Album Reviews

July 3, 2015 11:24 pm 66 comments Views: 3

Miguel letting the breeze blow through his hair.
Source: Supplied

Albums! You still buy them. That’s a statement not a question. Here’s what we think of this week’s efforts, studious reader.

WILDHEART

MIGUEL

[SONY]

* * * *

Miguel album cover Wildheart
Source: Supplied

While we can’t repeat a large amount of the lyrics here, let’s just say that Miguel really, really earns the language warning sticker on this album.

But three albums in and Miguel is a young artist refreshingly unwilling to play nice in a conservative era.

The constant Prince comparisons may seem lazy (although one listen to the falsetto and drowsy carnal beats of Flesh and he loses the right to argue) but this is his attempt at a Sign O’the Times-style musical statement and an old-fashioned album in the modern age. It’s social, it’s sexual, it’s soulful. It’s also wonderful.

There’s sci-fi ’70s grooves on Deal, while The Valley is Nine Inch Nails’ Closer mated with Prince’s Darling Nikki. It’s a seriously explicit ode to the home of porn in LA and there’s copious ammunition for the professionally annoyed.

Coffee’s also set in the bedroom, but this album version has been cleaned up from the rogue single version with Wale floating around.

NWA is his OG love song, boasting about a lucky lady “walkin’ with a gangster lean”, Waves is smooth ’80s pop ready to be unleashed as a single.

His misfit anthem What’s Normal Anyway provides the raw, exposed heart of the album: Miguel says he’s “too immoral for the Christians, too far out for the in crowd”.

Leaves uses the riff from Smashing Pumpkins’ 1979 (with Billy Corgan’s consent) to walk you through another love letter to Los Angeles. And as a sign of respect to a chap who did this funk/rock/pop/soul thing with style decades ago, Lenny Kravitz’s guitar wails over the haunting Face the Sun.

It’s just a pity that someone already beat him to the perfect album title: Californication./ CAMERON ADAMS

SOUNDS LIKE: franker Frank Ocean and a dirty Weeknd

IN A WORD: seductive

Coffee – Miguel

Miguel looking promo-sexual.
Source: Supplied

SLOW GUM

FRASER A. GORMAN

[MILK! RECORDS/CAROLINE]

* * * 1/2

Fraser A Gorman – Slow Gum album cover.jpg
Source: Supplied

Country music ain’t supposed to be this sexy. Melbourne manchild Gorman does a bang-up job of introducing himself to local and international audiences as Book Of Love leads the dance hips first, grinding organs like Where It’s At. He makes songs like Shiny Gun and We’re All Alright sound as familiar as your toaster is through bleary eyes. Gorman does low-key grandiloquence so well it’s often hard to pin down how he nails it. ”I’m a boy so won’t you let me be your evil toy,” he sings, then adds “turn old Hank up”. Old soul etc. Lyrically, he stumbles rhyming “wasted” and “tasted”, it sticks like gum on a thong. This part of his game will improve and Never Gonna Hold You (Like I Do) works as a kiss-off into the sun. / MIKEY CAHILL

SOUNDS LIKE: Country and western lilts and jilts

IN A WORD: burgeoning

Shiny Gun – Fraser A. Gorman

Fraser A Gorman – Melbourne country rock singer with Slow Gum debut album (Milk! Records)
Source: Supplied

LA PRIEST

[DOMINO]

* * * 1/2

Inji – LA Priest (DOMINO)
Source: Supplied

For a guy only 5 foot 4, Ariel Pink casts a long shadow. Late Of the Pier’s lead dude Sam Dust has gone solo, sashaying open-chested around the world and on his debut album you can’t help noting the Ariel-isms. But he’s got his own thing going on too; this is (g)loopy pop music. Wisely, Dust toured in Connan Mockasin’s band and this amplified his overt eccentric side and sharpened his pencil. Oini is a karaoke song for astronauts, a double-time space-dub, Gene Washes With New Arm pants like Take My Breath Away, Dust tackles submission and stunted love on Mountain and on Lorry Park he becomes the third Dust brother. Child of Lov (RIP) would dig these scattered jams and you’ll get lots of early Daft Punk and Metronomy memories flooding back as the beats goes one. Turn on, tune in, drop knee. / MIKEY CAHILL

SOUNDS LIKE: your instructions are … get weird

IN A WORD: beatific

Oino – LA Priest

LA Priest – Sam Dust with debut album Inji of weird psych, pop, fuzz noise
Source: Supplied

HOLLYWOOD: A STORY OF A DOZEN ROSES

JAMIE FOXX

[SONY]

* * *

Jamie Foxx, Hollywood, CD cover
Source: Supplied

There’s traditionally disquiet when actors present (vanity) music projects, but Jamie Foxx’s debut appeared back in 1994. He then won an Oscar portraying Ray Charles. Unlike J Lo, he has musical chops. Foxx’s fifth album — its concept a doomed red-carpet romance with a cynical aspiring starlet — is curated, modish R&B. Foxx supplies lots of Drakey, bassy illwave — cue the Boi-1da-stamped single You Changed Me. He unites with Pharrell for Tease, a neo When Doves Cry, while Baby’s In Love (featuring Kid Ink) is Luther Vandross-disco soul. The title track is cred alt-rock. Foxx closes with cocktail piano ballads. Yet, ultimately, Hollywood… is missing relatability — and depth. / CYCLONE WEHNER

SOUNDS LIKE: Velvet rope treatment

IN A WORD: glitzy

You Changed Me feat. Chris Brown – Jamie Foxx

LAS VEGAS, NV – MAY 02: Jamie Foxx sings the national anthem of the United States of America before the welterweight unification championship bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao on May 2, 2015 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
Source: Getty Images

BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT

HILARY DUFF

[SONY]

* *

Hilary Duff – Breathe In. Breathe Out. SHS Planner. June 28. Staying In. Attention Fiona Welch
Source: Supplied

Who wants to buy a Hilary Duff album in 2015? 2634 Australians last week, to be precise. Duff is the teen star who grew up but stayed clean cut and, well, dull. Her pop is still pulseless after a musical break that took in marriage, motherhood and divorce, yet her voice remains anchored in Disneybland. One In a Million sounds like a song J-Lo and Kylie rejected, Sparks at least has a hook (via a whistle) and it’s clear why Ed Sheeran could part with Tattoo. It’s generic pop filled with cliched lyrics and stabs at whatever’s selling right now (hello EDM on Arms Around a Memory.) At least the few self-penned tracks (Lies, Brave Heart) offer something personal. Maybe it’s time to grow up musically as well. / CAMERON ADAMS

SOUNDS LIKE: Duff by name …

IN A WORD: inessential