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Sunday, March 22, 2009
Pete Doherty Grace/Wastelands (Parlophone)

‘‘I bet you couldn’t even name one of my songs,” Pete Doherty told Pat Kenny during their farcical encounter on the Late Late Show recently. Kenny had to admit that, yes, he’d failed to do basic research into his guest’s career, but the exchange illustrated a wider truth – seven years after entering the public consciousness, Doherty is still far better known for his massive drug consumption than his music, and has never had anything resembling a proper hit single.

His solo debut is a vast improvement on the chaotic Babyshambles album, though that’s not to say it’s particularly good.

Producer Stephen Street has audibly broadened Doherty’s previously tiny musical palette: Sweet By And By sees him trying his hand at lightly jazz-tinged ragtime, and A Little Death Around The Eyes, a gothic lullaby soaked in woozy strings, is a perfect pastiche of late-period Pulp. But a good many of these tracks are forgettable sketches of semi-songs, and Doherty’s voice still couldn’t carry a tune if you gave him a forklift.

The good reviews Grace/Wastelands is getting in Britain seem to be born of ill-disguised relief that Doherty has finally managed to make a record that doesn’t sound like a load of instruments being hurled down a lift shaft. But while it definitely has its moments, it’s still far short of being

an essential listen. *** J O’B Download: Sweet By And By

Pet Shop Boys Yes (Parlophone)

Anyone who saw the Pet Shop Boys play Dublin in late 2007 will know that they remain one of the most entertaining live acts on the planet. Their recent records, however, have had an air of slow puncture about them, as if they’re going through the motions merely to keep up appearances.

Yes is no exception: though executed with the duo’s customary elegance and thoughtfulness, it doesn’t hold a candle to their best work. There are some mild surprises – the anthemic Beautiful People features some twangy Morricone-esque guitar, All Over The World opens with a blast of the Nutcracker Suite – but it’s the same pristine synth-pop template as ever, only not quite as good. Even Neil Tennant’s singing lacks the icy power of yesteryear, not because it’s faded with age but because there’s an indefinable something missing.

The PSBs’ place in pop history has long been assured, but records like Yes are mere footnote to their legacy. *** J O’B Download: Beautiful People

Chris Cornell Scream (Interscope)

And now the screaming starts. It may seem like a Joaquin Phoenixlike spoof, but no; rock deity Chris Cornell really has sold his soul to Timbaland. Like a pathological Doctor Frankenstein, the hip-hop guru has taken 14 Cornell-penned slowies and bulked them out with customary shiny, spattering beats and melodramatic synths – and the resulting chimera is barely fit for human ingestion.

Dumbing down Cornell’s tonsil shredding vocals with pristine, poppy production more suited to Britney Spears or Michael Jackson sounds like a real-time, sonic mid-life crisis – but the reality is much worse. Yes, there’s rage within the machines of Part Of Me, Sweet Revenge and Take Me Alive (featuring Justin Timberlake, shrinking into the background), but the banality of the lyrics (‘‘That bitch ain’t a part of me’’) and the album’s sheer, overlong directionlessness sullies two titanic reputations in one. Significantly, the bonus track is entitled Lost Cause. Beastly stuff.

* JC Download: Take Me Alive

Marianne Faithfull

Easy Come, Easy Go (Dramatico) Marianne Faithfull may no longer be blessed with the sweet voice of her youth, but her smoky rasp brings years of (often bitter) experience to this ambitious double album of old and modern reinterpretations. With producer Hal Willner and a host of music-biz luvvies like Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright and Antony Hegarty, she takes on classics and obscurities from Dolly Parton, Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith, alongside those of The Decemberists, BRMC and Morrissey.

