Album reviews: Tori Amos | Kneecap | The Black Keys | Melanie C

Tori Amos: In Times of Dragons (Universal/Fontana) ★★★

Kneecap: Fenian (Heavenly Recordings) ★★★

The Black Keys: Peaches! (Easy Eye Sound/Parlophone Records) ★★★★

Melanie C: Sweat (Virgin Music Group) ★★★

At a time when truth can feel stranger than fiction, Tori Amos responds to the daily drama of the Trump administration with a dystopian fantasy double album. At the core of In Times of Dragons is a His Dark Materials-like tussle between our Amos avatar heroine and her oligarch husband, aka the Lizard Demon, who stalks the land and all that.

Her protagonist flees the seduction of privilege, is pursued across the US, meets a bunch of righteous outsider characters and comes to terms with her destiny as a vanquishing dragon. As outlandish as this sounds, the music is typical Tori from the melodramatic clang of piano on opener Shush - the moment when she realizes she cannot be, in the words of her debut hit, silent all these years - through the looser rhythms and pop baroque keyboards of Provincetown, where she starts to assemble her avengers, to the pop power of Gasoline Girls, the lesbian biker gang who are leaders of the resistance.

It is no coincidence that the odyssey continues with Ode to Minnesota, a song for the state which endured the worst of the civilian clashes with ICE agents. Inevitably, there is catharsis and cleansing en route, not least in the epic Song of Sorrow. Finally, she lands in Montana where 23 Peaks is surprisingly not some action-packed final showdown but a slow and stately commission in the “fight for democracy over tyranny”.

Belfast rappers Kneecap tell stories of a rather more earthbound nature. Following a year of axed festival shows and unlawful charges of terrorism, the politically charged trio approach their second album not cowed but emboldened by their brushes with controversy. Fenian, their reclamation of an Irish Catholic slur, bristles with confidence, from the urgent electro rock energy of Liars Tale to the pumping dance track Big Bad Mo, from the nosebleed techno of Headcase to the bratty Eminem bounce of Gael Phonics.

They strike the right balance between partying hard and protesting unapologetically. The inclusion of their thoughts on Palestine comes as no surprise, with Ramallah rapper Fawzi testifying on the ground. Closer to home, they dig into Ireland’s social and political history on Occupied 6 (“it wasn’t all about Teenage Kicks”) and Smugglers & Scholars and deliver a personal requiem on the Kae Tempest collaboration Irish Goodbye.

The mood is bluesier on the latest covers collection from The Black Keys. The Ohio duo are on a run, with music spilling out of them. Their 14th album - and sixth in seven years - arose from an impromptu jam of their favourite tracks by the likes of Junior Kimbrough, whose songs they have been interpreting since their debut album. RL Burnside is another longstanding inspiration, whose gnarly Fireman Ring the Bell carries gruff notes of Hendrix and Zeppelin.

Elsewhere, they let the retro energy loose on an early Ike Turner cut You Got To Lose, add a soulful brass injection to Dr Feelgood’s She Does It Right and sound somehow rollicking and sultry on Willie Griffin’s Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire.

Getting in sharpish before the release of Madonna’s Confessions II, the perennially sporty Melanie C makes her blatant bid to get on your bad girl gym soundtrack with the title track of her latest album Sweat. You can almost taste the light perspiration on Attitude and the electro pop pump of WCPGW (aka What Could Possibly Go Wrong) but there is also room for lighter confections such as the breathy, summery analogue nostalgia of Eternal Memory and the chilled electro pop of Cashmere which, if nothing else, provides the opportunity to rhyme the title with “last year” and “I swear”.

READ MORE: Louis Tomlinson, Glasgow review: 'underwhelming'

CLASSICAL

A Poet’s Love: Helen Charlston & Sholto Kynoch (BIS) ★★★★

“Where words leave off, music begins” - often attributed to the great 19th century lyric poet Heinrich Heine, those words resonate perfectly with the rationale behind A Poet’s Love, in which mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston and pianist Sholto Kynoch combine the emotional heartbreak expressed in Schumann’s 1827 song cycle Dichterliebe with other Heine settings, ranging from Schumann’s contemporaries to a partner cycle composed in 2023 by Héloïse Werner. Dichterliebe is the destination, a culminating performance as sensitive to its fragile edges as its more optimistic musings. Charlston maintains liquid sustenance throughout, Kynoch ever-attentive to her beguiling nuances. From an opening sequence of single settings by Carl Loewe, Josephine Lang, Felix Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny, we come to Werner’s captivating Knight’s Dream (extracted from Heine’s Lyrisches Intermezzo). Where the poet conceives a vision vanishing as magically as it appears, Werner’s surreal writing adds an intoxicating layer of musical fantasy. Ken Walton

JAZZ

Chris Potter: Alive With Ghosts Today (Edition Records) ★★★★

Inspired by abolitionist John Brown’s ill-starred raid on the Harper’s Ferry armoury in 1859, and its relevance to tensions simmering within America today, this captivatingly textured suite finds saxophonist and composer Chris Potter’s core band with bassist Burniss Travis, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Nate Smith joined by clarinettist Rane Moore, trombonist Zekkereya El-magharbel and Sara Caswell on violin. The opening title track is a short, stately declaration which returns later in the album; elsewhere the shimmer of Frisell’s guitar underwrites powerful statements from Potter’s tenor sax. Dolorous clarinet and trombone give a blues-tinged mission hall band feel to This Earth Would Have No Charms, with passionate statements from sax and violin, while Smith’s unremitting drive pitches fiery sax against trombone and violin in Mine Eyes. They close with Going Home, a bluesy, gospel take on the famous air from Dvorak’s New World symphony. Jim Gilchrist

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