James Arden checks out the garage rockers latest album.
The Christian rock band from Brighton bring religion to the masses.
Recipe for modern R'n'B album: liberal helpings of guest rappers and an overdose of sexual euphemisms.
With harmonised pop refrains blooming blissfully from the cold, relentless embrace of wintry synth, Animal Collective have certainly hit the mark with their latest endeavour into the kaleidoscopic world of psych-pop. Whilst the song's title may seem like it’s been pulled straight from Jay-Z’s back catalogue, it in fact constitutes a rhapsody of domesticity. The only weed in an otherwise wonderful flowerbed would be the occasionally annoying nasality of the vocals.
Diggory Dunn
Seasons are all about repetition. Every Spring lambs are born, flowers bloom and a new generation of avian wildlife are born to leave their mark on the paths of York University. Repetition (or is it monotony?) is also a word that can be applied to this single. It lulls you into a false sense of security of warmer days with its upbeat electronic opening, and then gets steadily worse. A bit like rolling down a grassy hill when you’re a child, only to find when you reach the bottom that you are feeling dizzy and a little sick.
Hannah McCarthy
As a general rule, trying to wrestle any more than four singles from an album is seen as pushing it, especially when the initial releases didn’t flourish. So you can’t help but feel that Keane are willing for a late bloomer with ‘Better Than This’, the fifth single from 2008's ‘'Perfect Symmetry'’. The track sees them drop their piano staple-diet in favour of synthesisers and electric guitar, Tom Chaplin’s vocals soaring wistfully above them. It’s nice, but then you can’t help feeling that the instrumentation is the only thing that’s changed… The forecast indicates that the winter of Keane’s discontent is set to continue.
Rich Powell
While flowers deflower this year’s soil, a colourful single from Britain’s campest electro-pop duo sprouts out of the winter of background noise. Lyrically, it’s clearly an intelligent post-something antidote to modern trash and has a nice “Love is for free” message at its heart. In terms of the tune, it’s exactly what we’d expect: electronic and upbeat with buttery vocals. However, it’s like the daffodils that festoon our grassy areas: colourful but nothing new.
Tom Longstaff
The prospect of the Pussycat Dolls being let loose on this Oscar-winning track produced in me the kind of chill more associated with winter than spring. However, the song’s English-language rebirth is still an invigorating breath of fresh air, maybe even providing a warm clearing in which I can bear the Dolls. Inevitably, though, their customary superficial sheen removes some of the original’s drama, and might, for the purist, render this a bit of a curate’s egg.
Pete Burgess
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