The Single Life: FKA Twigs, Sarah Blasko & More

The musical guilty pleasure – most of all us have one or more. There, hidden down in your playlist, on your CD shelf, or in that milk-crate of your limited edition vinyl (most of it still in the shrinkwrap it was delivered in, naturally…). Old Elton John tunes, bad punk records, that Taylor Swift album you argue is the essence of 21st century pop music if anyone happens to stumble upon it. Or is that just me? 

For many ostensibly of more alternative tastes, The Killers seems one of those oddities allowed. Could be that despite their fearsome widescreen commerciality, there’s some underlying wit there: appropriating the name from a phony band in a New Order video, playing really silly dress-ups in their own clips, and their often quite warped Christmas songs. Nonetheless, lead singer Brandon Flowers – the biggest Mormon heart-throb since Donny Osmond – is doing the solo album thing again, with I Can’t Deny My Love (Island/Universal) perhaps a little more puppy-eyed and sincere than some of the band’s works, but there are worse things out there likely to chart. So, we thank him for not being Coldplay. Or worse, Muse. 

Oh look, it’s Muse. You know what was said up there about maybe a band not taking itself too seriously? Best look elsewhere, for Dead Inside (Warner) is according to themselves “a modern metaphor for the loss of empathy”. Of course it is. Song lumbers grandly, contains concepts of ‘freedom’, ‘giving infinitely’ and clever words to rhyme with like ‘bereft’. And the video also has boobies. I really can’t recall when Muse went from middle-sized venues to football stadiums. But you should possibly also ponder the ‘How?’ and ‘Why?’ of that journey.

Of course, the pendulum can then swing so far the other way that Spinal Tap can look like a genuine documentary. We welcome the return of The Darkness. Now with yet another lineup change, and presenting a manifesto of ‘medieval rock’. This apparent means they are going to be “Brutal…but with mandolins”. Open Fire (Canary Dwarf) is grandiose, as you’d expect. It should almost come with its own dry ice machine and scale model of Stonehenge. Long may their tongue be lodged in their cheek. Or someone else’s. 

A perhaps even more welcome return is Blur’s. Lonesome Street (Parlophone) is another advance sample of The Magic Whip album so many are longing for. Having Graham Coxon properly back in the fold sees the music re-embracing some of its history rather than the foggy swing of some of their later variants. There’s also other hints of their pop heyday, like Stephen Street’s production sheen. Damon Albarn even seems to have got some of his London accent back. It’s bloody good though.

And then there’s the unexpected. As in, Sarah Blasko makes a dance track. Admittedly, that’s dance as in a modern contemporary theatre piece, rather than something for under the mirror-ball. With producer/composer Nick Wales, Pain Is A Number (Create/Control) is a thing of urgent unease. Her so-identifiable voice at times sweeps through the maelstrom and chaos, other times seems detached from it. She repeats the title as it veers from a plea, to a demand, to a banshee in the distance. Close your eyes, and you’ll likely see athletic kids in black leotards contorting themselves as they walk against an imaginary wind.  

Oh, you like art? It would appear that after the much critical acclaim, and some discussing her socio-political imperatives rather too seriously – if they ever actually existed in the first place – FKA Twigs now wants to make ‘deep’ optical statements as well. Glass & Patron (Young Turks/Remote Control) is her self-directed entry for the YouTube Music Awards – there is such a thing? – and gets all metaphorical and metaphysical on your ass. Perhaps not quite NSFW, but herself giving birth to a modern dance ensemble and several metres of fabric may disturb your dreams just slightly. 

Also going for the overwhelming visual approach, Dan Deacon reflects his grab-bag of musical influences by stitching together a range of animations delivered by various artists to make When I Was Done Dying (Misteltone) an utterly engrossing thing. He sometimes dismisses himself as an ‘absurdist’, but his music is such a carefully considered thing – or would have to be to sound so nonchalant in its delivery. Run through this a few times, you find something new to see and to hear nearly every time you do. Annoyingly clever bastard.

And so, to that most overused, deliberately misunderstood, and just plain easy pigeonhole for critics that is ‘psychedelic’. Morning Harvey fall somewhere under than broad umbrella term, but Smith Street Swap Meet (Title Track) has the Brisbane combo looking up from their previously somewhat introspective guitar noodling and lyrical puzzlings emerging into a brighter Magoo-produced striped sunlight. Pop? Not quite, but in the neighbourhood of it.

There’s some of it in Denmark as well. The Wands unashamedly nod to the days when lysergic substances were considered fun (mostly), although there are darker references to the some guy called ‘The Reaper’ and troubles such as ‘heads like fire’ across She’s Electric (Smackface). Nonetheless, they manage not to stare at their navels or the talking carpet for too long, making their point in two-and-a-half minutes or thereabouts. Pop? Not quite, but in the Scandinavian neighbourhood of it.