My Week In Music: 17-21 March
Coheed & Cambria and Steven Wilson drop concept albums, Clipping. is back, and Reb Fountain and Sola Rosa rep the Kiwis.
THE FATHER OF MAKE BELIEVE (released: 14/03/2025)
Coheed & Cambria
Fronted by Claudio Sanchez (the long haired guy), Coheed & Cambria are by now famed for the fact that all of their albums bar one are concept albums, and part of an ongoing storyline told out of sequence; known as The Amory Wars, the story is written by Sanchez, and has been turned into comic books and a novel.
The only C&C album NOT part of The Amory Wars storyline was 2015’s The Colour Before The Sun. It is probably my favourite by them, sincere and vulnerable in a way that the rest are not. And it shows just how good a group of songwriters Coheed & Cambria are, from Sanchez on down.
The Father Of Make Believe is their 11th album overall, and the third in a trilogy within the Amory Wars called Vaxis.
The songs, however, continue the style the group has adopted - wildly varied progressive rock that dips in and out of alternative, metal and industrial (and a little emo) - while also weaving in motifs from earlier albums, and even giving us the odd ballad; late album highlight “Corner My Confidence” still manages to be moving, even as it serves a larger story.
Fear not, rockers: “Blind Side Sonny” and “Goodbye Tomorrow” and “One Last Miracle” are just three excellent songs that will scratch your metal itch.
THE OVERVIEW (released: 14/03/2025)
Steven Wilson
Wilson is best known as the frontman and primary songwriter of Porcupine Tree, the legendary British rock outfit who went on hiatus in 2010 then surprised everyone with a new album in 2022 that they’d been recording in secret for most of the previous decade despite saying things like ‘I'm not interested in going backwards, I want to move forwards’ in interviews.
The Overview is Wilson’s 8th solo album and its a doozy: just two tracks - “Objects Outlive Us” at 23:19 in length, and “The Overview” at 18:22 - its a remarkably cohesive and intricate piece of work based on The Overview Effect, the cognitive shift of seeing the earth from space.
On digital, the two tracks are broken up into their parts, but the best way to listen to the album is as just the two tracks, without thinking about where you are in each one or what is coming up next. It actually feels like jumping ahead would be against the spirit of what Wilson is trying to do, like kind of a betrayal.
As far as the tracks go, they are really good, never less than engrossing - I found them evocative of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, the opener and closer from Wish You Were Here, and they certainly move Wilson’s back in that direction, away from the electronic influences of his last few albums.
NEW TOMORROWS (released: 14/03/2025)
Sola Rosa
Driven by producer Andrew Spraggon (the guy raising his hand in the above photo), Sola Rosa has been around since the turn of the century with its merging of soul, funk, jazz, hip-hop, and anything else Spraggon feels he wants to add in to the mix. The results are usually pretty enjoyable.
They continue to be so on New Tomorrows, the latest EP for the group (project?), a short but sweet collection of tracks that tread similar ground to earlier releases; it plays as a celebration of Sola Rosa, delivering what the Spraggon excels at - great songs, well produced.
The title track is one of the highlights here, but the standouts here are “Tears Roll Down” and “The Sun Doesn’t Shine” - the former a gorgeous soul track with a beautiful vocal from Australian/Ghanaian singer AKOSIA, the latter showing off Spraggon’s sublime production skills and a vocal from British singer Joe Probert.
Sola Rosa will be back later in the year with a new album, but in the meantime this is a great collection of songs to tide you over.
HALO ON THE INSIDE (released: 14/03/2025)
Circuit des Yeux
So, I’ve not been across Circuit des Yeux before. Wikipedia tells me that its the stage name of Haley Fohr, a Chicago based musician famous for playing a 12 string guitar and possessing a four octave vocal range, the latter of which is on display in opener “Megaloner”, Fohr jumping from a near tenor tone to her upper register in the chorus, while a synth line and a thumping drum give the whole affair the tone of a heavier Cure track.
Halo On The Inside is Fohr’s seventh album under the name Circuit des Yeux. I can’t honestly say that I enjoyed this one: so layered in noise, the album becomes somewhat suffocating, overwhelming the senses, and that low-end vocal gives the record a theatrical bent that adds a remove in its own way.
Second single “Canopy Of Eden” has all of these things on display, the layers coming in and building over the open couple of minutes; it reminded me of Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral, the way the tracks keep building on top of each other, changing the sound over time.
Interesting album, if a little dark, and if a little domineering.
DEAD CHANNEL SKY (released: 14/03/2025)
clipping.
I discovered this week that my girlfriend has not seen Hamilton, so I took it upon myself to show her some of my favourite tracks - including the two rap battles between Jefferson (Daveed Diggs) and Hamilton (Lin Manuel Miranda) and “Washington On Your Side”, all of which prove that Diggs is arguably the fastest rapper in the entire show. Just listen to his insane delivery of ‘I'm in the cabinet, I am complicit in watching him grabbin' at power and kiss it / If Washington isn't gon' listen to disciplined dissidents / This is the difference, this kid is out!’ in the middle of the latter track. Incredible.
