I'm With You- Red Hot Chili Peppers

Twenty-eight years, ten albums and one new guitarist- all adds up to Californian coasting

What exactly do you do when the band member credited with not one but two creative rebirths in your history leaves for good? It’s a question that the Red Hot Chili Peppers are hoping to answer as Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith and Flea are joined by new axeman Josh Klinghoffer.

With John Frusciante seemingly tired of playing the kind of venues an album title like Stadium Arcadium suggests, the remaining members surely ignored all sane advice at time to continue, bringing in Klinghoffer, bizarrely a former collaborator on the elder’s solo work. The advantage is that it lowers expectations after the gargantuan double Arcadium, and thankfully the band don’t disappoint at this level: they just don’t surpass what was expected.

It all starts well enough- “Monarchy Of Roses” opens with garage squalling noise, then set against an airbrushed, keyboard-drenched chorus- it’s a wonderful musical oxymoron. It also highlights the improvement in Kiedis’ voice after appear to give up the ghost completely after the last tour’s Reading finale. He sounds reenergised and ready to go, despite his still-woeful approach to lyric writing (“Did I Let You Know” finds him actually using the word “Mozambique-y” to rhyme with “cheeky”). It's he who soars on the likes of “Annie Wants A Baby” and the soulful and damaged “Meet Me At The Corner”.

Flea also hits something of a purple patch too, taking the reigns with his four strings to an almost megalomaniac level. He shows far more songwriting maturity with his new instrument of choice, piano. Having gone away to learn his craft properly, his playing isn’t about to rival Matt Bellamy, but it adds a deep, atmospheric dynamic to the latter half of the record, allowing slower tracks like Police Station to really fizz. Best of all is the much-discussed Brendan’s Death Song, a tribute to the late promoter who won the band an essential early gig. It slowly builds from nothing, and completes the band’s transition from socked-cocks frat boys to the fathers and husbands they’ve become. All four members mesh perfectly, and it stands as one of the band’s most personal, emotional songs since Under The Bridge caught onto something in the air in 1991.

Just from that there’s enough to justify their continuation, it’s just a shame everything else is so utterly bland. The likes of “Dance, Dance, Dance”, “Ethiopia” and single “The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie” are bloodless and serious, free of the fun that powered them through their occasional lack of real musicianship. At the other end of the scale, “Happiness Loves Company” is almost sickeningly jaunty, both problems mean that it never really feels like a Chilis album.

Which brings us to the white elephant in the studio: Josh Klinghoffer. His experimental take of stadium guitars is certainly a welcome move, and when he reveals a real riff, it’s knocked out of the park. But all too often it sounds like he noodling away to himself in a completely different room to the others. All too often his guitars squeal along on their own on the likes of “Even You, Brutus?” and just does not work.

All of which leads to a sense of a new beginning, it’s directionless nature suggesting a debut album if they weren’t one of the biggest bands in the world. If Klinghoffer can reign in his avant-garde tendancies, then they could still be “with” us for a while to come.

3/5

Best Tracks:
Brendan's Death Song
Meet Me At The Corner
Monarchy Of Roses

Suck It And See- Arctic Monkeys

Far from a return to their roots, album number four finds Turner & co pushing forward.

In a recent interview, Alex Turner described his Arctic Monkeys’ in three words: “Riffs, funny, loud.” As disparaging a representation of their smart, dark indie rock that may be, it’s clearly what his audience are looking for. Many fans were turned off by the brave, far-catchier-than-you-remember third album Humbug, which found idol Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age doping up the impressionable Sheffield lads, engulfing them in a thick, paranoid fog.

Wherever you stand on the Humbug debate, the “funny” bit of the equation was missing. So there has been plenty of excited chatter leading up to naughty-titled follow up Suck It And See, the band’s reunion with Favourite Worst Nightmare producer James Ford suggested as a return to the sharp riffs and witty observation of their breakthrough material.

As it turns out, and to the band’s credit, this isn’t quite true. Instead, Homme still lingers over the record’s first half, but Ford blows a cold wind, clearing the mist and bringing everything into sharper focus. Nowhere is this clearer than on first single “Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair”. Despite it being slightly lead-footed in places, it’s packed with riffs that swim to dark places. It carries a certain swagger and confidence missing from Humbug, as well as a bubblegum-with-razorblades “ooh-ooh” refrain and lyrics just our to have fun, dispensing advice like “go into business with a grizzly bear” and “wear your shell suit on bonfire night”.

It’s a starting point though, and other songs rock far more convincingly. Brick By Brick is the most balls-to-the-wall track, drummer Matt Helders helming a beautifully dumb one-chord race to the finish line. Library Pictures is even better, tribal drums and feedback brought to the front, Turner relishing his chance to show off some full-blooded “ip-dip-dog-shit-rock-and-roll”.

