Album reviews: Paul Heaton | Dinosaur Jr | The Jayhawks

Paul Heaton: Jenius (EMI Records) ★★★★

Dinosaur Jr: There Near (Jagjaguwar) ★★★★

The Jayhawks: Sanctuary Park (Thirty Tigers) ★★★★

Forty years since releasing his debut album with The Housemartins, Paul Heaton is still finding quirky perspectives on the big, universal songwriting themes - love, death, politics, plus his customary sidebar on drinking. His current vocal foil, Bellshill’s Rianne Downey, returns to get her tonsils around his pin sharp lyrics. She is one of many fans and artists who reckon that Heaton is a genius. His response is to misspell his latest album title.

As a fellow surefire hit machine who is humble, grounded and terminally uncomfortable with the idea that he might be considered a star, Lightning Seed Ian Broudie makes a great production partner for Heaton, who arrives in full garage pop mode on Can’t Get Next To You. The title is a deliberate reference to The Temptations’ song of the same name but the track shares more of its musical DNA with The Only Ones’ Another Girl, Another Planet and offers a more earthbound take on centrifugal attraction.

Downey, meanwhile, is in her sweet country and western spot celebrating the joys of flaws on Favourite Kind of Idiot and singing the lovelorn jobseekers’ blues on I Want the Job, an old school country ballad with soaring strings. That lush Nashville sound prevails on Sad Songs and Lawsuits, an uplifting tune about the bitter end of relationships. Downey also offers her best Sharleen Spiteri stance on rollicking rootsy soul number She Ain’t Pretty.

Heaton takes the heat out of political debate, instead eliciting a knowing chuckle with his social comment. One Eye Open is this life-long left-winger’s withering response to domestic xenophobia and Send in the Clowns is an effortless mid-paced takedown of the political class. Elsewhere in his rogue’s gallery is Jet Black Sky, a portrait of a perennial pessimist “who wears a mackintosh in mid-July”.

This album’s sozzled specialities include the classic country terrain of The Whisky Did, with guest singer Declan O’Rourke deflecting guilt galore before Downey chips in to blame everything else on the gin. Most amusingly of all, A Son A Father is a potty-mouthed stomping glam rock swipe at whitewashed eulogies, confirming that Heaton is the guy propping up the bar that you actually do want to listen to.

Cult alt.rock heroes Dinosaur Jr have followed producer Rick Rubin’s advice to bands of a certain vintage that they should listen back to their first album for inspiration. Returning to the same 70s Mesa Boogie amps as the earliest Dinosaur recordings has paid dividends. Thirteenth album There Near opens with a pleasing collision of joyous power rock and hangdog drawl on Several Got Away, while the uplifting riffing and athletic drum rolls of No Friends bely the lyrics (“I feel so weighted down”).

Take Me With You is epic and scrappy at the same time, bristling with energy and some bonus tremolo, while Gone Off is heroic all round. Frontman J Mascis’s punky vulnerability comes to the fore on Put It Down. One hesitates to call it a ballad but the band do take their feet off the accelerator while stamping down on the effects pedals, while bassist Lou Barlow’s ragged country rocker Blowin’ Up is arguably the pick of a choice bunch.

Americana trailblazers The Jayhawks reunite with legendary rock producer Bob Ezrin for the first time since their 2000 album Smile, producing a satisfying tasting menu of rootsy flavours, from the mainstream country rock of Keeping Our Heads Above Water via roistering honky tonk singalong Leap of Faith to the soulful harmonizing of Hands Upon the Wheel. There’s also a batch of love songs to frontman Gary Louris’s wife, notably the evocative Kingston Girl and the title track, infused with psychedelic spirit of David Crosby.

CLASSICAL

Elgar - Adès - Walton: music for violin & piano (Delphian) ★★★★

Elgar was living in Sussex when he composed his 1918 Violin Sonata, no doubt conscious of wartime artillery fire across the Channel. There is, however, a distanced escapism in this music, even in its darker moments, which British-Dutch violinist Michael Foyle latches onto in a genuinely thoughtful performance with pianist Iain Burnside. Where the passion peaks - the impatience of the opening, the intense heart-filled peak of an otherwise placid Romance, the finale’s lofty surges - composure, even inner peace, still dominate its emotional core. No surprise, then, that the delicate tracery of Thomas Adès’ Suite from The Tempest enjoys equally touching treatment, nor that William Walton’s 1940s Violin Sonata evokes so much of the lyrical tenderness, bittersweet texturing and euphoric joy the composer invested in it. Foyle returns to Elgar for his final tracks, the combined enchantment of Chanson de Nuit and Chanson de Matin. Ken Walton

JAZZ

Ben Crossland Quintet: North York Skies (Jazz Cat Records) ★★★★

Bassist Ben Crosland’s North York Skies is an affectionate tribute to the landscape he loves, taking us on an exhilaratingly swing-powered trip in the company of trumpeter Steve Waterman, guitarist Chris Allard, Steve Lodder on piano and organ and drummer Nic France. The opening Optimist (a locomotive on the Moors Railway) swings with gusto, a fine fat gurgle from Hammond underpinning trumpet and a keen guitar break. The title track, while far from being an evocative tone poem, does have spaciousness, with a wandering Fender Rhodes excursion, while Breathing Space is similarly open, thanks to leisurely trumpet lines and echoing guitar. There’s a lovely drift to Ballad of Lilla Howe, its flugelhorn introduction perhaps echoing Yorkshire brass band traditions, View from Room 12 is a lyrical memorial to Crossland’s mother, with fine piano, while the closing Ain Howe Farewell beats a funky retreat. Jim Gilchrist

The Scotsman’s arts newsletter is now sent twice a week - subscribe today

Enjoying the Arts & Culture journalism on scotsman.com? Make it easier to find by selecting us as a preferred Google source

Want the latest Scottish headlines sent directly to your phone? Sign up to our new WhatsApp channel here