Justin Townes Earle
Kids In The Street
WHEN you're the son of country legend Steve Earle and you're named after Townes van Zandt, you've already got a pretty unfair load on your back. Fortunately, Justin Townes Earle seems to carry that burden fairly lightly. On Kids In The Street, Earle displays a growing confidence. There's a mix of old fashioned country balladry with a penchant for idle genre-hopping that brings to mind Ryan Adams or, yes, his old man. Lead single Champagne Corolla plays semi-sardonically on the Americana 'kids and cars' trope, but with a young girl at the heart of it. Maybe A Movement has a pleasant light glow to it, and standout title track Kids In The Street is a rootsy tour de force, a bittersweet reflection on his youth which considers the the impact of economic "progress" on the humble suburbs – Springsteen for the 21st century.
7/10
Stephen Jones
The Charlatans
Different Days
DIFFERENT Days is the 13th album from The Charlatans, their follow-up to the brilliant Modern Nature. Paul Weller, Sharon Horgan, Ian Rankin, Kurt Wagner are just a few of the names amongst a daunting list of contributors. Johnny Marr plays on three songs, the best being single, Plastic Machinery, a pulsing, Faces-esque stomper. It would be easy to see how so many contributors could cause the album to lose focus, but there is a freshness and confidence throughout. It is difficult to think of any band 10 years into their career who could produce something as relevant and vital as this, never mind a band who formed 27 years ago. Where most of their contemporaries rely on past glories, The Charlatans continue to confound expectations by producing their best material late in their career.
9/10
Colm McRory
Guy Wampa & Justin Percival
Ammut
YORKSHIRE-based electronic duo Guy Wampa & Justin Percival's second LP Ammut is a soulful, yet industrial pop soundscape. The overall feeling from this conceptual piece is carried by a rich and silky voice dripping with melancholy. Divide And Conquer has an undertone of a person trapped in a half-life, stretching to reach something bigger and better. Each track takes you on a journey, seamlessly running into the next. The bleakness of Wampa's background is juxtaposed with the hopeful voice of Percival. As Remember These Words fades into Reflex it is almost like the middle act of a fairytale, where the hero is entering the enchanted forest. Swirling voices of the past and sharp thorns tearing at their body. Exiting this bleak challenge For The Talkers becomes much more hopeful and the round bass sound starts to feel bouncy and lively, with anthemic chord progressions.
7/10
Rachel Howdle
The Amazons
The Amazons
THE Amazons' debut album opens with the rip-roaring Stay With Me, and you'll definitely want to stay with them until track four, where things get shaken up with the booming anthem Junk Food Forever. More than just a tasty title, this meaty track has everything you want from a new act with a point to make: weighty guitar riffs, reserved verses that build up to denser, euphoric choruses and sing-along lyrics that you can repeat after just one listen. The album is full of these heady choruses and exciting riffs, and the oddly familiar and authoritative vocals of lead singer Matt Thompson. It's fair to say this rock band from Reading, who were included in the BBC's Sound of 2017 list, have a formula. But it works for their sound, heavily influenced by the Arctic Monkeys, Royal Blood and Rage Against The Machine, among many others.
8/10
Lucy Mapstone
Mabel
Bedroom (EP)
THE strangely sinister 18th century nursery rhyme Goosey Goosey Gander spoke of goings-on "in my lady's chamber", and the bedroom has forever been a fertile source of material for poets and lyricists. Self-worshipping stars of MTV's Cribs christened it the room "where the magic happens", and Mabel's own take leaves little to the imagination.
The title track to this terrific electrified R&B EP is a brutal telling of a relationship crumbling. "I broke your guitar up against your television and I smashed every glass that you had in your kitchen," Mabel sings. She is the 21-year-old daughter of the pop star Neneh Cherry and Massive Attack/Sugababes producer Cameron McVey, and brings their verve to her music. On Finders Keepers she begs a lover to "keep the talk minimal", while Ride or Die is slathered in innuendo, pledging to "take a test drive" then "make it a joy ride and I'll ride it all day and night". There are similarities here, within its darkness and its flickerings of light, with Jessie Ware's best moments. Mabel's parents should approve.
8/10
John Skilbeck
