Hormonally Yours - Shakespears Sister

Provenance: This is another one I picked up off a school friend for about a quid.

I recall 'Stay' being a behemoth in the charts, but of equal importance to me was the bizarre playground rumour that Siobhan Fahey once checked into rehab for an addiction to fried chicken.

Besides, that's a cool cover! It's like Vivienne Westwood decided to style Lilian Gish or Theda Bara.

Review: You know, Shakespears Sister (sic) are playing down the road from me next month. I might go along.

Anyway, Hormonally Yours - called thusly because both Marcella Detroit (the tall one who wasn't in Bananarama) and Siobhan Fahey (ex-Bananarama) were pregnant during the making of the album. I shouldn't really be so flip about Detroit, who prior to Shakespears Sister performed as a backing vocalist for a couple of rock A-listers (Bob Seger, Eric Clapton) and wrote songs for many well-known artists, most notably 'Lay Down Sally', one of Slowhand's more bearable songs.

It's been ages since I've given Hormonally Yours a spin, and therefore doing so now feels like diving into an album for the first time. Two things strike me from the outset; one is that it's less spooky than I had assumed it would be (based on the archly gothic 'Stay' I suppose), and the other is that Marcella Detroit has a remarkable voice. At times she sings in the same range that Kate Bush used throughout much of The Kick Inside, but if anything there's more power and control behind these performances. It also contrasts splendidly with Fahey's delivery, which may not contain Detroit's technical fireworks but proves a warmer, more languid, more sensuous counterpoint.

Given their image and the 'Stay' fictional universe I imagined Fahey and Detroit inhabited, it's quite a surprise to hear that most of the first side of the album is pure power-pop - very, very good power pop. It takes its cues from Jellyfish and Redd Kross in some respects, and points towards the successful formula adopted by the post-millenial Cheap Trick in others. 'Goodbye Cruel World', 'My 16th Apology' and 'Are We In Love Yet' are simply fantastic, bouncing around the place with big chewy hooks and quirky little musical interpolations. I wanted to dislike 'Emotional Thing', as it starts off like a pale Was (Not Was) imitation, but I was won over eventually, not least of all by the incongruous blues harmonica that crops up halfway through.

Seeing as 'Stay' was such a blockbuster, I was half-expecting it to overshadow much of the other material. It's certainly meant as a compliment when I say that it doesn't stand out from the pack, other than as a change of pace. If it wasn't for its ubiquity, and my subsequent familiarity with it, 'Stay' would've just been another track I had reason to be excited about. It certainly is the most overtly goth-influenced thing on here, with a mid-section that sounds a wee bit Sisters of Mercy; the only other time I think 'ahhh, goth!' is in the chorus to 'Moonchild', which is disappointingly (for me) not a cover of Iron Maiden's best song. Even then, we're talking Gene Loves Jezebel goth, not Killing Miranda goth.

About the only misstep on Hormonally Yours is 'Black Sky', which has a slight Madchester vibe and a very dated house piano vibe. It's not terrible, and neither is 'Catwoman', which to these jaded old ears sounds like classic Shania Twain. It gets by, though, by being both utterly bonkers and by ending on a note that Detroit hits which caters to the hearing range of bats. On the other hand, props to Shakespears Sister for doing a song called 'Let Me Entertain You' that isn't a warm bath of shite.

Since giving Hormonally Yours a bash I'm left with a lingering shame that this album has lurked unloved at the bottom of my record collection for so long. It didn't deserve that fate, unlike some. Rather, Hormonally Yours is a catchy, weird, idiosyncratic jewel that cloaks its strangeness in an addictive pop-rock packaging. I think I'll be buying that ticket now.

Loud And Clear - Autograph

Provenance: In my mid-teens I made a series of compilation CDs that consisted wholly of stuff I'd downloaded from Napster. They bounced all over the place in terms of genre, there were five of them all told, and I'm very sorry that I can't locate them any longer.

Disc three had 'Turn Up The Radio' by Autograph as the lead off track, a real fizzer. Anyway, some years later one of the many smooth-brained fuckwits that post on the message board I used to frequent convinced me to invest in a few Autograph albums, as apparently the material was of a uniformly high quality.

Our survey said...

Review: ...EEEH-EEEURGH!

Apparently, I'm lucky enough to be in possession of a 'remastered and reloaded' edition of Loud And Clear, according to the Rock Candy blurb. I guess that's analogous to gazing at a turd on an ultra-high definition TV set. Where the turd wins out is that, mercifully, it makes no sound. Ironically, the remastered Loud And Clear sounds like it was recorded at the bottom of my toilet, so it's anybody's guess just how wretched this bilge was back in 1987 the first time around.

It's difficult for me to say much, clever or otherwise, about Loud And Clear because melodic hard-rock this generic almost defies description. I recall that in a When Saturday Comes review of benighted reality show Wayne Rooney's Street Striker, Simon Tyers described the set layout as "an advertising copywriter's view of what constitutes a back street"; and there are parallels here. If you asked a competent session musician unburdened by too much knowledge of 1980s rock to knock out a few tunes reminiscent of the era, it would sound an awful lot like Loud And Clear.

Also, I know this seems gratuitously sneery, but in an age where frontmen had cool fucking names (if nothing else), Steve Plunkett just don't do it. Steve Plunkett sounds like the guy who organises the office rugby world cup sweepstake. Steve Plunkett makes everyone a coffee, even if he doesn't drink it himself. Steve Plunkett writes a column for the programme of his local non-league football team. Steve Plunkett is a massive dweeb. The bar that Autograph had to step over to have an acceptable 1980s frontman nom-de-guerre was not high - you make the cut by finding one better than Steve 'Sex' Summers in my estimation - so it's almost impressive that they managed to limbo spectacularly beneath it.

