As a Brummy boy, I find it disheartening that Birmingham hasn’t had

much to brag about in terms of music for a long time now. Not since the home of my forefathers laid claim to the birthplace of the Heavy Metal genre has any-thing really noteworthy been produced. Then, behold, came a band that revived some of that lost pride in the homeland and their name is Editors!

O.k. I may have come over a little strong there, however their dazzling first album, The Back Room, followed by a strong sec-ond album, An End Has A Start, has given me reason to believe the beauty of Brummy music might be surviving in this indie rock band. With all this expec-tation on their shoulders, their

new album, In This Light & On This Evening, has a lot to live up to.

Now I admit that the Edi-tors have a particular style that they tend to stick to and this has worked a treat so far. With this new album, they have made a few changes that are bound to upset some and please others. They have really slowed down on a few tracks and tended to favour the keyboard over the rhythm guitar. For some songs these al-terations had the designed effect but with some, like the title track and The Boxer they just seemed to bore me to a point where if I heard another ridiculously preten-tious lyric, I’d forsake our Birmingham ties and use that discarded guitar in an unholy manner.

Saying this, I did fall in love with the majority of the album, with songs like Bricks And Mortar and Like Treas-ure making amends for the previously damned tracks. However, my personal favour-ite was the fabulous Eat Raw Meat =Blood Drool and not just because of the wonderful ti-

tle. This song is the prime exam-ple of what this album sets out to achieve. It moves away from their stereotype, while captivat-ing their audience with a catchy chorus. Furthermore, you can tell the big hit from this album will be Papillon, which will defi-nitely get those indie peeps into a dancing frenzy. Overall, the album contains some big hits but also some very forgettable misses.

JESS SWEENEY

The XX:

XXOut Now

Flight of the Con-chords:

I Told You I Was Freaky

Out 26th October

Albums... MUSIC SPOTLIGHT FILM TV GAMES BOOKS CULTURE LISTINGS

Editors:

In This Light And On This

EveningOut Now

Mika:The Boy Who Knew Too Much

Out Now

CHRIS CRADDOCK

Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie have created somewhat of a

massive following of their 'guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo' known as Flight of the Conchords. With multi-ple award nominations and completely sold out tours, surely if they released an album it would sell just as well? Not quite.

The problem is that none of this is new mate-rial. Everything on the al-bum feels a bit stale. Their aim is simply to make the listener laugh, not to focus on the actual music, so re-ally you're just hearing the same joke you heard a couple of months ago, only now you have the option of playing it over and over until you begin to become numb to it all. Lines like 'You probably think that my pants have the mumps, Its just my sugar lumps' don't tend to last through time. Even writing it makes me feel immature and dirty. It's often a case of hit or miss with much of Flight of the Conchord's music, with

songs like Petrov, Yelyena and Me and Demon Woman rarely getting more than smirk if they're lucky. As a fan, it's all a bit disappoint-ing.

It's not all bad. They have included some gems from the series, including Hurt Feelings, We're Both in Love with a Sexy Lady and You Don't Have to Be a Pros-titute. For a comedic duo who have seen so much suc-cess recently, this album doesn't live up to expecta-tions. That might simply be due to the fact that their form of comedy works best on the TV. You just don't get the awkward moments or the randomness of watch-ing their landlord having a steel drum solo in the mid-dle of You Don't Have to Be a Prostitute. And that's the problem. Had this been my first listen to the duo, it may have been far more enjoyable, instead I find myself replaying the same one or two songs.

We all remember Grace Kelly, that annoyingly hum-

mable three minutes of camp pop perfection that saw the unfailingly irritat-ing Mika prance to fame in 2007. Few remember the rest of the Lebanese odd-ball's first album, Life in Cartoon Motion, largely be-cause it was rubbish, a jam-boree of self-indulgent pop offal. Still, perhaps just off the back of the success of that one song, some indus-try bod has seen fit to award the bloke another album. Big Mistake.

Mika's latest offer-ing, The Boy Who Knew Too Much, achieves what few thought possible by out-camping its predeces-

sor. The listener is left ex-hausted after just three songs, worn down by the ceaseless torrent of tinny nonsensical pop delivered in Mika's thankfully inimi-table screeching falsetto. By song six (if still listening), they are comatose, their eardrums burnt out by the bombardment. And yet on Mika wallows, with each song gamely proving the theory that no album is too bad for release. Why, oh why, couldn't the floppy-haired Frodo Baggins impersona-tor have stuck to his natural role as an Any Dream Will Do contestant?

Whoever saw fit to sanc-tion the album's release ob-viously thinks its success rests on its first single We are Golden replicating the success of Grace Kelly. But lightning, no matter how much glitter you put on it, doesn't strike twice and the fact it is the standout track says little for the rest of

the album. And that's even without the sheer, surely unforgivable weirdness of the video for the song, in which Mika dances around a bedroom on all fours dressed just in underpants and golden boots. It really is grotesque.

How Mika got ahead in the music industry, let alone made it to a second album, is unfathomable, but one thing is for sure: in the pantheon of musical crimes, this album rates pretty highly. In The Boy Who Knew Too Much, Mr. Flounce 2009 has produced a true clusterfuck of an album that should surely, surely ensure he doesn't get the chance to make a third one. The only reason I can think for buying this album for someone is that you want to annoy them. But unless you want to lose that person forever, I wouldn't risk it.

WILL WAINEWRIGHT

SHIT OF THE SUMMER

HIT OF THE SUMMER

STEFAN PHILPOTTS

XX is the eponymous debut album of this south London four-

some, influenced by the dubstep scene of the area. They have a simple sound, with a strong percussion and bass backing. The vo-cals, provided by girl/boy duo, Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim, are the centrepiece of each track, which are so sparse and relaxed that it sounds like music a couple of mates could've recorded in their living room. The reassur-ing repeated basslines and mantra-like lyrics combine to create desperately beau-tiful songs.

On first listen the album does seem slightly samey and most of the tracks are not long; there is a feel-ing of anticipation as you think the music is going to build to a climax, but never does. Highlight tracks are Fantasy, which downplays the percussion and bass,

instead providing a haunt-ing wash of sound which appealed to the Radiohead-lover in me, and Basic Space, with heavier percus-sion and a more upbeat, en-gaging chorus.

As you listen you be-come increasingly aware of the individual threads of music in each song and in-creasingly appreciative of the beauty of the singers' voices and their ethereal timbre. Stars is typical of the overall nature of the al-bum. The bass opening that is so simple and strong has a heavy rock sound about it, which contrasts, but works perfectly with the smooth, languid vocals. The obvious musical talent of the band and their cohesive sound suggests there'll be a firm place for the XX in the Brit-ish alternative music scene for some time.