And the same when autumn comes/Cold air I breathe in my lungs

Wednesday 8 October - OK, I wasn't out last weekend, so I'll treat you instead to a roundup of the platters that have been gracing the decks at Scary Towers. There's a few, so I'm not going to bore you with a track by track review, just a general overview of each.

No particular order but the first one on the pile is Long-View's Mercury with a bonus CD of re-mixes Subversions. We caught Longview (they've dropped the hyphen) at The Duchess on Friday 26 September, and jolly fine they were too. In fact I enjoyed them so much that I didn't buy a CD there and then. I went to t'interweb and ordered their album from (LAYP.COM, re-arrange these letters) where the album was £7.99 but only £4.99 if you purchased it with the bonus re-mix CD. How mad is that? Anyway, the re-mixes are OK, nothing to write home about, but the album itself is absolutely storming. Think very early Coldplay or anthemic Embrace at their peak. Top buy.

On the same night we saw Lecorum, whom we had seen before, I really like these chaps, so much so that I did dip my hand into my wallet to purchase a pre-release version of their Cartoon EP. A piano-led indie rock band, and I mean that in a good way, these are a bit like early Four Day Hombre. Another good purchase.

Now, the fact that Elbow won the Mercury Music prize 2008 came as no surprise to me as I already have their third and forth albums; Leaders of the Free World, and The Seldom Seen Kid. I was looking forward to listening to their first two offerings; Asleep In The Back, and Cast of Thousands. Sadly these didn't live up to Elbow's later work. I don't mean that they're rubbish, far from it, but they lack the rich texturing and sheer lusciousness of the later two. I think I've been spoilt by listening to them out of order.

At the same time as I acquired Elbow, I also got my hands on the Melvins' (A) Senile Animal, a different kettle of kittens altogether! This is the 2006 release from the American sludge metal band that first formed in the 1980s. I quite liked these but feel I will have to invest more time listening to them. They remind me of Tool or Mastadon, or rather, their sound has obviously influenced these bands 'cos the Melvins came first! More listening required.

Let's go back in time now. I've always longed to get my hands on King Crimson's 'observation' In The Court Of The Crimson King, and it finally bubbled to the top of my 'to buy' list. OK, it's pretty old, originally released in 1969. The band roster at this time comprised: Robert Fripp, Ian McDonald, Greg Lake (he left just prior to the album's release), Michael Giles, and Peter Sinfield. This is the2004 24-bit re-master. Frankly, this could have been released yesterday. The most well-known track is 21st Century Schizoid Man, but surprisingly this is the one track that seems at odds with the rest of the album and has aged accordingly. The rest of this brilliant CD consists of some of the finest jazz/rock fusion I've heard in a long time. Highly recommended.

And so to Laura Marling's Alas I Cannot Swim. What, you might ask, possessed me to make such a left-field purchase? I'm very fussy about my solo female singers. Well it came as a sort of recommendation. I'm a great fan of the highly readable Inspector Alan Banks stories of Peter Robinson. For one thing, the action takes place in the fictional town of Eastvale set in North Yorkshire, so there are lots of references to places in York and Leeds that I'm familiar with. Secondly, Robinson's character plays a lot of music as he solves various crimes, and his musical tastes overlaps my own an awful lot. It's pretty spooky. His latest novel, All the Colours of Darkness, references Laura's album. So I bought it. I can be quite impulsive. It's very good, with a quirky sound and great lyrics. But I don't sing/hum along, so it sort of fails on that score.

Next up two more bands that we've seen recently. The Dodos album Visiter is first off this pile. The Dodos are an American indie band, sometimes labelled freak-country, although I seen/heard a few bands that are a lot more freaky than these! Re-creating their live performances, this is, instrumentally, a rather spare work which means that when the electronic guitar is used, you really feel the benefit. It's a mixture of light psychedelia, intelligent pop, and dirty bluegrass. Long's vocals sometimes leave you wanting more but he really pulls it off in the album's closing track, God? with his nervous quivering and strident cries. Good stuff. The second CD from this clutch is an old classic, Alabama 3's Exile On Coldharbour Lane. Well, I say classic, but I'm not really into the acid-house dance scene, although live I enjoyed them immensely. Maybe that was because their music has seeped into my brain over a number of years (Exile was released in 1997), because I was singing along to Ain't Going to Goa, Woke Up This Morning, and Speed of the Sound of Loneliness (a cover of the John Prine classic). Singing along, so it must be good, even though I baulk at admitting it.