I don't even feel like describing the music at any length; it almost feels sufficient to say that I prefer Bad English. All the up-tempo songs are moronic, and feature the same uninspired freeze-dried guitar work that is mildly admirable from a technical standpoint and utterly forgettable. If I was forced to be charitable (oxymoron, I know, I know) I might actually pick the ballad-y 'Everytime I Dream' as a not particularly shit piece of music. Also, I am not entirely ill-disposed towards 'Just Got Back From Heaven', which boasts some cute keyboard work. It's a shame that they don't use the keyboard with a bit more flair, as it's mostly deployed to parp unimaginatively underneath equally pedestrian chord sequences.

Just some variety, that's all I crave. I don't know why Autograph even bothered with a drummer on Loud And Clear because some kind of machine would've been more than capable at replicating the dull, potatoes 'n' potatoes percussion. This is a problem endemic to much 1980s arena rock; they took the wallop from big the previous decade's big hitters like John Bonham and Cozy Powell but discarded the attendant skill and creativity. Perhaps it was a conscious decision; I remember a documentary where Def Leppard talked about stripping down riffs and fills to their basics to ensure clarity in cavernous venues. I find myself speculating as to whether this was also the thought-process behind Loud And Clear - uncomplicated, no rough edges, choruses that could be sung by the most tin-eared amongst us - but unlike the Leps, they forgot to write anything memorable. Def Leppard? They're not even vying with Loverboy.

So, yeah, that's Autograph's Loud And Clear I suppose. Not the most thrilling review, but I'm not working with much here. This one's destined to gather dust, although now it'll go back on top of the pile and I'm worried that a houseguest will see it and think I like Autograph. On a final note; I mentioned in my intro that I paid for three Autograph albums. Only two showed up. At the time I was vexed, but now I look back and see nothing less than a small act of mercy on the part of the vendor. Once upon a time, Autograph exhorted me to 'turn up the radio', and if that's the alternative to actually listening to Autograph's dreadful music it's an invitation I'd be more than happy to accept, even if the dial was stuck on a talkSPORT Danny Mills marathon.

A Rockin' Decade - Sleepy LaBeef

Provenance: I first heard about Sleepy LaBeef in Peter Guralnick's Lost Highway, a highly readable survey of what could loosely be described as Americana. LaBeef stood out on the page; an interpreter rather than a writer, and something of a human jukebox (claiming to know roughly 6,000 songs by heart) which is impressive enough before you even reach the voice. In his prime the 6'7" native of Smackover, Arkansas must've been an impressive presence merely entering stage left, but what happens when he opens his mouth is something else. His is a clear, generous, country-bred baritone that has an almost physical quality to it - big, wide, deep, indomitable.

However, I never really imagined I would own any LaBeef recordings; he was too cult, too obscure to find without breaking sweat. If he had had anything released on CD, I figured it would be one of those eBay jobs that go for about fifty quid plus. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to find this collection of Sun Records sessions from the 1970s lurking in the late-lamented Eastbourne HMV's bargain racks. Guess I underestimated the thirst for rockabilly in south-east England, eh?

Review: There is nothing original on this album, nothing. Not a single note was penned by LaBeef on A Rockin' Decade, and the 26 tracks that make up the compilation never stray far from the traditional rock 'n' roll template. In compositional terms there are zero surprises, and even the choice of covers cleaves very much to what could be considered a canon of the genre; 'Boom, Boom, Boom', 'Roll Over Beethoven', 'Mystery Train', 'Milk Cow Blues' and 'Blue Moon of Kentucky' all make appearances. The playing is competent and uninspired, the musicians sounding like what I imagine them to be - accomplished meat 'n' potatoes barroom pros.

So, seasoned readers of this blog won't be at all taken aback by the fact that I love this album. Love it, love it, love it.

Why? Well, before getting onto LaBeef's individual gifts, I should point out that a lack of originality in rockabilly is pretty much what I hanker for. It is one of those genres that doesn't benefit at all from tinkering with the formula. I don't want some pointy-head turning 'Roll Over Beethoven' into a raga, I want it neat, all three goddamn chords of it, swinging like Tarzan on methamphetamine at shack-shaking volumes. That fairly sums up my attraction to lots of American roots music - be it rhythm and blues, country or rock 'n' roll; the basic ingredients don't change much, giving plenty of opportunity for the performer to stamp their personality on proceedings. This, LaBeef does with aplomb.

I love Chuck Berry as a songwriter and innovator but LaBeef's version of 'Too Much Monkey Business' absolutely smokes the original. As mentioned before, LaBeef's is a huge voice, so it's a delight to hear him negotiating a tricky little number with such nimbleness. It evokes the same joy as watching a burly centre-half tiptoeing his way through an opposition's defence before chipping the keeper. He does the same thing on Willie Dixon's 'You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover', with the additional achievement of rhyming 'cane' with 'man' (though Bo Diddley also did a very decent job with the same lyric).

I recall reading a biography of Orson Welles written by David Thomson, in which he employed a rather striking metaphor to describe Welles' voice during his days as a radio star. He described it as possessing the same qualities as a heavy dinner or of chocolate, somehow made incarnate by Welles, the richness, slightly cloying excesses of the voluptuary coming through over the airwaves. Let me try to do something similar for LaBeef; his is the voice of a lonely honky-tonk, of flickering neon lights, of liquor consumed straight and smalltown boastfulness. There's a brashness there, but it's offset by a complete lack of guile, which equates to a queer kind of charm. There's a couple of times where on 'Blue Moon of Kentucky' LaBeef is a step outside of his usual comfort zone, and it only serves to make him sound all the more honest.

