Cold War Kids. Behave Yourself EP. Downtown Records.
4 stars (out of 5)
Californians Cold War Kids have plugged the gap between 2008 album Loyalty To Loyalty and an expected (soon, please) new studio effort with an excellent four-track EP.
To describe this as concise is a little obvious, yet there is a tightness of composition also, a focus of intention that should be applauded.
Here is a band that knows a groove but prefers to hold back the shuffle in favour of the occasional piano clang or a guitar dropped into a hole dripping with echo.
Meanwhile, singer Nathan Willett replaces dramatic flourishes with ragged soul (and soul searching).
In doing so, he steals the show.
Single download: Audience
For those who like: Radiohead, Grizzly Bear
- Shane Gilchrist
3 stars (out of 5)
This second album from New York quartet Vampire Weekend is busy, busy, busy.
A deluge of influences, from Afro-pop and reggaeton to baile funk and Bollywood, is so intense it threatens to drown the band's otherwise nifty indie-pop ditties in a flood of clever-clogs ideas.
Yet somehow these tunes manage to burrow their way into the subconscious and lay eggs, ensuring a life beyond first or second listening.
This is Paul Simon's Graceland with amphetamines, electronics, a sprinkling of baroque charm and a pinch of rock salt.
Single download: Cousins
For those who like: Grizzly Bear, Sparks, African rhythms
- Jeff Harford
4 stars (out of 5)
Seven is a number often considered to be lucky.
The seventh studio release from Welsh rockers The Stereophonics should be their ticket to the top of the charts - if only they had penned it a decade ago.
Keep Calm and Carry On is their strongest outing yet, but it's unlikely to expand the fan base in the current electro-indie-pop-folky-obsessed environment.
This time, both Kelly Jones' wrenched vocals and the music channelled though fuzzy amps are pared back a little.
The focus is firmly on a mix of keyboard-led cruisiness, muse-infused glam and addictive hooks.
Single download: Stuck in a Rut
For those who like: Ocean Colour Scene, Oasis, The Stones, Rod Stewart
- Mark Orton
3 stars (out of 5)
If there's a gripe about this disc it's that Cash is too reverential towards the material, a dozen tracks chosen from a list of 100 that dad Johnny considered the most essential entries in the country music songbook.
Smooth, mid-tempo readings are carried effortlessly by Cash's sweet, full voice, but where a touch of raunch might have lifted a track like Hank Snow's I'm Movin' On, Cash treads carefully, unwilling, it seems, to take full possession of a song that's not her own.
Her father wouldn't have been so restrained.
Single download: Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow
For those who like: Patsy Cline, Patty Loveless, Mary Chapin Carpenter
- Paul Mooney
4 stars (out of 5)
This compilation of collectors items isn't the first of its kind in recent years, but it's certainly one of the best.
The 22-track album opens with such beat and R&B gems as Max Merritt and the Meteors' Everybody and Chants R&B's I'm Your Witchdoctor before moving through the psychedelic pop of the Avengers' Love Hate Revenge and La De Das' Come And Fly With Me, taking in a host of treasures and curiosities along the way.
A sense of excitement and adventure is palpable, as much in the audacious production choices as in the raw skill of the players.
Single download: The Grooviest Girl In The World.
For those who like: Beat groups, rhythm and blues, psychedelic pop
- Jeff Harford