It’s not always successful either, but where she gets it right, she unearths extraordinary hidden treasures. Somewhere (A Place For Us), with Jarvis Cocker supplying a breathy co-vocal, is quietly show stopping, and you can almost smell the smoke and caffeine on her version of Sarah Vaughan’s Black Coffee. But it’s her heartbreaking, golden gravel takes on Parton’s Down From Dover and Neko Case’s Hold On, Hold On which are worth the admission alone. *** JC Download: Hold On, Hold On

David Kitt The Nightsaver (Gold Spillin’)

David Kitt must feel like a man out of time. Every couple of years, the laid-back Dubliner releases an album of gently introspective, gorgeously crafted electronica, and every couple of years, the record-buying public shrugs its shoulders. But even if the hype that greeted his emergence back around the turn of the century has long since dissipated, The Nightsaver is the sound of a man who’d rather remain in the shadows than submit to any kind of artistic compromise.

The image of the sensitive singer-songwriter has always been too crude to apply to Kitt, who adds all sorts of intriguing sounds to this basic template and uses subtle beats to enhance his songs’ simple but sweet messages. This is far from the most commercial album you’ll hear this year – but it may well be the one that most rewards repeated listening.

**** AL Download: Don’t Wake Me Up

Iain Archer To The Pine Roots (Black )

Bangor native Iain Archer can boast impeccable songwriting credentials – as a contributor to Snow Patrol’s breakthrough album Final Straw, he even picked up an Ivor Novello Award. His solo records are rather more low-key affairs, fragile to the point of wispiness but containing intense emotions beneath their placid surfaces.

Conceived and recorded in a cottage on the edge of Germany’s Black Forest, To the Pine Roots blends pastoral metaphors with childhood memories and wistful character sketches, wrapped up in meandering melodies that just about manage to avoid toppling into self-indulgence. Sad, delicate and quietly lovely, this is an Archer with a

quiver full of arrows. **** AL Download: Frozen Lake

DVDS

Quantum of Solace

Directed by Marc Forster Fox, cert 12, released March 23 The 22nd James Bond instalment is the most commercially successful Bond film, yet it is also one of the most disappointing.

Despite grossing more than $575 million at US box offices (and in excess of stg£50 million in product placement), Quantum of Solace pales in comparison to its exciting predecessor, Casino Royale.

In Daniel Craig’s second performance as Bond, the secret agent seeks revenge for the death of his beloved Vesper. He also pursues the agents of an assassination attempt on M (Judi Dench) and attempts to stop an environmentalist from taking control of a country’s valuable resource.

Between the high-octane opening sequence and the final credits, director Marc Forster (The Kite Runner; Monster’s Ball) crams in multiple subplots, rendering the overall production largely forgettable.

The Blu-ray disc and two-disc special edition DVD contain features including behind-the scenes featurettes, crew files and a music video for the song Another Way to Die, performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys.

88 Minutes

Directed by Jon Avnet Warner, cert 15 How the mighty have fallen. Al Pacino plays an FBI forensic psychiatrist Jack Gramm – all bouffant hair and oven-baked tan – with almost no presence whatsoever. Through a mishmash of hackneyed images of kinky sex murders and suspense-free chase scenes, Gramm has 88 minutes to solve a murder on his own, as his DNA is all over a dead woman’s body.

Additional features include commentary with the director, an alternate ending and The Character Within, in which Pacino discusses what it takes to create the perfect character . . . a pity his theories weren’t put to the test.

Helen Boylan

GAMES

Ninja Blade

(Microsoft, age 16+) Platform: Xbox 360 Price: €55

Since the success of Assassin’s Creed last year, game developers have rediscovered our lust for ninja skills games. Ninja Blade is pretty hardcore stuff, but doesn’t take much skill to jump into.

Instead of having to learn a complex series of moves, you can bash away at enemies with only two attack formations. This makes the game a little easier than most high-level action games, a relief for the casual gamer.

But it’s not all a series of slitting human enemies’ throats, either: your principal enemy is a huge parasite called an alpha worm. From a cinematographic perspective, the game is beautifully crafted and plays extremely smoothly. **** Adrian Weckler

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