- Gorillaz, 'Cracker Island'
Who are they?
The group that Damon Albarn put together when he became saturated with Blur and that is still going strong 25 years later.
Is
Cracker Island so good?
The most talked about song on the album will be
Tormenta,
because Albarn joins forces with Bad Bunny.
A musician with an intact music reputation falls in love with the prince of reggaeton.
The song fits into an album that bets on danceable, sunny pop, hip hop for non-hip hop fans... and everything always with quality first.
In addition to Bunny, Stevie Nicks (blessed be), Thundercat (great song:
Cracker Island),
Tame Impala or Beck participate.
Damon seems to make it easy, even though it's really hard.
- Nathan Johnston & The Angels of Libra, 'Nathan Johnston & The Angels of Libra'
Who are they?
Can ten guys from Hamburg beat silky 60s soul?
From what I have heard here, the answer is yes.
They are called The Angels of Libra.
Can an Irishman sing like Curtis Mayfiled?
Not so good, but he gets closer.
We are talking about Nathan Johnston.
Both have come together for this fantastic album.
Is
Nathan Johnston & The Angels of Libra that good?
This album is a piece of discovery, with some songs that take you directly to the
blaxploitation sound,
the soul of Isaac Hayes, to black and muscular policemen, to black mobsters and even more muscular.
There's also stuff from Stevie Wonder or even Santana.
Torrid music that refers to the seventies.
And all executed by some Germans and an Irishman.
Marvelous.
- Tito Ramirez, 'The Prince'
Who is it?
A man from Granada who has played music in a thousand joints to basically enjoy himself.
He has had several projects and this one by Tito Ramírez is the most solid.
Is
The Prince that good?
Impossible to listen to this album outside of a dance floor, which can be the living room at home.
Soul, influences from Spanish sixties groups (Los Brincos, Los Bravos, Los Canarios), boogaloo, some psychedelia... Indecent lyrics and a lot of bodily agitation propelled by a thick soundtrack with a horn section.
A 48 minute party.
- The Mother Hips, 'When We Disappear'
Who are they?
A veteran band from California.
Born in the nineties, they have a dozen records.
Is
When We Disappear so good?
You'll never find The Mother Hips' music on one of those Spotify playlists that invades you when you open the app.
So here we are to discover this marvelous group that creates beautiful Beach Boys-esque melodies, hits Neil Young-style seventies country-rock perfectly, and slips into the dense psychedelia of the Grateful Dead.
And with all this they make a sensational album.
-Kali Uchis, 'Red Moon In Venus'
Who is it?
A stupendous singer born 28 years ago in Virginia (United States) and from a Colombian family.
This last important fact because she uses Spanish in some songs.
This is her third long album.
Is
Red Moon In Venus so good?
Attention those who enjoyed Sade's silky songs in the eighties: Kali Uchis will remind you a lot, since she endows her songs with a luminous peace very similar to that spent by the author of Smooth
Operator
.
Red Moon In Venus
is a delight, with good songs swaying between sultry soul and sweetly intense hip hop.
- Black Star Riders, 'Wrong Side Of Paradise'
Who are they?
Curious history of this band.
It was made up of members of the late Thin Lizzy line-up (which has continued to tour despite the death of its leader, the colossus Phil Lynott, in 1986) and is now more popular than the post-Lynott Lizzys themselves.
Is Wrong Side Of Paradise
that good ?
What music would Lynott have made if he hadn't died at 36?
Nobody knows, but it is very possible that he felt good listening to the Black Star Riders, who retain the drama and rock force of the most classic Lizzy.
Commanded by Ricky Warwick, who here adopts the philosophy of the Irish warrior, Black Star Riders complete a furious album that goes against those who keep saying that rock is dead.
Well no.
- Willie Nelson, 'I Don't Know a Thing About Love: Songs of Harlan Howard'
Who is it?
Willie Nelson will be 90 years old on April 29.
Monumental representative of country and outlaw of music and life.
Is
I Don't Know a Thing About Love: Songs of Harlan Howard so good?
With nine decades behind him and always smoking, it is surprising to see that Nelson's voice continues to sound as if he were thirty-something.
Clean and tragic at the same time, his voice reviews ten compositions by Harlan Howard (one of the great writers in country history) and gives them authenticity and personality.
Love songs, that on this subject a Nelson knows a few things that still has pages to write.
- Miley Cyrus, 'Endless Summer Vacation'
Who is it?
That preteen who played Hannah Montana has turned 30 as one of the most valid adult pop stars.
Is
Endless Summer Vacation so good?
If in the past Cyrus wanted to show how much of a rocker she was, sometimes resembling Joan Jett and other times covering Metallica, now she just pretends to be her.
