Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino: Nice, yet a slightly underwhelming stay.

“Right then lads, I’ve got a cracking concept for a new album. It’s literally all me with dry, self-aware witty lyrics and some piano in the background. It’s basically a solo album but if we act like we were all involved we can make a few million bob off it each. So, what do you say then, Lads? ….Lads?” This is how I imagine Alex Turners proposal for Tranquillity base hotel & casino went something like. Even the album title stinks like the work of a self-professed musical genius.

5 years after the release of their all-conquering fifth album, “AM” Arctic Monkeys are back. Well, sort of. Their new album, “Tranquility base hotel &casino” may be credited as an Arctic Monkeys album but do not be fooled, this is the Alex Turner show. Everything is focused around his voice and attempted tongue-in-cheek witty lyrics. At no point does this feel like you’re listening to an Arctic Monkey’s album. Now I’m all for bands evolving and changing their sound, trying something new and fresh. But this isn’t that. It would in no way sound out of place as part of The Last Shadow puppets discography. In fact, Tranquillity base Hotel and & Casino could well be 11 songs written by Turner during the recording of Everything you’ve come to expect that didn’t make the final cut.

By no means is this a bad album, it’s just not ground breaking and it’s certainly not an Arctic Monkeys album. Had it been released as a solo album or as a Shadow Puppets one I would feel very differently about it. But as we know ladies and gentlemen, context is absolutely everything. Anyone who disagrees clearly hasn’t tried telling a joke at a funeral.

Alex Turner’s attempt of tongue in cheek, dry humoured lyrics doesn’t have its desired effect and at times are so self-aware/tongue in cheek they end up being horrifically cringe inducing. Take the opening lines from 'One point perspective.' “Dancing in my underpants,

I'm gonna run for government, I'm gonna start a cover band an’ all”. They lack the finesse and wit for it to really hit home, especially in contrast to the slickness that we've been accustomed to over the past 12 years. This coupled with Turners weak voice coupled with his LA/Sheffield bastard child of an accent throughout means it just comes across as sleazy. Obviously, it would be unrealistic to hope for a Whatever people say I am… part 2 when Alex Turner is 31 and he isn’t writing songs which encapsulated youth in the manner that fake tales from San Francisco and the ilk did; but this is such a nothing record it has no oomph, nothing memorable and very little groove. To me, its elevator music, bloody good elevator music but elevator music nonetheless.

There are some good tracks, “four out of five” comes together nicely and has a strong finish and “she looks like fun” has a dark, heavy garage-like riff driving it home as its backbone and it’s possibly the best Turner’s voice sounds on the album. In fairness there aren’t any really awful tracks but very few natural stand outs either, everything sounds ‘okay’ but not much else. I can’t help but feeling that everything this record, everything Alex Turner is striving to do has already been done 10 times better by Father John Misty and he’s never going to come close.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard at Brixton Academy 21/2/18

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard at Brixton Academy 21/2/18

Jay Jay Okocha was so good he was named twice, well King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are so good they play twice… on the same night… at the same show… yet are still able to leave you wanting more. Such is the power of the Australian septet who on Wednesday evening played a mammoth show at London’s Brixton academy on the back of a batshit 2017 which saw the outfit release 5 albums.

The first set exploded into life with ‘Rattlesnake’ sending the crowd into a chaotic fury, the sort of chaotic fury you’d expect from landing at Tilted Towers in Fortnite. All hell broke loose. From then on out it was clear to all present that tonight would not let out. The first half which followed was a purely microtonal set, with the core made up from their first album of 2017 ‘Flying Microtonal Banana’ and the rest being garnished from Gumboot soup and Sketches. But the most highlight of this set was the closer ‘Doom City’, well more specifically the outro. A seamless transition into the final 2 minutes of ‘Crumbling Castle’ sent this well constructed microtonal set into a furious finish fitting considering how proceedings were kicked off.

After a short interval, a second set ensued made up heavily of Polygondwanaland, Nonagon Infinity and Murder of the Universe which saw a somehow even more lively set than its predecessor. Cellophane went down as you’d expect, as did a Nonagon combo breaker of ‘Robot Stop’, ‘Big Fig Wasp’ and ‘Gamma knife’ which had the tenacity to strip the walls of Brixton academy. But it was the trio of tracks from Polygondwanaland which came across the best, the free to download album was showcased through its self-titled track, crumbling castle and the fourth colour.

Everything was executed to perfection, in particular the microtonal set but it felt as if there was something missing. Too many microtones? Perhaps. Two sets laid the foundations for something a bit different, a chance to play some material which seldom gets a live outing, it was crying out for a head on/Pill or a Hot Wax type figure. Or even perhaps some more from Polygondwanaland or Gumboot Soup. The longing for more sums up just how prolific the band were in 2017 if after two sets you can go away disappointed they didn’t play XYZ, but with 13 albums in 5 years this was always going to be the case.

