Nick Waterhouse
Nick Waterhouse
Innovative Leisure
Old school rock'n'roll albums are now so common that "retro" has become a genre all of its own. Nevertheless some do it better than others, and Nick Waterhouse does it about as well as anyone outside of 1962. Every track on the American singer-songwriter's self-titled fourth album is as perfect a facsimile of late 50s/early 60s jukebox floor-fillers.
Inevitably this can sometimes leave songs verging dangerously close to pastiche - the lounge swinger Wreck The Rod is the nearest Waterhouse comes to becoming a hipster Michael Buble - but for the most part the sheer quality of the songwriting transcends the era-specific wrapping.
Wherever She Goes (She is Wanted), Song For Winners and Man Leaves Town would set feet tapping in any decade, but they sound especially good soaked in vintage bar-room piano, sax and electric guitars. This is an album that even the heppest of hep-cats can dance to.
James Robinson
David Gray
Gold in a Brass Age
IHT Records
Since bursting into the mainstream with album White Ladder single Babylon, David Gray has been an enduring but increasingly peripheral figure - without a top 10 single since 2005's The One I Love or a chart spot at all since 2009's Fugitive reached number 103.
But a more abstract lyric-writing approach allows the 50-year-old to focus on producing a richer-sounding 11th studio album which plays to his traditional strengths and showcases new tricks.
Opener The Sapling sets the scene, Gray's trademark croon augmented by gospel-sounding choral vocals, while the album benefits from electronic experimentation best evidenced by the background claps and distorted vocals on the title track. That, and the beautiful Watching The Waves - the most traditional Gray-sounding song on offer - stand out among a strong set while Gray's increasingly sonic restlessness, in tandem with producer Ben de Vries, reaches its peak as Hurricane Season spirals into a thrilling climax built around operatic samples.
Tom White
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