Category: Album Reviews – Archive

November 30, 2017 / Album Reviews - Archive

AT LEAST WAVE YOUR HANDKERCHIEF AT ME (Glitterbeat/Planet) Can there be a gentler of expression longing than the title of this album, whether it expresses aching separation or forbidden love? In fact gentleness is a hallmark of an album that carries the subtitle The Joys and Sorrows of Southern Albanian…

November 26, 2017 / Album Reviews - Archive

YAKIYA (Tall Poppies) 8/10 This is hair-curling stuff. Bass trombonist Adrian Sherriff, bass guitarist Jonathan Dimond and drummer Adam King share a keen interest in rhythmic complexities, whether by way of superimposing one rhythm atop another or incorporating metric modulation, intricate cycles or other options. The detailed liner-notes provide explanations…

November 19, 2017 / Album Reviews - Archive

GREAT (MGM/Planet) 7.5/10 This could have been the great album its title suggests, but then Fred Smith is not the first artist to mistake a single album’s worth of material for a double. Unexpectedly (given he is as Australian as an emu), Smith has given all the songs American settings,…