THE LATEST releases from Morrissey, Lewis Watson and Linkin Park are among the albums in the latest music review from Observer editor Rob George
IN 2012, Neil Cowley Trio performed what would become the most significant gig of their career.
A year of touring and their fourth studio album ‘The Face of Mount Molehill’ culminated in a concert at London’s Barbican with a specially formed string ensemble.
They knew they had made it and a short while late, pianist Neil Cowley turned his back on month’s of work and scrapped an entire album’s worth of material.
Cowley stopped, reappraised where they were as a band and began a voyage of discovery for the trio.
The result is ‘Touch and Flee’, the new recording from the trio which marks a defining moment in the evolution of the band.
Their bravest, most daring album to date spotlights the ever-increasing brilliance of Cowley as a composer and features Evan Jenkins on drums and Rex Horan on bass.
Parlophone Records have released the 20th anniversary definitive master of Morrissey’s fourth album ‘Vauxhall and I’.
A very different album from the guitar driven ‘Your Arsenal’, Morrissey created a flawless album of brilliant, melodic and languid songs, exquisite arrangements and fabulous vocals.
‘The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get’ is all killer riff and features one of Morrissey’s finest lyrics ‘Beware I bear more grudges than lonely High Court judges’. Proving yet again the maestro was peerless with a pen and sharper than a razor when
it came to slaying the establishment.
While the closer ‘Speedway’ is a song that crashes and burns through a litany of defiance and ambiguity, ending one of the greatest albums ever released on a perfect note of survival against all odds.
Linkin Park’s new album ‘The Hunting Party’ hit the streets a day after they headlined at the iconic Download Festival.
Following their collaboration with Rakim for the first single ‘Guilty All The Same’, the band have also announced guest slots from Tom Morello, Daron Malakian and Paige Hamilton.
Heavy rock icons Mastodon debuted their sixth album with the launch of ‘Once More Round the Sun’ recorded in Nashville with Grammy Award winning producer Nick Raskulinecz.
A follow up to the critically acclaimed ‘The Hunter’, the new album features a variety of hard-hitting tracks including ‘High Road’.
‘The Last Vinci’ is an Italian rock project headed by vocalist Alex Vinci, a former member of rock/pop band NoCoventionalSound.
After four music videos and singles and hundreds of gigs around Italy, Alex met a young power rock band called Satellite and together they began The Last Vinci.
Following a string of powerful and much-celebrated singles over the last year, including Brighter, Lust and Lies and Tokyo, The Ramona Flowers have released their debut album ‘Dismantle and Rebuild’.
Hailing from Bristol, the home of greats such as Tricky, Portishead and Massive Attack, the Ramona Flowers boast a range of influences and inspirations which have helped shape their anthemic and emotionally charged indie sound.
Recorded at the label’s renowned Distillery Studios in Bath, their debut album showcases a band at the height of their creative development.
‘Now’, the debut album from the ‘Prime Ministers’ blend of extremely catchy riffs with bewitching hooks and infectious melodies.
After six million plays on YouTube, Lewis Watson released his debut album ‘This Morning’ in a unique way.
The hugely popular social media musician previewed the album with a series of intimate shows where fans brought t-shirts as tickets for the gigs.
‘This Morning’ demonstrates the Lewis’s undoubted talent as a songwriter and combines fully-realised reworkings of select songs that emerged as sketches with the best of sixty unreleased songs written last year.
Meanwhile the newer material such as ‘Holding On’, ‘Outgrow and ‘Castle Street’ takes Lewis’s stripped back guitar and voice roots and constructs a richer, more textured sound.