My next purchase was inspired by seeing the pocket-sized guitar wizard(ess), Chantel McGregor play For The Love Of God by Steve Vai. Now I like virtuoso guitar playing but have no albums of this guy, so I bought his 1990 album, Passion And Warfare. Basically this album is fourteen guitar instrumental tracks with a bit of chat/lyric here and there. If you like fretwork onanism (and I do), then this album is an essential purchase. I could listen all day to this stuff, if only there were more tissues in this damn box!

Coming more up to date now, Only By The Night by the Kings of Leon plopped through my letter-box in the last few weeks. It's pretty much what we've come to expect from KoL, especially Crawl, Sex On Fire, and Use Somebody, but I was a bit disappointed. Basically they don't seem to have progressed from their earlier work, this is just Because of the Times volume 2. Not a bad thing, but not a great thing either.

And finally, hot off the CD pressing machine comes, Oasis' Dig Out Your Soul. I've heard some withering comments about Oasis recently, and I know that they tread a fine line between pub rock and Beatles pastiche/homage, crikey, John Lennon himself appears on I'm Outta Time. However, it ain't 'alf bad, in fact it's pretty damn good. OK I could witter on endlessly about Oasis finally reaching the Beatles true psychedelic-era sound, but they do it so well that it sells itself. I don't care if it sounds like they recorded it in a haze of hashish and opium, I like it. There's a bit of George Harrison-like guitar work on I'm Outta Time, Dear Prudence at the end of The Turning, but also a bit of The Who in the mix, and even Pink Floyd on the opener, Bag It Up. So stick yer hands in yer pockets and yer fingers in the air for the return of the champs. Buy it.

Oh my god what have I done. It’s silent without you

Thursday 19 June – What’s on my CD Player, player, player...

I’m drowning in new music at the moment, 2008 is proving to be a rich vein of musical talent and that is no bad thing at all. My latest two purchases share the distinction of being very well crafted packages from established bands that showcases the amount of love and commitment that each band has made to their creations. These are not just products, they are, the M&S of products. Enough of the waffle already…

Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid

First up is Elbow’s new album, their fourth to date, The Seldom Seen Kid. The great thing about Elbow is that you know that on the first listen, all the tracks will sound the same. It’s only as you play the album over and over, that the swarms of unrelated sounds gradually coalesce into recognizable melodies, vocals, etc. The lyrics are personal, meaningful and compact. Phrases are only repeated to build tension and release, and there isn’t much that you could actually call a chorus or a verse. This is more like poetry set to a sonic background. The package itself has a wonderful booklet containing the lyrics alongside artwork by rail enthusiast Oliver East. For the first time the band have done everything themselves, recording, mixing and producing. The album is mastered using a dynamic system that makes it sound too quiet, in fact you are advised to TurnMeUp to experience the fullness of the sound (I turn everything up to 11 anyway).

1. Starlings starts The Seldom Seen Kid with a clockwork, gentle wash of background noise, somewhat similar to Genesis’ Carpetcrawlers before being punctuated by, seemly random, bursts of short-lived orchestral chords. Great waves of sound surround Guy Garvey as he begins to sing “so yes I guess I’m asking you / to back a horse that’s good for glue / if nothing else”.

2. The Bones Of You is one of the emotional high-points of the album, with a soaring, infectious chorus “five years ago and three-thousand miles away”. We are borne along on waves of flamenco riffs. As the track fades, you can faintly make out the strains of Gershwin’s Summertime, and pedestrians can be heard walking passed the studio.

3. There are gorgeous touches of piano through Mirrorball that gradually transform into lush stringed sections.

4. If you’re after monstrous guitar riff and bass runs, check out the middle of Grounds for Divorce. Done with a kind of country-style, with plenty of big whoa, whoa, whoas, pedal steel guitars, and handclaps.

5. I found An Audience With The Pope slightly plodding but with an interesting, Chinese sounding intro.

6. If I had to pick perfection from perfection it would have to be Weather To Fly. Starting with high-pitched vocals over piano, it drifts into beautiful lyrics, touched with Sigur Ros styled horns, the melody looping round and around, with Peter Gabriel-esque vocals.