A Rockin' Decade is a pretty lengthy document for such a monochrome palette as adopted by LaBeef and his buddies, so tossing it down in one go is not advisable unless you're hosting a sock hop or whatever the fuck people did for fun back then. I almost want to slap myself for advocating shuffle play, but it's the best way to enjoy the album, especially if it's stirred in with a bunch of other stuff. Just imagine getting hit between the eyes with 'Big Boss Man' or 'Flying Saucers Rock 'N' Roll'(!!) after wading through a load of Yes, Rush or Porcupine Tree. Blessed relief, one should think. Sleepy LaBeef is living history, and has greater claim to being part of what makes America great than a slew of more spurious claimants.

Bloodlust - Body Count

Provenance: I was only dimly aware of Body Count for many years, due to the notoriety of their 1992 song 'Cop Killer'. Nonetheless, quite by chance I stumbled across 'Black Hoodie' from Bloodlust on YouTube and was pleasantly surprised.

In any case, I prefer my rap-rock crossovers more of the Public Enemy and Anthrax flavour, as opposed to Run DMC vs Aerosmith. Can't particularly knock the latter, but it sounds tame compared to Chuck D and co. making an industrial sized ruckus.

Review: You don't so much as listen to this album as get beaten around the face with it. At times, the most accurate summation of the experience I can muster is that it's the aural equivalent of repeatedly taking a tyre iron to the bridge of one's nose. This is, of course, glorious. Heavy metal can be many things; slow, stately, symphonic, fast, virtuosic - but there's always space for a spot of the ol' ultraviolence, which is exactly what Ice T et. al. serve up for the discerning listener.

More albums should start with some kind of siren noise, incidentally. It's fucking cool. Doubly so if that song features Megadeth's Dave Mustaine, which 'Civil War' does; but it also contains a lyric that isn't too far flung from Frank Zappa's 'Trouble Every Day' in terms of message. Think of it as a twenty-first century update, but where Zappa seemed to meet the challenges of the day with a peevish lassitude, Ice T demands his audience take a side. Looking at what's unfolding in the body politic of the USA, how could it be any other way?

I was a bit worried that the entirety of Bloodlust would be a political diatribe - not because that is, in and of itself, a bad thing, but because Body Count aren't the most subtle operators. I was therefore delighted to hear that second track 'The Ski Mask Way' is brimming with all kinds of villainy and devilment. Basically, it's a paean to the practice of home invasion. Not something I imagine that we'll be hearing on BBC Radio 2 any time soon, I'll wager. Still, Ice T delivers it with a convincing aplomb. And why should popular music not be so matter-of-fact about objectively criminal pursuits? I recall seeing Ice T talking in a documentary about how he was influenced by the writing of Iceberg Slim, a pimp and all-round rascal who wrote books detailing his version of street life. I live in a society that tolerates any kind of awfulness if it's written plainly on a page, but recoils the moment it's depicted in song. Won't someone think of the babies?!

Aside from Dave Mustaine, a few other heavy pals are roped in to help. Max Cavalera (Sepultura) roars the refrain to 'All Love Is Lost', whilst Lamb Of God's Randy Blythe is on hand to lend some heft to 'Walk With Me', a true highlight. In truth, though, Ice T doesn't need too much window-dressing; his declamatory, hyper-aggressive delivery is the perfect match for Body Count's riffing. This is a band who make their instruments sound like power tools, and yet there's no shortage of finesse there. Indeed, 'Raining In Blood / Postmortem 2017' is probably the best Slayer cover I've heard, and it really works with (new) rapped verses. (NB - for those squinting at the tracklist, I am happy to report that 'Here I Go Again' isn't a reinterpretation of the Whitesnake arena-botherer of the same name.)

Still, I think Bloodlust reserves its strongest meat until the final furlong of the album. 'No Lives Matter' is a provocative title, and true to form, it's a slamming dose of focused, righteous rage. It's preceded by a short monologue by Ice T on the vacuity of the phrase 'all lives matter', which is succinct and spot on. I don't know how anyone can tune into the news or scroll through a social media feed without coming away with the notion that institutional racism is not a bug but a feature of American law enforcement. In a similar vein, 'Black Hoodie' - the number that piqued my interest in Bloodlust - is a two-fisted take-down of racial profiling by, you guessed it, law enforcement (NB - I mention American policing specifically in this review, because that's what Body Count are talking about, but things are far from perfect here in jolly old England). 'Black Hoodie' is the best track on Bloodlust - a chattering verse riff married to a doomy chorus, and Ice T spitting like he wants to strangle a motherfucker.

I would not listen to this album whilst in charge of a motor vehicle. I could not listen to this album when reading a book. When would I indulge in a spot of Bloodlust? Working out at the gym, preparing to enter a cage fight, and doing my taxes. The Body Count of Bloodlust does not strike against its enemies with surgical precision - it sledgehammers them into submission, and doesn't let up. Strange, then, that an album shot through with such a bleak strain of reality is simultaneously as affirming - and fun - as Bloodlust is, but that's testament to the skills of Ice T and Body Count. Powerful stuff.

Death Walks Behind You - Atomic Rooster

Provenance: I heard a version of 'The Devil's Answer' on some completely random rock compilation that also featured INXS and Hootie & the Blowfish. I liked it, so when I came across a CD version of this album that included two versions of 'The Devil's Answer' as bonus tracks (as far as I'm aware, it was only ever released as a single in the UK), I thought to myself, what the heck, let's have a bash at some of their other stuff. Also, you can't fault using a William Blake monotype as cover art.

