Def Leppard - Songs from the Sparkle Lounge
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music.guardian.co.uk Rating: 0
Former Antony and the Johnsons violinist Joan Wasser is shyer than her contemporaries, hiding behind a funny band name and, on her debut album, Real Life, a Mr Ben-like wardrobe of different musical styles. She couldn't hide her incredibly beautiful voice and soulfulness, though, which made Real Life one of the best albums of 2006. Perhaps emboldened by such positive reactions, Wasser has stripped away the whimsy and playful punkishness on this follow-up . It's much darker, more contemplative territory; the songs are like intimate nocturnes located somewhere between classical and soul. Maybe this is what Chopin would have sounded like had he been a modern-day multi-instrumentalist with a passion for Al Green and a voice like Roberta Flack. Either way, for all her heartfelt mediations on grief, loneliness and desire, Wasser doesn't indulge in gratuitous soul-baring. Bernadette McNulty28 Bill Frisell, History, Mystery (Nonesuch)4 starsIt's never as if Frisell could make a less than fascinating record. The 57-year-old American has been pegged as a jazz guitarist, but recent excursions into the blues (with The Willies) or 'world music' (The Intercontinentals) have further demolished that simplification. Nor is this record easy to pigeonhole: a series of short tracks recorded with an octet meld into each other over the course of two discs in mesmerising fashion. CLS29 Cee-Rock 'The Fury', Bringin' Da Yowzah (Abstract Urban)4 starsThey say that rap is a young man's game but Cee-Rock's debut arrives in his mid-thirties with all the baritone power of the young Biggie. This inhales deep on the Eighties sound of the New Yorker's youth, a barrage of sampled beats and quickfire wit - 'Kill Da Killin even nods to BDP's classic 'Stop the Violence'. An inspired entry from a rapper who's not retro, just late. SY30 Philip Jeck, Sand (Touch)4 starsJeck is known for conducting phantom orchestras of old record-players. Liberated from the junk shop, his army of Fidelity phonographs generate a mighty static dust cloud, from which emerges a version of Aaron Copland's 'Fanfare For The Common Man' that knocks ELP's into a cocked hat. Ben Thompson31 Def Leppard, Songs from the Sparkle Lounge (Mercury)2 starsSome monsters are so huge, they simply won't die. With 65 million album sales bulging under their belts like Derek Smalls' trophy cucumbers, Sheffield's prolific unit-shifters return with their first since 2002's X, and more sell-out gigs. But fans looking for an air-guitar gurning masterclass may be disappointed. Soft rock cliches, ranging in emotion from A to, well, Aa, abound, from the opener 'Go', to the power ballad 'Love', with added U2-style whoops ('Tomorrow') and even some Girls Aloud pop claps ('C'mon, C'mon'), except less good. A lyric sells it best: 'You have no dignity/I have no sympathy'. Peter Kimpton32 Vetiver, Thing of the Past (Fat Cat)3 starsAndy Cabic's nu folkies dig deep for this collection of mostly obscure covers. Some (Hawkwind's 'Hurry on Sundown') work by highlighting a different, tougher side of Vetiver. But too many others, including a version of Loudon Wainwright's 'Swimming Song', drift pleasantly by without the tension that characterises the best of Vetiver's own work. Campbell Stevenson33 Mark Stewart, Edit (Crippled Dick Hot Wax)4 starsWithout Stewart's funk/dub/noise collisions, the Bristol sound would have taken a different path. Here globalisation is equated with slavery by the repetition of 'soul trader/sole trader' on 'Strange Cargo', where Arabic percussion and a hint of melody soften the confrontational style. There's also a silly but endearing Yardbirds cover with the Slits' Ari-Up. CS34 Ting Tings, We Started Nothing (Columbia)4 starsThe synth-punk shout-pop of this boy/girl duo was cobbled together in a Salford arts complex for a budget of zero pence. And - in a totally great way - it sounds like it. 'Shut Up and Let Me Go' is 'Last Night a DJ Saved My Life' covered by Tom Tom Club, and 'Great DJ', 'Fruit Machine' and 'That's Not My Name' are three of the best bounce-around singles in recent memory. We'll probably hate them come September. CMC35 Herbie Hancock & Friends, Hear, O Israel (Trunk)4 starsEver heard the one about the soprano, the contralto, the rabbi, and the all-star assemblage of New York jazz luminaries? No? Well, the joke is no longer on you. Forty years after its original, unofficial release, this fusion of religious ritual and vintage modern jazz can now bring spiritual uplift to everyone, irrespective of religious leanings and whether or not they know who Ron Carter is. BT36 Tashi Lhunpo Monks, Dawn Till Dusk (30IPS)3 starsA timely release for obvious reasons, and the monks (exiled to a monastery in southern India founded by the first Dalai Lama in 1447) are on tour throughout the UK this summer, including an apperance at Womad. The record charts a day in the life of the monastery and features - wait for it, pop pickers! - many previously unrecorded chants and mantras. CLS37 Miles From India, A Celebration of the Music of Miles Davis (Times Square)4 starsDavis may have died in 1991, but he lives on in reissues, tributes and memorial albums. You'd think there was nothing left to say, but this cross-cultural collaboration between original Davis sidemen, including Chick Corea and John McLaughlin, and Indian classical musicians is fresh,...
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