7. The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver (I kid you not) has drum-beats striding in huge boots all over it. In the middle is a quiet section before the whole thing builds up into a gigantic industrial rhythm.

8. Elbow are nothing if not different, but The Fix is different even for them. Co-written by and featuring on guitar and vocals the Sheffield troubadour Richard Hawley, this track tells the story of a horse race fix. The sordid tale is unfurled along a furtive bass line and some sneaky brushing on snare drums.

9. Some Riot comes in with a Pink Floyd-ian start over Craig Potter’s keyboards. There are no drums at all. Guy Garvey is almost reciting the lyrics. Ethereal.

10. A passionate celebration comes with One day Like This. Lots of strings. A soaring chorus. A choir sings “so throw those curtains wide”. This is a happy clappy anthem in the style of Sgt Pepper. “Holy cow I love your eyes.”

11. The final track proper is Friend Of Ours, written, I suspect, in memory of “Bryan” who died two years ago and to whom the entire album is dedicated. Starting with acoustic guitar, the track gradually eases in a plaintiff piano and the lightest of brushing on the snares. Guy’s vocals are gentle, cracking with emotion. Later we get the string and brass and even electric guitar, but this is terribly subdued stuff. Heart-rending music.

12. And finally, the bonus track, We’re Away. A crooner’s song, I can imagine Guy on stage, in a suit, singing into a bulbous microphone like some high pitched Frank Sinatra.

Very highly recommended.

Feeder – Silent cry

Offering number two is Feeder’s sixth studio album, Silent Cry, gorgeously presented in a stylish black slip box with gold lettering, and artwork by award winning designer / typographer Nils Leonard. Coming two years after a “Best of” and three years after the last original material, fans have waiting a long time for this. I for one was not disappointed. The current line up has been together for six out of the band’s sixteen year life-time, and they have honed their own distinctive sound as well as pushing out fresh ideas on this album. Like Guy (of Elbow) Grant Nicholas has also kicked the big name producers into touch and taken over most of the recording for himself. Now, I’m not sure if it’s just me but on some of these tracks Grant’s vocals have a vibrato that puts me in mind of Martin Rossiter (singer with Gene back in the ‘90s), now that is one beautiful voice. If you’re a Feeder fan, you know what they sound like so here are just the icings on the cake. If you’re not a fan, shame on you, buy this album at once!

1. The album kicks off with their single, We Are The People, standard Feeder-fare in the style of Comfort In Sound, except a good bit heavier, as indeed the whole album is.

2. Itsumo kicks bottom with some serious Placebo inspired guitar and drumming work.

3. Miss You would, in the hands of any other band, be a hardcore wall of noise, but Feeder give it the clarity of a rock anthem with a catchy hectic riff,

4. Tracing Lines starts life as a Strokes’ track before unveiling an Oasis-like chorus, some serious indie-rock playing and a tidy guitar solo.

5. The title track, Silent Cry, was the first track on which I noticed the “Rossiter effect”. The song itself starts dark and emotive and develops into a rampant rock-beast by the second chorus.

6. Fires, I love this track. I can just imagine the crowd, lighters aloft singing along to the hypnotic, lines "she lights the fire, she lights the fire."

7. Heads Held High, starts like an acoustic Foo Fighters track, then explodes into glorious anthemic choruses.

8. A fuzzy ‘kazoo’ sound (keyboards I guess) kicks off 8:18, which alternates wildly: Quiet – Loud – Quiet – Loud - Middle 8 – Quiet – Loud.

9. On Who’s The Enemy I can hear that Rossiter vibrato again in Grant’s vocals. There is a fantastic, pompous Muse-like guitar/string section in the middle, "Running away, losing our way, we're fighting with ourselves but who's the enemy?"

10. Space, is just a little musical interlude before…

11. Into The Blue, takes us off to stylish, sexy, garage rock.

12. Guided By A Voice, features lots of ooh, ooh, oohs over white noise.

13. Sonorous, has that Muse thing going again, sort of Black Holes And Revelations. The sound is a bit Richard Ashcroft and a bit Rossiter. This track is another of the album highlights.

14. Yeah Yeah, the first bonus track, pretty standard Feeder stuff

15. Every Minute, This reminds me of a Kings Of Leon track, but I can’t quite put my finger on which one.