Hip-hop music has long busied itself with glamorising excess: champagne, jewellery and fashion have been some of the most common motifs of the genre, but while Kanye West has always been one of the most ostentatious, on MBDTF he adds depth to these superficial desires by offering a glimpse of the motivations and insecurities that drive him to seek such grandeur.

West has rarely been out of the news in the past year; between the notorious incident with Taylor Swift and his lengthy stream-of-consciousness-style ramblings on Twitter, it’s clear that Kanye has done a lot of soul-searching – and the result is a deeply introverted album. We see him wryly embrace his arrogance on ‘Runaway’ when he sings: “Let’s have a toast for the jerk-offs/ and how they never take work off.” On the opener ‘Dark Fantasy’, he opines that “The plan was to drink until the pain over/ But what’s worse, the pain or the hangover?” On ‘Blame Game’, he ponders his self-destructive inability to stay in a relationship while heavily distorted versions of his own voice argue back and forth.

‘Monster’ is a standout track with a dark, discordant beat that has West acknowledge his negative reputation, accompanied ably by Jay-Z who unleashes an assault on the younger rappers who profit from his name without showing him the respect he demands. However, the real star of this track is newcomer Nicki Minaj who delivers a stunningly bizarre verse in a range of voices and accents that is sure to put her firmly on the map as a force in the industry.

On ‘POWER’, Kanye struggles with the conflict between the childlike innocence that frees his creativity and the responsibility forced upon him by the negative consequences of his recklessness: “My childlike creativity, purity, and honesty is honestly being crowded by these grown thoughts/ Reality is catching up with me, taking my inner child, I’m fighting for custody.”

‘All of the Lights’ is a soaring trumpet-driven climax with a massive line-up of musical talent including Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Elton John, Elly Jackson, and, regrettably, Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas.

‘Lost in the World’ sees Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon join Kanye to reprise his haunting vocal from ‘Blood Bank’ before it exits to a lengthy sample of Gil Scott-Heron’s spoken word piece “Comment #1”, which poses the question, “Who will survive in America?” The America conjured up by Kanye is one of wild limitless hedonism, yet one senses his dissatisfaction, both with the state of society and his own personal life.

Kanye’s production shines throughout, and comparing the final version of the album’s tracks to early leaks or versions put out as part of Kanye’s G.O.O.D. Friday series shows how much subtle tweaking has gone into every beat.  His efforts were not in vain. In MBTDF Kanye has crafted a record that is sure to be considered a modern classic. Like the artist himself, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” is complex, daring, over-ambitious, arrogant, yet insecure, but always completely fascinating.

You’ve gained half a stone in chocolate/turkey weight, the novelty has worn off that new gadget which was crammed into your stocking, and you’ve suddenly realised that your timetable now includes three 9a.m. starts and your day off on Friday is no more… That’s right: it’s January.

On the brighter side of things, the new releases in the music world will slowly start to creep out of the woodwork in the next few weeks (between now and March look out for REM and PJ Harvey, if nothing else!) and new bands will start to grace the music magazines, blogs and radio waves.

The BBC’s traditional curtain raiser to the year is their noted “Sound of…” poll, in which a group of “in the know” journalists put together a list of acts set to break in the next year. Sometimes they get it very right (50 Cent, Franz Ferdinand and Mika have all won) and sometimes they get it very wrong (the Datsuns, the Dead 60s, the Twang…)

Oddly enough, the Beeb are usually capable of comprising the list, but their winners are usually questionable. The Bravery fought off Bloc Party and the Kaiser Chiefs in 2005, only to enjoy a fraction of the sales of either. More recently, Little Boots topped the poll in 2009. Notable losers include Florence & the Machine and one Ms. Lady Gaga…

So, as is clear, winning is the not the ‘be all and end all’ of the “Sound of…” poll. This year’s list includes a handful of acts certain to break: The Vaccines (the rapturous energy and style of the Strokes and the Ramones reincarnate… again.), Warpaint (who have already enjoyed sizeable success with their debut release) and Anna Calvi (PJ Harvey, Nick Cave and Imelda May all rolled into one package).

They have hit the nail on the head with Clare Maguire, an act noted for intriguing covers that swamped YouTube last year and has already developed a huge following, while Mr. James Blake is a name that is familiar to some.

