Welcome to the first regularly updated CD review section I've done in ages, outside of the Scottish and selected English (& Australian) independent music scenes.
This section, however, is devoted to bands who are signed to labels, and outside of the Scottish music scene.
Basically, the thinking behind this bit, although inevitably it's my own humble opinion, is that if someone's produced a CD that is so stonkingly good in its field that no fan of that style of music should be able to live without it, then it's reviewed here - all styles, all artists - all thing considered - but only the best included. Now, read on......

ELECTRIC BIRD NOISE – Vestibule Transitoire CD
Fourth album featuring two tracks of 24 and 26 minutes respectively, recorded for a radio session, and featuring the musician on just guitar, loops and effects. Musically, it's all about texture, depth, travel and emotion. For the first track, the 24 minute “Le Vestibule”, the sound is exceedingly electronic, almost synthesized, with occasional things that sound like sustained guitars, croping up every so often. But, through the fogbank of soundscapes, the track never stops in one place, always moving but with a natural flow and feel to it, so that at no point along the way, do you get fidgety or bored. Absent of rhythm of any kind other than the naturally rhythmic flow that the oceans of shimering, soaring, deep sound present, it's ambient space music like no other – literally. The sounds he creates are not the same as anyone else I've heard, the textures, treatments and loops creating a both gorgeous and yet almost unnerving environment of cosmic dark, so much so that it hooks you along and sucks you into its depths, every time you play it.
The second, and 26 minute title track, sounds much more like a guitar – a treated, textured, looped and played-around-with guitar, admittedly, but certainly less “electronic” than the first piece. Which is a great thing, since the sound of this spacey slice of solid ambience is completely different, and yet the feel you got from the music that preceded it, is still there and the flow of the album as a whole does not make it feel like two disparate parts as you feel you're listening to just one 52 minute track where the soundscapes are myriad, the textures endless, the loops mesmerising and the whole thing performed with real emotion, way more than you'd find on the majority of cosmic keyboard-based and other guitar-based albums that call themselves space music. This is a treasure.

GRENOUER – Presence With War CD
Russian death metal and even though the title are in English, they could actually be singing in Russian for all I know – for all anyone knows come to that – for the vocal is that sort of throaty roar which can only come of years of hard drinking or someone standing on the thing. The really odd part about this is that it really is so unintelligible, that it becomes seriously hypnotic – and with the punishing pace, heavy metal guitar riffing and some ferocious lead guitar work, it's the musical equivalent of the “rabbit in the headlights” job. What makes this a thoroughly recommended death metal abum, more than anything, is that they've somehow managed to inject melody into it all – or at least the feel of melody – for you're never once feeling that it's all too overwhelming or overblown, as you positively absorb every one of the 10 storm force tracks. There's also a great sense of dynamics at work within the massive nuclear powered structure, and all these things combine to make this an, albeit scary at times, intense metal maelstrom that you really should experience.