This is a commercial pop record that doesn't seem commercial thanks to some songs that are clean of artifice and sung with profound honesty.
What a booming voice that of Cyrus, capable of passing in the same piece from softness to cockiness.
- The Baboon Show, 'God Bless You All'
Who are they?
A Swedish band that was formed in 2003, plays wild rock and roll and has in Cecilia Boström a voice that Bon Scott would love.
Is
God Bless You All
so good ?
Fed up with
autotune,
fed up with being told that rock is dead?
This is your album, a fantastic rock and roll album reminiscent of Rose Tattoo or their compatriots Diamond Dogs.
How could it be otherwise, The Baboon Show is even more enjoyable live.
Do not miss them if they pass through your city.
-Van Morrison, 'Moving on Skiffle'
Who is it?
Someone to whom we forgive everything, from his rebounds at his concerts without coming to the point to his latest denialist drifts with the covid.
Is
Moving on Skiffle so good?
Skiffle
was born in the 1920s in the United States
.
Music that mixed styles performed with rudimentary instruments (almost nothing electrified: it was even worth the washboard) for a population that could not afford other equipment.
With the same philosophy of austerity, he arrived in London or Belfast after the war, around the 50s. Van Morrison was a kid when he listened to him in his house.
It was the forerunner of British rock: the Beatles began
skiffle
with their previous group, The Quarrymen.
On this album Morrison, always vindicating those who started it all, offers up to 23 interpretations (one hour and 34 minutes) of
skiffle classics,
although not as bare as the originals.
The voice does not falter and continues to provide us with pleasures that few achieve.
In addition, the repertoire is playful and invites you to dance.
Morrison's love for music is non-negotiable, and it rubs off on him.
- Yves Tumor, 'Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume;
(Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)'
Who is it?
An American musician who specializes in twisting genres in his quest to break ground and become the new David Bowie.
This is his fifth album.
Is Praise a Lord
so good …?
Yves Tumor has recorded his most accessible album, a work that applies rock bases, with textures of black music and pop arguments.
A Yves Tumor for all audiences without giving up an
artistic fondness,
a record that will possibly win him fans without losing any credibility.
Yes, it is possible to achieve this.
-Eyelids, 'A Colossal Waste Of Light'
Who are they?
A band of college-age-looking, middle-aged dudes who have played in bands like the Decemberists, Guided by Voices, or Camper Van Beethoven.
Not bad.
Well, here goes another one: produced by Peter Buck, REM guitarist
Is A Colossal Waste Of Light
that good ?
To be easy, we will say that you will like these Eyelids if you have Teenage Fanclub, REM or the Posies on your favorite list.
Songs of Byrds-style guitars and voices on a record to be savored calmly.
- José Ignacio Lapido, 'At first blood'
Who is it?
José Ignacio Lapido from Granada has been making music for four decades now, from the group 091 to a solo career that includes eight albums with this
A primera sangre
.
Always in a self-managed career, out of focus, without fanfare and without betraying his commitment to rock.
Is
First Blood so good?
How good it feels to hear a rock album in Spanish that sounds good, with intelligent lyrics and executed with passion.
That's
First Blood,
an outstanding rock singer-songwriter album, with forays into soul or country.
And with reflections of a veteran observer who has already lived a lot and concludes that almost nothing is important: "Maybe life consists only in waiting, before the end of the day everything will be known" (Before the end of
the day).
- Depeche Mode, 'Memento Mori'
Who are they?
Depeche Mode bassist and keyboardist Andrew Fletcher passed away in May 2022.
Few doubted that the remaining two, Martin Gore and Dave Gahan, would go on, especially as they are the main songwriter and singer and concert powerhouse.
But the news is that the duo has scored a fantastic album.
Is
Memento Mori so good?
How easy Depeche Mode makes it, although it is very complicated.
My Cosmos Is Mine,
with saturated bass sounds, opens the album and offers the general tone, disturbing, dramatic and beautiful, a reflection on the passage of time and death, with Fletcher in memory.
They are songs with simple instrumentation, a lesson for current productions, where many put their hand in without justification.
With Gahan's ghostly voice taking us to territories where the dark is wrapped in silk.
-Slaid Cleaves, 'Together Through The Dark'
Who is it?
A veteran American singer-songwriter who has always moved between small audiences.
Is Together Through The Dark
that good
?
Cleaves is a brilliant storyteller, capable of looking at (and feeling) the journey of life as a place where you never stop fighting against ghosts that are almost always self-imposed.
His stories are dressed in country, folk and some rock and roll.
His way of telling is fundamental.