Artist: Yakuza

Album: Beyul

Yakuza, from Chicago, are a heavy metal band, and Beyul is a heavy metal album. Encyclopedia Metallum, normally a definitive web source, disagrees, which I’m told was an active, debated decision. I’m not quite sure what *else* they make, then, of Oil and Water, which barrels along at a quadruple-speed attack of distorted bass, drums, and squalling clarinet, before a commanding Rob Halford (Judas Priest)-like singer (= tuneful wailer) enters. The fierce trebly […]

Artist: Rudi Zygadlo

Album: Tragicomedies

Scotland’s Rudi Zygadlo was introduced to me, for his 2010 debut the Great Western Layman, as a maker of something electronic called “dubstep”. He does do clever things with electro-sonic manipulation, about which more shortly, but that label slowed my recognition of what on Tragicomedies is at least as important: he writes excellent, distinctive vocal melodies. They’re graceful, and modest in scope, but full of odd intervals, sharps or flats where […]

Artist: Paul Weller

Album: Sonik Kicks

Paul Weller is a major star in England; has been since 1977. First he led the Jam, the most articulate and cautious of the first-wave punk stars. Then he led the Style Council, who made smooth soul/ R+B/ swing jazz musics. Then, under his own name, he spent two decades making rootsier soul-rock: brand new Classic Rock for the Adult Contemporary stations. I’ve never really been a fan. But suddenly, in 2012, […]