HEAT FROM A DEADSTAR – Seven Rays Of The Sun CD
This album's like having a beautiful woman move into your flat only to find that she's untidy, throws yer stuff about the place, and is a vegetarian – you want it, you understand where it's coming from, but you've got to take time to get to know it, to adjust to it, to love it and then, once you've got the handle on it, a thing to treasure for ever and a day.
There are 13 tracks – the opener, “Messy Lid” has a vocal that sounds like some Japanese kamikaze pilot singing a song in Western tones before the plane takes one final dive into the ground, amid a rush of guitars, crashing drums, pounding bass and urgency of delivery. In Contrast, once the plane's hit the ground, scattered into a zillion fragments and the dust's settled, “Seahorse Seafish” is the sound of the scene – layers of guitars that swirl all around, surrounding you in an envelope of melodic haze, ringing guitar tones as the rhythms lurch and drive, vocals simply intone repeated phrases and, towards the end, a piano motif comes in like some distant warning bell – don't go near the damage! “Ad Astra” gets all warm and friendlier as chiming guitars slowly soar amid high register harmony vocals as things get quite heartfelt but still that river of edge running through the middle, albeit pretty well buried. Then the bass spars against the guitars with velvet gloves as the guitar chords reduce it to an undercurrent and the thing just grinds to a halt. In rushes “Elusive Ways” on a racehorse that's propelled by furiously threshing guitars, pounding bass, crunching drums and vocals that sound like a less angry Bob Mould. That tit all drops back to something like a cross between Sugar and Talking Heads before stepping up a gear once more and hurtling to the finish line, is a grand testament of the arrangement, the guitars getting ever more heated as the track intensifies, before ending in squeals of feedback that don't even let you pause for breath before “Psychotic Girl” thunders in on a tidal wave of guitars and upfront bass as the thudding drums drive it all forward and a monotone vocal lets loose before it's joined by more of its angry kamikaze colleagues who have their say before this searing heat of lead guitar bursts out of the skies to phenomenal effect – and then stops. “Summer of Dark” is a fitting name for a track that starts out a slow mass of broody guitar and deep bass before lighter ringing guitar chords come over like a peal of bells and things start to get altogether brighter as the track begins to unfold, a melody line emerging from the depths as the band move forward in perfect harmony, gradually climbing and intensifying on an instrumental climb of breathtaking if mid-paced proportions, as the guitars circle like vultures waiting for the haze to clear. “Daylight” is a more hefty lurcher of a piece, throbbing upfront bass joined by cyclical guitars and gently crashing drums as this mid-high register vocal briefly tries to make its presence felt before the guitars take over and dominate the instrumental airways on one solid stunner of a track that gradually accelerates before the drums let loose towards the end of its life and end up the dominant feature to dramatic, almost Can-like, effect. This feel continues into “The Gallows” only slower as the lurching beats are complemented by high-in-the-sky guitar gentility as melodies and slowly crunchy rhythms rain down from the heavens to gorgeous effect on an instrumental track that's truly sublime. With five further tracks, all of equal stature and quality, this is an album where the average track length is three minutes, but where 37 minutes belies the fact that you feel there's way way more in this than just 37 minutes of music and, once you get to love it, which you undoubtedly will, it becomes the album where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Almost unique, truly accessible, immensely enjoyable and very long-lasting pleasure.

KEVIN KENDLE – Light From The Pleiades CD
Subtitled “Deep Skies 3”, it's the third in his series of cosmic music albums, and this time he's inhabiting a world somewhere between the space bliss of Daveid Allen or Steve Hillage and the finest space music offerings to come out of the USA in the last 20 years. However, where Kendle scores is that he employs the techniques that made the early Tangerine Dream albums sound so good to this day, and that's the art of ensuring that everything is kept moving, that there are plenty of layers on which to focus, that nothing becomes to obtrusive or repetitive and that the soundscapes remain consistent throughout. Oddly enough, he starts with an 8 minute track which is the most rhythmic thing on the album as a lead guitar joins the sound of the synths, the synth rhythms and the assorted synth and guitar textures, to produce a track that, at first, you think is out of place in his musical world, but as you listen to it with every subsequent play, the hidden charms of the track become more obvious and you find yourself enjoying it every bit as much as what follows. For, up next, are seven and a half minutes of “Alcyone” which adds John Serrie-styled keyboard bliss to slowly flowing layers of Kevin Braheny-esque cosmic synth textures, but comes up with a result that's got more depth, more warmth and less romance than the way the Americans do it, resulting in a track that flows effortlessly along without sounding syrupy or overly classical. The seven minute “Maia” mixes synths, synth choir effects, moog and sequencers with glissando guitar and guitar treatments to produce a truly huge-sounding slice of gorgeousness that is slowly flowing and just wonderful to hear, as all the layers, textures, light rhythms that bubble up and soften down, combine with the more bass-level wanderings and truly superb space music arrangements, to come up with a slice of synths-dominated excellence that is exactly what you want from a cosmic music album, sounding of a somewhat eighties environment on the one hand, yet totally timeless, on the other. The near ten minute “Merope” is right out of a mix of Steve Hillage's “Rainbow Dome Music” and many of Thom Brennan's finest albums as the slowly solid sequencers provide an undercurrent to the soaring space synth and glissando guitar layers that glide and shine above it all to mouth-watering effect. The six and a half minute “Taygeta” continues the cohesion but also the variation, this time sounding almost “Berlin-esque” with its sequencer undercurrents and spiralling synth textures, layers and melodies that ebb and flow on top, yet maintaining the wondrous and timeless spellbinding overall musical pattern that has kept you absolutely riveted to the journey so far. At thirteen minutes, “Asterope” proves to be the most cosmic track on the album, and simply spellbinding it is, too, as the warm layers of synths and glissando guitars, fill your heart with joy and provide everything that's so good about cosmic space synth music. The album ends on the nine minute “Celaeno”, similarly multi-textured and spacey, but ending with a flourish of sequencers, melodic synths and guitar textures to provide the most melodic track on the album so far, and it's as though you've moved from a warm but uninhabited landscape, into a world where the winter is gone and spring is arriving, as the sun allows life to blossom once more and the seasonal cycle's familiarity, proves a welcome musical delight. All in all, a most joyous, emotive, deep, rich and captivating album that simply can do no wrong as a slice of multi-layered synth/guitar experience that's so much more than “just another space music album”.

