Arcade Fire//Everything Now Review

“We’ve all got this “literary” fiction that simply monotones that we’re all becoming less and less human…and we all buy the books and go like “Golly, what a mordantly effective commentary on contemporary materialism!” But we already “know” U.S. culture is materialistic. This diagnosis can be done in about two lines.” – David Foster Wallace to Larry McCaffrey

How about “Infinite content/We’re infinitely content”?

Arcade Fire have never sounded so shallow, tired or cynical. It’s been coming for a while – their three most recent albums have all featured a track or two dedicated almost solely to Win bitching about the youth – but it’s never seemed so fatal.

The relentless ‘message’-ness and moralising of Everything Now – it’s about how we have everything now and infinite content has not made us happier – makes for pretty poor company most of the time, made worse by a smug sense of superiority and half-baked experimentation.

Assorted Albums Almanac//Spring 17

There have been many months of music, film and anything else noted and not uploaded here. But when you unload those thoughts and experiences, surely best to start from the present rather than the past? Here are a selection of albums that caught the ear – or, more often in the process of discovery, the eye – over the past month or so.

Michael Kiwanuka // Limelight, 15 October

For an album whose mode is most often melancholic, Michael Kiwanuka’s Love and Hate translates into a surprisingly energetic, even joyous live experience. These aren’t radical reconstructions of the album’s original tracks, but they are injected with a vitality and momentum that unearths the latent funk buried in the album’s slow-build introspection.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds // Skeleton Tree Review

Nick Cave is often at his most pretentious, and his most farcically overblown, when he indulges his demonic preacher alter-ego. As his croon has deepened and mellowed in his later years, he has developed a voice that is almost excessively rich in drama. His lyrics, which already walk a fine line between the poetic and the ponderously cliché, can seem exaggerated into melodramatic farce.  

This, however, is a rare record where Cave truly sounds sincere. I have no doubt that his previous works have been performed with unshakeable sincerity and conviction – his passion and presence is undeniable – but here it for once sounds less like an act, a character, a stylisation. It is almost painfully real.

Lisa Hannigan // At Swim Review

Quieter, moodier, and more spacious than Passenger’s music of migration, At Swim marks a sea change for Hannigan. A decisive move away from her folk based roots into less easily-definable territory, At Swim is an album that shifts its sounds from song-to-song. Her more traditional songcraft, and with it some of her knack for narrative, fades from the foreground here, resulting in a work that is more abstract, more downbeat and more unpredictable.