2016 Review

This blog is looking rather sparse. I must resolve to start using it again next year. Anyway, on with my 2016 music review.

Out of 41 musical purchases my pre-2016 acquisitions totalled 26, all on CD.

First a couple from the Original Album Series, Chris Rea and Alanis Morrissette. The Chris Rea collection consists of 5 albums, Water Signs, Shamrock Diaries, On The Beach, The Road To Hell and Espresso Logic. All good solid stuff but The Road To Hell is obviously the standout, but I was also very impressed with On The Beach. The Alanis Morrissette collection consists of Jagged Little Pill, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, Under Rug Swept, So-Called Chaos, and Flavours Of Entanglement. If you like Jagged Little Pill then you'll like the rest as it's pretty much more of the same, not in a bad way mind. So, in summary, two excellent purchases and fantastic value. Not so good was Masterpiece Annie Nightingale a curated collection from various artists, some tracks of which were very good but some just bafflingly poor. Everyone has different tastes I guess, hey ho.

Following on from my dip into the waters of acoustic guitar last year I decided to try The Art of Segovia by Andrés Segovia. A mixed bag, some I liked, some not so much.

Staying on the classic theme I also found a bargain recording of Der Ring Des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner, £22 for a 14 CD set comprising many hours of listening. Needless to say, I've not got through it all yet, but I'm working on it!

I had a bit of a Japan moment this year and decided to splash out on a number of David Sylvian issues; Brilliant Trees the 2006 remastered version of his 1984 solo album, A Victim of Stars the double CD from 2012, and Alchemy - An Index Of Possibilities the 2006 remastered version of his 1985 album. I have 5 Japan albums already and none of these new purchases disappointed.

The nostalgia continued this year with Third Stage the 1986 third album from Boston with classic tracks like Amanda, and Cool the Engines. The eponymous first album from Visage from 1980 and remastered in 2002. The third album from Status Quo, Dog of Two Head from 1971 and remastered in 2008.

As mentioned in last year's review, I saw Steve Hackett on tour. I continue to be impressed with his output and this year added; Bay Of Kings (1983, reissued 2013), Beyond The Shrouded Horizon (2011), and Genesis Revisited II (2015), all of which are cracking albums.

I continue to replace albums that I had on vinyl back in the day and this year added Very best of The Stylistics (2007), although I originally had their 1975 version, the slightly different The Best of the Stylistics.

I've always loved Catherine Wheel and one day, after listening to one of their albums, I looked to find out what ever happened to the band. I was surprised to see that lead singer/songwriter Rob Dickinson released a solo album in 2005 Fresh Wine for the Horses. I bought it and it was brilliant, well recommended.

Coming a little more up-to-date I've expanded my collection of albums by prog-metal supergroup Transatlantic by adding Bridge Across Forever (2009), and SMPT:e (2015).

I loved the first two albums by You Me At Six but had lost touch with their music, so remedied this by purchasing their third album, released in 2011, Sinners Never Sleep.

Having watched Tame Impala perform Elephant I decided to try the full psychedelic rock of their 2012 release Lonerism. The album is not easy listening but bear with it, it's very good indeed.

Finally, a bunch of recent releases from bands that have caught my ear; brilliant Finnish rock from Von Hertzen Brothers on Nine Lives (2013), indie rock from Mr Andrew Hozier-Bryne, Hozier (2014), spaced out Drones from Muse (2015), alt-rock from Dinosaur Pile Up on Eleven Eleven (2015), prog rock from The Pineapple Thief founder Bruce Soord's eponymous 2015 album, and John Mitchell's latest music project Lonely Robot whose Please Come Home(2015) is a complete tour de force.

So we come to the releases of 2016 of which I managed to pick up just 15. I have to say right from the start that there is not a duff album here but obviously not all can feature in a top ten. the ones that got away, in no particular order, were; Confessions of a Romantic Novelist by The Anchoress who is Welsh multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and author Catherine Anne Davies, The Winery Dogs by American supergroup The Winery Dogs, Your Wilderness by prog-rockers The Pineapple Thief, All Bright Electric the long awaited album from Feeder, and Resonate the solo album (at last!) from the 'Voice of Rock' Glenn Hughes (he of Trapeze, Deep Purple Mk III and IV, Black Sabbath, Black Country Communion, and California Breed.)

Yea gods, we're here at last! My own personal top ten of album releases of 2016. here we go pop-pickers...


(10) Kentucky by Black Stone Cherry. This is their fifth album, the first since the band signed to Mascot Label Group in late 2015. Southern-fried hard rock that very much reflects the band's roots. The album opens with The Way of the Future very much in their familiar style with a memorable chorus. The music is more diverse these days with some female vocals creeping in, a cappella harmonies on Rescue Me, there's even some brass on their cover of Edwin Starr's War.




(9) Take Me To The Alley by Gregory Porter. No, honestly, I haven't lost my marbles. I actually really enjoy listening to this jazz vocalist. Maybe I'm getting old but you have a listen and hear for yourself.








(8) Blues of Desperation by Joe Bonamassa. His 12th studio album, that's a prodigious amount of recording. Previous albums have been heavy on covers of blues classics but all the songs here are all original with Joe Bones assisted by first rate musicians. Superb.