As exciting as those songs are, it’s the softer moments that stand tallest, cribbing some of the more cerebral and romantic moves from Alex Turner’s Submarine soundtrack. “The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala” is ideal for the next single, a soft-focus singalong, with that title (and oh what song titles!) circling for the big sing-a-long chorus. All My Own Stunts punches giddy highs in the chorus, before racing back down like a rollercoaster, while Piledriver Waltz is as lovely and woozy as the title suggests. Love Is A Laserquest is a piece of near-genius, with Turner’s words at their most poetic, looking back at a childhood romance gone sour (“I’m sure you’re still breaking hearts/With the efficiency that only youth can harness.”), while his voice across the record is nuanced and lilting, in quieter moments sounding like a harder-bitten Morrissey.

It’s not quite killer enough to avoid filler- the title track for one is forgettable (save the lyric “You’re rarer than a can of dandelion and burdock”)- but the new romantic side to the band is quite a revelation. Far from a so-called return to form, Suck It And See finds the Monkeys refusing to rest on their laurels, pushing forward rather than looking back to previous successes. And for that, they should be celebrated.

4/5

Best Tracks:
Love Is A Laserquest
Piledriver Waltz
Library Pictures
The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala

Bon Iver- Bon Iver

Justin Vernon emerges back into the world, blinking in the sunlight

Kanye West may be many things, but no one- be it celebrators or detractors- could call him subtle. He deals in bombast, be it simply rapping over a Daft Punk song and then releasing it as a single or cavorting at the Brits with 50 gold-plated ladies.

But towards the end of his acclaimed last album, something very odd happens. Suddenly away from the bragging and self-indulgence, the heavily-autotuned-but-still-heavily-recognisable voice of Bon Iver front man looms large (or quiet, as is his style). It’s not all that effective, but it’s the bizarre endpoint of a slow-and-steady Earth swallowing two years in the making.

Bon Iver’s first album For Emma, Forever Ago was a critical monster, rightly lauded as a masterpiece. So how do you follow it up? Well, Vernon’s answer seems to initially be go 80s. Despite the baulking that may induce, with the exception of the woeful final track Beth/Rest (a horrible, Jennifer Rush-styled ballads, complete with an unbearable drum machine backing), this just means infusing everything with a beautiful keyboard wash.

This then, is the yin to For Emma...’s yang. Where the former was lost in despair and gut-wrenching regret, the eponymous follow-up is the sound of a man emerging from the wood cabin For Emma...was written is and quite literally rediscovering the outside world. Rather than just use them to fill in the blanks, Vernon has employed his band as full collaborators, making the sound less intimate than before, but no less warm, and filled with sheer warmth.

The difference is immediately clear. Opener “Perth” spreads out in the earlobes, the synth wash utterly reassuring. Here and on the wonderful “Holocene”, brushes tap out a gentle military beat, just enough to give the album a forward momentum not previously possible, while Vernon himself really tests where he can take that emotion-packed voice of his. Across the record, it’s less affected then ever, no longer shyly disguised but brought front-and-centre. “Minnesota, WI” and Hinnom, TX (yep, all the titles are named after places important to the band, further extending that personal touch) find that voice even venturing lower in the register, revealing a powerful baritone burr hitherto unheard.

As nice as the sonic warm glow is, it does occasionally have the effect of losing individual high points- it’s an overall masterpiece rather than leaving songs stuck in your head for days. Lead-off single Calgary is the exception as the best thing on offer, shuffling along before bursting wide open in its glorious, soaring chorus.

On For Emma...Justin Vernon managed the most amazing thing, breaking stony hearts both critical and public across the globe. For the follow-up, he clearly set himself the target of gluing them back together. Thanks to this album’s intense joyful power, it’s something he’s achieved with ease.

5/5
Best Tracks:
Calgary
Holocene
Perth
Minnesota, WI

Beach Break Live (Pembrey, South Wales, 17/06/11)

Student festival aims high for fifth year. A little too high

It’s not really been a great start, has it? Last weekend, Isle of Wight kicked off the festival season proper with what can only be described as a monsoon. And now a week before Glasto, Beach Break Live isn’t really helping the ominous feeling that we're not going to have a dry festival season 2011.

In the sunshine, Pembrey in South Wales is a stunning arena-endless beaches Philip Larkin wrote of to the south, towering hills to the north, but for three quarters of the 2011 vintage, a vast grey wet wash sits over proceedings. Not that anyone’s bothered- the young, drunk atmosphere starts from about midday Friday, as students leave the last year and tuition fee worries behind.

