Album Reviews
| Daft Punk - Random Access Memories |
| Daft Punk - Random Access Memories *** |
| Daft Punk's return after an eight year absence is an overwrought and over-thought opus that finds the elegant but mischievous French duo losing the run of themselves in the studio. The stellar cast sing and play beautifully but the likes of Giorgio by Moroder and The Game of Love seem to disappear in a haze of archness and cleverness. Much better are triumphant recent single Get Lucky and Julian Casablancas blank auto-tuned croon on Instant Crush. Heavy on the theatrical in places, mournful in others, and slick with seventies disco, it is an album of many moods. It’s just that it’s hard to believe Daft Punk are actually feeling any of them for real. Alan Corr |
| Vinicius Indio de Apartamento *** |
| Norah Jones plays piano on one track on Vinicius's latest album, but it’s not by any means a remarkable song. Jesse Owens, who wrote Come Away With Me, Jones’s biggest hit, sings with Vinicius on the duet This Time. Willie Nelson could make something of it or Miss Jones. |
| But these aren’t really wise roads for Vinicius, he’s better with bittersweet, introspective jazz and wistful boss nova. Happilly, the celebrated Riyuchi Sakamoto guests on two tracks, but ultimately you're better off checking out the previous album Lagrimas Mexicanas. Paddy Kehoe |
| Demi Lovato - Demi *** |
| Demi Lovato’s fourth studio album marks ten years in the business for the 20 year-old starlet.Two years since her last release, it’s still one-dimensional teen pop that her team are churning out when listeners are expecting a fresh sound with this comeback. |
| ‘Demi’ is an album constructed to try and top charts rather than a presentation of a fully-realised, expertly executed album with uniqueness. |
| The opener and closer are a healthy balance of up and down tempo, but everything in between leaves much to be desired. Patrick Hanlon |
| John Murry - The Graceless Age |
| We all have special moments when those touchstone records came into our lives - you won't forget the first time you heard Mississippi-born Murry's debut. |
| It's both a classic example of how our worst enemies are ourselves and a reminder that you can climb out of the hole you've dug for yourself. |
| Murry recounts addiction, the hustles of false dawns and the ghosts we all live with like a master storyteller who's been around a lot longer than his 34 years. |
| If you find a better song this year than his piano-driven OD odyssey Little Coloured Balloons, it will more than likely be somewhere else on this album. Harry Guerin |
| Cat Dowling - The Believer **** |
| The former front woman of Dublin electronic/guitar act Alphastates has an inventive approach to already well-aerated matters of the heart on her excellent debut album. |
| Grainy textures are shot through burnished, knotty songs played on harmonium, cello and viola and clearly Dowling is trying to untangle her emotions. She has the fercoity of early PJ Harvey and the vaudevillian playfulness of Regina Specktor and Julie Feeney. |
| The Believer is that kind of album - full of twists, abrupt swerves and quirks. A supremely confident debut from an artist with a lot to say and plenty of bewtiching ways to say it. Alan Corr |
