This Week's Releases
Muse — Drones (Warner)
Muse's Drones scored an impressive four-and-a-half stars from us, and this week's Album Of The Week for being "spectacular, epic in scope, epic in sound, epic in delivery". Noted by our reviewer that the album is an expansive concept album about "an all-powerful government state, the brainwashing and destruction of a human soul, and the inevitable rebellion and subsequent World War Three that follows", we thought it should be "absorbed as an overall piece of work".
Seth Sentry — Strange New Past (High Score/Inertia)
An album that conquers Sentry's "two operative flaws" in its first song, How Are You, makes the album feel like "Sentry has decided to rewrite the future", instead of looking to his past. The spell is broken however, during Nobody Like Me, Run and Dumb, showcasing that Sentry still has a ways to go. However, "his triumph is his commitment to making that progress while others around him stagnate", earning him three stars from us.
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Of Monsters & Men — Beneath The Skin (Republic/Universal)
Scoring three stars from us, Beneath The Skin is an ode to "what pop music sounded like in the early half of this decade", though it is a far more sombre, moody and instrospective take on music — "the cheery sounds and bright trumpets of these bands’ earlier releases have been replaced with a post-great-recession seriousness" with "more thunderous drums and crescendos this time around".
Cosmic Psychos — Cum The Raw Prawn (Desperate Records/Rocket)
A true Ocker album, our reviewer notes "it takes a special skill-set to write songs so mindlessly stupid that make you want to grab a beer and scream along", rife with the trio's "knack for hooks and melody". Songs like Better, Not Bitter and its “Fucken bullshit, maaaate!” refrain show that Cum The Raw Prawn is just "the sound of blokes trying to make their mates laugh and having a ripping time (and making some great rock’n’roll) in the process". We gave it four stars.
and the rest of the releases…
Alison Ferrier — Be Here Now (Mountain King Music/MGM)
Barney McAll — Mooroolbark (ABC Classics/Universal)
Ben Mason — She'd Need A Heart (Independent)
Billy Currington — Summer Forever (Universal)
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club — Live In Paris (Abstract Dragon/[PIAS] Australia)
Daughn Gibson — Carnation (Sub Pop/Inertia)
Dub Pistols — Return Of The Pistoleros (Sunday Best/[PIAS] Australia)
Fatboy Slim — Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars (Skint)
FFS — FFS (EMI)
Four Year Strong — Four Year Strong (Pure Noise/Sony)
Girlpool — Before The World Was Big (Wichita Recordings/[PIAS] Australia)
Harts — Breakthrough (Pavement/Shock)
HOLYCHILD — The Shape Of Brat Pop To Come (Glassnote/Liberator)
Kid Wave — Wonderlust (Heavenly Recordings/[PIAS] Australia)
Leftfield — Alternative Light Source (Infectious Music/Liberator)
Lehmann B Smith — Thank God For My Body (Special Award Records)
Lyall Moloney — Only Lonely (Sureshaker/MGM)
Matt Skiba & The Sekrets — Kuts (Century Media)
Methyl Ethel — Oh Inhumane Spectacle (Dot Dash/Remote Control)
Normie Rowe — Frenzy: The 50th Anniversary Collection (Festival/Warner)
Palace — Chase The Light (Fiction/Caroline)
Pins — Wild Nights (Bella Union/[PIAS] Australia)
Prinzhorn Dance School — Home Economics (DFA/[PIAS] Australia)
Rixton — Let The Road (Universal)
Robin Gibb — Saved By The Bell — The Collected Works Of Robin Gibb: 1969-70 (Reprise/Warner)
Rolo Tomassi — Grievances (Holy Roar Records/Shock)
Sally Whitwell — I Was Flying (Universal)
Sharon Van Etten — I Don't Want To Let You Down (Jagjaguwar/Inertia)
The Bad Plus Joshua Redman — The Bad Plus Joshua Redman (Nonesuch/Warner)
The Hazy Chains — Orb (Independent)
Toby Robinson — Toby Robinson (Independent)
Tove Styrke — Kiddo (Sony)
Tremonti — Cauterize (Fret12/MGM)
Various Artists — Bessie (Music From The HBO Film) (Legacy/Sony)
Violent Femmes — Happy New Year (Independent)
Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard — Django And Jimmie (Sony)
Young Guns — Ones & Zeros (EMI)
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