Richard Hawley... parlour blues for a more gentle world

A glance at the liner notes for new album Truelove's Gutter reveals a menagerie of antiquated and long forgotten instruments were employed in the forging of this album - lyres and lutes, a dulcimer, a harpsichord and more. Anyone know what an 'Atkin Accoustic parlour guitar' would look like? But; you can hear it. The album's sound is barrel-aged, time-worn, calloused - as if unearthered from pre-electric times. It sounds as if he wrote it while lounging in a hammock. It's fragile in a handmade kind of a way, but no less capable of sweeping emotional transcendancy.

This album took my breath away and made me cry. At the first listen, by the second song I was already transfixed and incapable of speaking, holding my breath so as not to break the spell. Taking the Great American Songbook (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Songbook) as a kind of manifesto, in some parallel universe these songs are being performed by Andy Williams, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Frank...

While the whole album moves me deeply there are two outstanding highlights, first - "Soldier On" - which I believe you could actually drown in if you weren't careful. But it's "For Your Lover Give Some Time" that I can't get past, it is just the most gorgeous song I've heard in years. It's the sound of most of a lifetime spent with the person you love. It sounds two hundred years old, like a folk love song handed down by generations, like something your grandfather courted your grandmother with, then later would sing your baby mother to sleep with just because he liked to sing it. It's so good, it's a wrench that there's another song to follow... when all you want is to sit quietly in a chair and let the last one wash gently around your soul. I hestitate to play it, just in case I wreck it for myself forever by accident somehow.

Truelove's.. is just eight songs long, filled out by many of them stretching well past 5minutes and the closer "Don't You Cry" strolling along comfortably for 10 full minutes. It gives everything the space and time it deserves. I've no idea whether this is typical of the genre which Hawley has adopted, but in every respect - the production, the writing, the choice of instruments... - he demonstrates a fiercely independent, bold artistic vision, totally at a tangent to seemingly everything around him. Put it on and you're immediately given a breather from the hectic, the digital, the modern. Immense. Dreamy.

Arctic Monkeys... swing and swagger

The Monkeys' new album, Humbug, oozes with the confidence, swagger and strut of young men aware of their limitless sexuality. No longer teenage boys, posing and pretending in an attempt to stake their claim, these lads have clearly been there, picked up the t-shirt, and now sport it proudly. This is the age when you can do anything, when a fit and healthy young man with the world at his feet cannot help but feel invincible and immortal.

With a generally slower pace, much of the album feels like the best kind of mid-60's bandstand-dancehall rock 'n roll . The guitars twang and chime like the Shadows. The heavily reverbed drums inspire notions of Ringo, or Moon. There's a knowing, adult mod attitude everywhere, and a respectful, genuine homage to Walker and Spector runs through the whole. With echoes of Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Tom Jones and Humpledink - there's nothing quite like this around today, though they'd probably feel some kind of kinship with Weezer.

Humbug is an unwashed, sweat and semen and beer stained monster of an album - squaring up as the answer to Kings of Leon's Only By The Night from this side of the ditch... and for my money taking the honours by a head.

With Turner's writing as catchy as ever, his trademark wry lyrics deft and engaging, the album is also fun and exciting... the sound of a band on the verge of superstardom. Expect it to be collossal. This is a world-breaker, but with the next album I fully expect a genuine masterpiece.

Wilco... modern roots

Wilco's new album, Wilco (the Album), is a tour-de-force across the board. Nuanced, engaging, and demonstrating both accomplished songwriting and deft musicianship, like all good albums it grows more in scale with each listen. With liberal use of accoustic guitar, piano and drums, it's comtemporary american roots music, sitting with justifiable pride on the same shelf as the rest of the bright new-wave of My Morning Jacket, and the Decemberists, et al.

To my kiwi ear, the similarities to the solo work of Neil Finn and family are striking and obvious, the americans sounding like some kind of post-colonial cousins. But I was also delighted to find flashes of early Bowie (Tweedy's voice), echoes of early Elton John (the mixing, the pacing)... and with the modern country-esque songwriting something like a less florid and more patient, Ryan Adams.

Wilco, however, have been around a long time, since the days of my youth, but have not previously caught my attention. Formerly more a lo-fi, alt.country type setup, they didn't have the hormone fueled vigour or emotional hyperbole my teenage self sought. All grown-up now, I find the new album is a rich and deep production in all respects.

I can't find any higher praise.