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Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 02/06/17 : Different Days -  The Charlatans I've listened to a few albums from The Charlatans over the years and generally enjoyed them and been pleasantly surprised by the variety they provide, but I've never listened to this one, which is only our second ever visit with the lads. And this provides a bit more variety with some melodic, backward-looking pop taking in multiple influences from mostly (I would say) the 60s to the 80s - there's also a decent amount of variety across the album. I'd say it's  interesting rather than loveable on first listen, but it's nicely jaunty and feels like it would be a grower which I imagine the fans love - it's always a challenge for a band which has released a load of albums to get the mix of "more of the same" and "something new" right and The Charlatans seem to manage this better than most. We're at #4 in the charts this week with a new entry...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 09/06/17 : Is This The Life We Really Want? -  Roger Waters We've had a couple of solo visits with David Gilmour, but this is our first one with Roger Waters - I like Radio K.A.O.S. but don't believe I've ever listened to any of his other offerings, so I'm interested to see what I think of it. Well, on the positive side I think this has interesting lyrics and use of various random samples over a decent Pink Floyd style musicality - all of which kept me decently engaged. There's a reasonable argument that it's not exactly subtle with the points that he's making and some of the tracks could have done with some pruning, but I do feel that most people aren't really coming here for concise nuance. However... ...he's really not a very good singer. In most places, he accepts this and works with what he's got but there are times he seems to forget and tries to do something that his voice is very much...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 16/06/17 : Truth Is A Beautiful Thing -  London Grammar Our second visit with London Grammar and last time I did a musical deep dive and declared that it all sounded very much like London Grammar. And I'll be amazed if we're not in the same space here... Yup, this very much sounds like London Grammar. Which I'm absolutely fine with because I dig that kinda vibe - it somehow manages to slide by without being boring and Hannah Reid has a lovely voice. I can't say I'd be happy if you asked me to compile the tracklist for a London Grammar best-of because I'd really struggle to pick any one of these tracks above the others - but since that's unlikely to happen, we're all good here.  We're at #1 in the charts with a new entry this week on the start of a very decent 33 week run - not quite the 99 week run their debut album managed, but that "only" got to #2. The rest of the chart this week we...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 23/06/17 : How Did We Get So Dark? -  Royal Blood To my surprise, this is our fourth visit with RB - I've generally not minded them and appreciate the skill, but did find our last visit a bit forgettable. I actually surprised myself by recognising "Lights Out" - I wasn't aware I knew any of their tracks. And the rest of it is in a similar rocky vein - this isn't something I'd search out but i t's an impressive sound, particularly when you consider it's just the two of them doing all the work. And, I actually would search them out at a festival because I bet they make a great sound live. We're at #1 with a new entry in the charts this week on the start of an impressive 34 week run. The rest of the top five were  Ed Sheeran , Nickelback (another new entry),  Rag'n'Bone Man  and Lorde (another new entry) and we have one more new entry in the top ten for Fleet Foxes (#9). Wikipedia tells u...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 30/06/17 : Evolve -  Imagine Dragons Our third visit with them Dragons - I've generally enjoyed our visits but struggled to describe exactly what it is I'm hearing. So let's expect more of the same, shall we? Hmmm - no. This is pretty easy to explain really because it all sounds like "Believer", which is the only Imagine Dragons track I know. I like it though and I've nothing wrong with that kinda sound (it brought to mind RHCP or The Killers, which are hardly shabby points of reference) but it wasn't really what I was expecting from the previous write-ups. However, I've certainly problems with bands evolving (do you see what I did there?) and there was nothing wrong with this, so all is good. We're at #3 with a new entry in the chart this week on the start of an impressive 73 week run - somewhat surprisingly it's only their second most successful album though, with their debut (which we ha...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 10/04/26 : The Weight Of The Woods - Dermot Kennedy  Having completely coincidentally mentioned Dermot last week (in connection with the word "sonder"), we now have our second visit with the lad - last time I declared his album ( Sonder ) to be fine but forgettable and I've no reason to believe we won't get exactly the same here. Well, it turns out he can't be completely forgettable because I do remember that the last album didn't really sound like this one. This is much more David Gray-ish, with definitely folky roots to it - I didn't mind it at all, but, once again, I'd struggle to say too much of it stuck in there with me. However, it's all nicely hummable and I do believe that multiple listens would improve matters - and I also like the album cover. We're at #1 in the charts with a new entry this week - his third #1 album in a row, so it's a bit strange that his debut album onl...