Review: After the gossamer-light ululations of Kate Bush, we're back down on terra-very much-firma with the clunking fist of Atomic Rooster. The band look every bit as typical and anonymous as you expect them too - like three replacement members of Steppenwolf, or indeed, absolutely anyone from Cactus - and don't make any surprise moves on the musical front either. Another early 1970s 'eavy and 'umble outfit with a few proggy pretensions. File next to virtually every other band of the era aside from Black Sabbath, who at least had the good grace not to lard their nascent doom-metal with lashings of organ. Every fucking band of this time thought a big ol' Hammond was the key to sounding portentous, when really the answer was feed your bassist too much cheese before bedtime and then let him write lyrics about the resultant experience.

This is all a bit unfair with regards to Atomic Rooster - or, at the very least, Death Walks Behind You - because I think it's a top quality album. Just because I've heard a gajillion bands crawling their way through the doped-up sludge rock ooze of the early 1970s doesn't mean that there aren't a few good'uns amongst them. It's true that I spent years trying to convince myself that Deep Purple were decent when they actually weren't, but some, like the Groundhogs, or Mountain, or the Edgar Broughton Band, or even Uriah Heep did something neat enough or funny enough to distinguish them from the patchouli-powered peloton. So, what distinguishes Atomic Rooster's sophomore effort from the likes of Leaf Hound, Elias Hulk, et al.?

The answer - songs, dear boys, songs! Whilst many of their peers seemed content so merely pen frameworks for their semi-improvised jamming (yawn), the Atomic Rooster lads had the good grace to actually write some tunes. I'm sure a goddamn Night Sun album sounds great when your whacked off your gourd, but in the mundane environs my front room in 2019, I'm unlikely to take too many journeys to the centre of the mind assisted by sparkling water and Glacier Fruits. And thus, the music has to stand or fall by its own terms.

Death Walks Behind You starts almost like something from King Crimson's Red, albeit not quite so wilfully oblique, a minor-key piano theme jutting against some dissonant ambient noise, but then it crashes into an unexpectedly funky chorus riff, one that manages to be both catchy and heavy at the same time. The verses are good as well; a descending chord sequence that sounds like a demonic inversion of Chicago's '25 or 6 to 4'. It builds tension admirably, with the release coming in a reprise of the chorus. This is cool! The next track isn't so great, seeing as it sounds a bit like a lumpen version of Yes' 'Roundabout', or perhaps a Focus outtake where Thijs van Leer forgot to bring his flute along, but it's okay as far as rock instrumentals of this vintage are concerned, plus it's called 'Vug' so I sense the band didn't think too much of it either. It is certainly 'eavy though!

However, here's a decent joint on the docket - 'Tomorrow Night', which actually gave Atomic Rooster a UK top twenty hit. Thematically it's a slight departure from the rather chesty boasts about sexual conquests made by many of these spectacularly hairy groups, as it introduces notes of doubt and insecurity into the mix. It's still delivered with stridency by guitarist / vocalist John Du Cann (whose rich low tenor delivery is very appealing), but it fits in with an undertow of existential confusion that runs throughout Death Walks Behind You. At this juncture, I feel I should also mention that Du Cann's rhythm work on the album is really fine, abhorring anything too finicky in favour of a sledgehammer attack, often barrelling huge power chords at the listener in ack-ack bursts. If anything, drummer Paul Hammond is the busiest, his combination of heft and jazzy nous a welcome contribution. Somewhere in the middle is the talented, tragic Vincent Crane (organ / piano), who often complements Du Cann but allows himself the odd Keith Emerson-flavoured wallop on the keyzzz.

I guess it's the forward motion, the propulsion behind many of these tracks, that makes Death Walks Behind You such a listenable confection. 'Sleeping For Years' is a proper standout; in other hands this could have devolved into some interminable head number, but here it whacks you around the chops a bit and then lets you go to enjoy the next offering. That offering is 'Can't Take No More', which sounds a helluva lot like the Electric Light Orchestra's 'Don't Bring Me Down'. Songs sound like other songs, I get that, but Jeff Lynne of ELO fame was added as a writer to The Hives' 'Go Right Ahead' after it was recorded, because the band thought it sounded so similar.

'Go Right Ahead' was released in 2012. 'Don't Bring Me Down' was released in 1979. 'Can't Take No More' was released in 1971.

Death Walks Behind You doesn't really falter in quality as an album until right at the end - 'Nobody Else', the penultimate track, is built around a lovely, plaintive piano theme from Crane - and it's only with closing instrumental 'Gershatzer' that it's a bit ragged and disjointed. It's the kind of thing I guess The Nice did fairly well, and I don't like The Nice. Still, if you can stomach the odd indulgent instrumental for the sake of a collection of high quality, slightly foreboding and melodically strong hard rock, Death Walks Behind You should be on the Crimbo list.

Oh, and 'The Devil's Answer' still rocks!

The Kick Inside - Kate Bush

Provenance: Ever since I was young I loved 'Wuthering Heights'. My parents had it on a CD compilation of 1970s hits, and along with cuts by ELO, CCS and the Tom Robinson Band, I would play 'Wuthering Heights' incessantly. Even at a tender age I could detect there was something a bit off-kilter about it.

Did I get The Kick Inside before I went to university? Odds are that I did, because our student bar had a video juke box containing about three songs (seemingly), one of which was 'Wuthering Heights'. It was on all the time, and began to drive me nuts. However, I did make a friend through a shared appreciation of Kate Bush, and I was able to introduce her work to a housemate who became an ardent fan.

Anyway, it was a bit of an anomalous purchase for me around that time, as I was busy having my brain smashed to cottage cheese by the likes of Judas Priest and Dio.

