Album reviews: Travis | Jagwar Ma

Travis

Where You Stand

Red Telephone Box, £13.99

Star rating: * *

“WHY did we wait so long?” hollers Fran Healy on the opening Mother with a bit of revived joi de vivre in his voice, the song rattling into life on some big, dramatic piano chords reminiscent of Springsteen or The Who.

It’s a high water mark for this seventh LP from the Scots indie-pop contingent. Once one of the most bankable groups in the country, they have fallen quite dramatically from grace.

They haven’t released a record in five years, and this song hints at the possible career changes of heart  which may have intruded during this time.

“Write a book, change your name, run a thousand miles away,” croons Healy, as if they or this record were the only options, and the tone in his voice as the chorus kicks back in suggests this was really the only option. Travis remain a group whose unassuming likability seeps into their music, and it’s easy to tap your feet along to the jolly Moving (which contains the upbeat line “I feel alive / I am aware of the colours in the sky”) and the kneading together of a bouncing acoustic guitar line and a Young Folks-style whistling solo on Reminder.

As the album progresses, though, the pace never escalates and the tone rarely varies, from the featherlight title track to the saccharine jangle-pop of On My Wall and the limp piano balladry of The Big Screen.

There are hints of other, better records here and there – the insistent Pixies guitar line of Another Guy, the oddly unfitting hip-hop beat of New Shoes – but more often than not Where You Stand fulfils the stereotypes applied to a band who used to find it easy to create something immediate and memorable. David Pollock

Download: Mother, Boxes

Jagwar Ma

Howlin

Marathon Artists, £13.99

Star rating: * * *

They may have recently been championed by Noel Gallagher, but there’s precious little relation to the sound of either of his bands and the Sydney duo. More akin to the futurist psychedelia of MGMT or Tame Impala, Jono Ma and Gabriel Winterfield provide forward-looking chill-out house on What Love, sleek and brooding electronic soul on Uncertainty and four to the floor club anthems in Four and Exercise, with intermittent and unexpected diversions into Beach Boys-style pop like That Loneliness and Let Her Go. Cheerfully memorable. DP

Download this: That Loneliness, Uncertainty

Justin Currie

Lower Reaches

Endless Shipwreck, £13.99

Star rating: * * *

“You like to sing falsetto, which real men shouldn’t do,” sings sometime Del Amitri frontman Justin Currie on his third solo album, and it eases us towards the split at the heart of the record. On the one hand, he’s a natural pop artist writing sugary, memorable choruses like those of Bends To My Will and I Hate Myself For Loving You; on the other, he’s a devotee of Americana who decamped to Austin, Texas, to record with revered producer Mike McCarthy. The measured balladry of Into A Pearl and On My Conscience’s pedal steel twang hint most clearly at a shift in direction, but this remains a pleasant record with generally popular appeal. DP

Download: Falsetto, Into A Pearl

JAZZ

Scott Hamilton

Swedish Ballads And More

Stunt B00BK98YWQ, £13.99

Star rating: * * * *

The great American tenor sax star is now an elder statesman of the jazz scene and seems to be recording more prolifically than ever. This CD finds him in the company of a Scandinavian trio. As ever, it’s a joy to hear his big, authoritative tone, lyrical style and the easygoing bounce which gives way to some barnstorming swinging on the uptempo Swing In F. Hamilton is a master balladeer and this album’s stand-out is You Can’t Be In Love With A Fool, a ballad penned in 1953 by Ulf Sandstrom, which is also notable for Jan Lundgren’s elegant pianistics. Alison Kerr

Download this: Trubbel

FOLK

Rant

Rant

Make Believe Records MBR4CD, £13.99

Star rating: * * * *

From the Highlands, Lauren MacColl and Sarah-Jane Summers, and two Shetland sisters, Jenna and Bethany Reid, bring their four fiddles together to make exceptional music, recorded live in a Black Isle church. These players are among the top exponents of music from Scotland, with great technical schooling as violin players and a great love of their particular traditions. Brilliant arrangements, varied pace and absorbing solo and ensemble performances thrust the new string quartet to the top of the nation’s fiddle tree. But the rich ensemble sound, from more a chamber group than fire-spitting sorority, does occasionally give way to a more name-worthy sonic explosion. Norman Chalmers

Download this: Jan’s Return

CLASSICAL

Vincenzo Bellini

Norma

Decca 478 3517, £25.99

Star rating: * * * * *

This new recording with Cecilia Bartoli and Sumi Jo as Norma and Adalgisa, two women unwittingly in love with the same man, is the culmination of a six-year project to return Bellini’s dramatic opera to its performance roots. That project includes recasting the two female leads as a mezzo-soprano and soprano respectively, changing keys, restoring cuts and amending much of the orchestral tonality of the work. The result is more than simply a fresh look at Bellini’s opera. A principal outcome is to make this much more a chamber work than is normally the case; in fact, apart from some scattered crowd scenes, this is essentially an opera centring on three individuals who, in pairs or together, hold the attention for the majority of the time. Strongly sung throughout, this is a highly listenable recording. Alexander Bryce

Download this: Casta Diva

Album reviews: Travis | Jagwar Ma | Justin Currie