Album of the week
TAYLOR SWIFT
Fearless (Taylor’s Version)
Republic
Riding high on her latest reinvention, as an alt-folk artist, Taylor Swift has taken the biggest gamble of her career. Two years ago, livid that investors were able to buy the recording rights to her back catalogue against her wishes, Swift swore to re-record her first six albums. Those who doubted she’d do it — too long looking back suggests you’ve run out of ideas; financially it’s usually a fool’s game — underestimated her ire.
Hence, 2008’s Fearless — the country album that propelled Swift to global fame at the age of 18 — arrives as her first classic remade note for note, often with the original musicians. Only those who know the album intimately will notice much difference — nuances in the vocals, the production perhaps a tad more polished. The real treats are the extra tracks, previously unreleased outtakes from the Fearless sessions. Maren Morris duets on the gorgeous You All Over Me, Keith Urban crops up and Mr Perfectly Fine is the banger that should have shown 13 years ago why country alone could never contain Swift’s talent. Lisa Verrico
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LONDON GRAMMAR
Californian Soil
Ministry of Sound
The trio return, their washes of electronica balanced as ever between brilliant and borderline bland. When London Grammar get this balance right (the parched title track, the nostalgic Lose Your Head, the pin-drop All My Love, the spiky, enraged Lord It’s a Feeling, the heartbreaking Missing), they fly: with Hannah Reid’s crystalline vocals to the fore, those songs’ unlikely staging posts of Laurel Canyon folk-pop, Bay Area blues-rock and Balearic blissfulness cohere into something bewitching and beautiful. Dan Cairns
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BRISTON MARONEY
Sunflower
Canvasback/Parlophone
The Nashville-based Briston Maroney is here with a storming set of Raconteurs-ish songs. The opening three — Sinkin’, Bottle Rocket and It’s Still Cool If You Don’t — are as strong a start to an album as you’ll hear this year. “Some things are out of your hands”, he sings; but with John Congleton (St Vincent, Angel Olsen) producing, and co-writing from Dan Wilson (Semisonic, Adele), Maroney’s career seems well under control. Mark Edwards
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FRANCES
Wonder
Cookie
She has yet to replicate the success she has found writing for others (Dua Lipa and Katy Perry among them), but Frances deserves to. On her second album, her plaintive, piano-led balladry hits home again and again. OK, none of it is going to frighten the horses but that’s fine — there is room in pop for both rooted-in-tradition songcraft and fearless innovation. On songs such as the euphoric Ocean in Gold and the startlingly candid Grief, Frances selects her target, and finds her mark. DC
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ED COSENS
Fortunes Favour
Distiller
No one was waiting for an album by the bassist from Reverend and the Makers, which makes its arrival doubly sweet. Like his Sheffield peer Richard Hawley, who emerged from Pulp, Cosens douses his debut’s reflective lyrics in languid guitars and swooning strings. The Last Shadow Puppets also spring to mind, but tales of the sacrifices made to be in a band, not least standing behind an oxygen-thieving singer, are Cosens’s own. LV
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FLYTE
This Is Really Going to Hurt
Island
Break-up albums — have we had enough of them? Not if they’re this good. On the second album from Flyte, the band focus on a simpler sound that combines the melodic sense of Crowded House, the vulnerability of Sufjan Stevens and the musical sensibility of mid-1960s California. Trying to Break Your Heart is a homage to Crimson and Clover; There’s a Woman channels Neil Young. Best, though, is Losing You, which, as the co-producer Andrew Sarlo notes, feels as if it “never left the lonely bedroom”. ME
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IMELDA MAY
11 Past the Hour
Decca
Last year the charismatic Irish singer sprang a surprise with an EP of original poetry that combined inventive wordplay with genuine theatricality. There’s not a hint of the unexpected, alas, in this thoroughly pedestrian set of rockers, on which guitarist Ronnie Wood lends a hand. May’s voice smoulders and crackles, yet the songs and arrangements prove weirdly anonymous. One for hardcore followers only. Clive Davis
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WHATITDO ARCHIVE GROUP
The Black Stone Affair
Record Kicks
April Fool’s Day arrives a little late. If the record label’s website is to be believed, this is the classic soundtrack of a long-lost Seventies exercise in western noir, which was never shown in public because the print was destroyed in a hotel fire the night before it was due to be shown at Cannes. In fact, the music is a genial pastiche of the likes of Ennio Morricone, recorded in Reno in the home studio of the bassist Alexander Korostinsky. It’s a fun concept and clearly a labour of love but if it’s spoofs of Morricone you’re after, those Aussie mischief-makers the Spaghetti Western Orchestra are hard to beat. CD
Must-have reissue
SHARON VAN ETTEN
Epic
Ba Da Bing
To mark its 10th birthday, the Brooklyn-based singer’s second album — her first widely released record — is being reissued with a mouthwatering bonus disc on which long-time fans of hers lay down their own interpretations of Epic’s songs. The original album is cause for celebration itself, its up-close intimacy and atmospherics still arresting and unsettling all these years later. Van Etten had been interning at Bad Da Bing; this was the moment she stepped out of the office and on to the label’s books, beginning a remarkable run of albums that shows no sign of slacking. Artists lining up to pay tribute on the second disc include Justin Vernon, Courtney Barnett, Idles, Fiona Apple, Lucinda Williams and Aaron Dessner. That’s some fanbase. DC
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Breaking act
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WALLICE
Who is she? A singer-songwriter from Los Angeles. Two previous singles of hers — Punching Bag and 23 — announced the arrival of an acute and waspish Gen Z voice, her Boy Pablo-like faux-naïf delivery and lo-fi surf-pop arrangements emphasising the sharpness of her lyrics. The former song excoriates an ex (while refusing to absolve herself of all blame); the latter finds her poking fun at notions of adulthood and maturity while mourning her “Ohio fake ID” and longing to fly the family nest. Clearly, there’s more where they came from: Wallice’s new song, Hey Michael, on which she takes down the gaslighting male narcissists that constantly cross her path, maintains her flawless track record. Watch this one.
When’s the music out? Now; soundcloud.com/wwallice. DC
Hottest tracks
Sorry: Things to Hold Onto
The Londoners return with a new EP, Twixtustwain, from which this eerie, clattering mantra is a standout.
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James Vincent McMorrow: Waiting
From the Irish singer-songwriter’s new album (due in July), Waiting is a heartbreaker, all fluting falsetto and plaintive acoustica.
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Years & Years: Starstruck
Olly Alexander’s first new music since his devastating performance in Channel 4’s It’s a Sin, this is a shimmering, synth-squelching reaffirmation of life and love, as frisky as it is faithful to the core principles of dance anthems.
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Sinead O’Brien: Kid Stuff
The Irish poet and singer’s latest is a propulsive, punky reminder of a singular and visceral talent. DC
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