Face Of Cheam

Not much new that’s to report though I have had a CD splurge recently. Hard-Fi’s new album was got for a bargain £7 in Morrison’s. Its very much as they were with their first album and has some good tracks and some mediocre ones. Its also quite short being around 35 minutes. Stephen Fretwell released his second album called ‘Man On The Roof’. This is consistently good from the acoustic maestro. As with his first album the best song is named after an American city, this time called ‘San Francisco’. There is another marvellous song called ‘Funny Hat’ mused about a famous female and her almost famous sister. The downside is perhaps he stays in the mainstream a bit too much and only takes a risk on the opening track ‘Coney’. Dot Allison has her third album out ‘Exaltation of Larks’. The song ‘Quicksand’ is exquisite and the other track are along the acoustic breathy vocal takes that made her first album a classic. Considering the second album experimented with dancey beats this is a welcome return. Finally I ventured into the Metal world by buying the new album from Epica. This is a ‘progressive metal’ album that fuses together thrash and opera with intriguing results. It just about works especially the stuff sung in Latin and as their name suggests there are some over ambitious songs lasting over ten minutes but there are some other proper songs that sound remarkably like Evanescence. Definitely interesting listening. Finally Six Nation State’s debut album was released on Monday. Very much a Specials/Clash reggae indie sound, there are some great tunes on there. Check them out in virtual land and then join me at the Borderline in a couple of weeks!