Reviews: This weeks CD releases

We take a look at the hottest new music out this week including Primal Scream's new album.
By The Newsroom
Published 25th Mar 2016, 07:56 BST
CD reviews including Kelvin Jones.CD reviews including Kelvin Jones.
CD reviews including Kelvin Jones.

Kelvin Jones – Stop the Moment: ‘Nice’ can be a hard sell when it comes to music. Kelvin Jones’ debut isn’t just nice, it’s also really good, warm, catchy and fuzzy, but it definitely is ‘nice’. Think Belle And Sebastian, but less frantic. Everything in Stop The Moment – the mellow acoustic guitar, Jones’ sweet voice, the sappy/earnest lyrics – makes him seem like the perfect guy to meet the parents. Songs like Call You Home or I Wouldn’t Change You are the musical equivalent of a warm hug and while there are some missteps, such as the plodding Follow You Down, where Jones sounds like he’s both trying too hard and not trying hard enough, this is a solid album with good, wholesome music. It’s not the flashiest debut and Jones is in a bit of ‘strum guitar, sing about love’ comfort zone, but it’s a strong one. Tobias Chapple.

Primal Scream – Chaosmosis:Primal Scream’s ability to evolve has seen them at the forefront of experi-mentation, while remaining a popular fixture on the musical scene, where many of their contemporaries have failed. Chaosmosis sees Bobby Gillespie’s crew take you on an impressive musical journey encompassing a myriad of styles and hitting almost every musical genre they’ve already flirted with in their 34-year history. There’s the laid back psychedelic opener, Trippin’ On Your Love, straight up pop on Where The Light Gets In, soul-filled alt rock powers through I Can Change and When The Blackout Meets The Fallout is dark electro. The only thing that’s seemingly missing is thematic structure. It’s almost like a greatest hits album filled with songs you’ve never heard before. Steven Cookson

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Birdy – Beautiful Lies: Birdy (real name – deep breath – Jasmine Lucilla Elizabeth Jennifer van den Bogaerde) knows how to write a song that will make you weep and then pencil it in for your ‘walking down the aisle’ playlist. And even if you don’t want to hear the 19-year-old’s romantic, woozy lyrics, hitched together with heart wringing piano chords, she’s the go-to source for emotional background advert music. Her third record, Beautiful Lies, promises much of the same. Lost It All and Deep End tug determinedly on your tear ducts, however, the singer-songwriter’s sincerity stops her sliding into schmaltz. Wild Horses has a bit more punch than usual, while Keeping Your Head Up is positively epic, and even quite uptempo. Good for having a cry to, but Birdy still isn’t pushing herself. Ella Walker

Skeletal Family –Eternal: If Baroque music discoveries have now become commonplace, this world premiere recording of L’Angelica, by Portuguese composer, Joao Sousa Carvalho, is svery special. Trained in Naples, he completed the score, that he described as a ‘courtly serenata’, in 1778, the story involving the princess, Angelica, and her love for the wounded, Medoro, while feigning love for the warrior, Orlando, to keep them apart. It all thankfully ends happily. Expressed in brilliant arias and duets requiring the vocal dexterity of this superb cast headed by Joana Seara and Lidia Vinyes Curtis, the fine Portuguese period instrument orchestra, Concerto Campestre, is conducted by Pedro Castro, the musicologist who found the original manuscript. (Naxos 8.573554-55). Duncan Seaman