Howling At The Moon - The Punk Panther's Album Reviews

This was KT Tunstall's second album and, rather than going down the earnest, breathy Dido route of mid-2000s female singer-songwriters, she harnessed the rockier elements of her 2005 debut, Eye To The Telescope and went full-on pop/rock, certainly for the first two-thirds of the album. The cover gives a clue to that as KT poses like a seventies heavy metal axe man, silver glam-rock style guitar glistening. Little Favours kick off with a big, deep drumbeat, backed up with crystal clear acoustic guitars and then jangly, solid electric riffs. The beat is lively and KT's vocals are strong and confident. It is probably the rockiest number on the album.  If Only has a quirky, staccato beat and one of those swirling, airy, slightly slurry vocals. The chorus has KT going higher with her voice and is poppy and catchy.  White Bird slows the tempo down considerably on a slightly jazzy and bluesy sleepy number. Very Americana. A bit of a hint of Lucinda Williams in places. The acoustic gui

This was the first collaboration between ex-Blur Damon Albarn, ex-The Clash Paul Simonon, ex-The Verve Simon Tong and Fela Kuti's ex-drummer Tony Allen. It is a reflective, melancholic, sometimes miserable message for the new millennium. Its appeal however, is quite a seductive one. All very muddy art rock and "noir". It is a real grower, however, and worthy of several listens before you find it seeping into your consciousness. I listened to this for the first time after hearing 2018's Merrie Land and I prefer this one. Both have hidden depths, but this has more, I feel. There is something quite beguiling about it.       History Song is a Joe Strummer meets Madness shuffler of a song, full of understated atmosphere. 80s Life is a sad-sounding number with a melancholic vocal. There are fifties doo-wop influences on it and some fetching keyboards too.  Northern Whale is a quirky, mournful and moody track, it sounds world-wearily cynical. All that nineties joie de vivre

  After a four-year absence, this album sees the now Whoopi Goldberg lookalike Joan delving into a more gritty, bluesy sound, dedicating the album to the blues, something it was quite  de rigeur  to do around this period - showing your blues roots and all that.   However, it is not all regulation blues, tracks like  A Woman In Love  is actually decidedly Dire Straits-ish.  Other definite bluesy standouts, though, are the muscular  Play The Blues , the equally superb  Into The Blues  and the ballsy, tough rock of  My Baby's Gone . On all these tracks, Joan shows just what a powerful and underrated electric guitarist she is.  Something's Gotta Blow  is a fine closer to this impressive collection, although the unnecessarily repetitive  Deep Down  is a bit of a grating low point. That's nit-picking, though, isn't it? The appealing  There Ain't A Girl Alive  shows that Joan's wry humour hasn't deserted her too. She could always pen a gently witty lyric.

Recorded when he was 64, the age he sang about so many years earlier,  Paul McCartney  alludes to his age on both the title of this album and its cover and in some of the lyrics. Taking that into account, one may expect the album to be reflective and quiet. Actually it is quite refreshingly upbeat.  The sound and production has long been a matter for discussion on this album, as it is deafeningly loud and needs to be turned down lower than most albums. I am someone who likes his music loud, but it is too much for me at times, and actually unnecessary.   The lively mandolin riffs of the singalong   Dance Tonight   introduces the album in a positive, carefree manner and  My Ever Present Past , while speaking of his past, is a thoroughly enjoyable, punchy pop number, with some excellent guitar and a generally upbeat vibe.   See Your Sunshine  is a rhythmic, staccato number, which features an excellent, rumbling bass line from McCartney and a  Wings -style melody.  Only Mama Knows  begins

  This is the much-vaunted 2007 collaboration with Alison Krauss. It is a fine collection of folky, bluesy and sometimes beautiful numbers that are unfortunately slightly blighted by the reverberating, thumping backing so popular at this time.  This is a shame but it should not detract from the seriously good songs on display.  It is a good album, beloved of many critics, but the sound means I don't return to it as often as the songs may justify. However, i t has a bit of a feel of Bob Dylan’s earthy, gritty Time Out Of Mind album about it.  Highlights are  Killing The Blues ,  Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us ,  Trampled Rose  and a quirky cover of Allen Toussaint’s  Fortune Teller .    

  This is a little mentioned album in the canon of Ian Hunter’s work, but it is a really good one, and puts several earlier ones to shame, particularly All Of The Good Ones Are Taken (admittedly that one was from nearly twenty-five years previous).   Fuss  About Nothin'  rocks in a riffy Tom Petty style and  When The World Was Round   is an appealing slower song with one of those programmed "contemporary" backings to it.  Brainwashed  is a somewhat raucous, punky rocker.  Hunter has always had the ability to pen a hard-hitting, cynical but attractive ballad and he certainly does this here on the lengthy  Shrunken Head s , putting his heart and soul into it, as well as some typical piano-pounding near the end, sounding like Mott The Hoople circa 1971.  Soul  Of America   is another great later-era Hunter rocker, with pounding drums and infectious harmonica together with lyrics on one of his favourite subjects - the history of America. This really is a corker of a track. Hu

