John Grant - Queen of Denmark (2010)

Beautiful, melodic, poetic album with superb keyboard playing and warmly coloured vocals. Convincing and mature like some chansonnier,  yet modern. Not shying away from politics and discussing sexuality and prejudices, be it through fine metaphors or indie-like directness and edge. LP is so consistent in quality, with beautiful "Caramel" and "When Dreams go to die" being my favourites. Is he a new Rufus?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Frazey Ford - Indian Ocean (2014)

Image
Ford once was singing old-timey music with the Be Good Tanyas and then made a shift towards soul. A tasteful choice of warm southern country-soul of classic variety. Hence, the LP was recorded with authentic, seasoned session musicians, with Hammond a king, occasional Telecaster, deep purposeful bass pumping the rhythm, soft horns. This all serves as a very solid basis and all very promising. But still, the promise not quite fulfilled. There are some fine songs here, especially "Three Golden Trees", but, in general, you have a sense that the melodies are way too monotonous and similar, too laid back,  and you struggle to recognise real dedication. And, perhaps the biggest downside is Ford's pronunciation. It is irritating, sounds even artificial. With the Tanyas, her singing was all clear and audible, while here it sounds as if she's using some other language and not English. Still, a folk chanteuse gone classic soul - overall, it is an attractive, nice sounding, li...
Read more

Sturgill Simpson - Sound & Fury (2019)

Image
Sturgill is supposed to be a country artist. But what we hear here is him playing with synths, hard rock, samples, heavy riffs, wide palette of wild studio gadgetry... and all that it in some kind of apocalyptic story linked with Japanese animation film. OK, country, but from another planet!
Read more