded with slightly eastern influenced synth pop including the title track, one of the album’s highlights.  Other songs like “Sister of Mercy” touch on domestic abuse and “Storm On The Sea” hits the more melancholy side of the band with the lyric, “This party is over/and we, we are alone”.

Listeners should be prepared to listen to the album’s five singles in several variations on this triple disc collection. There are plenty of tracks to like including “Down the Tools”, an extended take on “You Take Me Up” that has the xylophone playing of Allanah Currie and Joe Leeway’s backing vocals on “Hold Me Now (Phil Thornalley Extended Mix)” that is one of the better variations on the track.  The instrumentals and backing tracks of several of the singles provides a different and enjoyable perspective on the songs while B-side “Leopard Ray” adds more guitar crunch to their sound.

Into The Gap – 9/10

Extras – 7.5/10

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Dean Wareham – That’s The Price Of Loving Me (2025)

Posted on by Michael

To quote Stephen Merritt from the classic first album under The 6ths moniker, “Dean Wareham is the guy from Luna who used to be the guy from Galaxie 500”.  Now that we are caught up to speed, That’s The Price Of Loving Me is Wareham’s fourth solo album.  It’s an atmospheric record that mixes in some cosmic country, Californian singer-songwriter sounds, and dreamy indie pop. Several songs like “Bourgeois Manque” take on a hypnotic quality along with it’s excellent musical bed.

“New Word Julie” is one another fine track with subtly great chorus. The album is bookended by two highlights – “You Were The Ones I Had To Betray” talks of togetherness but with the underlying message of betrayal and “The Cloud Is Coming” where Wareham sings that “There’s no difference between the blue and the red/The cloud is coming for us all”.  A haunting but true thought. A quieter release amongst the noise of the world – this is an excellent album.

9/10