To those unfortunate to have missed out, he is a man who counts R. Kelly and the xx as influences in equal measure and has put together of the most subtle, sultry and soulful debut albums in years. It touches on the aforementioned xx, Volcano Choir and, in parts, Kanye’s more tender moments and is not to be missed. An early contender for “Best of 2011…”

On the pop side of things, the BBC has tipped Jessie J and the Princes of Leon (sorry, that should read: Mona. Nashville born, preacher father and stadium filling southern sounds…. Hmm…) to strut their stuff on the radio too.

Perhaps more interesting, however, is the acts who didn’t quite make the cut in the BBC’s eyes. Florrie is a drummer and singer-songwriter who has performed with Girls Aloud, the Pet Shop Boys, and many more in her short career to date. With a dedicated following already, she can be expected to make waves too. Tennis, Lia Ices, Cloud Nothings and Smith Westerns too have done the groundwork and should be set to make some noise this year.

Quite staggering is the omission of J. Cole, a German born, North Carolina raised hip-hop artist, notable for being Jay-Z’s first signing to Roc Nation. Jay-Z himself has tipped Cole to step up to the plate this year, largely due to his refreshing attitude for rapping about “real things”, rather than “worrying about “keepin’ it real” (Cole’s own words). His debut album is set for release in 2011 and should include the likes of ‘Simba’ and ‘Who Dat’. The most exciting new face in hip-hop since Kanye West? Maybe even since Jay-Z himself.

Closer to home, Ireland’s current boom is set to continue (musically, of course. Not financially. Sigh.) with the likes of Sean Kangataran, We Cut Corners and Deaf Joe all readying and releasing work, while we can keep our fingers crossed for Cork’s Toby Kaar and Ladydoll.

If nothing else, if you check out the list, at least you’ll have the satisfaction of saying “Who? Oh yeah, I heard them aaaages ago!” when they do hit big.

© Pinkerton (DGC Records)

It was never going to be easy for Weezer to follow their platinum-selling, self-titled debut but, upon its release in 1996, its successor Pinkerton was a resounding critical and commercial disaster.  Throwing out the catchy riffs and power pop of The Blue Album in favour of a darker, more introverted lyrical style, Pinkerton alienated Weezer’s fans and cast the band into the wilderness for the following five years. However, Pinkerton’s reputation began to grow over time as new listeners discovered its raw sound and by the end of the last century it had come to be seen as one of the greatest albums of the decade.

Primarily written by frontman Rivers Cuomo while he studied at Harvard, Pinkerton’s tracks paint a vivid portrait of the troubled mind of someone struggling to adjust to a normal life following the debaucheries of fame. Titles like Tired of Sex and Why Bother? offer an insight into his conflicted psyche, his frustration with casual sexual encounters and his desire for more meaningful romantic relationships. On The Good Life, we see him at his most self-loathing, resenting his physical limitations and yearning for a return to better times. El Scorcho elegantly encapsulates the motivation behind the entire album in the lines “How stupid is it // I can’t talk about it // I gotta sing about it // And make a record of my heart”. The plaintive honesty in its angst and anguish lends it a cathartic appeal that resonates as strongly today as it did 15 years ago. Weezer’s subsequent offerings may have disappointed but Pinkerton still feels fresh.

Alongside the original album, this re-issue includes 25 bonus tracks. Weezer completionists will be satisfied by the inclusion of the seven B-Sides from the original single releases. There are also 16 alternate versions of tracks from the album including excellent acoustic versions of The Good Life and El Scorcho, and a selection of slightly muffled live performances from the 1996 Reading Festival. Two new songs have been recovered for this edition, I Swear It’s True, which has previously only been heard in leaked demo tapes and Tragic Girl, a track that has lain forgotten since the original Pinkerton recording sessions.  The Pinkerton Deluxe Edition is a fitting tribute to an album that was criminally underrated for too long. If you have yet to experience Weezer at the height of their musical powers, do yourself a favour and pick this up

Thumpin’ head is a promising offering by a young lad from the North, Craig McConkey. McConkey is elusive: the only place I can find him online is MySpace, and his track “Thumpin’ Head” is an acoustic hangover. McConkey sings whilst playing guitar, but there is a cello in parts: pure decadence? This song is no cheesy rambling about a girl who’s got your heart – that, it is not.

“Thumpin’ Head” is a darker, more interesting social observation. It critiques the nightclub sub-culture of female college students, drunken luts basically. Not promiscuous enough to be a slut: but enough of a bowsy to be a lut. Now, I am not here to judge, and I am not talking about sobriety and chastity, but before you go acting like a hardy beoure, afraid of being a bore, and giving it socks on the dance floor, read some more!

