Album reviews: Manic Street Preachers | Bonnie 'Prince' Billy | Eddie Chacon

Bonnie “Prince” Billy: The Purple Bird (Domino) ★★★★

Eddie Chacon: Lay Low (Stones Throw) ★★★★

Thirty years ago, Manic Street Preachers’ guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards disappeared, leaving only notes and lyrics like a benediction for his remaining bandmates who took up the mantle and have endured in popularity across the decades. Edwards’ chief partner in dialectics, bassist Nicky Wire, allows himself a backwards glance on the band’s latest single, the first to feature his lead vocals. “I want to be in love with the man I used to be in a decade I felt free,” he sings on Hiding In Plain Sight, a beautifully expressed and unstintingly melodic slice of mid-life nostalgia which fits with the men they have become.

There are other wistful moments on their 15th album, Critical Thinking, not least Dear Stephen, a plea for fallen idol Morrissey to “come back to us”, and on frontman James Dean Bradfield’s uplifting Being Baptised, inspired by an encounter with the legendary New Orleans pianist Allen Toussaint in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. “I walk out singing a song,” he exults over Johnny Marr-like guitar chimes.

Elsewhere, Brush Strokes of Reunion is typically hearty Manics fare with lyrics to chew on, elevated by lavish orchestration, while People Ruin Paintings is another concept to conjure with (“faces spoil the view, people destroy the truth”) set to a buoyant arrangement of arena-filling keyboards and trilling guitars.

Proving these erstwhile enfants terribles still have some real bite, Wire also takes the lead on the gothic rock rumble of the opening title track, as he unleashes a spoken word modern-life-is-rubbish barrage on the spoken word verses. The album is bookended by another Wire semi-sneer, One Man Militia, this time accompanied by a joyous guitar solo from Bradfield. Where once they were happy to slash and burn, now the Manics are perennially reassuring company.

Will Oldham, aka ace alt.folk troubadour Bonnie “Prince” Billy, presents his Nashville album, recorded in the home of country music with seasoned session players who capture the feel of the music instinctively, delivering the rootsy southern soul of Turned to Dust (Rolling On) and the finely tuned drama of London May.

Oldham is practically howling at the moon as he considers his sorry fate on perky bluegrass number Tonight With the Dogs I’m Sleeping. In contrast, he hangs his head with regret on the fragile Boise, Idaho, then promptly skips from careworn to carefree on hillbilly hoolie The Water’s Fine.

He is joined by veteran country singer John Anderson on the Celtic folk-infused Downstream, while Tim O’Brien’s resonating mandolin leads thoughtful waltz Our Home and there are pleasing Tex Mex flavours on the easy listening country ballad One of These Days (I’m Gonna Spend the Whole Night With You).

Best known as one half of Charles & Eddie, who scored a global hit in 1992 with Would I Lie To You?, Eddie Chacon broke a lengthy creative silence in 2020, commencing an acclaimed second chapter as a sweet soul crooner.

His latest solo missive Lay Low is a requiem for his late mother, creating a vibe with simple, minimal, mantras. Opening track Good Sun is the definition of a quiet storm, with a breathy, aching vocal calling out to his mother against a subtle backdrop of synth syncopation and burnished keyboards.

He appears a man at sea, struggling to make sense of life on Let You Go, while the seemingly triumphal title of mid-paced shoulder shimmy Empire is revealed to be one “that we built upon the sand”. The emotions are deep but the mood music is soft throughout, culminating in If I Ever Let You Go with its strong whiff of Prince’s bleary psychedelic slow jams.

READ MORE: Ross Ainslie & The Sanctuary Band, Celtic Connections Glasgow review: 'a concert of contrasts'

CLASSICAL

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons with Daniel Pioro & Michael Morpurgo (Platoon) ★★★

It’s a lovely idea to have Michael Morpurgo compose and read four poems to accompany Vivaldi’s evergreen Four Seasons. But why have them done-and-dusted in a oner at the start (to a filmic, trailer-like underscore), leaving the ensuing full performance of the four concertos by violinist Daniel Pioro and the Manchester Camerata as an entirely separate entity? Would it not have made more contextual, indeed presentational, sense to preface each Season with its relevant verse? Such detachment aside, we have at least a largely stylish, cheerily bucolic interpretation by the Camerata strings, individualised - sometimes to extremes - by Pioro’s liberal improvisations, folk-style note-bending and frequently frantic tempi manipulation. Where it supports Vivaldi’s musical logic and lyrical flow it is teasingly pleasing; where it takes exaggerated liberties - the final chord of Winter’s gorgeous Largo is extended to almost a minute - it pushes the bounds. Ken Walton

JAZZ

Brian Molley Quartet and Asin Langa Ensemble: Journeys (BGMM Records) ★★★★★

Glasgow saxophonist Brian Molley and his bandmates, no strangers to east-west collaboration, recorded this often riveting album in a custom-built desert studio in western Rajasthan. Molley’s seasoned quartet with pianist Tom Gibbs, James Lindsay on double bass and drummer Stuart Brown teams up with vocalist and bowed sarangi player Asin Khan Langa, with Bhungar, Sadik and Latif Khan on assorted percussion and jawharp. Between Langa’s impassioned vocals and the sparring between Indian and western instrumentalists over buzzing drones and rattling percussion, there is a sense of joyfully intense cultural convergence, right from the sax flourish and querulous soaring of sarangi that open the album. This cross-cultural sparking continues throughout, until the closing Journeys Hand in Hand opens with statements from sax, sarangi and piano before a fierce groove kicks in and, once again, they are cruising together – spirited but companionable fellow travellers. Jim Gilchrist