BARRY ADAMSON
Cut To Black
BARRY ADAMSON INCORPORATED
7/10
Soundtrack king returns in a Cave-ian style
Adamson’s first LP in seven years comes after he briefly rejoined the Bad Seeds for a US tour, and the influence of Nick Cave’s poetic mastery looms strongly over this song cycle. It’s particularly evident on the big-swinging “Amen White Jesus”, the epic 6/8 ballad “Please Don’t Call On Me” (narrated by Satan) and the stomping neo-Motown of “The Last Words Of Sam Cooke”, which recounts Cooke’s 1964 murder (and may be the only pop song to contain the word “licentious”). But it’s the subtle sonic references to Adamson’s fellow film-score kings like Morricone, John Barry and Lalo Schifrin that help to transform these mini movies. JOHN LEWIS
OREN AMBARCHI/JOHAN BERTHLING/ANDREAS WERLIN
Ghosted II
DRAG CITY
8/10
Lovely sub rosa patterns by jazz-not-jazz trio
On their second outing, these three peripatetic musicians pick up more or less where they left off on their 2022 debut. This is no bad thing – that album’s hush and patience made for luxurious listening. And while Ghosted II’s opener, “En”, may run at a more feverish clip than you’d initially expect, the album reaches graceful pause, near-stasis, soon after, on “Tva”. This is where Ambarchi, Berthling and Werlin excel – patiently looped patterns develop at the micro level, while textural details, like the burr of an organ, slide and slur across the surface of the music, painting an oil slick. JON DALE
BESS ATWELL
Light Sleeper
REAL KIND
7/10
Brighton-based artist’s third lets it all hang out
There are plenty of artists who play off sweet, easy-on-the-ear melodies against deeply personal and/or troubled lyrics – not all of them successfully. Atwell has proven her skills on two LPs with vaguely country-folk roots but her latest hits harder, though in a slightly different way. Producer Aaron Dessner’s quick working pace and embrace of imperfection have helped deliver a rawer set of songs written when Atwell was weaning herself off antidepressants and feared feeling’s return. Her expression recalls Julien Baker, Lucy Rose and perhaps Laura Marling, but tracks including the lustrous, piano-assisted “The Weeping” and lilting, softly grazed “Spinning Sun” bear only her own signature. SHARON O’CONNELL
AVETT BROTHERS
Avett Brothers
RAMSEUR/THIRTY TIGERS
8/10
Rick Rubin-helmed first studio outing in five years from Americana siblings
The Avetts have hardly been idle since 2019’s Closer Together, with a Broadway musical based on their songs, a solo album from Seth and exhibitions of Scott’s paintings. Here, though, they’re back in the studio together, finding profundity in the commonplace, from a cheap cup of coffee to watching an infant’s first steps, on nine songs which range from the acoustic balladry of “Never Apart”, with its banjo and folk harmonies, to the scorching cowpunk of “Love Of A Girl”, via the classic country-rock of “Country Kid” and the plaintive melancholia of “2020 Regret”. NIGEL WILLIAMSON
EMILY BARKER
Fragile As Humans
EVERYONE SANG/KARTEL
7/10
Up close and personal with former Red Clay Halo singer
Uncut called Barker’s 2020 album A Dark Murmuration an “Australian equivalent of PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake”. If that record explored grand themes, the follow-up is a more intimate record, the tone of its spare beauty set by the oscillating piano and distant drums of “Feathered Thing”, inspired by personal grief and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope”. Themes of pain and loss, and finding the strength to move beyond them, also inhabit songs such as “The Quiet Ways” and the starkly plaintive “Loneliness”, all sung in Barker’s arresting voice, which somehow manages to be both gentle and keening at the same time. NIGEL WILLIAMSON
BAT FOR LASHES
The Dream Of Delphi
MERCURY KX
7/10
Maternal concerns prove a rich seam of inspiration
On a conceptually charged sixth album as Bat For Lashes, Natasha Khan is in full-blown earth-mother mode as she explores her feelings since giving birth to her daughter, whose name gives the
