John Grant
Grey Tickles, Black Pressure
Bella Union
John Grant's third solo album continues the drift into squelchy electronica that began with 2013's Pale Green Ghosts and further cements his reputation as the poet laureate of middle age.
Although recorded in sun-drenched Dallas, songs with titles like Magma Arrives make it hard not to visualise his adopted home city of Reykjavik, while the album title is a literal translation of the Icelandic for mid-life crisis and nightmare. Accordingly the title track opens with the observation that Grant once thought ads for haemorrhoid cream could never be aimed at him.
Siouxsie And The Banshees drummer Budgie guests on a spoken word Bible reading about love while another collaborator of a similar vintage, Tracey Thorn, performs on Disappointing. It's one of several electro-funk workouts invoking the spirit of acts like Sylvester and Cameo. More familiar to fans of 2010's Queen Of Denmark are songs like Global Warming and Down Here, with their stately chord progressions and piano and string sections underpinning Grant's deep, honeyed voice. But as ever it's the lyrics which really thrill. “You and Hitler ought to get together/You ought to learn to knit and wear matching sweaters” is just one of dozens of quotable lines. A strong contender for album of the year.
Barry Didcock
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here