Three albums, 02-09-2022

Three more album getting the smaller spotlight. One that is out for a few months now, others that would have fallen off the roster otherwise but deserve a space in our opinion. With two famous names behind a new name that we start off with.

A Light For Attracting Attention. The Smile

Out for a few months now, has me catching up on this important release in 2022. Having listened to the album once, did make me go to the record shop and buy it. Just like every other Radiohead release of the past three decades. Oops, you are right. This is not a Radiohead release. Having listened to the album multiple times now, I can't help but wonder why A Light For Attracting Attention is not the new Radiohead album. Nobody would have given it a second thought if it had been. True? Yes, true.

Whether this bodes well for the band or not, I have no way of telling. Fact is Greenwood - Yorke must have wanted to work with drummer Tom Skinner very badly, to ignore their other three band mates. Perhaps the long drum intro would not have been there in 'The Opposite' e.g. and the song part starting sooner. For the rest A Light For Attracting Attention fits the Radiohead mould in my opinion. In other words, it's an album that makes the standard set by the band for experimental, alternative rock music. On the one hand, I'm always a bit flustered listening to it, while on the other, I nearly always, sorry 'Kid A', recognise the beauty and the quality of the work. It makes for a love-hate relationship with the band, that usually falls to the love side. The same is true for A Light For Attracting Attention. There are extremely difficult pieces of music on the album, that somehow come together and melt into songs. The duo Greenwood - Yorke is even moving to great heights, so perhaps that was the role of Skinner, who pushed them to the limit with his propulsive drumming. A perfect mix of dreaming and power is aimed for and often reached. A Light For Attracting Attention may prove to be a more important album than an in between "solo/duo" album after all. It should have been a Radiohead album though.

Lucky Me. Phoebe Green

Can an album be too modern in sound for me? Yes, easily of course. The new pop stars sound too slick for me most of the time, while a new artist like Beabadoobee plays around with themes like these and explores every side and by road possible turning her music into alternative powerhouses, while seldom leaving the pop feel too far by the wayside. Enter Phoebe Green with her album Lucky Me. She aims for sort of the same feel but does she succeed?

You may have noticed her in the weekly single section before the summer holidays. Recently she released her debut album 'Lucky Me'. On it she plays with pop, a little Fleetwood Mac of the 'Tango In The Night' era, some alternative edges. Playing with the autotune software, is the first thing I notice in the opening song, 'Break Your Heart' and leaves me wondering why. She has a good singing voice and the melody, a bare sort of 'Everywhere' is fine as it is. Listening further into the album, I hear that Lucky Me is lovingly made, with people who obviously wanted her to succeed. Faced with a writer's block, literally blocking her progress and career, she brought in others to work with her, which led to a new sound and other songs then she worked on in her teens. The result is a synth laden album, with almost no guitars but rhythms inspired by hip hop. On the other hand, 'Crying In The Club' sounds like a Wet Leg song on synths. It can be that simple.

Taking it all in Lucky Me is an album that is not for me, despite the fact that I can listen to it and half of the time enjoy it some. So, yes, an album can be too pop for me.

1080. The Anaesthetics

In May I wrote on the single 'TV Personality': "I have the feeling of having been put into a time machine with the dial plus/minus on 1980. The dark electronic wave music coming out of my speakers hold everything from Tubeway Army to China Crisis. Like many song from the day, the sounds all come from synths, the melody, the bass pulses, the drums." These words are more or less enough to describe the album, that was not released in May, as I wrote at the time but in late August.

The Anaesthetics from Horst aan de Maas, has a love for music from decades ago. Most likely by way of a band like White Lies and perhaps even Editors. This makes the band not having a face of its own, which is okay when starting out in a career. The way it lets in a pop element in 'Space Between Your Lines', shows The Anaesthetics dares to look beyond darkness, without saying goodbye to that nice Tubeway Army synth sound. The band describes its music as "modern new wave", but in my ears only because it is released in 2022. I stand by my comparison with China Crisis for example. What if that band had released 1080 as its comeback album in 2022? It goes to show that The Anaesthetics did a fine job writing and working on its debut album.

The physical release, cd and lp, is on 16 September.

Wout de Natris

You can listen to and order the albums here:

https://thesmile.bandcamp.com/album/a-light-for-attracting-attention

https://phoebegreenmusic.bandcamp.com/album/lucky-me

https://www.gentlemenrecordings.com/product/the-anaesthetics-1080-digital-cd-vinyl/