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GORILLAZ
Demon Days
(Toshiba-EMI)
How long can a gimmick sustain interest? This is the question
posed by the second album from Blur frontman Damon Albarn’s
animated celebrity supergroup Gorillaz. Switching producers
from Dan the Automator to Danger Mouse (creator of last year’s
illicit download masterpiece, The Grey Album), Demon Days
is a dark affair that takes the leftfield hip-hop-meets-Britpop
esthetic established by their first album and runs with it
into a spectral netherworld of bleepy electro effects, retro-funk,
menacing raps and the dreamy (some might say soporific) singing
of Albarn himself. The catchy grooves of the current single
“Feel Good Inc.” and an A-list cast of contributors
running from De La Soul to Ike Turner to Dennis Hopper (on
the somber “Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head”)
guarantee that this gimmick still has legs. DG
MINAKO OKUYAMA
One by One
(Flower)
There’s a certain voice that Japan tends to go for:
thin and high but clear, sweet and with a sense of dewy optimism.
Minako Okuyama has it in spades. Lead singer with Shibuya-kei
group Reggae Disco Rockers, she steps out with her debut solo
album on indie imprint Flower Records. A reminder to a lover
to remember the goods things shared, “Melody” establishes
a poppy, jazzy mood. Things continue in an upbeat, jazz-funk
vein until Okuyama chills things out with the moody ballad
“Futari no Te no Hira” (The Palms of Our Hands).
She then gets funky on the up-tempo “Ame Oto” (Rain
Sound) before mellowing things back down again with the simple,
repetitive chords and limpid atmosphere of “Umi ga Oshiette
Kureta Koto” (What the Ocean Taught Me). Verdict: for
the onnanoko in each of us. DG
TEENAGE FANCLUB
Man-Made
(PeMA/Hostess)
“Played, sung and generally put together by TF,”
read the modest notes to the mellow Man-Made, exemplifying
the stripped down quality of this latest by Scotland’s
finest. Now plying a deconstructionist route akin to Wilco’s
recent ventures, TF even borrowed a guitar from that trio
for this effort. The group remains expert craftsmen of the
melancholic yet uplifting lyric, exemplified by “I’m
alive and I’m alone, I love this life and all it’s
shown,” from “Nowhere.” The lilting harmonies
here are reminiscent of the delicate work of the Kings Of
Convenience while “Slow Fade” and “Born Under
A Good Sign” hark back to the band at their power-pop
best circa the early ’90s. Robert Poole
OASIS
Don’t Believe The Truth
(Sony Music Japan International)
Power corrupts—except in the case of chief Oasis songwriter
Noel Gallagher. Having got all he possibly could have hoped
for with his first two albums, Noel, like a hawkish neocon
with an aversion to recalcitrant oil-rich Middle Eastern despots,
decided to get democracy. “Don’t Believe the Truth”
is the latest project of such musical egalitarianism, and
brother Liam doesn’t let him down. “Guess God Thinks…”
is an oddly structured acoustic song with a very pretty chorus,
while the strum of “Love Like a Bomb” is even more
like the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” than a previous
Liam effort, “Songbird.” “The Meaning of Soul”
is a rattling two-minute, two-chord punk rocker that demands
to be heard live when Oasis take on Summer Sonic. It’s
Noel and Andy Bell that let the side down with sloppy, mid-tempo
fare. If only someone could persuade Liam it’s time for
some regime change of his own. David Hickey
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to the editor at letters@metropolis.co.jp.
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