Album reviews: The Waterboys | Will Smith | Sacred Paws | The Cowboy Mouth

Will Smith: Based On a True Story (Slang Records) ★★★

Sacred Paws: Jump Into Life (Rock Action) ★★★★

The Cowboy Mouth: Faultlines (Last Night From Glasgow) ★★★

Mike Scott first wrote a song about Dennis Hopper on The Waterboys’ 2020 album Good Luck, Seeker; now he has written a whole album on the Hollywood maverick and it’s an eclectic trip, not unlike a compressed synopsis of Hopper’s own wild ride of a career.

Life, Death & Dennis Hopper (not the most inspired title) comprises 25 vignettes – scenes, if you like - including five instrumentals, one for each of his wives. The first voice on the album is not Scott but the wonderful Steve Earle, taking on the role of a weathered Hopper looking back on his need to get the hell out of Dodge (literally, his hometown) on acoustic ode Kansas. Elsewhere, Fiona Apple unleashes hell on macabre piano ballad Letter from an Unknown Girlfriend and Bruce Springsteen contributes a grizzly spoken word cameo to the stealthy shuffle of Ten Years Gone.

The hep jazz strut of Hollywood ’55 looks at the impact of this edgy young thing on his arrival in Hollywood, acting alongside James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. Next, Scott gets his motor running on the garage thrash Live in the Moment, Baby.

Andy (A Guy Like You) is a blithe Sixties symphonic pop response to Hopper’s art and association with Andy Warhol, The Tourist a Neil Young-style fantasia and Freaks on Wheels a grindhouse trailer soundtrack. Freakout at the Mud Palace is a throwaway number which sounds like a bad dance remix, although in its own way probably more representative of the chaotic Hopper than any other track.

The blissed-out Blues for Terry Southern (“he didn’t read the small print”) sounds like one of Orange Juice’s dreamy backward glances meeting Lennon at his most lysergic, while Frank (Let’s F***) is a suitably maniacal tribute to Hopper’s disturbing turn in Blue Velvet.

Scott lands somewhere between fairground barker and sports commentator on Everybody Loves Dennis Hopper and leads the slacker cheerleader chant on single Hopper’s On Top (Genius) before the Morricone spaghetti western fanfare of Venice, California/The Passing of Dennis Hopper heralds the end credits on this eccentric but lovable album.

Will Smith releases his first full-length album in 20 years, heading off criticism of his infamous Oscars slap at the pass on opening skit Int. Barbershop – Day and declaring “I won’t be nominated” on the gospel drone of You Lookin’ For Me?

Elephant in the room acknowledged, he settles into a varied commercial collection, ranging from the beefy percussion-heavy Rave in the Wasteland to the rootsy R&B of Bulletproof and the light summer touch of Hard Times (Smile), featuring singer Teyana Taylor. Flamenco vocalist India Martinez brings the fire to First Love, his son Jaden joins him on Work of Art and Kanye West’s Sunday Service Choir take gospel flight on You Can Make It.

Scottish Album of the Year Award-winning guitar/drums duo Sacred Paws return with a third album of good vibrations, propelled by Eilidh Rodgers’ light but lightning touch on drums and Ray Aggs’ uplifting, melodic guitar and calming but carefree vocal tone. Sunsplash brass, banjo and fiddle are added to the peppy mix, alongside Aggs’ signature Afrobeat guitar inflections, the Caribbean fanfare of the title track and the rollicking post-punk of Winter. Wrong season, surely? Spring has sprung in these grooves.

The Cowboy Mouth take a similar easy breezy approach, while harking back to a different era in Glasgow pop. This four-piece were originally formed in the early Nineties by Hipsway frontman Grahame Skinner and Creeping Bent/Frets concerts supremo Douglas MacIntyre. Faultlines, their first album in 30 years, showcases cool, classy Scotpop from the smooth, sedate Yeah Yeah Yeah to the garagey swing of Haunt You.

CLASSICAL

Walton: Violin Concerto | Troilus and Cressida Suite | Portsmouth Point (Chandos) ★★★★

Here’s a version of Walton’s Violin Concerto that hypnotises you within seconds. Not just because it’s that kind of piece - the swooning warmth of the opening, that waspish Neapolitan caprice at its centre, and the lustful questioning of the finale - but because the performance itself, by John Wilson’s Sinfonia of London with leader Charlie Lovell-Jones as soloist, is so unified in its sunny characterisation and execution. You’re immediately swept along by its carefree disposition, Lovell-Jones warming those delicious melodies with neat hints of melancholy (Walton was infatuated with the older but unattainable Alice Wimborne at the time), while sourcing fiery, puckish irreverence when called for. More than anything, you sense a fundamental dance quality in the music, Wilson’s orchestra light and supple on its feet. Fine performances, too, of the opulent Symphonic Suite from Troilus and Cressida (arranged posthumously by Christopher Palmer from Walton’s opera), and Portsmouth Point. Ken Walton

JAZZ

Lorna Reid: I Will Tell Your Story (Independent label) ★★★★

Edinburgh singer-songwriter Lorna Reid holds little back on her fourth album, produced by Boo Hewerdine and in sterling company including guitarist Neil Warden, pianist Euan Stevenson, saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski and multi-instrumentalist Gustaf Ljunggren. Her jazz inflected with soul, R&B and even an occasional dash of country, Reid delivers full on, as in the no-holds-barred holler of Smash Gamble, threaded by Warden’s stingy slide guitar, or the gospel-inflected soul of the title track, reproachful vocals matched by an impassioned tenor sax break from Wiszniewski. In contrast there’s the lingering tenderness of Sweet Baby Blues over Stevenson’s empathetic piano and the sassy, slinky swing of Pale Blue Glance with its café band vibe from Wiszniewski and Ljunggren. Swelling background vocals from Louise Clare Marshall inform the brooding atmosphere of Where’s the Fire? while the album exits with a flourish of unabashed Cajun-rockabilly in Tipping Point. Jim Gilchrist