Massive Attack's Distinctive Racket & The Aston Shuffle Make Good: This Week's Singles Get Rated

Wait, that artist whose music I like doesn’t entirely share my values and beliefs? And damn it, they’re expressing it in song? Well, this is what the internet was invented for – I shall rant my displeasure on their Facebook page, and widely insult anyone who disagrees with my pre-eminent opinion!

To be fair, such outrage and surprise would even happen here in our peaceful land of #Straya before this megaphone for all humanity existed. So many blokes – and yes, it is usually blokes – getting so confused when they realised there might just be some social or political commentary in a Midnight Oil song – ‘Why can’t they just play music I can smash VB cans to?’ as they worked out what US Forces might actually be about. But in that strange fractured land that is America in 2016, it can get even uglier. The often magnificent Drive-By Truckers have nailed their colours to the mast with What It Means (ATO), pondering the imbalance of black kids being blasted by men in blue uniforms. That lead Trucker Patterson Hood is a white man from Alabama expressing such thoughts has got the some of the redder-necked element of their audience well offside, who obviously never realised these good ol’ boys have an empathetic soul – a major drawback in a country currently considering electing a half-eaten mango with a dead squirrel on his head as their next leader.

However, you can take this goodwill to all men thing a bit far. Casey Barnes is unquestionably a sensitive new age caring kinda guy, getting over the career crippler that being a finalist on Australian Idol has turned out to be. Mostly resettling to America, he links with another Australian refugee abroad – Rick Price, writer of many a big pop standard in his own right. Together, the result is Live As One (Social Family), one of those modern tunes of the uplifting nature suitable for use with a hashtag and a roll-call of b-list celebrities in the video: Rob Mills! That bird who won Big Brother! The Chinese Olympic swimming team! #Cloying #HardlyImperative #LikelyToSinkWithoutMuchTrace #Sorry.

But then there’s music that exists entirely of its terms, and the better for it. There is an immediately identifiable drama and atmosphere to anything under the Massive Attack banner across their sometimes sporadic near-30 year existence. If the weight of their own manner isn’t enough to suggest quality, they add to their distinctive racket, the absolutely individual voice of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval to The Spoils (Melankolic/Virgin) which floats by, even as the trademark string section sweeps in and washes over you. They promise a full album of a variety of collaborations ‘soon’, although on past record that might occur anywhere between next Tuesday and 2021. 

Or you can delve back into tradition for your muse. Jesse Redwing – beside being the near-perfect name for a guitar slinger – started his musical life spitting out punk tunes. But you can only be angry and nihilistic for so long, before he found he just the blues. And that’s not the strangely anaemic modern variant, this is the old school 12-bar as played in bars since time immemorial, delivered to you with a bit of flash, feeling and real ability in the attack on the guitar. Do we need a 21^st century Kevin Borich? Shit yeah, he agrees, before remembering to suggested you go ask your parents who that is, if you don’t know. Many try this style, a lot screw it up rather badly, but Round It Goes (Create/Control) comes without pretence, but with some energy and sincerity.

And can take their inspiration from more contemporary and very much more obvious sources. Blaenavon take their name from a town in Wales, although they’re apparently just teenagers from Hampshire. But the name over the door should probably read “Salford Lads Club”, such is their pretty obvious regard for The Smiths. Let’s Pray (Transgressive) has a lot of Morrissey warble and misery in its delivery, but sadly not much Johnny Marr in the guitar noise. The darker edge to their angst also suggests there’s a fair few mid-period Cure records on the shelf. If not aware of obviousness of their influences, you may go ‘Yeah, that’s ok…’, which still doesn’t really explain a large pocket of popularity in Brazil, of all places. 

Giving himself a little distance from his day job but leaving his options open, Mark Stoermer. The Killers’ bassist was given a leave-pass after they finished their last record as he wanted to explore making music with his own name on the shingle and the rather cryptic aim to ‘pursue other educational goals’. But such was his input, the world’s favourite Mormon musical combo since the Tabernacle Choir or The Osmond Brothers are happy to have him back in the fold when they get around to recording. Are Your Stars Out? (St August) has an almost Beatle-esque bubble to it - oddly joyous, yet somehow seeming to take itself just that little bit too seriously. 

But will Der Stoermer seems to be getting the best of both worlds, Will Sheff is just a tad shitty with the whole business. Under his Okkervil River guise, The Industry (ATO) comes with a softly pissed-off resignation that he – and many more others – are not appreciated as they should be. That this may be due to said ‘industry’ mostly folding like an origami swan over the past few years doesn’t seem to have quite registered. While the music flows by, the visuals are almost deliberately quixotic and quizzical, almost seeming to dare the listener/viewer to praise his vision or dismiss him as a bit of a douchebarrow.

But some have adjusted to the global approach needed to ye olde pop music these days. Local boys still making pretty good, The Aston Shuffle do indeed try and Make A Wrong Thing Right (Spinnin’/Potion), adding Drake/Jamie Foxx collaborator Micah Powell as the necessarily identifiable voice to what starts as a purely smooth dancefloor production, but manages to add some mess to the noise as the chorus approaches. The world may well approve.