Review: A perfect album. I can't fault it. The worst thing you can do if you're not already familiar with The Kick Inside is to stop reading this bilge and give it a play. Nothing I can say can do this magical platter justice. Even when reviewing the most workmanlike collection I am nagged by the sense that writing about music is akin to dancing about architecture, a suspicion only heightened by playing through this album.

What could one possibly object to? I've been met with naysayers in the past who don't like the high register Bush sings in throughout much of The Kick Inside. I find this to be one of the most appealing aspects of Bush's execution here, however; the sheer ease with which she soars up to the most dizzying heights only serves to bolster an overall sense of ethereality. Here is a voice that celebrates the sensual, the weird and the uncanny elements of life with an almost explosive joy. It's the same breezy virtuosity one feels that they see in sporting performances like those of Simone Biles or Ronaldinho, when the seemingly impossible is delivered with all the thrust and playfulness of a person revelling in their own ability.

Oh, I also think the saxophone sounds a bit blatty and high in the mix on 'The Saxophone Song'. That's all.

How, though, can you gainsay the quality evident in the floaty, woozy opener 'Moving' (dedicated to Bush's dance teacher, the late Lindsay Kemp), and the herky-jerky carnival ride that is 'Kite'? How does one wrap their head around the fact that Bush wrote 'The Man with the Child In His Eyes', an achingly beautiful song pregnant with quiet mystery, at the age of thirteen? Without wishing to dwell on age too much, it's worth remembering that Bush hadn't even reached twenty when The Kick Inside was released. I barely knew how to put two chords together at that age; meanwhile, Bush was creating miniature masterpieces and name-checking freakin' Gurdjieff.

One aspect of The Kick Inside that might put off some listeners is that it's a very self-contained universe. Which doesn't mean that it leaves no room for interpretation; Bush's allusiveness and readiness with esoteric subjects compels the listener to fill in the gaps. However, everything feels like it exists within the world of this album, and has little relationship with a tangible world of things. In much the same way that HP Lovecraft's or Emily Dickinson's writing seemed a step or two away from regular human experience, so Bush sounds like she's singing into existence a Neverland realm. Personally, I find this aspect of Bush's work utterly addictive, but I can see how it may also seem obtuse.

Another thing; this is definitely music for the head, and not for the hips. In fact, the only people who can dance to the music on The Kick Inside are drunk goth girls and Kate Bush herself. Stylistically, it shares with Carole King's Tapestry (another triumph, incidentally) both earnestness and intimacy, and if you strip away some of the more maximalist flourishes of Bush's work, a solid piano-led pop sensibility; but where King's articulated experiences are somewhat more earthbound and recognisable, Bush zags towards cerebral and arcane subjects. What of this pop-sensibility? It's probably closer to the baroque pop of a band like the Zombies, and a dash proggier by my reckoning, but Bush's keen ear for a quirky - but catchy - melody results in an album laden with vocal hooks. A favourite of mine are Bush's interpolations in the chorus of 'Oh To Be In Love', which skims over the top of the music in a way reminiscent of Ry Cooder's sublime guitar work on Captain Beefheart's 'Abba Zabba'.

I don't have much else to say. Just buy this, or virtually any of Bush's other albums, because even when the quality is uneven, there's something interesting there. But first, do yourself a favour; dim the lights, light some candles, run a bath, bust out that family-size mint Aero you've been saving and soundtrack your self-care with The Kick Inside.

A Capella - Todd Rundgren

Provenance: My brother bought this for me as part of a three-album set of Todd Rundgren's Warner Brothers releases.

Having dwelt a fair bit on some pretty straightforward classic rock releases, I asked my brother what I should review next. His suggestion was A Capella, which certainly fits the bill of being a wee bit left-field, because...

Review: ...every sound on this album was created using Todd Rundgren's own voice. It's not entirely free of instrumentation - the liner notes of this release note the use of the Emulator sampling keyboard, which was deployed to manipulate those sounds into chords or percussive noises. On the other hand, this was put together back in 1984 and used entirely analogue recording techniques.

Of course, a capella performances are nothing new. The phrase 'capella' derives from the Italian 'chapel', and so the root of unaccompanied singing in western tradition is linked to sacred choral performance. This gives me a good excuse to embed the following video, which I regard as rather remarkable:



In African-American traditions there is, of course, gospel; its own overt religiousness hardly proving a barrier to becoming popular, both in the past and epitomised by modern ensembles such as Sweet Honey in the Rock. (NB - for a provocative take on the origins of gospel, jazz musician and academic Willie Ruff has got you covered, claiming that its roots can be found in Hebridean line-singing.)

Cutting across ethnic lines, although again beginning in African-American communities, the doo-wop explosion of the middle of the 20th century began with corner singing, though instrumentation was often added in the studio. Typically, doo-wop groups would feature a lead tenor taking the melody, a bass voice to provide rhythmic underpinning, and a combination of high tenor leading down to baritone to fill out the backing sound, going 'top to bottom' in range. Hit up groups such as the Orioles, the Moonglows and early Drifters if you want a taste. I haven't even gotten onto barbershop quartets, floor singing in folk music, field hollers, or non-Anglo ensembles such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo - but the world of vocal performance is rich and varied.

However, what Todd Rundgren has done here feels almost ridiculous. My first reaction, when my brother told me about the concept behind A Capella, was "why go to all the bother?". Especially if you're going to mash and twist your vocals through a series of electronics just to produce the desired effect. On reflection, I have an inkling that it was precisely this ability to manipulate sound in such a way that appealed to Rundgren; that, and the sheer challenge of creating such a weird album. For someone who has genre-hopped his entire career, it does seem of a piece.

