Album reviews: Alabama Shakes | M Ward | Classical | Folk | Jazz | World

The Scotsman’s team of music critics lend their ears to the latest musical offerings

POP

Alabama Shakes: Boys & Girls

Rough Trade, £11.99

Rating: ***

LOTS of folks appear to be getting hot under the collar for this US four-piece. Is popular music in such parlous straits that all it takes is a competent southern rock band to stir the passions? Kings of Leon made a similar sound before they were lost to arena rock but Alabama Shakes inject more soul into proceedings, both in the Memphis-style arrangements of some of the tracks and the warm rasp of Brittany Howard, whose credentials as an old soul are confirmed from the get-go when she sings “didn’t think I’d make it to 22 years old”. But while the overall sound is seductive – if unnecessarily muffled in this recording – the songwriting still has a way to go.

FIONA SHEPHERD

POP

Trembling Bells & Bonnie “Prince” Billy: The Marble Downs

Honest Jon’s, £12.99

Rating: ****

RELATIONSHIPS might be hell, according to the lyrical pointers on this album, but Glaswegian psychfolk quartet Trembling Bells have found their musical love match in eccentric minstrel Will Oldham, who sounds positively tickled in comparison with his usual hangdog delivery as he trades hey-nonny-nos with their fragrant frontwoman Lavinia Blackwall over merrily tinkling piano on I Can Tell You’re Leaving. Dark mischief and sly humour abound in their a capella harmony duet My Husband’s Got No Courage In Him while, at the other end of the noise spectrum, the band whips up a tremolo-drenched progfolk version of The Palace Brothers’ spindly Riding.

M Ward: A Wasteland Companion

Bella Union, £13.99

Rating: ****

HAVING taken cute and winsome about as close to twee as he could safely go in collaboration with Zooey Deschanel, M Ward takes a break from She & Him to woo with his latest solo outing. Although he has a natural affinity for the whimsical, A Wasteland Companion is more playful than doleful with Ward coming over all Elvis Costello on the throwback twang of I Get Ideas and Deschanel chiming in on the swooning bubblegum glam pop of Sweetheart. Like his contemporaries Sufjan Stevens and Devendra Banhart, he makes it sound easy, but it takes a lot of talent to charm this casually.

FIONA SHEPHERD

CLASSICAL

Beethoven: Missa Solemnis

LPO, £8.99

Rating: ****

Beethoven didn’t exactly make life easy for choirs brave enough to perform his awesome Missa Solemnis. The sopranos are asked to scale Olympic heights, but neither do the other parts get off Scot free, as Beethoven indulges himself in exploring the widest extremities of the entire choir. Nor does he allow anyone a warm-up – it’s straight into the vocal thick of it, and an opening Kyrie that sets out the stall for the ensuing marathon. Under Christoph Eschenbach, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, with soloists Anne Schwanewilms, Annette Jahns, Nikolai Schukoff and Dietrich Henschel, pass muster from the outset. The Gloria is electrifying, the Credo powerfully dramatic, and the Sanctus sublime.

KENNETH WALTON

FOLK

JAMES ROSS: CHASING THE SUN

Rating: ****

TRINKIE RECORDS, only available at www.jamesross music.co.uk

THE young Highland pianist and composer James Ross goes from strength to strength. Co-commissioned by Blas Highland festival and Celtic Connections, this classically structured but traditionally-informed suite features Ross with ubiquitous folk-jazz saxophonist and piper Fraser Fifield and the impeccable strings of Mr McFall’s Chamber. A glowing evocation of Ross’s native northlands, it progresses from the peat-pool stillness of his opening piano over Su-a Lee’s cello to much rhapsodic playing from all concerned, and even a spot of ensemble boogieing in the Smoo Cave movement. Pibroch is a little masterpiece in itself, from its limpid opening piano theme to the entire ensemble joining Fifield’s pipes in the intense chatter of a taorluath-style variation, while Pulse has dramatic up-tempo moments, as Fifield’s sax voices over thrumming strings. The sax keens beautifully, too, in Ebb and Flow, while Ross’s finely restrained piano signals a sense of timeless landscape throughout.

JIM GILCHRIST

JAZZ

Phronesis: Walking Dark

Edition Records, £12.99

Rating: ****

THE follow-up to this highly regarded London-based trio’s award-winning Alive CD of 2010 restores Swedish drummer Anton Eger to the line-up, alongside the band’s founder, Danish bassist Jasper Høiby, and English pianist Ivo Neame. The title refers to a series of concerts the band performed last year in total darkness as a tribute to Høiby’s sister, who had been blinded by cataracts.

The bassist has been the main composer on their three previous discs, but this one is more of a group effort on that front, with all three musicians contributing to the writing.

Nonetheless, the trademark sense of group invention that has marked them out as distinctive in a currently crowded field remains intact, and even benefits from the variation.

Ebullient and life-affirming, the intricate interplay and vibrant grooves of their music belie the rather sombre title, and the melancholy story that lies behind it.

KENNY MATHIESON

WORLD

Diabel Cissokho: Kanabory Siyama

World Village, £13.99

Rating: ***

WHILE the political situation in Mali and Senegal goes through an unpleasant upheaval, it’s nice to bask in the warmth of an export which reflects the serene continuity of the region’s traditional music.

As his family name implies, Diabel Cissokho comes from a long line of griot performers – and if the hundred generations claimed in the press release is a bit generous, the fact remains that the origins of his art go way back into the Mande empire’s prehistory. Surrounded by a large family of musicians, Diabel grew up in Dakar, and though he played a large variety of instruments from a very early age, the kora was his first love, and remains so today. He spent four years as Baba Maal’s kora player, and he has also toured and recorded with Kandia Kouyate and Abdou Diop.

Cissokho is now established in Britain with his own band. This gently appealing CD was made with members of his family plus players from France and Morocco: he wrote the lyrics – which deal with perennial Mande themes of community and ethnicity – and in addition to singing he also plays guitar and a medley of percussion instruments.

For those in or near Dunfermline on 18 April, he can be heard making an appearance at the Carnegie Hall.

Mounira Mitchala: Chili Houritki

Lusafrica, £13.99

Rating: ***

MEANWHILE, from neighbouring Chad comes something saltier in the form of this new CD from one of that country’s few internationally known singers. Mounira Mitchala sings in Arabic, and her voice has a kittenish charm with a very acerbic edge. Her path to fame was not easy: forced into political exile with her family when she was young, she initially studied law, but as a singer with local groups she soon got noticed, and became recognised as a carrier of her country’s musical traditions.

MICHAEL CHURCH