ALEX MAGUIRE SEXTET – Brewed In Belgium CD
From a live 2007 Radio Broadcast, the jazz album for rock fans who don't like jazz, jazz-rock fans who don't like jazz and jazz fans who don't like rock. Whilst there is the occasional part of the six tracks and near one hour running time that hets a little loose, by and large, this is flowing jazz with a solid heart. Consisting of 6 musicians on trumpet/flugel, saxes, guitar, keys, bass and drums, where this all succeeds is the sheer feel of the pieces. As compositions, nothing is ever outstated, nothing unstructured, and while there is a lot of room for soloing, very few times are the band or parts of the band, not present at the same time. The album opens with nine minutes of “Psychic Earrior” that readily sets the scene for the journey ahead, lulling you into its charms with some gorgeous piano work and a truly chilled-out emotive pace, gradually letting other band members along for the ride. Then, from the nine minute “John's Fragment” onwards, the band kick in and show how great jazz is made. It's the sound of late night smokey Parisian cafes, it's the sound of the seventies with more bite, it's the sound of musicians' intuition and sense of purpose and the sound of melody. For the whole album is founded on flow, feel and the ability to be easy to enjoy while at the same time, serious jazz music. No one musician stands out, no single piece better than any other – which is, of course, how it should be. This is an hour of the finest jazz around, an hour that you'll never tire of experiencing – just turn out the lights, grab that bottle, sit right back and let it soar from the speakers.

MEMORIAL – In The Absence Of All Things Sacred CD
On the opening salvo of steaming, thickly riffing, feeding back guitars you're really thinking it's going to be a sizzler. Then, when the band roar in and the sound of thunderous riffing, rhythms and guitars is unleashed at a ferocious pace, together with a throaty death metal holler of a vocalist, you know exactly which inferno you're in. That the thing thrashes its way merrily through 9 intense tracks is one thing – that it actually has songs which work on a listening level rather than just an overpowering din, a bonus. The vocalist has quite a sense of the dramatic, sounding at times like the lead vocalist out of fast-rising Dundee punks Dirty Wee Middens. It's all vast, fast and explosive, not without some dynamics along the way to keep you hooked and, in essence, the best thrash album around for some time.

1NE DAY – Capricorn CD
Italian metallers singing in English and, right from the opener, “Horror”, it's something very different, as you hear this super-fast paced thunder of a metal band with a vocalist on top who's sounding positively relaxed, only then, after a minute or so, to give way to a vocal that's altogether more forceful, as he and the band then lay waste to the track, rampaging with napalm fire through a roaring slice of burning hot fire-metal. In a suprising way, it works a treat as you find yourself hoked to what's going on. “Armada” varies the pace a little, adds dynamics to the intensity, brings the vocals a litle more upfront, strong sounding and clear, while the monstrous bass work continues to pound away, the drums crunch, rattle and roll, while this massive sea of guitar riffing is unleashed on a song that's actually quite palatable from such a rampaging beast of a band. “Understand” also rattles into life with spirited drumming and distant feedback guitar before gathering forces and riffing madly then dropping down to slowly sung verse, before lifting off into a whole new verse dimension as the guitars spiral upwards, the rhythm section thunders and an assortment of vocals provide verses of light and darkness on a track that's as engaging as it is monstrously heavy but also totally emodic and structured throughout and one huge-sounding winner of a solid contemporary metal composition. The title track blazes another fast-paced, riff-laden trail to infinity with massive rhythm section riding like a train, and thias time, the presence of multi-tracked vocal harmonies to add extra depths to the strong lead vocals, on the best track of he album so far that really lifts you up and takes hold. A further 6 tracks provide equal amounts of entertainment as it all drives an expressway through your head and heart with the effect of a diamond-tipped bullet. A quite monumental album which, for all its heady, heavy and highly charged power, works so well as a listening experience.