It’s an interesting thing we do to ourselves, girls. Insecure, it might take you ages to wear as little as possible to be hot, when in fact you’re freezing. You’re not naturally mad, but you’ve done some mad things in your hazy amnesia: bad habits, men, spending, drink, drugs, your friend is off scoring, drank too much and is now falling around the place. The song contains spending and motivation problems, having fierce craic, by all accounts: “I mean it’s all good fun, no a clue what I’ve done”. “Thumpin’ Head” has drunken amnesia; alcohol-induced vomiting, brief sexual encounters; “Wake up without a story to tell // but most of them would say his daughter’s a slut.”

This song does offer something to add to the furniture of your mind, that soft porn dance videos do not. Thumpin’ Head is about the dark side of being lost in excess. If dance tunes and the like celebrate the utopia of partying, then “Thumpin’ Head” is the dystopian morning after the night before. Check it out; it might make you think when you’re heading out.

There’s nothing like a depression session to get you in the festive mood. Baa humbug. If you would prefer to drill large screws into your temples than listen to regurgitated, repeated Christmas tunes and poxy old number ones that will continue to plague us like Shakin’ Steven’s bad buzz of snow everywhere during a merry Christmas, may I suggest some alternatives? The Christmas songs I want to unabashedly promote are the delectable Lisa Hannigan’s version of “Silent Night” and Bell X1’s “Rocky Took a Lover”.

It actually vexes me that young teenage girls are more enthused by the likes of Jedward, than the less self-promotingformerbeau of Damien Rice. YouTube “Silent Night by Lisa Hannigan” – it is, quite simply, hauntingly beautiful. It was originally a ghost track on Damien’s album, O. I would love to hear this on the radio during the season of merriment. Lisa sings acapella, adding to the feeling of desolate isolation that resonates from such an angelic voice. This has surely got to be a more realistic and genuinely holistic, human experience than the anti-climatic, over-hyped disappointment that is (as Bart once wisely remarked), “Santa’s birthday”. No, it’s not a happy tune – but whoever said Christmas had to be represented by a singular dimension of human emotion when we should aspire to encompass the kaleidoscope of human experience?

The commercial world may have tarnished my other musical representation of Christmas. Another Irish song, this band also once collaborated creatively with Mr. Rice. Bell x1’s “Rocky Took a Lover”, is more than the jingle for Dublin Bus; it is a critique of the three wise men on their way to Bethlehem and the creationism versus evolution debate. The band are either very historically informed, or biblically critical, or possibly both. In the song, they refer to the ability of the three wise men to navigate the night sky, and who:

“came a long way/

following that pin hole in the sky”

on their way to Bethlehem. Historical artifact monuments like Newgrange indicate knowledge of the constellations and orbital movement above and around us; for the sake of this article, we shall assume the band are merely addressing rather than critiquing the idea of following a dot in the sky to meet some random baby in a hay barn. The song does however raise the existential question of karma, and the evolutionary genius of natural selection that has allowed karma to regulate our posterior “I don’t believe in any old Jesus, if there was a god then why is my arse the perfect height for kicking?”. Albeit, the band once admitted that this song was inspired mid-peep out their back kitchen window. They were watching a homeless man who was staying in their backyard, having a conversation with a lady, the morning after the night before, and their hypothesis of what the conversation would be about.

It’s the supposed season of goodwill, so can we please save a thought for the misfortunate begrudgers like myself who are driven demented by unimaginative manufactured crap resounding from every subwoofer? There are a lot more artistically significant, seasonally relevant tunes than the nonsense to which we are overexposed every winter. If too much merriment and snow leaves you feeling out in the cold, (sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun) bear a thought for poor oul Grandma. The only thing I want to hear people singing down the road in the middle of a winter’s night, mid-party season is “Grandma got run over by a reindeer, walking home from our house Christmas eve, you could say there’s no such thing as Santa, but as me and Grandpa we believe”… choon!

Westlife: I’m all for supporting the home team, but if I see Westlife demonstrate their ability to stand up from a chair one more time I will be tempted to kneecap one of them. Don’t get me wrong, they seem like nice guys and all but the climatic, ever predictable, key change format really grinds my gears (as Peter Griffin would say).

Willow Smith: I’m finding it hard to fathom that I can go into an over 21s club and hear a nine year old’s single playing.

