There is a lot of anger in the air it's almost palpable, not the shouting arguments fighting in the streets sort of anger but the silent brooding building anger that is in so many ways much more malevolent breeding an itchy distrust of every person you walk by. We started the Week with mixed messages of an increased terror alert that always remind me of a scene from 'Red Dwarf' where stepping up the danger alert from green to orange would mean changing a bulb, I mean there is no context to these warnings and it only feeds the public feeling of guilt that if something does happen it was surely down to their lack of vigilance and that they might as well been personally harbouring a terrorist under their overcoat. While we look out for the foreign enemy one of America's own picks up a gun and becomes an enemy from within. One act of rage starts a blame game that splits the nation in a rhetoric mix of rage and confusion it is not till the country's leader stands up and speaks sense that the true horror of the situation becomes apparent - in this crazy nation there is a man speaking sense and there is every chance he will be knocked from power by the very people who support the carrying of weapons that ended up with 12 dead and who turned this tragedy into a political stomping ground.
The earth itself continues to show its anger and dramatic rage in continuing floods in Queensland and a mudslide in Brazil that have killed many and displaced many more a reminder that as much as we believe we have tamed this planet it can always without warning rise up and strike us down.
The anger rose through the week, for me personally a very tense and edgy time where i am being forced to bottle up emotions and show the appropriate face to the appropriate people plenty of taking it on the chin and turning the other cheek that seems to have got too much for the people of Tunisia. An actual eruption of anger floods onto the streets and becomes the very real visual and damaging anger of a people oppressed by corruption angered by powerlessness and goaded into a corner where it seems the only way is to heed the words of Zak De Le Roach and come together to "Take The Power Back". A president flea’s and a government is overturned and while the media concentrates on the evacuation of British holiday makers and the impact on the tourism industry they possibly ignore the growing dissent on home soil and the spur this might be to the rebellious masses that sometimes violence and dissension will have to be noticed and as much as you feel that you are backed in a corner when we rise together it can be a strike at the heart of those we feel the oppressors may be. So as Milliband and the new New Labour supporters celebrate a win in the Oldham by-elections as a strike at the government and a clear message towards the coalition maybe another public coalition dream of the message they want to get across.
The anger continues unabated if maybe sometimes without meaning with the second album from Kentucky scamps 'Thank You, Happy Birthday' by Cage The Elephant' if you can see past all the misplaced and forced aggression in this album then it is really quite good, there are a lot of sounds here that make me want to not like it but for every one of those there is an edgy lyric or a slicing hook that lures me back in. This definitely could get placed in the 'too cool for school' category at times dumb and rebellious while still managing to fall into some of the traps and following some of the rules of a genre (see pointless screams into spoken repetition of "you are so cool"), but in some ways this is them pointing there finger at the very people that they are inadvertently being. But there are mellower moments when the singer’s voice has a more fragile edge that is redeeming. While at times i doubt how genuine it is the album has heart and an energy that is quite infectious.
Now i am put in a position to release my anger in my first slating of the year directed towards The BBC for their championing in the Sound of 2011 poll but mainly towards the artist who releases this eponymous sack 'James Blake' by James Blake after listening through the whole of this album i still don’t feel that i have a better idea of what Mr. Blake’s voice might sound like that is unless he actually is a robot with a broken voice box that seems to be accidently and at random operating his vocoder module. There are sketchy snatches of vocal with repeated melodramatically trite lyrics over huge echoing sounds of a keyboard thrown into an underwater chasm and attacked by angry octopus's or octopi. After the first few tracks i already want to hit somebody and this piece really takes the biscuit 4 minutes and 52 seconds of senior Blake repeating the self indulgent lyrics "My brother and my sister don’t speak to me, but i don’t blame them" well either do I, what did you do to piss them off so much? I'm guessing you played them this album. Auto tune and modulated voices are all well and good but unless a genuine brilliance in your voice is on display and/or a lyrical poetry then you are gilding the lily to an inordinate amount and apparently the BBC are eating it up voting him second in their ridiculous prediction poll for this year. My advice. If you feel like buying this record go home and put on 'The Eraser' by Thom Yorke and listen to a master at work.
Now i don’t know if it’s the Tories being back in power or some depressing loop that we as humans seem to be stuck in but it would seem the 80's are back. Two albums that show the good and bad side of this trend follow, let’s start with some more bitching 'The Ritual' by White Lies pounding industrial clanging loops starting on synth's and echoed melodramatic vocals, drum loops that sound like Casio demo's but used with no with or character, you would think we would have learned. There is nothing new or interesting about this record the keyboard is relentless and the sounds aren't even nice they are dated strings and throwback electro drones, the vocal stays within a three note safe zone and the lyrics are cliché and pointlessly vague. Now i wasn’t really aware of the music of the 80's at the time being too young to take an active interest so i guess if there is still work to be done in this style then it may be being done here but myself and for now i find this quite trite and almost embarrassing.
and in The female corner we have 'Anna Calvi' by Anna Calvi the strength in this ladies voice is evident and it is caged behind an aching yearning growing of strength reminiscent of Kate Bush or Annie Lennox, a breathy sexy gasp that wraps it's lips around every word and gives real guts to the performance. If you wanted to make modern comparisons i would mention Florence and The Machine but there is a maturity to this album that sets it apart. 'Susanne And I' at times has a James Bond theme sound that retrospective 80's nature that doesn’t feel dated but let's a powerful female voice take flight. I'm not completely sold by all the song writing and for some reason the song 'First We Kiss' reminds me of the theme to 'Banana Man' but the voice is maybe enough to carry the sound into the modern age and make it an interesting if at times clogged album.
But ahead of those 2 bitches and 2 tainted praises was the excitement of a new elbow track previewed on the Zane Lowe show. 'Neat Little Row's' will be the lead single from the album expected in March. I am reserving judgment until the entire album is out and because the sound quality i got to listen to the track on was not what i would call excellent not allowing me to get my ears round all of Garvey's masterful lyrics. I am very glad that this track and what is being said about the album is a more sedate affair with a return to the Bristol Trip-Hop sound of the first album, after 'On A Day Like This' the band could do with steering clear of anthems and go back to the aching beauty that made me love them. Listen here -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/zanelowe/2011/01/hottest_record_-_elbow_-_neat.html
So it's goodbye for another week and here's hoping for a change in the tides.
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