RED BURNS BLACK – Set This Night Alight CD
The band quote their influences as Guns 'n' Roses, Led Zeppelin, Kings Of Leon and Metallica.
So, you launch yourself into the first track, “Fear, Love Hate Fight” and the first of those names to leap out at you is Metallica – in fact, it's the only one that leaps out at you in the case of this track, and although it's more akin to Metallica meeting Andrew WK, it's a cookin' opener. Almost without pausing for breath it's right into “Out Tonight” and into Guns 'n' Roses territory. Here, although the vocalist is a bit too upfront and sounds more like he's wandered in from an indie band's studio, nevertheless proceeds to provide as near of a sneer that you'd expect from a guy who wants to be Axl Rose. The band pound away and what makes the track really sound hot are the guitar riffing and searing guitar leads, plus the harmonies that are spot on for the type of song, and, overall, a fine slice of Guns-esque classic metal. “The Cellar Bar” rampages into life and this time it's more Kings of Leon as the thickly riffing guitars, solid bass and crunchy, albeit a tad flat sounding, drums drive it all forward as the vocalist flies and a slice of thunderous indie-rock flares out with guitars on fire, another superb lead break adding to the memorable intensity of the song. “Rip You Up” is another metal party of a song while “Rise Again”, with its slow intro and building waves of guitars, set over mid-paced deliberate rhythms and a, initially, treated vocal is a fine metal ballad that owes as much to Metallica's mastery of the searing heat metal ballad than anything else. “Lady” does show some Led Zep influences at the beginning and in the cascading rock riffing, in this case exceedingly Page-esque, as a very powerful and intense slice of near-as-damnit Classic Rock explodes into life, once again the guitars being the stars with a red hot lead break that's excellent, while the vocal, still sounding more “indie” than “rock”, nevertheless manages to work a treat in the context of the track. Over the final four tracks, the band manage not to put a foot wrong and, through slowly building and gigantic driving tracks, they proceed, with ease and deliberate intent, to produce a quality album of solid rock that sets them apart from , many an emerging band in the genre right now.

REDSHIFT – VIII: Toll CD
James Goddard, Julian and Mark Shreeve recorded live in impeccable quality in the Netherlands in 2004. What you have to love about this band, and obviously main man Shreeve, is that they tore up the “Berlin School” rulebook a long time ago. Of the five tracks – although they all flow into one another to create one long 64 minute track – three are epics and two are cosmic pieces, linking the epics. On the epics, all three revolve around extensive use of sequencers. Now, it's fair to say, that no other musician around, manages to inject such feeling, such emotion, into the sue of sequencers for they are, by their very nature, unmoving beasts. Yet Mark Shreeve, through insanely clever use of dynamics, not to mention a depth and resonance that gives their use an immense sounding feel to them, manages to make sequencer drive electronic music sound positively human. Above, beyond and below all that, the band create soundscapes and melodic-based structures and improvs, that also have great depth and vastness to them. But what that has by the truckload, is darkness – a whacking great sense of impending doom, a kind of bleakness that goes on forever but which, in the traditions of the finest horror movies, you can't avert your gaze even though it's positively scary. The first track uses electric piano to give a partial added textural quality to it, while the last uses treated electric guitar for a similar purpose. There's nothing here that “sounds like Tangerine Dream” - in fact, Mark Shreeve would probably be mortified, if it did – since this band has evolved well beyond that in the way they play, the thinking behind it and the ultimate desire to turn space into darkness, and a synth voyage to the stars, into one that invades Hades instead. Even the rhythm-free tracks are huge whirlpools of bottomless electronic depths as opposed to “yer twee cosmic bits” that all the other copycat bands are so prone to doing.
You might get “Tangerine Dream part 108” out of many other bands that use sequencers and are stuck in the seventies, but here you get something far more enjoyable – originality!!

