Album reviews: Beck | Big Country Redux | Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts

Beck: Ride Lonesome (Capitol Records) ★★★★★

Big Country Redux: Eastworld (Absolute) ★★★

Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts: Second Song (Reprise) ★★★

Beck is in a forlorn flow state of mind on his first album since 2019’s Hyperspace - all the better for his fans, especially those who particularly rate his sumptuous psych folk albums Sea Change and Morning Phase, two records which stand out in a canon of indie funk party music for their elegant desolation. Beck himself recognizes these exquisite outliers, enough to reassemble the band who played on those records and to return to Hollywood’s United Studios to complete his timeless heartbreak trilogy.

Ride Lonesome could be considered his divorce album. Much of it was written through Covid, when isolation and introspection were such pervasive creative catalysts. The title track sets the tone, tempo and quality, a warm and wistful country rock meditation, evoking the spirit of Gram Parsons. Run Away (as in “please don’t”) also hurts so good, with its healing backing chorus rising up for support.

In The Night is dramatically enhanced by spare yet arresting orchestration from his father David Campbell, Failed Words pairs minimalist piano and sighing strings, while Disappearing Act is delicate yet expansive. The titles tell their story, while the music is every bit as eloquent, a comfort blanket to swaddle against the weight of sadness. If You Don’t Know What Love Is sounds like a song you’ve always known; the album feels like one you’ve always needed.

Bruce Watson continues to steward the Big Country legacy with heart and soul, finessing and finishing rare or unreleased demo songs by the late Stuart Adamson as Big Country Redux. The resulting album Eastworld is both swaggering and sensitive, kicking off with the sheer muscularity of Kiss the Girl Goodbye, a song originally slated for Big Country’s fifth album, No Place Like Home, which lands on just the right side of portentous.

What About Peace is rousing roots rock out to capture hearts and minds, with unfettered, animalistic backing vocals lending a punky edge. The song was written around the time of the rolling coverage of the first Gulf War, its lyrics on the remoteness of the bomber pilot presaging the detachment of the drone warfare to come. The Hostage Speaks dates from the same period and is concerned with similar themes. Amping up the aggression of the demo, this authoritative Celtrock version features a commanding vocal from frontman Tommie Paxton.

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In contrast, Troubled Man is an impassioned but introspective track led by guest vocalists Belly and Lorna from Pistol Daisys, Winter Sky is powered by Seonaid Aitken’s bluegrass fiddle and ex-Simple Minds’ keyboard player Mick MacNeil on accordion, while the band have some fun on the glammy 70s strut of God’s Great Mistake (Part 1), an alternative version of which first appeared on 1995 album Why the Long Face.

Neil Young teams up again with his latest band The Chrome Hearts for a new semi-acoustic folk rock collection engaging with past and present. Two of the seven tracks, Casting Me Away From You and I Will Love You Forever, date from the 60s but were never released. The former is a lovely careworn amble capturing the ache of a younger man and the latter is a soothing twanging love ode. Young also looks back from the present moment to make some reflective sense of his past on The Foggy Edge of Time, while he feels the passage of time on Day After Day’s portrait of domesticity and appeals to “talk to someone as old as I am” on the 11-minute title track. Soon I Might Be Going emerges as the real heartbreaker of the album, a rueful requiem from a man not comfortable at the pace of change nor the nature of it.

CLASSICAL

Ben Michaels: for cello, by cellists (Delphian) ★★★★

In the six works specially commissioned by Ben Michaels for his new solo cello album, all six composers have one thing in common: they’re all cellists. Where they differ is through their preferred performance mediums, whether it be improvisational, theatrical, song-based, jazz-inspired, or sonic exploration. Jakob Kullberg’s Single the Sky: A Fever Dream offers a captivating, ephemeral narrative, a precise yet transient stream of consciousness. Laura Moody’s Mandala stems from her interest in theatrical choreography, human vocalisations and whistling adding to its frenetic physicality. Where Ayanna Witter-Johnson’s Amethyst Sings is frisky and songlike, Zoë Martlew’s Inila is a breathy, out-of-this-world adventure. Jazz musician Kit Downes’ Kasei Valles, simple and easy-going with frequent nods to Bach, eases the way forward to the meditational intensity of Colin Alexander’s Towards the Flame. Together these pieces, and performances, are a fascinating eye-opener: same instrument, infinite possibilities. Ken Walton

JAZZ

Eddie Parker’s Airborn with Rob Luft (Pig Records) ★★★★

Flautist, multi-instrumentalist and founder-member of Loose Tubes of fond memory, Eddie Parker vividly combines flute, keyboards, electronic shadings and Rob Luft’s guitar virtuosity, driven by bassist Dave Manington and drummer Jay Davis. Jazz questing with echoes of prog rock, they open with sheets of shimmering sound in Prelude, while Luft’s guitar establishes its reverberant presence in the subsequent Airborn 1. A wind band vibe characterises the first of a series of Interludes, while Interlude: Duo is indeed a gorgeous duet between flute and 12-string guitar, and electric guitar fairly bristles during the offbeat funk of Airborn 5, Parker adding a bubbly keyboard break. To Plant a Tree is particularly lovely, guitar picking up Parker’s piano theme and ending with a stratospheric fade-out, while sombre pacing and stately echoes distinguish Cortege. To close, the heady rush of Oke Quixote fades into hyperspace. Jim Gilchrist

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