Rock/Pop

The rock and pop music of the week reviewed...

ROBBIE WILLIAMS

Reality Killed the Video Star

Chrysalis**

"Don't call it a comeback," quips Robbie, in one of many jokey self- referencing lines on his comeback album. After three years in the wilderness, Williams wants to get right back to the hub of things, and he's taking no chances with the music, sticking to the bloke-pop blueprint he perfected with his erstwhile songwriting partner in Guy Chambers. Chambers is back helping put a familiar sheen on some of the songs, and production wizard Trevor Horn is in to sprinkle some 1980s angel dust into the mix. Morning Sun outdoes even Oasis for blatant Beatle-burgling, while Last Days of Disco seems more a lament for the days when Robbie was living it large. Williams had a dose of reality when Alexandra Burke kept his mediocre single, Bodies, off the No 1 slot. This record will do well among fans nostalgic for their pre-downturn party life, but Robbie sounds like a relic from the turn of the century, a millennium souvenir that's lost its novelty value. www.robbiewilliams.com KEVIN COURTNEY

Snow Patrol

Up to Now

Fiction ***

They haven't always been famous, you know. Snow Patrol floundered on the outskirts of success until their star suddenly lurched into the ascendent a few years ago. Cue the globe-spanning likes of Run, Chasing Cars and You Could Be Happy. Before these there were many fine songs, some skittish experimentation (The Reindeer Section), and the kind of ambition that could make or break them. Up to Now is a collection of tracks from the band's five studio albums over the past 15 years, and lest you think it's all heart-bruised ballads and weepy introspection, lend an ear to the likes of the earlier, pre-Final Straw material. With these tunes (notably Ask Me How I Am, Making Enemies, Starfighter Pilot) and The Reindeer Section's Cartwheels and You Are My Joy, you will discover a band that seem to have set their sights on blending world domination with genuine arm- round-the- shoulders blokiness. www.snow patrol.com TONY CLAYTON-LEA

Download tracks: Chasing Cars, An Olive Grove Facing the Sea

NORAH JONES

The Fall 

Blue Note ***

It’s all change for the gazillion- selling Norah Jones on this, her fourth studio outing. To escape the occassional Mogadon feel of some of her material, she’s brought in a hipper producer, Jacquire King (who has worked with Kings of Leon and Modest Mouse), some accomplished session players, and two always interesting songwriting collaborators in the form of Ryan Adams and Will Sheff. The result is a brisk and fast-paced (by Jones’s standards) affair, which, while retaining her beautifully sultry

and perfectly cadenced vocals, has a bit of ballast to it. The single, Chasing Pirates, won't be off your radio for a year or two, while elsewhere she's skirts around fresh musical territory. The closing song, Can't Stop, wouldn't be out of a place on a Goldfrapp album. BRIAN BOYD

Download tracks: Light as a Feather, Can't Stop

CHANNEL ONE

Sound to Light 

Self release ***

Given how a rapid churnover of trends and bands is now the way of the walk, it’s a little astonishing to note that it has taken Channel One the guts of seven years to get a proper debut album together and released. While much of the delay is probably down to economics,

one advantage of a lengthy period between formation and release means the Dublin four-piece now pack quite a punch in terms of sounds and textures. Channel One’s rocktronica is dashing and visceral, capable of both searing noise gymnastics and more

subtle, nuanced atmospherics. Impressively, unlike many of their peers, the musicianship can actually sustain such an ambitious arc. Opening track Soubresaut is the abridged version of Sound to Light, all crackling dramatics, hypnotic drive and melodic raw power. www.channelonesound.com JIM CARROLL

Download tracks: Soubresaut, Three Stars

THE SLEW

100%

Puget Sound ***

In 2005 Kid Koala (aka Eric San) was asked by film-maker Jay Rowlands to contribute to a documentary about The Slew, that reclusive but revered 1970s psych-rock artist.

San and friend Dynomite D (who has worked with The Beastie Boys) remixed Slew’s unfinished album, but the singer pulled out and the film ground to a halt. Fast forward to 2009, when San asked ex-Wolfmother members Chris Ross and Myles Heskett to help finish the project, using a chunk of vocal samples, including old Slew tunes. San is a gifted turntablist, as dextrous as he is creative. Here, he channels 1970s rock and funk via his signature stop-start mixing. It’s beat-driven and murky, as on It’s All Over, a whorl of guitar fuzz and scratches. 100% is full of defibrillated glitches and Hendrix-style vocals – a highlight of this interesting experiment. www.theslew.net

Download Tracks:The Grinder, 100%

COSMO JARVIS

HumAsYouHitch/SonOfABitch

Wall of Sound***

What's a 19-year-old rapping multi- instrumentalist to do with 250 songs when he's not dabbling in film-making? Apparently release a Jekyll/Hyde double album. Like a perverse sprite drunkenly fused with The Kooks, Mike Skinner and Eminem, this frisky delinquent/ insightful lyricist simultaneously moves, amuses and encourages copious eye-rolling. The naughty adolescent HumAsYouHitch catalogues a tornado of bed-worthy girls (Jessica Alba's Number is the jewel in its crown) while SonOfABitch is a visceral selection box of angst from a turbulent childhood centred on violence, family dysfunction and alcoholism. Although HumAsYou Hitch could have been trimmed and incorporated into the more substantial SonOfABitch, this talented kid has enough issues and babe- related witticisms to keep him in new runners for ages yet. www.myspace. com/cosmojarvis DEANNA ORTIZ

Download Tracks:Clean My Room, Crazy Screwed-Up Lady, Mummy's Been Drinking