JLS: They have some catchy songs but I cannot forgive their responsibility for turning straight men into V Neck wearing, ankle boot strutting poseurs… it borders on cross dressing. That teamed with dance routines worthy of a ‘Phones 4 U’ advert gain them a spot on my most annoying artists list.

The Wanted: The name is bad enough but their song “All Time Low” forced me to exercise a more advanced fitness regime that I would like, considering my sporadic and epic dives for the remote to change the channel when it came on.

David Guetta: Over the summer it was difficult to find any tune he hadn’t featured on! I was starting to think there was a David Guetta version of Where’s Wally? on my TV.

Tinnie Tempah: I like his songs but my God his ego could dwarf Kanye West’s.

N-Dubz: WHY?? They are just so awful! And please Dappy (whatever kind of Gangsta name that is), when a trend doesn’t work out for you (i.e. that god forsaken lopsided winter hat) just give up on it!

Jason DeRulo: Love the hits but why must you consistently remind us of your name at the start of every song? You’re doing pretty well now love, we know who you are, you can stop with the less than concealed attempt at subliminal messaging.

Scooter: Another consistent dropper of his own name! I suggest giving up music and looking for a part in a Dan Brown movie adaptation… Silas ain’t got sh*t on him!

Pixie Lott: Possibly the only person who has expressions that static without Botox. Her music is equally as invariable.

U2: A certain Bill Bailey sketch comes to mind… (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Go2DK9VtQ). Sure, you have to be proud such a massive band came from Ireland but I can’t help but think that South Park’s portrayal of Bono was quite accurate!

Rihanna: I’ve heard less monotone droning from mammoth, secondary school science teachers.

Shane Ward: Your abs say yes but everything else screams no! For example, being able to sing like you haven’t reached puberty is not an asset worthy of praise. Neither is contracting lyrics as grammatically incorrect as “I’m gonna saint your mother just for giving you birth”.

The Glee Cast: Guilty of producing a whole host of painful covers which all sound the same.

Travis McCoy: Destroyer of Supergrass! And King of irritating facial expressions for no apparent reason.

Thus concludes my rant on annoying artists. Here’s hoping none of these CD’s end up in your Xmas stockings! Merry Christmas!

“Christmas is going to the dogs…”

Or so said Eels.

Don’t think for a second that I don’t like Christmas – I love it. In December. Every year, though, it seems to get earlier and earlier. The decorations turn up in some shops in September and before Halloween is even out of the way, the music is blaring, the ads are cropping up on screen and it seems as though it never left.

The result of all of this, of course, is that we are more and more familiar with Christmas music. Some of the tracks still seem fresh; though I’m sure I’m not the only one that feels the need to put my foot through the radio every time Mariah Carey rears her head.

So perhaps Christmas itself may not be gone to the dogs, but Christmas music sure has.

The Christmas number one race became so formulaic with the usual X Factor song at number one. Luckily, the floodgates were opened last year with the successful Facebook campaign that resulted in Rage Against the Machine topping the UK chart and reaching number two in Ireland. This year, campaigns have been started to get Surfin’ Bird’s “The Bird is the Word” (brought back to pop culture by Family Guy) to number one, with an alternate option in Jon Cage’s ‘4”33’ (effectively four and a half minutes of silence and natural sounds)

Now, again, don’t get me wrong, I liked the change. But for some reason, yelling “F*ck you I won’t do what you tell me!” on Christmas Day didn’t seem quite right to me, while I’m not sure if the incessantly annoying “Bird is the Word” or the silence of Jon Cage’s effort have the charm of classic number ones.

The connotations of cringe inducing songs at Christmas number one isn’t necessarily true – “Bohemian Rhapsody” twice topped the number charts at Christmas, while the Beatles (on four separate occasions), the Human League and the Pet Shop Boys all made their mark before the Spice Girls, Cliff Richard, Westlife and Mr. Blobby destroyed the institution.

Killers ©Island

Scraping under the surface, it becomes clear that there are still some great Christmas songs being recorded. Eels, the Killers, My Morning Jacket, the Flaming Lips, Low and Pearl Jam have all crafted fantastic Christmas tracks, while the Darkness made a great effort a few years back with “Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)” – though someone may need to tell Justin Hawkins that constant references to male genitalia aren’t necessary for a Christmas classic!

