Albums of the week (Jan 16-22)

The latest album releases reviewed by the Evening Standard's music critics
Party on: Mark Ronson

Pop

Mark Ronson

Uptown Special

(Columbia)

★★★★

Can the party album of the year already be upon us? Mark Ronson, previously better known for his cover versions and starry connections, surprised many at the end of 2014 with his original song Uptown Funk, a blazing dancefloor filler that has deservedly become his first worldwide No 1. The accompanying album sounds like Michael Jackson, Prince, Steely Dan and Stevie Wonder (not least because he’s on it) but attention to detail and unwavering energy elevate it far above pastiche. The big names present are Wonder, with that familiar harmonica, Bruno Mars — so hot he can “make a dragon wanna retire, man” — and rapper Mystikal channelling a foulmouthed James Brown on Feel Right. Improbably, Pulitzer-winning novelist Michael Chabon provides most of the lyrics, again lifting Uptown Special into a higher class — it’ll be a hit all year long.

David Smyth

Belle and Sebastian

Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance

(Matador)

★★

For a band “born of infirmity”, as frontman Stuart Murdoch recently put it, Belle and Sebastian have had a healthy career. Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, recorded in Atlanta (they’re surprisingly popular in the US), is their ninth album. Producer Ben H Allen muscles up the sound to find a mode that becomes middle age but the jaunty synths of Allie and Enter Sylvia Plath are catchy in a bad way. Murdoch’s songcraft remains strong — The Everlasting Muse is wonderful — but it’s not going to expand anyone’s world. When they emerged at the height of Britpop, their passive-aggressive, pastel pop songs felt subversive; now they’ve been subsumed into a wider cutester aesthetic. A children’s musical might work at this point?

Richard Godwin

Sleater-Kinney

No Cities to Love

(Sub Pop)

★★★★★

When Sleater-Kinney’s strident singer, Corin Tucker, embarked on a solo project a few years ago she admitted it was a “middle-aged mom record”. Fortunately, she seems to have got middle-aged mom out of her system. The reunited female punk threepiece from Washington state have made a blistering return on their first album in a decade. Crucially, this politicised band still have plenty to say. Pounding opener Price Tag is their take on consumer capitalism — a perfect soundtrack to the recent footage of Black Friday’s retail mayhem. The title track tackles the bizarre phenomenon of atomic tourism, which apparently involves jaunts to nuclear-test sites. Sleater-Kinney have detonated their own controlled explosion of sharp riffs and stroppy vocals on this comeback. Against the odds, these punks have improved with age.

Andre Paine

Fall Out Boy

American Beauty/American Psycho

Island

★★★

After six albums, Chicago’s Fall Out Boy have milked adolescent angst into middle age. There’s something slightly unnerving about thirtysomething millionaires singing about rebellion, unrequited crushes and, as Jet Pack Blues has it, “trying to find peace of mind” but they won’t be tampering with the template just yet. Yet beneath the muddy sound and breakneck pace, Uma Thurman is a humdinging anthem of a tribute; Centuries borrows from Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega and Irresistible’s horns add a new dimension to a band who’ve always struggled to evolve. There’s the usual highly strung bluster but American Beauty/American Psycho hurtles by in an appealing blur and they’ve never been more blessed with winning hooks.

John Aizlewood

World

Criolo

Convoque Seu Buda

(Sterns)

★★

There’s no doubt that São Paulo rapper Criolo is one of the significant new names on the Brazilian music scene. His favela background and streetwise lyrics have brought him a huge audience in Brazil. But while hip hop might be the world’s most ubiquitous music, for an international audience it amounts to little more than repetitive beats and barked lyrics in quick-fire Portuguese. The title track, which means “Summon Your Buddha”, is pure hip hop. On the album it’s the more lyrical tracks — such as Fermento Pra Massa and Pe de Breque, drawing on older Brazilian sounds — that stand out. Catch him in action at the Village Underground on Thursday.

Simon Broughton

Jazz

Joyce

Raiz

(Far Out Recordings)

★★★★

Fifty years in the business and iconic Brazilian diva Joyce is still at the top of her game. Raiz (Roots) sees her revisiting some of the lush bossa nova and classy home-grown standards she fell for as a shy teenager in Rio de Janeiro: Tom Jobim’s evergreen Desafinado, the brisk tongue-twister Meu Paio and the airy, languid Canto de Yansan by Baden Powell and Ildásio Tavares, in which Joyce travels around the vocal register, ennunciating each lyric with care while still sounding gifted and effortless. Distinguished Brazilian musicians jazz pianist Helio Alves, bassist Rodolfo Stroeter and her drummer husband Tutty Moreno add to the sense of occasion — but it’s the presence of guitarist Roberto Menescal, the man who kick-started Joyce’s career, on reworkings of his songs O Barquinho and Nós e o Mar, that makes this recording so special.

Jane Cornwell

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