REDSHIFT – IX:Last CD
Recorded live in the UK, in impeccable quality, in 2006, and now featuring Julian and Mark Shreeve, plus Ian Boddy – a mouth-watering supergroup, you might think- and you'd be right – but I'd like to bet for none of the reasons that you're thinking right now. For what this six-track, 65 minute album represents is a meeting between a musician – Boddy – who goes cold at the merest hint of melody and what might constitute a tune – and another musician – Mark Shreeve – who likes things structured and purposeful, hard and rocking – with Julain Shreeve caught between the two like a rabbit in the headlights. The best bit about all this is that it created a performance that's absolutely remarkable and highly addictive. There are tons and tons of soundscapes, textures, full-sounding space trips, dark sounding electronic depths and, nearly every time that Mark Shreeve fires up the sequencers, Boddy makes sure that they only go so far and the first sign that they might be leading to any hint of “Berlin” or anything that you'd expect to find above a solid sequencer line, he's there – twisting the whole direction of the track into something much more “out there”. It's riveting stuff as you hear, not tension, but a meeting of minds, a realisation that perhaps there really are worthwhile unexplored regions of the electronic galaxy still left to chart. I'd like to bet the Freeman Brothers (Audio magazine) would have a wry smile listening to this album (they, too, seek innovation in electronic music rather than anything overtly copyist). For all its length, it's a magnificent voyage and a really unique journey – nothing is as you think it will be, while everything is utterly spellbinding. The multi-synths textures, the cosmic voyages, the twists and turns into sounds rather than structures, the ultra-speed sequencer use on the opening track “Tormentor” and, still, hulking great slabs of blackness and formlessness to provide a seriously dark side of the moog, which puts the likes of Schulze and Namlook into the oblivion out of which this is heading.

RED SHIFT – Turning Towards Us CD
A brand new studio album from Mark Shreeve – and if anyone else is playing on it, he doesn't let slip, as the sleeve is what you'd call “minimal” on the information front. The album opens with the thirteen minute “The Love Of Nature”, a calming sea of undulating, cosmic sequencers and warmly flowing synth undercurrents which flow above, around and behind the gently bobbing rhythmic boat. There follows just under three minutes of what sounds like a gentle mellotron piece, before the thirteen minute “Clan” lets loose an altogether harder set of rhythms as clattering electro-percussive sequencers and crunching electro-percussive drums, swirl and thunder as the approaching storm clouds of thickly cosmic synths steer closer into view, the impending sonic storm drawing ever closer. Then, the storm erupts as the sound of a frazzled, fuzzed electric guitar tears through the mix and climbs higher and higher above the sea of rhythms and out of sight, leaving in its wake, ringing bell-like synth tones and the ever present clattering rhythmic foundations, before suddenly reappearing once again as it dives back down to earth with a solid sonic vengeance. This then develops into a more upfront, traditional, solid squencer rhythm and soon, with a touch of sheer magic, is overlaid with this supremely rich mellotron layer, the two combined sounding just awesome. As the sequencers slowly mutate into pure “Berlin” school, this searing guitar soars over the top in a more discordant manner to give the track the necessary edge and bite as the sequencers rumble and roll ever onwards, slowly changing shape and texture as they travel, the guitar textures entering and disappearing as the track flies by. Another three minutes of warm, cosmic calm unfolds before the album sails into the near twenty three minute title track. It's success lies in its simplicity. Over the length of the track, it flows from space music through sequencer-driven strength through mellotron-rich density to end as it began with cosmic bliss. Far from sounding like every other such piece around, there's a quite natural flow to it all, and you get the feeling that this was a track lovingly created and played without any attention as to whether or not it sounded like anyone else – and the result, is that it doesn't. It manages to avoid all the obvious comparisons while still possessing all the appeal which you'd expect a full-sounding, warmly textured, well constructed epic such as this, to have. As an album. It's mix of restraint, subtlety, underlying strength, cliché avoidance sheer emotive enjoyment of music produced with care and feeling, is what makes it a standout album in a vastly overcrowded field.