The best thing about A Capella is how damn fun it is. Opener 'Blue Orpheus' is absolutely stunning; the audacity to produce something that sounds so startlingly odd still has me laughing every time I hit play. I can't easily describe it; perhaps like a cut from Yes' 90125 album, if Trevor Horn made the band ditch their instruments. It's all the more remarkable that it has such a strong melodic sense, the lead vocal soaring over a backing more multi-layered than anything Queen or 10cc ever managed to conjure up.

Indeed, even after repeated listens, the sounds leaping from the speakers can still surprise; the chorus to anti-war paean 'Johnny Jingo', on its last pass, is overwhelming in its immensity. The effect is dimmed a little on the ballad 'Pretending to Care' and the only cover in the collection, if only because it's are the kind of song one can imagine performed on piano in a nightclub or cocktail lounge; low-key, and only a slight shuffle away from being sung unaccompanied. Nonetheless, the curtain of wordless 'oohs' and 'aahs' Rundgren stitches together to recreate what might've been a lush string arrangement is killer.

My personal favourite on A Capella is 'Hodja', a dizzying admixture of doo-wop and gospel, its meticulous creation shot through with a lively sense of spontaneity thanks to some delightful scat singing. Some of the joints on this piece are pretty tough to categorise - 'Lost Horizon' is Sensual World era Kate Bush meeting So's Peter Gabriel crossed with the shiny white soul romanticism of Hall & Oates. Meanwhile, 'Something To Fall Back On' sounds like one of Kenny Loggins' dancier numbers, if he had the Bee Gees backing him up. I'm at a complete loss as to how Rundgren was able to recreate the organ on this track, given the technical limitations he was dealing with at the time (though, of course, actually at the time, Rundgren probably found the Emulator to be an incredible, labour-saving piece of kit).

As each track unrolls, one can't help but be awed at Rundgren's facility and expertise, even if the song doesn't quite strike home. I'm not overly keen on either the Bloody Mary fable 'Lockjaw' or 'Miracle in the Bazaar' and its cod-Orientalism but these are rare moments of filler, and in fairness 'Lockjaw' did sound like fun to put together (but - if it was just a few notches less goofy it could easily have been a cut from a late-era Tom Waits cut). 'Honest Work' is a touching and poignant folk ballad, that's the 'straightest' thing on A Capella and I can't figure out whether it would benefit from a more maximalist approach or whether it would ruin the sentiment. The confection ends on a high, the bouncy, joyous 'Mighty Love' (originally by the Detroit Spinners, the only cover here) taking us home with gospel-inflected soul power.

What a peculiar artefact A Capella is. It certainly stands out as unique in my collection, if only because nobody else that I rate would be bonkers enough to put in the Stakhanovite effort. In any other hands this would be 'experimental' (=unlistenable) but Rundgren has too keen a pop ear to fall into that trap. A dazzling, baffling testament to a singular and restless genius, I can't recommend A Capella enough.

(Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd) - Lynyrd Skynyrd

Provenance: As a young guitar player I wanted to play 'Free Bird'.

Review: I almost decided to go with something by Electric Wizard or Lee Dorsey this week, as I couldn't be arsed with this album title. Even the band's name gives me a minor headache. So, henceforth, (Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd) will be Pronounced..., and I may well just stick to 'Skynyrd' for the band.

It's my belief that Lynyrd Skynyrd are one of the more unfairly maligned bands out there. Certainly, their current incarnation does them little favours, having seemingly succumbed to the temptations of the Nuge crowd a decade ago with a wretched platter called God & Guns. In all probability it was a savvy move; it resonates both with the classic rock crowd (a conservative old bunch) and the fans who didn't quite get them the first time around. A victim of their own success, one might say, as Skynyrd are often portrayed as the archetypal white trash favourite, their semi-idiot fans drunkenly braying for 'Free Bird' a whole two songs into their shows.

At least in the early days, before little brother took over as the frontman, Skynyrd were a more nuanced operation. 'Saturday Night Special' was as anti-handgun as anything out there; 'Tuesday's Gone' and 'I Need You' are wonderful slices of balladry, teetering just about on this side of maudlin; 'Sweet Home Alabama' is much more ambiguous than its title suggests; and of course, they beat the Sex Pistols to the punch by slagging off their own record label with the incredible riff-monster 'Workin' For MCA'.

So, here's where it all began - with some wonderfully greasy drumming that kicks off both Pronounced... and 'I Ain't The One', a tough blues-rocker that serves as the template for a raft of Skynyrd tunes. They would get a little more complex on subsequent releases, but it's really all here; swaggering riffs interpolated by wiry, slippery blues soloing and Billy Powell's honky-tonk piano. The cherry on top is Ronnie Van Zandt's vocal; he has no real range, aside from a switch-up to a country falsetto holler, and one imagines his speaking voice wasn't too far from his singing voice. But that's the charm! His voice is no more or less 'honest' or 'authentic' than Jobriath's, or Gladys Knight's or Ian Curtis', but here it feels entirely at a piece with the style, context and ideas behind the music.

It is this unpretentious and plaintive delivery that entirely elevates the otherwise slightly pedestrian 'Tuesday's Gone' - a big ol' ballad about leaving your woman in the 'By The Time I Get to Memphis' mould - into a real heartwrencher, and good enough for Metallica to cover. It's also an effective deadpan, as on the comic-buffo 'Gimme Three Steps' (about approaching the wrong guy's woman in a bar); you can almost picture the raised eyebrow as he intones "ah said, excuuuuse me" just before a lead break. If I am going to bring authenticity into play, it's that as a native son of Alabama Van Zandt totally gets away with the couplet "Hey there fella / With the hair coloured yella". And by 'gets away', I mean it's a real kicky little moment in an already knockabout number.

