Love Travels - Kathy Mattea

Advantages: Imaginatively crafted punky tunes
Disadvantages: Doesn't progress greatly from the last, slightly awkward (although paradoxically that is also a positive)

...For a man who is exactly 16 years older to the day than a certain editor and is on his thirteenth album including seven Blur LP's, Graham Coxon sounds incredibly fresh. Regarded as one of the best guitarists of his generation, Coxon has spent the last few years establishing himself as a solo artist and he finally seems to be doing it well. Following the relatively moderate success of 2004's 'Happiness In Magazines' and offshoots 'Freakin' Out' and 'Bittersweet Bundle Of Misery', the ex-Blur guitarist has produced another album with the potential to grace the higher echelons of the charts. Album opener and first single 'Standing On My Own Again' strays little from the previous album's direction but don't take that away from a single full of wistful emptiness and unreciprocated love. In fact the whole album has been soaked in... Read review

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Advantages: It's great music more or less throughout
Disadvantages: A couple of weaker moments

...Having heard Frank Turner's "The First Three Years", an album which reflected on his first few years work as a solo artist after leaving Million Dead, there was no way I couldn't listen to more of his music. After all, the genre he works in, mainly folk based but with frequent rock twists, was one I enjoy listening to and my first experience with his work proved that he was very adept within that field. Compilations like that can be a bit patchy due to their nature, so it seemed only fair I judge him not only on that, but also on his studio work. Fortunately, the version of "The First Three Years" I picked up also came packaged with his second studio album, "Love, Ire & Song", so I didn't have to go too far to get a taste of Turner's studio work. There's a very John Otway feel to the title of "I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous... Read review

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Advantages: Jazz Klezmer mix works well
Disadvantages: Some fairly unmemorable tracks

...racks Kroke which means Krakow in Yiddish are a four piece band from Krakow that play mostly Klezmer music but also some Sephardic stuff. Seventh Trip is their most recent album (8th album) and was released by Oriente in 2007. The album is not at all bad but it's nowhere near as good as their 2000 release - The Sounds of the Vanishing World. That album was more traditional than this one which attempts to fuse jazz and even rock in to the tracks, it's the kind of album that grows on you. The album starts off with an arabic feeling with a bit of rock thrown in with the track Awakening before moving on to Papillon which is a very busy track, lots going on, then on to Canon which is pure Klezmer music before disappearing a bit for a few tracks which are a bit slow and depressing before coming back with some more jazzy tracks... Read review

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