PLAY

In what is already shaping up to be a classic year for albums (LCD Soundsystem, Grinderman, Battles in the first few months alone) you’ll still have to go a long, long way to find something more enjoyable and satisfying on every level than this album. The freshman album ‘Lycanthropy’ was precocious, bewildering and gauche, the sophomore ‘Wind In The Wires’ was assured and full of promise and now the boy Wolf’s Junior effort is simply jaw-dropping.

The sheer braggadocio of tossing in a joyous tune at the top of the album - the kind that most would save for their centrepiece - and then casually refer to it as an Overture is not misplaced. The second two thirds of this opener ‘The Magic Position’ and ‘Accident and Emergency’ you will already know but deserve quick mention anyway. If I have a definition of what good pop music is, it could be summed up simply by the following; a familiar sounding, catchy song constructed with unfamiliar sounds and textures. ‘A&E’ has this in spades - digital dancehall productions, juddering glitchy electronics make for brilliant backing to Wolf’s ever more confident Bowie/Ferry-esque mannered pop vocals. The title track occupies ground nearer to the centre but given that this resembles Dexy’s Midnight Runners at their most unhinged this is something for celebration indeed.

‘Bluebells’ (part Johnny Boy, part Peter Greenway’s ‘Drowning By Numbers’, part blissed out Suede) proves that he is the real deal, for his intense imagist lyrics, song writing prowess and imaginative sonic powers are only matched by his classic outsider good looks and style. The fucking bastard. The sheer balls of having such a lull in the middle of the record as ‘Magpie’, ‘The Kiss’ and ‘Augustine’ marks this out as being akin to Bowie’s ‘Hunky Dory’, in it’s senseless but brilliant eclecticism. In fact it’s really hard to find fault with this record at all. (Is there a hint of an American accent creeping into his voice?) Somewhere there is a definitive list of the twenty albums that all freshmen should take away to university with them - ‘The Queen Is Dead’, ‘Low’, ‘Funeral’ and ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back’ included. You can add this to that list now. Let’s hope that after his senior effort and beyond he maintains this effortless air of combining childlike curiosity and adult intelligence.

Electrelane began writing material for their fourth album in Berlin’s Planet Roc studios in the summer of 2006. In September and October 2006 they were in Benton Harbor recording and mixing their album. In November of 2006, the band announced on their official website that they had finished recording and had titled their album ‘No Shouts, No Calls’. The album is due to be released in April 23 2007 in Japan, May 3 2007 in the USA and April 30 2007 elsewhere. It will have eleven tracks. The first single is titled “To the East” and is being released on March 12, 2007.