The Single Life: The Verdict On New Tracks From Lily Allen, Stonefield, Good Boy & More

14 December 2017 | 1:23 pm | Ross Clelland

The best of this week's bunch.

Customers, a conundrum on which I seek some consensus: Lily Allen. Seems like a good human. Will often bluntly address many issues up to and including fearsomely personal ones like losing a child, along with the more usual divorce, drugs, and such. Idealistic, well-left leaning politics. Will quite comfortably and repeatedly say ‘fuck’, both in her musical works and general conversation. But there remains some odd nagging doubts. Daughter of a well-known actor and a film producer, so there’s some middle-class privilege there, even as she sometimes sing/talks like she’s just a bogan – or whatever the English equivalent is – who’s just stumbled into a recording studio. So, here’s Trigger Bang (Parlophone) – typical reflections on a rebellious ‘youff’, with suitable amounts of illegal substances and bad boy decisions. Added second vocal from rapper Giggs – disappointing it wasn’t former footballer Ryan, which might have made it a little more novel – who does the necessary boastful observations. And it all trots along in the prescribed manner, but you again have those niggling thoughts that she’s maybe trying just a bit too hard to be ‘street’, and it could all just be a little contrived.

See, when you listen to Good Boy you don’t have such ponderings. Calling their single before last A Waste Of 122 Million Dollars would further suggest their credentials. And the gloriously titled 1972 VW Superbug (Barely Dressed) isn’t as strident in its point of view. This is the weary punk anti-romanticism of growing up in the regional town – in this case the one notable for naming a rum after itself, Bundaberg. This is not the languid observations of rural Queensland that’d you’d find in Cattle & Cane. This is fading-weatherboard houses and mowing the lawn, and a few jars at the Railway Hotel - is there a law that every Australian country town on a train line has to have a pub named that? – before they cross the bridge out of town they used to jump off for fun. Suitably buzzy and fuzzy, mix and mastered by Mikey Young (naturally…), and it does exactly what it says on the tin.

You can even stay angry for 30-or-more years, as The Manic Street Preachers push through to finally finish a new album that’s been gestating for a few years. Their default setting is still in place: widescreen, big slogan, agitprop anthems, with James Dean Bradfield still yelling like a man who’s angry about a lot of things as International Blue (Columbia) unfurls and calls you to the barricades. Again. Apparently the philosophy and mission statement of the new album – and they are exactly the band who’d have ‘philosophy’ and a ‘mission statement’ for their records – is memories being twisted by the media, and “art as a hiding place”. OK then, sure. Pop music is serious business, customers. But remember, they also wrote our Kylie’s best ever song.

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It’s always been a little intriguing to me how reggae is often a default choice for indigenous peoples of the South Pacific. Auckland and Arnhem Land are both quite a ways from Jamaica, and surely even further from Ethiopia. Perhaps in its loose roll, the words and an eternal oppression can be felt and articulated better than simply yelling. Transplanted here to the West Island, New Zealand’s Katchafire do the form extremely well. Way Beyond (Zojak) takes in the positives of family, friends, life, and love and has everything including the brass section in the right place, although that talking-box guitar effect adds a surprising touch of Peter Frampton or Bon Jovi to it. Bon Jovi? Ask your mum. Peter Frampton? Ask your grandmum.

One good way to retain your cred for 20 years after the band that made your name has broken up is perhaps to say little or nothing, while the former lead singer makes an almost weekly dick of himself, shouting at various clouds across a wide range of subjects. Ladies and gents, Johnny Marr. You won’t even hear his voice on this new project with his name on it, as the former Smiths’ guitarist is more here to provide a surprisingly electronica-based bed for a spoken word project featuring actress Maxine Peake – who’s done everything from Shameless to playing Hamlet – observing UK society, particularly the crumbling bits. The Priest (New Voodoo) is a recasting of a Big Issue story of a man who finds himself homeless in the drug-addled end of Edinburgh – but without the ‘glamour’ of Trainspotting. To further confuse the issue that’s Peake’s co-star from Three Girls, Molly Windsor, mouthing the words in the clip - and that’s not Edinburgh, it’s Manchester. Which might be kind of the same, but different.

And some people just end up in the right place. The scarily talented - and scarily aware of their 1970s musical history - Findlay sisters of Stonefield have been a little less visible for a while, as they developed and morphed their style a little. Delusion (Flightless) is still extremely old-school rock, but while the spiralling guitars are still there, this perhaps lurches toward a more sprawling and psych-ish muse. Less Zeppelin, more Yes, maybe? Throw in some Deep Purple organ and even some tubular bells(!), and there’s a prog feeling there as well – we fully expect capes in the new stage wardrobe. The news they’re now on King Gizzard’s label also suggests another near-perfect fit.

Or you can head back to a little closer to your safety zone. MGMT’s madly glorious and madly obviously plundering of The Cure for Little Dark Age certainly got their return noticed, but maybe confused some of the faithful just a bit. But, even allowing for the slightly emo-goth title of When You Die (Columbia) its initially lighter and twinkling tone might be more familiar. It’ll be the clip that get them talked about and some late-night plays on Rage as well, as the Groundhog Day narrative of it gets a lot more dark and trippy as it goes. Drugs can be bad, kids – mmmkay? But, let’s just give the people what they want. Whether it’s good for them or not being another question altogether.