Selling out Brixton, their biggest headline show to date, with ease and already armed with a formidable back catalogue; King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have shown once again they’re one of the best live outfits around currently. It almost doesn’t matter what they play it’s bound to be biblical.

Jamie T // Trick album review

Jamie T’s long awaited comeback in 2014 after nearly 5 years of silence and the subsequent release of ‘Carry on The Grudge’ cemented his place once again in the limelight. Trick, the follow up to his comeback album, brings home the shift from ‘white boy rapping’ to more complex song writing that his previous album suggested.

Now of course there are some notable exclusions to this shift, the albums first track and first single, ‘Tinfoil Boy’ which is repetitive, loud and angsty – or at least it tries to be and is by far the weakest track on the album (read my full bashing review of it here).  Another exception is ‘crossfire love’ which sounds every bit vintage Jamie T, very much of the Kings & Queens ilk and wouldn’t sound out of place if it was to be crowbarred onto his second album.

But it’s the mature, serious songwriter which takes the forefront on Trick; Tescoland couldn’t sound anymore like his beloved Clash if he tried and the heartfelt ‘sign of the times’ sounds like it belongs on the ‘Magnolia Melancholia’ EP. Dragon Bones’ has a real funk to it but the chorus of ‘If I had a brain I’d blow my brains out’ starkly contrasts this but manages to strike a good balance nonetheless. He croons ‘The days are long gone now, but she still looks back’ on album highlight ‘Joan of Arc’ which as close to a typical indie rock song Jamie T will ever get, but hints of the pacemaker we knew from a decade ago still remain.

The album ends on a particularly vulnerable note with ‘self esteem’ a slow building track which the focus on the vocals intertwining with a heavily distorted guitar until the end when monumental sounding strings bring it all home. The result is gorgeous and sounds akin to Radiohead’s effort at the James Bond film. ‘Self Esteem’ slowly fades out to close bring the album to it’s gradual close but leaves with you forever wanting more in true Jamie T fashion.

‘Trick’ was never going to be 12 songs all sounding like Sheila or Sticks n Stones but taking this album as it’s own entity it is a very strong effort. Few artists manage to make albums that embody the spirit of youth and coming of age in the manner that ‘Panic Prevention’ Kings & Queens’ did and those first two albums were raucous, witty, anthemic and near on faultless. But that was almost a decade ago, Jamie T isn’t the same scruffy boy rapping about cheap cider from Wimbledon. He’s a 30-year-old man who’s giving serious song writing a really good crack.

My Rating 7.5/10

Highlights; Tescoland, Joan of Arc and Crossfire love.

Listen to trick below:

Jamie T // Tinfoil Boy review

After the release of his 3^rd album ‘Carry on The grudge’ and his long awaited comeback followed by 2015’s heartfelt ep magnolia melancholia it’s all gone a bit quiet on the Jamie T front. 

But this time Mr Treays has not waited nearly half a decade to release new material and after only a 10 month break he has released a new single which appears to be the first music from an upcoming fourth album, although he was very quick to swerve the question about it.

“Tinfoil Boy” (or ‘boi’ if you will) starts off as much of his carry on grudge work does, aggressively vulnerable vocals intertwining with a hallowing dark guitar riff. Even the lyrics “you break your heart to make sure I’m aware” sound like the same Jamie T that disappeared all those years ago only to reappear as a man who had ‘seen some stuff’. But then, out of nowhere; in a manner akin to Randy Orton, it all kicks off.

Shouts of “HE’S A TINFOIL BOI BOI BOI BOI BOI BOI BOI” over a riff which just sounds like it was pinched from that mediocre Slaves/Chasing Status collaboration ‘Control’. With the latter part sounding like a chav at the back of a bus describing the events of the weekend in which the fingering of his cousin took place. Thankfully this lasts for the best part of 10 seconds before going back into the safety net that is his shell of vulnerability by repeating the songs introduction. The whole affair is far too intense and far too sudden, it really just doesn’t fit at all.

Throughout there’s a real fluctuation between the two elements of the songs with it breaking down only to drop in the “BOI BOI BOI” debacle again. After about the 6 revolution of this it breaks down into something which, to me at least, sounds incredibly similar to ‘cornfield chase’ by Hans Zimmer from the Interstellar soundtrack (someone please listen to both and assure me I’m not mental.) with a sample of sadistic muttering over it which adds more to this song already overcrowded with contrasting elements.

I’m sure, as most songs are now, that it will be well-received at gigs and no doubt there will be some topless cunt in the pit challenging a fellow topless cunt to fight him for the crown of king of the ‘Tinfoil bois’. But to me this just isn’t Jamie T. There’s no quick witted anecdotes, no raw emotion, no furiously paced rapping. I just can’t relate to it. Jamie T has been the soundtrack to my late teens, with every song painting a picture you can see coming to life through his lyrics, but this just isn’t that.


Listen to Tinfoil Boy below