(7) Ellipsis the latest from Scottish post-hardcore, alt-rockers Biffy Clyro. I first stumbled on Biffy, in 2003 with their The Vertigo of Bliss and have every album since. I've heard fans lament that Opposites (2013) was the band selling out to commercial success and certainly it gave them their first number one album, but for me they've continued to evolve and this album also jumped straight in at number one. Highly recommended, and also check out their back catalogue.




(6) The Astonishing by Dream Theater. Well, hey, basically this is a band playing to all their strengths. A concept album, 2 CDs of material, alternating mix of soaring, inspirational tracks and quieter, introspective moments. It's what I like from this band and they delivered in spades.







(5) Folklore by Big Big Train. I love Big Big Train and their quiet, English brand of prog-rock. If Genesis grew up in a mining village, they would have made this music. Simples.









(4) Solas. The Answer got a bit same-y after a while but they've come back with a new album that keeps their underlying, Irish hard-rock and somehow managed to re-invent themselves. They've tapped into folk, bluegrass and Celtic motifs and created a tapestry of songs that take the band to a new level.







(3) 4 1/2 by Steven Wilson. His fourth solo album Hand.Cannot.Erase from 2015 certainly marked a high point for Wilson and was number one in many yearly round-ups (4th on mine). So while we wait on his fifth album he has decided to treat us to a mini-album of 6 tracks, 37 minutes, to keep us going. Don't think for one minute that this is filler material though, oh no. Four of the songs were recorded during sessions for Hand.Cannot.Erase, one from sessions for the previous, The Raven that Refused to Sing, and one is a version of Don't Hate Me, a song originally recorded by Porcupine Tree in 1998 and redone with a feeling of his latest solo albums. My Book of Regrets is long prog track reminding one of Porcupine Tree. Happiness 3 is similar but shorter, almost, dare I say it, a pop song. Three track are instrumentals, Year of the Plague and Sunday Rain Sets In are cinematic, melancholy pieces whereas Vermillioncore is much more hard-core.


(2) F.E.A.R. by Marillion. Wow! 68 Minutes of just five songs that will never get radio air-play. Recording was funded by fan pre-orders via PledgeMusic. Pundits are saying it's their best album for 20 years, I certainly think it's up there with Happiness Is the Road. Politically astute lyrics are lovingly wrapped in Floyd/Radiohead richly layered instrumentation. The whole band is on top form and this is a must-hear album.

 


(1) Blackstar by David Bowie. Yes, 2016 has been a fatal year for many household names across entertainment and music in particular. Among many others we've lost Keith Emerson, Prince, Glenn Fry, George Martin, Scotty Moore, Dale Griffin, Leonard Cohen, Eddie Harsch, Andy Newman, Leon Russell, and not least The Thin White Dame, David Bowie. Released on 8 January, his 69th birthday, he passed two days later. There can't be a soul on this planet that doesn't know at least one of his songs and his talent will be sorely missed. For me his career came in three parts. I really loved his early stuff, mostly on the Deram label. Then came what I think of as his pop years, with hindsight probably his mainstream albums. Finally, starting in 1995 with his 1. Outside I think he really transformed into a genuine prodigy. On Blackstar Bowie has grasped the waving fronds of improvisational jazz and tamed it into songs. With seven tracks and a 42 minute running time, it feels somehow out of sync with his back catalogue and stands alone, self-contained.

• The album kicks off with the single Blackstar all hip-hop beats, doomy elegance, and sultry saxaphone. It comes as two parts somehow stuck together, that somehow make one song. Genius.
• 'Tis A pity She Was A Whore gets its name from a controversial 17th-century play by John Ford in which a man has sex with his sister only to stab her in the heart in the middle of a kiss. Bowie twists the original with some gender-bending (she punched me like a dude), a robbery, and World War I, but the message is the same as the play, that humans will resort to savagery when necessary, no matter where or when. Originally released in 2014 as a single.
• Lazarus is sung from the perspective of Newton, the homesick alien Bowie played in 1976 film 'The Man Who Fell To Earth'. Over a Massive Attack-like thick, skulking groove he sings the woes of a man out of time, scarred and self-mutilated. But, listen again to the lyrics and he could almost be foretelling his own death. Weird.
• Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) is a track from 2014 (B side to 'Tis A pity She Was A Whore) that has been radically reworked, its big band melodrama now welded to a frantic, drum'n'bass rhythm, its climax reflecting murderous intent.
• Girl Loves Me is a menacing, militaristic tattoo with Bowie rapping in a lazily aggressive, sing-song style, and yelping in the slang of A Clockwork Orange. It also references a bar in Orwell's 1984 called the Chestnut Tree.
• Dollar Days is a gentle reminisce about a soul who wants to spend his golden years in a blissful British countryside but can't because of his restless nature.
• I Can't Give Everything Away. Tellingly, the final song is a beautiful and moving farewell, a epic closing track that basically says; here's an album which references 17th-century plays, classic nihilistic fiction, films, et al and yet I won't tell you what it's all about really; Seeing more and feeling less / Saying no but meaning yes / This is all I ever meant / That's the message that I sent.