It remains to be seen whether any modern Christmas tracks will come to retain the ‘classic’ status associated with the likes of Slade, Wizzard and the Pogues, though it is refreshing to see people trying. The Killers, for example, have released a Christmas track every year since they formed, and even took time out of their hiatus to continue the tradition this year, while a favourite of mine, Sufjan Stevens, released a four disc reworking of Christmas classics a few years back.

I can’t help but feel that come December 25^th we will all be listening to Matt Cardle’s version of David Bowie’s classic “Heroes” and it doesn’t feel right to me. In ten years time, will people remember the track?

Though in all fairness, maybe the majority have stopped trying because it’s tough to beat the classic. Chris Rea’s “Driving Home for Christmas” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Santa Clause is coming to Town” have such sentimentality that the rest just seem unnecessary…

Whatever your poison, whether it Bruce or Blobby, have a good one.

KEVIN CURRAN catches up with the latter half of the English hip hop duo, dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip about books, albums, beards and who in British politics would win in a fight.

2010 has been a busy year for DLS Vs SP with the release of their second album “The Logic of Chance” in March the duo played over 40 festival dates over the summer and have been constantly touring ever since and just finished their tour last week in Ireland with sell out dates in Cork, Galway and Dublin. From the start Pip admits that Ireland is left to last on the tour for a reason. “Electric Picnic was a highlight of festivals we played and we always look forward to playing here (Ireland). . . It’s not by accident that we are ending our tour in Ireland, we’re getting a great reaction here .There has always been a great reaction to our stuff here. Our Dublin show sold out so we added an extra date.” Not one to stay idle Pip also released a book of spoken word poetry at the same time as the album however he is aware where his priorities lie. “Last few months have probably been more about the band but we did have the book available at our shows. I did a few signings in book shops as well so it’s been all good really. Two or three of the poems in the book are incorporated into our set. There’s a few in there that we play live so it’s all merged together really it’s not a case of one or the other.”

For those unfamiliar with the band you may find it peculiar that a rapper is releasing a book of poetry however the band’s music has been likened to spoken word poetry set to hip hop, conversely it wasn’t all Yeats and Donne for Pip as a child. “I started off listening to punk, to bands like The Clash, Rancid, Crass and Minor Threat. Then I got into Hip Hop and progressed from there.” Although his music today is different he still sees a link “I think the attitude, the style and the subject that I write about comes from a punk background.”

It is this environment that makes Pip uneasy about being called a poet in the traditional sense. “I grew up loving music. I was into music long before I was into spoken word poetry. I always had the two in mind together so in my mind there is no need to separate them.” When I likened his themes to that of T.S. Eliot he again restated how he only fell in to poetry and never had grounding in it. “I have always been far more interested in music. It was through Hip Hop that I got into people like Gill Scott Heron, Sage Francis and Saul Williams who were combining spoken word and Hip Hop. It all just came together in that way for me. I haven’t had a great learning in poetry. That’s why I chose to do the book the way I did to get people like me who grew up away from poetry and trying to get them to read it by putting it in a more appealing way”.

With the identification of a punk underbelly in their band it is easy to see where the bands social commentary style comes from. The content of their songs are often personal introspection or statements about the decline of modern culture. Pip often puts raw emotion out there but he declares that it is a natural progression. “That’s the only way I know how to write really, talking about things that interest me is the only way I can write. I generally take something that is a genuine experience that happened to me and make a story out of it, I have to take those emotions, truth and feelings and make a new story out of them.” Despite the somewhat odd style of dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip the duo have enjoyed chart success in England with both of their albums and with singles such as “Thou Shalt Always Kill”. Scroobius Pip enjoys this paradoxical situation he finds himself in where songs he writes giving out about popular culture becoming popular. “For me the more people listening the better. If we are making music the way we want to make it and it goes to number 1 then that’s great. That means people are getting it and taking it in so that would be great! We wouldn’t change the way we write or the things we talk about to chase commercial success. If it happens organically then it happens.”

Not to end juxtapositions, this well spoken bard is an avid fan of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and often appears on Setanta Sport talking about it. The question was posed as to which famous figures he would like to see duke it out in the octagon however there were too many options for him so the remit was shortened it to British Political leaders “Well if Brown was still there it would be no contest, you’d have to have money on him…not very agile and sneaky but a lot of girth. I think Nick Clegg would be the obvious choice out of the current lot, he seems to be the most sprightly and conditioned. Millaband actually looks like he could bring some BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) to the table so he could have the advantage there. Cameron would probably take a wrench out from under the stage or get his butler to knock his opponent down with his Bentley and get disqualified.”