The first thing noticeable about this year is the sheer size of the thing. Only 20,000 of our nation’s youth are here, meaning early afternoon performances across the site feel like some vast unexplored chasm Lara Croft might find herself in (the brilliant Club Tropicana tent suffers most thanks to a core student audience uninterested in beyond the mainstream). First to get something resembling a gathering is Ed Sheeran on Friday- bright, young and ginger, and seemingly discovered by the mainstream the week before with his sudden chart success. It’s his first festival slot, so he’s clearly nervous at the start. But by the half way stage, the crowd are transfixed by his acoustic intensity.

Professor Green and Tinie Tempah bring a more urban flavour to the Friday night. The Professor’s “Just Be Good To Green” is the first sing-a-long, heard ringing around the site, while Tinie reminds the audience that this is his first headline slot. It shows too- his charm and interaction wins the day, but he doesn’t have all the required material to escape troughs during weaker album tracks. However the peaks outweigh this, and his live band gives him superb support.

On to Saturday, the more stable weather conditions seem to buoy the crowd, and festival-fixtures We Are Scientists are on fearsome form. They’re reunited with I Am Arrows man Andy Burrows behind the kit, who still gives them something extra. Despite having fourth album Barbara with us for nearly two years now, it’s still the songs from 2005 breakthrough With Love and Squalor that get the biggest reaction.

Example, atop the charts that week, gets a huge response, yet he still needs to work on his pop star charisma, with his set failing to gel properly until near the conclusion; even he accepts he had to get his “shit songs” out the way first. White Lies do a better job: the big screens are set to monochrome, and songs from both of their albums just sound huge live. Nero, Shy FX and Subfocus provide the afterparty in the oft-cavernous Merlin tent with a hedonistic triple-header.

The ground beneath the young students’ feet was finally baked on Sunday with the appearance of a strange orange globe in the sky. Competition winner Charlotte Carpenter started the day, showcasing songwriting beyond her tender years, while blues band Milk blew any hangover cobwebs away.

Jamie Woon was the first to get a big response, despite the evening atmospherics of his music sounding odd in the blazing sun. More suited to the meteorological conditions was Newton Faulkner, still drawing much interest at these things despite dwindling album sales. Its obvious why: his audience skills are extraordinary, proving to be funny, warm and relaxed, helping to maintain intimacy. His slightly scary version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” needs to be heard to be believed.

From there, an evening of main stage dubstep-pop beckons with Katy B and Magnetic Man. Oddly, both headliners perform their dual hit “Passing Stranger” separately with no reference to the other artist. Ignoring this, Katy B is a huge disappointment. She’s clearly exhausted and her usual people skills are absent as she fails to get the crowd moving. That’s something Magnetic Man’s hype-man has no problem’s achieving, really bringing the set to life. Their show as a whole though doesn’t quite work, as the three DJ haven’t yet found a way to make the dance sub-genre work on this sort of scale. Mark Ronson provides the ice-cool after party DJ set in the Merlin.

Despite managing some big coups this year, Beach Break Live still has a lot to learn as a festival. After five years, organisers are still surfing a wave of student goodwill. The tiny (for a festival) attendance just can’t justify to huge number of tents, and scaling back would really help the atmosphere and help them become a major name. For now, here’s to sunnier climates in 2012.

3/5

On A Mission- Katy B

Dubstep everygirl’s anything-but-ordinary debut...

Undoubtedly, British music finds itself in one of the lowest troughs it’s been in a while. It’s all cyclical of course- things we as depressing in the early years of the century before Libertines, Ferdinands et al put us back on the map.

When trying to spot where we’re all headed, you could place a worse bet than dubstep being the genre to push forward with. Last year, genre pioneers Skream, Benga and Artwork created their Magnetic Man and took it to the top of the chart, and now their young protégée is hoping to do the same.

Katy Brien has even more crossover appeal. To start with, it’s not really dubstep- there’s a nice bass-end in places, and the atmosphere is pure night-time- but it’s all streamlined with pop hooks to make the often daunting club genre a little more palatable for the more casual listener. And in this instance, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that as On A Mission is packed with wall-to-wall gems.

Title track Katy On A Mission is already familiar, becoming ubiquitous on daytime radio at the end of last year, and for the start of the record, Katy is a tower of strength: ...Mission along with Power On Me and Witches’ Brew showcase a confident, intelligent young woman not to be messed with, the latter especially with its seductive rhythm and brass-assisted chorus.

That’s all well and good, but the second half of the albums becomes a little more interesting, moving into the shade. The likes of Lights On (with Ms Dynamite shuffling on like someone’s mad aunty bizarrely) and Magnetic Man-backed Perfect Stranger maintain the confidence, but it’s tracks like Go Away and Broken Record that show another side of Brien- less sure of herself, slightly damaged, and lost in the harmonies of the former.

