T'Sticks, Annie Lennox and Mogwai

Some weeks are filled with too many releases for some albums to get overlooked: herewith are short reviews of three worth a consideration for inclusion in one’s collection.

Tindersticks
‘Waiting For The Moon’
(Beggars Banquet)

It’s always been chillingly dark in the Tindersticks’ world and things have not changed on the ‘Waiting For The Moon’. Stories of tragedy, tears and torn-hearts hover through the atmosphere that could be gothic if it weren’t so brilliantly orchestrated.

There is that Garbage’s song ‘Only Happy When It Rains’, Thom Yorke recently confessed to liking the weather that looks like world-ending, and Tindersticks members headed by Stuart Staples subscribe to the theory of making music for moods to suit such climate.

Tindersticks are waiting for the moon in total darkness… Hopefully it won’t turn out to be Godot with a torch…

Glorious emo-downspiralling!

8.3/10
*

Annie Lennox
‘Bare’
(RCA)

Whether the Tindersticks stories are true or fictitious is unimportant, whereas in the case of Annie Lennox’s ‘Bare’ album is painfully personal. It charts the break up of her marriage and it is full of sad, sadder, sentimentally choking moments. This is the former Eurythmics frontwoman’s first album in a decade and it shows.

Long gaps tend to be problematic because the sound of the album is so 1980s but not nostalgic (i.e. updated) like Ladytron’s, it is more like a continuation of the trad-kind. But that voice, it still rings alarm bells of your nervous system…

6/10
*

Mogwai
‘Happy Songs For Happy People’
(Rock Action)

Normally, in spite of the album’s title, ‘Happy Songs For Happy People’, this ain’t really but the usual trip. Mogwai, the Glaswegian noiseniks, have never relied on anything but their own uncompromising hard/soft dynamics via abrasive instrumentals. This time it is a 40-minute affair, their most concise, rounded, melodious and splendid.

‘Happy Songs’ are full of guitars, feedbacks, fiddles, noises to create mood and textures that capture a dream-like impression that is equally moving and unsettling.

8/10