Albums of the week (Nov 7-13)

The latest album releases reviewed by the Evening Standard's music critics
On the road: Foo Fighters travelled the length of the US for inspiration
Evening Standard Critics12 November 2014

Pop

Foo Fighters

Sonic Highways

(Columbia)

★★★★

Glance at the eight-song tracklist of Foo Fighters’ eighth album and you might feel shortchanged, until you realise that these tracks are only one part of Dave Grohl’s latest project. The album was produced with a companion HBO TV series of the same name — the band travel around key American cities, meeting their finest musicians and recording a song inspired by their surroundings. That doesn’t mean the catchy Nashville recording Congregation has added twang, although In the Clear from New Orleans does demonstrate their first-ever use of horns. Mostly the guitars are as anvil-heavy as ever and Grohl’s husky voice warmly familiar. The subtle differences here are only one element of a much broader love letter to American music.

David Smyth

Rumer

Into Colour

(Atlantic)

★★★★

Having sold a million with her 2010 debut Seasons of My Soul, Sarah “Rumer” Joyce decided being famous over-complicated an already troubled personal life. Handily, her difficult second album, the 2012 covers set Boys Don’t Cry, shooed most of her audience away. Now she’s moved to Arkansas to collaborate with much older fiancé Rob Shirakbari and she sounds up for the scrap again. The arrangements are distinctly Burt Bacharach (as Rob Shrock, Shirakbari was his musical director) and the vocals more Carole King than Carole King sounds of late, but like Sade, beneath the lush exterior there’s a barbed, wounded lyricism whether she’s explaining that “people can stab you in the back right out of the blue” on You Just Don’t Know People or movingly recalling her miscarriage on Butterfly. There’s more here than meets the ear.

John Aizlewood

Queen

Forever

(Virgin)

★★★

It may be quite cynical but this repackaging of Queen hits is bound to be a big Christmas seller for middle-aged rock fans who can’t break the CD habit. The bait is three “new” Freddie Mercury songs: a ghostly duet with Michael Jackson on lost ballad There Must Be More to Life Than This; schmaltzy rocker Let Me in Your Heart Again; and Love Kills, an alternate band version of Mercury’s debut solo single. They all began life 30 years ago, though Roger Taylor and Brian May have recorded new parts for these artful revivals. The remainder of the tracklisting overlooks the epic and overblown in favour of Queen’s more mellow side. “Who wants to live for ever?” sings a mournful Mercury on a minor hit from 1986. Queen’s record label is banking on his musical immortality.

Andre Paine

World

Namvula

Shiwezwa

(NMR Records)

★★★★

Namvula could be one of the bright new names of the year. Born in Zambia to a Zambian mother and Scottish father, Namvula Rennie grew up in Scotland and now lives in London. Shiweza, her debut album, is named after the village her great-great grandmother came from and many of the songs — sung in Lenje and Chichewa — are about strong African women. She’s got a warm alto voice and a few of the songs are in English, including Old Man, dedicated to her grandfather. Her impressive line-up of musicians includes Osibisa guitarist Alfred Bannerman, sax player Chris Williams and kora player Kadialy Kouyate. I suspect we’ll be hearing more of her.

Simon Broughton

Jazz

Abdullah Ibrahim

The Song Is My Story

(Intuition)

★★★★

“Improvisation is meditation in motion,” states the great South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim on the CD sleeve, and with nine out of 17 tracks on this captivating solo piano album delivered off-the-cuff, there’s a serenity here that is almost prayer-like. Recorded in Italy in June on a Fazioli grand piano, a few days after his 80th birthday, Ibrahim is as dexterous, surprising and lyrical as ever on a programme that features such classic compositions as For Coltrane, African Dawn and Eclipse at Dawn, which he wrote in 1956 after dreaming about it from his District Six backyard. The accompanying DVD variously provides concert footage, different additional material and the stories behind pieces including Blue Bolero, as told with quiet dignity and grace by an icon whose music is as brave as it is beautiful. Abdullah Ibrahim plays the EFG London Jazz Festival on November 15.

Jane Cornwell

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