Now, I know that 'Free Bird' is part of the gilded iconography of southron rock, alongside 'Whippin' Post' by the Allman Brothers, the band's very own 'Sweet Home Alabama' and Charlie Daniels' deranged Twitter feed, but for my money the better song is 'Simple Man'. It's in the same vein of cornpone balladry as 'Tuesday's Gone', but features some satisfyingly crunchy choruses and a sentimental lyric that's atypical in classic rock which recounts the advice the singer received from his mama about living a good life. Nothing here to rival Montaigne in terms of profundity you understand, but it's direct and sincere.

It's about this time that Pronounced... sags into a rhythm that approaches the formulaic, but there's nuggets of gold strewn throughout the back end, such as Powell's Dr John impression on 'Things Goin' On'. Of this little bunch of tracks that lead up to 'Free Bird', 'Poison Whiskey' is probably the most interesting for Skynyrd fans as it most obviously points towards the sound on their next album, Second Helping. There's a muscularity and aggression in the attack, and it introduces the knotty turnarounds that festoon Second Helping, which incidentally make some of the best Skynyrd songs deceptively tricksy to play.

I feel like it's a hopeless task writing about 'Free Bird', thanks to its ubiquity and notoriety. I'll say this, then; the verses, underscored by Hammond organ, are Skynyrd doing their best Allmans impersonation, and I like 'em best when they're sounding like Skynyrd. It's not bad, but on an album with two slower-paced numbers already in the mix, it drags a little. The lengthy coda, however, consisting of a galloping guitar dual, remains a treat. What impresses are not the pyrotechnics on display - it's not actually a particularly difficult solo in technical terms - but how it's constructed. The different motifs locking together, weaving in and out of each other, building both momentum and tension - and then the final release (albeit slightly anticlimactic) are what makes 'Free Bird' a perennial. You want proof? Here's some proof.

Pronounced... is a minor classic, albeit one that exists in the shadow of the monster it spawned. In this scribe's humble opinion Skynyrd actually get better on Second Helping, but that's all for another time. Yeah, this is really first-rate deep-fried southern rock, and not half as boneheaded as you may have been led to expect.

J Geils Band - J Geils Band

Provenance: During Sixth Form I formed a group, to play at our school band bash, called Centerfold. The ostensible reason for doing so was to play stuff that wasn't punk or metal (the two flavours of music available at the band bash), but really it was so I could play the J Geils Band song 'Centerfold' to a large-ish audience.

In that respect it was a success, but in most others the performance was not just an abject failure, but a litany of failures. Nevertheless, today I am able to battle through the still-present fug of embarrassment to get back on the J Geils Band horse. Here's their first album, and won't you just look at these cool rockin' daddies - hotcha! Hotcha!

Review: Basically, I became mildly obsessed by the song 'Centerfold' after hearing it at a pub quiz. Not long after this revelation, I learned that the band once invited Lester Bangs onstage to play a typewriter solo. A band worth following up with, you'd think - and I duly did, a mere sixteen years later. Other stuff got in the way I guess. Anyway, I had come to be aware of the fact that early on, the J Geils Band were more a gritty R&B band than the slightly New Wavey 'Centerfold' would suggest. That's fine, as my tastes certainly skew towards gritty R&B, plus they had a harmonica player called Magic Dick, which frankly ticks a lot of boxes.

I'm partial to a spot of roughhouse blooz 'n' roll, and that's essentially what this is. Somewhere west of Dr Feelgood and north of Albert King circa his Born Under a Bad Sign Stax release, it's unpretentious, knockabout fun with not a little craft. I like the fact that vocalist Peter Wolf doesn't confuse histrionics with expression, and I'm delighted by Magic Dick's fluid, buzzy interpolations. He even gets his own showcase of his own called 'Ice Breaker', which has hints of Booker T & the MGs. It's a bit odd to sequence this in at track two, though. Was Magic Dick their big selling point? He certainly blows a good harp.

Despite J Geils Band scoring precisely nul points in the originality stakes, it's testament to the band's facility with a twelve-bar that their original compositions stack up well to their interpretations of others. The gear-jamming anthem 'Hard Drivin' Man' (gotta drop that 'g', baby) is the highlight of side one, and has a suitably top-down, open-highway feel to it. It is, however, run quite close by the crawlin' king snake strut of 'Serves You Right to Suffer', and it's nice to hear John Lee Hooker done well in a band setting. Part of JLH's charm was his looseness, which was often the first thing that bands covering his songs would discard. It's great to hear the J Geils Band have the confidence in the material to stretch out and keep proceedings simmering away at the right temperature.

However, having praised the songcraft evidently in existence within the J Geils Band, the true standout of the whole album is the cut that gets side two cooking. I already loved the Otis Rush original of 'Homework', but this hard-charging, snakey version is solid gold. To follow it up with a bippin' and boppin' version of 'First I Look at the Purse' (a hit in 1965 for The Contours) is pure filth. The start of side two of J Geils Band can go toe-to-toe with anything. Likewise, when you decide to round off proceedings with the Albert Collins instrumental cut 'Sno-Cone' (according to the liner notes here, co-written with The Big Bopper - helloooooo baaaaaaby!) you could've packed the intervening ten minutes like a sock of shit and I'll still be giving this disc a rave. Okay, so 'On Borrowed Time' might not be the greatest blue-light ballad ever written, but it's a welcome change of pace. I love everything else.

As I mentioned before, there is nothing new under the sun here, but when it's this muscular, unpretentious and tightly arranged (all words that can describe me, incidentally) there's nothing to do other than sit back and admire a job well done. The J Geils Band might sound like a bar band, but it's the best damn bar band west of the Danube. Buy this album.

Liege And Lief - Fairport Convention

Provenance: My memory is fuzzy on this, though I recall buying Liege and Lief for my dad at some point. That's how I first heard it; and it obviously left an impression, because I bought it for myself many years later.