As On A Mission brings dubstep-pop fully into the mainstream, a few of the steps falter. Movement, for one, brings in latin vibes and though Katy’s voices manages the sudden leap to sexy, the backing production ends up a little too close to some sort of lounge act. Final track Hard To Get is also disappointment, showing dubstep’s history coming out of early 00s jungle and garage in a toe-curling manner.

Despite this, Katy B’s debut’s job to show the first glimmering embers of a new start for British music is a runaway success. Expect these songs to continue to be everywhere this summer.

4/5

Best Tracks:
Katy On A Mission
Broken Record
Just Go Away
Witches’ Brew

What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?- The Vaccines

Fat-free but shallow debut from indie’s “saviours”

Let’s get something straight: alternative music is not dead. You can hold off the wake, but away the black armband, because there’s still enough of it around to fight against cynical naysayers.

Music in this country comes and goes in waves and always has done- just because pop is the ascendency in the mainstream doesn’t mean others aren’t catered for. Dubstep continues to look like the future for British music, and let us not forget the only act to break Adele’s momentous run at the album chart summit were a rock band...

We’ve also been here before. For a while in the early 00s, OK Computer looked to be the last great alternative album, before The Strokes punched through, ushering in Libertines, Monkeys and Bloc Parties.

And it’s The Strokes that The Vaccines find themselves rather presumptuously compared to: the new white hope to bring guitars back to the chart. There's a point there in many ways, as Vaccines trade is excitable rhythms, uninterested vocals and vaguely angular guitar riffs. But while What Did You Expect...is a fun, life-affirming album in places, it is far from an Is This It masterpiece.

Instead, we get a collection of twelve singles and would-be singles. Opener Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra) along with Post Break Up Sex received substantial radio play before the album’s release and it’s unsurprising as the former zooms along at an exhilarating pace. It’s these moments that stand out the most, as the even more hyperactive Norgaard will attest, with added “ooh-ooh-oohs” as the hook. Both clock in at less than two minutes.

On the flipside, the album contains several moments to prevent it being too one-note. The likes of Wetsuit and Blow It Up slow proceedings to a woozy waltz, the latter providing a rarely engaged vocal from singer Justin Young, allowing his voice soar on the chorus. Best of all is the aforementioned Post Break Up Sex, showing the band of as highly effective songwriting, perfectly encapsulating the shame the title suggests.

As a whole, What Did You Expect...provides everything you’d expect from their high playlist value: this is a short, sharp indie-pop album that doesn’t waste a note. But in the quest for chart-bothering singles, it’s all rather transient, without much going on underneath. This album is designed to get you drunk, have a messy time with you then leave in the morning never to be seen again: it’s not going to make scores of teenagers pick up guitars and start bands, and it leaves a guilty feeling afterwards, but boy is it fun while it lasts.

4/5

Best Tracks:
Post Break Up Sex
Norgaard
Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra)
Blow It Up

Mirrorwriting- Jamie Woon

Great voice fails to deliver on crossover promise

Ten years on from its inception in underground clubs, dubstep’s grip on inner-city youth is complete. Magnetic Man and their associated acts are edging the genre to the top of the charts, whilst feted artists like Katy B and James Blake have given us two great fringe records. Now Jamie Woon is set to give us a third...

Except he hasn’t. It’s barely even dubstep.

It’s all the fault of single Night Air, released earlier this year. It’s high on sensual atmospherics and produced by leading-light Burial, haunting and lingering as it moves, upping the stakes for dubstep to try something fresh. Beyond that, this is just a forgettable soul album.

What isn’t second rate is Woon’s voice- one of the most beautiful, soulful and unaffected male sounds to bother the charts in recent times. His heartbreaking lament to opportunities missed on Sorta is gorgeous, and shows why he gathered plaudits to begin with. The rest of the album’s songs just don’t match him. Middle has a great string arrangement at its core, but an overly fussy and clinical production spoils it, while songs like Spiral and TMRW sound like they belong on a late-90s R Kelly album; yes, they’re that bad.

The only other song to really have an impact is Lady Luck, an obvious choice for new single, and one that marries a more upbeat Woon vocal with a trippy and dark sampled backing. But you couldn’t call this dubstep.

His stripped-right-down version of Wayfaring Stranger is conspicuous by its absence here, and it’s a real shame: a great version with just that voice with the most simple of support. That kind of approach may have earned more plaudits, but what we’ve been left with will be forgotten the day after hearing it, as no amount of production tricks can hide a rather dull soul record by a great singer.

2.5/5

Best Tracks:
Night Air
Shoulda
Lady Luck