SOFT MACHINE – Drop CD
One of the things I'll distinctly remember from my time in the seventies, riveted to Radio One's “Sounds of The Seventies” programmes plus the “In Concert “ broadcasts, is that at some point I hear what I recall to be a session with the band's new drummer, this after Robert Wyatt had left the fold. I quickly came to the conclusion that, whoever he was, he was a maniac. There was this guy who seemed to be using every bit of the kit he could find as fast and as varied a way as possible. This was no one-dimensional Billy Cobham – this was a guy who never wanted to repeat the same phrase and made darned sure he didn't. He must have been hell to play with – which probably accounted for why his tenure with the band was so short. The guy was Phil Howard – and he lasted just a few months in Soft Machine, the only recorded evidence being one side of the fifth album and even that only told half the story. Now, thanks to the guy at Moonjune Records, we get to see the full might and explosive nature of this drummer in action on a previously unreleased live album from 1971 – and it is absolutely stunning. You get to hear the giants of British jazz – Ratledge, Dean and Hopper – do their best to keep up to speed with their drummer. On tracks that would later prove to be quite laid-back affairs, the tension here is taut to the point of breaking, as the band don't get one second to breathe, to relax, to drift – no, they are being kept on the toes by the frantic, frenetic and quite astounding drumming that dictates their every move. Hoper's bass has rarely sounded so fiery, so quick - on “All White”, that bass is on fire as Hopper's playing every part of the thing to keep up with Howard, while Dean's blowing that sax for all he's worth, and the results are mind-blowing, while Ratledge's finger are up and down the piano like a rat up a drainpipe. Occasionally, they do pause for breath, but even hear you can feel that it's only while the drummer gathers a whole new set of storm clouds to rain down on the band and propel the next section on with this mighty rolling, rattling, crunching style that sounds as intense as it is breathless and breathtaking. Throughout the album, the emphasis is on speed and power but in a dynamic and wholly Soft Machine way of thinking – even Ratledge's runs on the Lowry organ are amazingly fast compared with previous offerings, while at no time does Dean let things get the better of him, letting loose with sax work that's as melodic as it is flowing and on fire. Rarely has a Soft Machine album sounded this fiery and it's a remarkable testament to all four musicians that, not only did they rise to the top, but that they produced a performance that's simply mesmerising.

VALOUR – Valour CD
Starts slowly with chiming guitars and strings before, with one sizzling cymbal splash, the band erupt into life, speed-lurching their way through thick riffs as the double-speed drums drive the devil to hell and the vocals enter, sung in tune, and audible, but oddly at times sounding like the vocalist has just come from a metal-ska band with some extremely weird phrasing going on, but the track twists and turns all over the place, largely however staying true to a dense speed-metal track with string overtones. For “Bracknell Aristocracy” the band decelerate a little and what emerges from the heat is a fine example of rock-meets-indie arranging and writing on a song which really catches fire. “Worth Fighting For” returns to the speed metal approach, albeit with some semblance of melodic intentions, as the vocalist continues to be upfront, powerful and heard to perfection. There's a real depth to the arrangement here and the more you play this track, the more it improves, although you can't readily put your finger on just why it is such a great track, as every element of solid rock and metal are present, from sizzling guitar leads through thick riffing to hammering drums and pounding bass, the song every inch the anthem that you just know it is, the more you play it.”Die @ My Hands” is on-fire speed metal rhythms and even more powerful twin lead guitars, this mass of thick riffing and roaring leads under an anguished, solid vocal delivery that really brings the song to life. Apart from a few seconds here and there of Opeth-esque death metal growl, it largely works pretty well. The even better news is that, for the rest of the album, they don't once deviate from the smokin' metal brew with an indie songwriting sensibility, that marks this album as a thoroughly satisfying treat dominated by great songs, although hardly a chorus or a hook in sight, and incendiary, well arranged, superbly produced guitars, plus a driving rhythm section that holds it all together, under a very strong, if not exactly original, vocalist.

Continued........

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