STACK June 2017 Issue 152

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22 JUNE 2017
visit MUSIC REVIEWS
Fleet Foxes
Crack-Up
Six long years after releasing their last,
highly acclaimed album Helplessness
Blues, Fleet Foxes return with new
record Crack-Up. The first minute of
epic six-minute opener I Am All That
I Need/Arroyo Seco/ Thumbprint Scar
has Robin Pecknold gently drawling
before an explosion of sound.
Conversely, field recordings of ocean
waves are soothing on Cassius, with
the song expanding into a bigger
and bolder vision before transitioning
perfectly into Naidas, Cassadies. The
stripped back If You Need To, Keep
Time On Me has Pecknold at his most
candid, while the superb closing track
Crack-Up concludes the album on a
majestic note. With their sound grander
and more uplifting than ever, Fleet
Foxes truly assert their status as one
of the greatest folk bands of our time.
(Warner) Holly Pereira
Rancid Trouble Maker
If you are familiar with Californian
legends Rancid, then you already
know what I'm going to say. The best
thing about the four-piece, a quarter of
a century into their musical careers,
is their consistency of quality: they're
nine top-notch albums in with no
signs of slowing down. Trouble
Maker builds on the band’s well-laid
foundations: their blue collar attitude,
and frontman Tim Armstrong’s
gravelly growl. Ghost Of A Chance
bounces along appropriately, Street
Punk Trouble Maker will have you
looking for your closest mosh pit
and Say Goodbye To Our Heroes is a
solemn obituary. By always sticking
to the punk roots that have inspired
so many bands, Rancid continue to
brandish the torch-lit traditions and
sprit of an early punk era that seems
almost forgotten.
(Epitaph)Tim Lambert
The Charlatans
Different Days
Following on from 2015’s Modern
Nature, a record made under the
cloud of the death of founding
member and drummer Jon Brookes,
Different Days is The Charlatans' 13th
studio album. It’s a diverse long player,
imbued with positivity – a conscious
effort from the band to keep the ball
rolling. Different Days and Let’s Go
Together are songs constructed with
The Charlatan’s DNA, while the dance-
oriented Over Again and The Same
House were written with New Order’s
Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert. In
fact, the album features contributions
from an array of poets, writers and
indeed musicians including Johnny
Marr and Paul Weller. While not every
song works here, The Charlatans
still possess the ability to write and
compose some very good music.
(Liberator) Paul Jones
Tigers Jaw Spin
With their hearts on their sleeves,
Tigers Jaw deliver an album equal
parts upbeat melodic power-pop and
sullen emo revivalism. Spin is their
fifth album, and like the records which
precede it, it takes two paths – each
led by one of the band's vocalists, Ben
Walsh and Brianna Collins. While both
move through a mixture of lo-fi indie
and zealous shoegaze, Walsh’s leads
are succinct, moody and heart-achingly
precise (Follows and Guardian) while
Collins' resonate with more optimism
and heart (June and Same Stone).
This is the group's major label debut
(Will Yip’s Atlantic offshoot Black
Cement), and they're punching way
above their weight class; all 12 tracks
are meticulously engineered, while
lyrically, Spin touches on anxiety,
heartbreak and weakness, expressing
these vulnerabilities without coming
off self-indulgently.
(Warner)Tim Lambert