Certainly, if it wasn't for dad I wouldn't have an inkling about the folk rock scene. The first band of that ilk I remember hearing were Steeleye Span, probably their Below the Salt album. I was less familiar with Fairport Convention but distinctly recall Babbacombe Lee being in my parents' vinyl collection. In a slightly odd twist, during my MA I would live a few yards from the prison where they tried to hang John "Babbacombe" Lee - three times, if I recall correctly - before a halt was called to proceedings.

But enough rambling about Babbacombe Lee, it says at the top of this article that I'm reviewing Liege and Lief, so I'd better start paying some attention.

Review: Iconoclastic. Before getting into the nuts and bolts of Liege and Lief, it's worth noting a bit of context. I would direct any reader with the slightest interest in the British folk scene to pick up a copy of JP Bean's oral history called Singing From the Floor. This book both manages to dispel and enhance the perception that folk is an austere, scholarly pursuit riven by purists and gatekeepers of the worst kind. I say enhance, because a few major figures certainly fit the bill. Ewan MacColl in particular comes across as something of a martinet, obsessed by the technicalities of folksong and running the rule over which songs were 'acceptable' to be performed at his clubs. I should say that despite his stated orthodoxies and the faintly ridiculous 'finger-in-the-ear' style of singing that entered popular culture, MacColl and others like Bert Lloyd did much to preserve a dying tradition, and in MacColl's case to contribute some fine songs of his own.

Where Singing From the Floor dispels the notion of folk as altogether too stuffy is in its depiction of the Soho scene. Here, young British performers mingled with American counterparts such as Paul Simon and Jackson C Frank; ideas around tradition and authenticity were a little looser, and I don't think its surprising that the more innovative musicians in folk - Bert Jansch, John Martyn, John Renbourn, Roy Harper et al - emerged from this crowd. This is also the crowd that gave birth, in stuttering form, to Fairport Convention.

Liege and Lief is Fairport Convention's fourth album. Founding members Simon Nicol, Ashley Hutchings and Richard Thompson were here joined by fiddler Dave Swarbrick, singer Sandy Denny and drummer Dave Mattacks, the replacement for Martin Lamble after his death in a road accident in which every member of the band at the time except Denny were involved. Whilst coming to terms with loss and injury, bassist Hutchings buried himself in researching traditional music archives housed in Cecil Sharp House. Denny was already familiar with much traditional music, and Swarbrick had a knowledge of folk that Thompson would describe as 'encyclopaedic'. What they subsequently did - take music that stretched back centuries in origin and electrify it - would prove to be a game changer.

From the perspective of 2019, where it feels like every genre has been run through the electro-wringer (though electro-swing definitely shouldn't be a thing), Liege and Lief might be considered quaint. Certainly, some early rock 'n' roll sounds a bit tame to my ears, even as I strain to discern its importance in the development of popular music. Given that folk already has a somewhat unthreatening patina to it, I was worried that a reappraisal of Liege and Lief would be full of caveats. I'm happy to say that they're not necessary.

In some ways, this record is wilder than anything floating around at the moment, even in the edgier 'hard folk' circles. Firstly, the electric backing to songs that already sound unearthly transport Liege and Lief into the realms of psychedelia. This weirdness is heightened by the fantastical nature of some of the lyrics - 'Reynardine' and 'Tam Lin' being standout examples of songs that read like trippy, twisted fairy tales. The playing is exemplary - Mattacks' backing to 'Reynardine', for example, which consists of little else than slow swells on the cymbal, is breathtaking in its simplicity and ability to create a sense of otherworldliness. The truly mindbending element in the mix is Swarbrick's electric fiddle, which at times drones away like John Cale's viola in the Velvet Underground's 'Venus In Furs'; at other times, it simply kicks free from gravity and takes flight. The mid-album medley of 'The Lark in the Morning / Rakish Paddy / Foxhunter's Jig / Toss The Feathers' is a blistering showcase of Swarbrick's enormous talent, but the band behind him is no less facile with the shifting tempos and time signatures.

And yet, in my opinion Swarbrick's incandescent talent is eclipsed by that of Sandy Denny. Hands down, Denny is my favourite female vocalist. My dad might argue for Maddy Prior's powerhouse vocals, others might highlight Annie Briggs' almost bell-like purity. Both excellent singers, but neither could inhabit a song with the same expressiveness as Denny does on Liege and Lief. Tender, strident, doleful, commanding, playful - whatever the song - hell, whatever that particular lyric demands, Denny delivers. The most dazzling example is the murder ballad 'Matty Groves', which Denny tackles as if it's a play and she's somehow wound up acting as every character.

Furthermore, just in case you weren't convinced, she repeats the trick on 'Tam Lin', a 16th century ballad that's transformed here into a spiky, ominous, lysergic rocker. There comes, at around two minutes, the moment where Swarbrick's violin opens up in delicate counterpoint to Denny's vocal melody and the feeling it engenders can only be described as blissful. The constantly changing dynamics of 'Tam Lin' means that the song seems to morph around Denny's moods, making it the most sophisticated track on Liege and Lief and the one that, for my money, packs the most wallop. I don't think that I've ever heard anything quite like it anywhere else.

Have I convinced you? Do you still automatically associate folk with fustiness, beards and real ale? Or can you begin to imagine it - at least in the guise of Liege and Lief - as a gateway to that which is inherently and indigenously strange about British folk ways? Folk can sometimes seem hobbled by its homeliness and rather old-fashioned insistence on telling stories; Liege and Lief serves as a startling reminder as to the power, vitality, violence and peculiarity of British traditional song. Hell, it should be on the National Curriculum. A peerless, important work.