Album reviews: Marilyn Manson | Roisin Murphy | Matt Berry | Pale Fire

A flamboyant charmer at heart, Marilyn Manson nods to Bowie and Bolan on new album We Are Chaos

Marilyn Manson: reached peak shock value quite some time ago

Marilyn Manson: We Are Chaos (Loma Vista) ****

Roisin Murphy: Roisin Machine (Skint/BMG) ***

Matt Berry: Phantom Birds (Acid Jazz) ****

Pale Fire: Husbands (self-released) ****

Maybe your preferred lockdown listening is upbeat party music to dance the blues away. Or maybe you want something mellow to soothe concerns. Or maybe you just want to indulge in some cathartic gothic lunacy. Marilyn Manson can help you on one of those scores.

But even the man born Brian Warner emerges changed by coronavirus. Manson reached peak shock value quite some time ago. His 11th album We Are Chaos is a more considered collection, co-written and produced with southern rocker Shooter Jennings, son of country legend Waylon.

Trailed with his customary theatricality as “a study of the chamber of horrors in my head,” it is lyrically more introspective than previous socio-political clarion calls and, once you get beyond the usual industrial goth retching of opening track Red, Black and Blue, it’s quite the flamboyant charmer.

The title track is a swaggering glam rock anthem and the rest of the album continues in this playful, melodic vein. The spirit of Bowie and Bolan haunts Paint You With My Love, a booming piano ballad with pockets of distortion, which builds up a head of stream and culminates with Manson howling at the moon. Perfume is strutting industrial pop in the vein of Depeche Mode, while Manson is on the sandpaper again for the low-slung indie garage rock life coaching of Keep My Head Together.

Best of all, the influence of his co-conspirator comes to the fore on the gnarly country rock ballad Broken Needle, which Manson ramps up to a melodramatic climax.

The wonderfully titled Roisin Machine gathers together tracks from Roisin Murphy’s decade-long collaboration with DJ Parrot, a period during which the former Moloko frontwoman has mined major label financial reserves in order to realise her eccentric vision, teaming avant-garde costumes and staging concepts with seductive dancefloor manoeuvres.

This compilation broadly follows soulful house lines. Hypnotic electro mantras Murphy’s Law and Game Changer are all very well but there is more sonic variety in the gospel chorale of Something More and the fidgety funk-meets-deep house of Incapable, while the urgent scurry of disco strings and bouncy funk bassline of Narcissus is a springboard to the exultant groove of older track Jealousy, taking the collection out on a clubby high.

Matt Berry has built a cult comedy career on playful pastiches of plummy voiceover artistry, so stepping into the parallel music dimension of Phantom Birds requires an element of acclimatisation, as those distinctive ripe tones are applied to a mischievous but affectionate take on swinging 60s style and pastoral psychedelia, from the groovy easy listening of Moonlight Flit to the hippy dippy Take a Bow.

Guest pedal steel player BJ Cole enhances the cosmic country credentials but one is always listening out for the raised eyebrow or curled lip. The lyrics are often droll – Berry wonders “who is left from the pantheon? Let me ramble on” on the title track, and paints a portrait of a preacher guru on Hail to the King who trades in “faith and love and peace and s***” – but the desire to pay tribute to a beloved musical era and aesthetic is serious.

North Lanarkshire six-piece Pale Fire have been friends since schooldays, and that shared social history works itself out in a familiar, comforting Scotpop sound executed with relaxed assurance.

Their John Cassavettes-referencing second album Husbands reflects on the responsibilities of adulthood with a pleasing degree of hangdog urban romance. Their seamless, elegant blend of pop, folk and blue-eyed soul is effortlessly anthemic but not portentous.

The pace picks up in the second half of the album with the propulsive purpose of All the World, Idlewild-like maelstrom of Nightlights and rhythmic strings on the James Kelman-quoting Various Witches, possibly the only pop song ever to namecheck Whifflet.

CLASSICAL

James MacMillan Organ Works (Resonus) *****

The organ has played a small but significant role in the music of James MacMillan – its mighty presence as the mischievous protagonist in The Bestiary, essentially a concerto, and its heightened accompaniment role in his Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis are notable examples. But this kaleidoscopic collection of solo organ works, played by Stephen Farr on the wonderfully rich-voiced Rieger organ in Edinburgh’s St Giles’ Cathedral, may come as a surprise. Some of the works were written for family occasions, but with extreme results. Compare the riotous Kenga e Krushqve based on an Albanian folk tune, written as a wedding present to honour his daughter-in-law’s Albanian family, to the solemn, plaintive Offertorium composed for a friend’s marriage. Larger concert works reveal a sound understanding of the organ idiom, notably the multi-hued St Andrews’ Suite and the virtuosic Le Tombeau de George Roualt. Ken Walton

JAZZ

Rob Barron Trio: From This Moment On (Ubuntu Music) ****

London pianist Rob Barron has long been heavily in demand for gigs, recording sessions and soundtracks. Surprisingly, this is just the second album under his own name and his first leading a trio, here in the deft company of bassist Jeremy Brown and drummer Josh Morrison. Between them they bring an immaculate classic piano trio feel to standards and to two of Barron’s own compositions. Take, for instance, his meticulous yet lively handling of the old Anthony Newly hit Pure Imagination. Lover Man takes on exhilarating tempo over Brown’s running bass, while My Foolish Heart sashays warmly to the tick of Morrison’s drum work. Duke Ellington’s In a Sentimental Mood forsakes the smoochy glide of the original in a sprightly handling and Barron’s own Fortune Green is a breezy, bluesy ramble. He ends the album in classic ballad style with Johnny Mandel’s A Time for Love. Jim Gilchrist

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