  This  is another gentle, tastefully low-key "adult" album from  Mark Knopfler.  It is another fusion of folk, Americana, country, blues and rock which combine to create Knopfler's unique, instantly recognisable sound.  Knopfler's sound is by now a trademark, distinctive easy groove that features several styles, none of which dominate. It is all about the mood, the sound, merged with the lyrics, often sensitive, observant and haunting. It is musically unthreatening, but always understated in its comfortable beauty. It all sounds so wonderfully effortless.  True Love Will Never Fade   is so  Springsteen-esque  it could almost be him. It sounds very like  If I Should Fall Behind  and others from that period.  The Scaffolder's Wife  is a tender ballad telling of one of Knopfler's "ordinary people" characters featuring some laid-back Dire Straits-ish slow guitar. It is beautiful and moving.  The Fizzy And The Still  is another quietly attractive number.

   It is an easy thing to criticise this album.  Laid-back master of the lounge bar releases an album of covers of songs from possibly the most talented singer/songwriter the world has ever known.  Lots of reviewers have queued up here to exactly that. I am not going to do that. I like Bryan Ferry. I like Bob Dylan.   Of course, there is no comparison with the originals. That doesn't matter. They are good songs. Bryan Ferry likes them and he wants to cover them. Fair enough. I don't have a problem with that.  Most of the songs are approached by a highly competent band, with a highly competent rock feel to them.  My own personal favourites are  Simple Twist Of Fate , which is speeded-up into a full band rock song, similarly  Knockin' On Heaven's Door , with its excellent guitar, harmonica and backing vocals.  The Times They Are A-Changin'  is also given the full band treatment and I like that too, So what. There is a great bit of guitar at the end of it.  I also have

    "It is a high energy rock album with a heavy E. St Band sound" - Jon Landau    Despite Jon Landau's praise, it's a strange album, this one.  I rarely play it, yet the songs on it are potentially not so bad, they just never achieve what they could have done.  This is largely due to the truly appalling, tinny, crashing sound employed by producer  Brendan O'Brien . It renders the album, at times, virtually unlistenable.  An example of this is on the album’s frantic, almost punky opener,  Radio Nowhere  - a good song spoiled by its bombastic production which almost drowns even a strong lead vocal like  Springsteen ’s. Many other songs are affected in the same way -  Girls In Their Summer Clothes  and  I’ll Work For Your Love , in particular.   In terms of themes, the album is pretty morose, dealing with conflict, social problems and personal disillusion.  Only the summery, romantic  Girls In Their Summer Clothes  and  I’ll Work For Your Love  raise the spirits sli

This is a more rootsy offering from Patti Scialfa than her previous albums, with the opener, the swampy blues of  Looking For Elvis  carrying with it strong Mark Knopfler influences and also reminding me in its guitar sound of Springsteen's Good Eye.   Bad For You  is cut from the same cloth, as is  Run Run Run .  The gritty  Like Any Woman Would  has an appealing mix of gospel and solid rock backed by some "doo-lang" vocals while  Town Called Heartbreak  has a deep bassiness to it, together with Patti developing a throatiness in her voice that she hasn't had previously.   Play Around  is a delicious Bruce-ish slow number too.  Of Patti's three albums, this last one (she has released nothing since) is probably the most mature and accomplished one. As with its predecessor, there isn't a bad track on here. Just check out  Rainy Day Man , for example. Good stuff and most underrated.  

This was the second and last album from Merseyside-based retrospective Clash/Specials/early Joe Jackson influenced band. Where the first album was very definitely influenced by that late seventies white reggae/punk style, this one owes more to new wave and even nineties Britpop. There is a melodiousness to it as opposed to a gritty, urban dubby attack. The group are clearly trying not to simply produce more of the same. They diversify a bit, but it is still a retrospective offering. Bolt Of Steel is a new-wave inspired number that reminds me of the material Bruce Foxton does these days. It features some jangly guitars and a "la-la-la" Jam-esque vocal bit at the end.  Beat Generation is a lively and catchy song with a solid bass line and another new wave feel about it. Actually, rather than look back to the late seventies in its feel, it has those afore-mentioned distinct Britpop echoes about it. It also takes a riff from Elton John's Passengers at one point.  Stand Up is

This album, recorded twenty-eight years since their previous one, is a sprawling, way, way too long double album containing an hour and a half's blatantly retrospective Eagles music.  It is full of jangling riffs and those trademark freeway driving vocals - AOR rockers and AOR ballads and it seems as if the band had never been away. Can I trawl through it, analysing in detail track after track of generically-similar music? No, I guess not. It is suffice to say that I can dip into any of this album at any time and thoroughly enjoy it. The sound quality is uniformly excellent and the band, often at each others' throats over the years, sound as if they really enjoyed recording it.  Roughly, the album can be separated by its two CDs - the first recalling the smooth country rock of the seventies while the second looks back, sonically, to the eighties and has many vibes of Don Henley's The End Of The Innocence album. This is only to an extent, though, because much of the second h