Diggs brings that same energy to clipping., his hip-hop group with William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes that brings together rap music with electronic and industrial; its a rare band that can draw comparisons to both My Bloody Valentine and Death Grips, but here we are.
Their fifth album Dead Channel Sky continues their growth as a group: the songs here feel a bit more refined, even as they surprise constantly (‘But by the way, did you remember then to pull the cable out? AW FUCK’ Diggs sings over a dirty dance beat and a bass drop on “Change The Channel”), with more thought put into presentation. Sometimes it means digital artefacts, like you’re travelling into the Matrix. Mostly it means something exciting and energetic and grimy. Love it.
HOW LOVE BENDS (released: 14/03/2025)
Reb Fountain
San Francisco born but Lyttelton raised, Reb Fountain has been releasing her own music since the oughts - How Love Bends is her sixth album overall, and first since 2021’s Iris, to go with a few appearances here and there (including on last year’s “Heaven Is Falling” with Delaney Davidson.
Fountain hasn’t lost any of her experimentalism with this record but it does feel like the more mainstream (for lack of a better term) tracks - and there are a few here - are better than ever: “City” is an early highlight in that regard, a driving piano riff and a simple drum track propelling it forward as she repeats the phrase ‘I do not want what I have not got’, evoking Sinead O’Connor.
Elsewhere, “Ring Ring” and “Forever” see her melding that mainstream ethos with her more unorthodox tendencies - and I think that is what separates How Love Bends from Reb Fountain’s earlier work: in albums past, I’ve found it hard to connect when she gives in to her more avant garde approaches, but it all clicks together better here than it has before. Brilliant album, really.
WHY AM I SO SINGLE? (LONDON CAST RECORDING) (released: 14/03/2025)
Original Cast of Why Am I So Single?
The Australian production of Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’ hit show Six: The Musical - a pop opera about the six wives of Henry VIII who form a girl band - is playing in Auckland as I write this, while the follow up (this) is playing the West End in London. My cousin saw it and said it was phenomenal live.
In a nutshell, the show is extremely meta: Why Am I So Single? is a semi-biographical show following Oliver and Nancy, a pair of musical writers struggling with being single while trying to write a show. Even listening to the songs in a vacuum, they are hilariously self-referential, constantly making pop culture references, misdirecting through lyrics, and playing up tropes.
The highlight of the show, as far as I’m concerned, is a trio of tracks in the middle of Act I: “I Got Off The Plane” is a takedown of the Ross & Rachel trope in romance media, followed by a reprise of the opening track, then “C U Never” is an exploration of modern communication norms, and “Meet Market” is another takedown, this time of dating apps - the ensemble repeating cliche lines you’ll definitely have seen (my favourite: ‘I like pineapple on pizza / sorry about it’).
As a recently single person who turned to the apps, and a pop culture nerd with a bit of musical theatre knowledge, Why Am I So Single? had me laughing for its entire hour and a half. Here’s hoping it comes down under soon.
Also considered for review this week:
Scottish musician Edwyn Collins’ Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation is the “A Girl Like You” singers sixth since a cerebral haemorrhage and, honestly, its pretty good - but it didn’t grab me (and the title feels idealistic).
You know what, Throwing Muses’ Moonlight Concessions is good too - as you’d expect from the alt legends - but I just couldn’t get into it
The alt-rock stuff on electro-rockers Courting’s Lust For Life, Or: 'How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story' is pretty good, , but the electronic stuff sounds like The Matrix: Reloaded soundtrack.
I don’t know what to make of Daily J’s Scatterbrains - apparently a Kiwi band out of Auckland, but they sound Australian and I can’t recall seeing them promoting shows here at all. Their album is fine. Shrug.
I didn’t like Playboi Carti’s Music but I did like the Kendrick verse on “Good Credit”, and the Travis Scott collab on “Philly” is the best track.
I get that Loraine James is an experimentalist but her solo project Whatever the Weather’s Whatever the Weather II - each track named for a temperature corresponding to her emotional state - was a bit out there.
One of the best in the chillwave genre, Twin Shadow’s Georgie is pretty decent but I thought it repeated ideas from his earlier work.
Bambara refers to an ethnic group in West Africa, but BAMBARA’s Birthmarks is the new album from a schizo indie-metal trio out of Brooklyn, and I feel like that explains so much about what it is like.
Thanks for your support this week everyone.
Have a brilliant weekend!
Chris xo
Edwyn Collins fans are referred to his TV comedy series West Heath Yard
https://youtu.be/ifZC-BQxnEc?si=CWV9JcWuslV6FAF8