With unimportant matters out of the way it was time to talk serious issues: the beard! Questioned as to whether he could remember his face Pip was unsure “It is somewhere but I don’t think people would recognise me if I walked down the street. It is under there somewhere but at some point I will shave it off and be like ‘Wow there I am!’ but until then I will hide behind it.”

As we parted Pip was willing to share the specific techniques involved in maintaining a quality beard “I don’t stumble upon a beard like this by accident! I use a rub in conditioner every day…make it nice and soft and thicken it up a bit…there is a level  effort and technique that goes it into to this thing. It doesn’t prop up like this by itself! It takes a bit of coaxing.”

September marked the 32nd anniversary of the release of Tom Waits’ ground-breaking album Blue Valentine, and coincidentally, October heralded the arrival to Cyprus Avenue of a truly astounding Tom Waits tribute act.

Waits was initially signed on to Asylum Records in 1972, but it wasn’t until the release of Blue Valentine in 1978 that his distinct voice and musical talent truly began to come into their own. Opening with a markedly personalised version of “Somewhere” from the musical West Side Story, and descending slowly into the bizarre, seedy caricatures of people and places that have since become his hallmark.

In critiquing Waits’ legacy there is a tendency on the part of the reviewer to gloss over Blue Valentine. Critics have called it a transitional work, not on a par with later albums. All of us here at John David O’Connell Ltd. would strongly disagree with the later part of this contention. Transitional? Maybe. Not on par? Pffftt! It certainly displays an astounding talent, and stands on its own merits as a fine album, if just a little different.

It is in the spirit of his less refined material that the tribute group Blue Valentine brought their astounding ode to Tom Waits’ early years to Cyprus Avenue on the 25^th of October.

Capturing the musical mastery of the legend that is Tom Waits (one part of my personal Holy Trinity, the other two being Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen), and adding their own touch; this band is a real treat for the ears.

Musically, the band remains true to Waits’ style and does a fine job with his difficult vocal technique. I think long time fans will be pleasantly surprised with how the lead adjusts to such classics as “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis” and, of course, “Little Boy Blue”.

If you didn’t attend, shame on you. If I didn’t physically force you into the venue, shame on me.

Originally appeared in the November 2010 edition of Motley

In his latest effort, The Age of Adz, Stevens strives to combine his trademark elegiac orchestral pop

© Denny Renshaw

with layered electronica, much in the same vein as The Flaming Lips. Synths crackle and pop over the duration of the album, with mixed results. One of the characteristics that has defined Stevens’ music is that it is impeccably textured; his use of classical composition, underpinned by an innate pop sensibility, has resulted in a number of widescreen-pop classics (listen to ‘Illnois’, his breakthrough album). However, his efforts to experiment and expand his sound into the region of electronic music sometimes fall short on his most recent collection; the combustible electronic squelches of ‘Too Much’ are just that, and while the Radiohead-style warbling on ‘Now That I’m Older’ aims for majestic, it borders on being annoying instead. The syncopated drums and canonic chorus of ‘I Want to be Well’ does better, only to be let down by a strangely emo vocal by Stevens, along with a cringeworthy use of the word, ‘fuck’ (note to Stevens: cursing does not a rockstar make), making it sound like a poor man’s ‘2 + 2 = 5’ by Radiohead.

It is on songs such as ‘Vesuvius’ and ‘Get Real Get Right’ that Stevens delivers – when he focuses on simple melodies and makes proper use of his talent for choral and instrumental composition, he’s in top form; the scattershot snare drum crescendo of the latter is arresting, while the former’s repeated mantra and simplicity is immediately catchy. ‘I Walked’ is sheer celestial pop, and the opening of the title track is like what Wagner would have composed if he was a time travelling killer robot, Terminator-style. The problem with much of the album is that it is over-produced, and pushes too far into territory that Stevens is in inexperienced in. The electronic influence in this album is utilised in an attempt to add layers to the texture in a typically Sufjan Stevens way, yet it instead serves to distract from the melodies (‘Bad Communication’). ‘The Age of Adz’ lends itself to repeat listens, but ultimately lets itself down due to bad production and Stevens’ overreaching ambition.

Tunes to Download: ‘Vesuvius’, ‘Get Real Get Right’, ‘Futile Devices’.

Originally appeared in the November 2010 edition of Motley